| HOME | Featured Stories | December 2009 Blog-Eds List | Background Information | News On the Web |
Opinions And Editorials By Our Readers
NOTE: Links to Videos are at the bottom
of this page.
|
ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: SOREQ CAVE IN THE JUDEAN MOUNTAINs
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, December 31, 2009. |
|
This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but everyone agrees when something is totally cool. I can only imagine the superlatives that issued forth from workmen at a quarry near Beit Shemesh when they accidentally blasted their way into the Soreq Cave in 1968. Although only 30 minutes from my home, I had never been tempted to visit because, frankly, as a photographer, I shun places that have no light. But a winter storm and school vacation combined to motivate our family to make the short trip during Chanukah and we were not disappointed. The photographs of the cave I had seen prior to my visit, much like the four I offer here, do not do justice to the experience of being inside the huge cave. The millennia-old stalactites and stalagmites, ever growing and changing, are lit with carefully positioned spotlights that enhance the stunning visuals. Using this available light with my f1.4 50mm lens and ISO cranked up to 800, I grabbed a few shots during the short walk through the cave and several more during the two-minute shooting time allotted at the end of the tour. In addition to working in extremely limited light, I had to overcome lens fogging as a result of bringing my cold camera into the humid cave. I wasn't prepared for this and was stymied for about 10 minutes until my camera warmed up enough to stop moisture forming on the glass. These four shots represent some of the diversity found in the cave. The lower right image features what is called a wall, where stalactites forming from above meet stalagmites growing up from the ground. For all of us, bearing witness to such phenomena in nature fulfilled any need to capture a perfect image for posterity. Truly a cave of wonders.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com and
visit his website: |
|
AULD LANG ZION
Posted by Steven Plaut, December 31, 2009. |
|
1. Auld Lang Zion Should auld accomplice be forgot, "Israel's Right in the 'Disputed' Territories"
The recent statements by the European Union's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel's rights to what are generally called the "occupied territories" but what really are "disputed territories." That's because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered "occupied" in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel's conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years. The name "West Bank" was first used in 1950 by the Jordanians when they annexed the land to differentiate it from the rest of the country, which is on the east bank of the river Jordan. The boundaries of this territory were set only one year before during the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan that ended the war that began in 1948 when five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State. It was at Jordan's insistence that the 1949 armistice line became not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations." (Italics added.) This boundary became the famous "Green Line," so named because the military officials during the armistice talks used a green pen to draw the line on the map. After the Six Day War, when once again Arab armies sought to destroy Israel and the Jewish state subsequently captured the West Bank and other territory, the United Nations sought to create an enduring solution to the conflict. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is probably one of the most misunderstood documents in the international arena. While many, especially the Palestinians, push the idea that the document demands that Israel return everything captured over the Green Line, nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution calls for "peace within secure and recognized boundaries," but nowhere does it mention where those boundaries should be. It is best to understand the intentions of the drafters of the resolution before considering other interpretations. Eugene V. Rostow, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967 and a drafter of the resolution, stated in 1990: "Security Council Resolution 242 and (subsequent U.N. Security Council Resolution) 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to "secure and recognized borders," which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 194." Lord Caradon, the British U.N. Ambassador at the time and the resolution's main drafter who introduced it to the Council, said in 1974 unequivocally that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial." The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, made the issue even clearer when he stated in 1973 that, "the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal." This would encompass "less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory, inasmuch as Israel's prior frontiers had proven to be notably insecure." Even the Soviet delegate to the U.N., Vasily Kuznetsov, who fought against the final text, conceded that the resolution gave Israel the right to "withdraw its forces only to those lines it considers appropriate." After the war in 1967, when Jews started returning to their historic heartland in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as the territory had been known around the world for 2,000 years until the Jordanians renamed it, the issue of settlements arose. However, Rostow found no legal impediment to Jewish settlement in these territories. He maintained that the original British Mandate of Palestine still applies to the West Bank. He said "the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors." There is no internationally binding document pertaining to this territory that has nullified this right of Jewish settlement since. And yet, there is this perception that Israel is occupying stolen land and that the Palestinians are the only party with national, legal and historic rights to it. Not only is this morally and factually incorrect, but the more this narrative is being accepted, the less likely the Palestinians feel the need to come to the negotiating table. Statements like those of Lady Ashton's are not only incorrect; they push a negotiated solution further away.
3. Repost of old item: Israel's Music Man The Israeli Labor Party recently selected Ehud Barak, who had been prime minister from 1999 to 2001, to serve as its party chief and contender for prime minister in the next election, probably in 2008. Barak has always been associated in my mind with music — as well as the incredibly harmful policies he has advocated since entering politics. True, Barak was a military hero. He even entered Beirut disguised as a woman to assassinate terrorists, a scene recorded in the movie "Munich." You can imagine how many jokes at his expense that triggered. But once he left the army, he went out shopping for political ideas and ended up buying the silliest ones available on the Shimon Peres/Oslo vintage clothing rack. He attempted to turn the Golan Heights over to Syria, which would have allowed the Syrian military to advance to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. This inspired me at the time to write a parody of an old Bobby Darin classic, with Ehud Barak singing "Splish Splash I was taking a Ba'ath." It continued: "Splish, Splash! I jumped back in the bath. Well how was I to knowt here was appeasement going on?" Later, due to Barak's disastrous policies as prime minister and his attempt to hand over Jerusalem to the PLO savages, a new song seemed called for. Barak had just been creamed in a landslide electoral defeat by Ariel Sharon. The new piece was to the tune of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song." It went: EH HOOD, day EH EH HOOD Barak is often proclaimed by the media to be the "most decorated Israeli general." But last summer he effectively dropped 4,000 Katyusha rockets on northern Israel, because those attacks were a direct result of his having ordered Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. And now Barak is desperately looking for a new campaign jingle. Being a helpful sort, I thought I would give him a hand. To understand the new song, you need to recall that in 1998 Barak declared: "I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations." My proposed campaign song for Reb Ehud is based on the wonderful "If I Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the Roof." (Unfortunately Tevye is not running for prime minister.) Ready? Here goes! Dear God, you made so many, many cowardly people. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
|
|
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: TERRORISM'S IVY LEAGUE
Posted by Dave Alpern, December 31, 2009. |
|
The price of European tolerance and political correctness. They apparently will never learn. I'm not sure if North America is any better! This was written by Venetia Thompson and it appeared yesterday in The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-30/ my-classmate-the-undie-bomber/p/ Venetia Thompson is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to The Spectator. Her memoir Gross Misconduct will be published in February by Simon and Schuster U.K. She lives in London. |
|
The man who tried to blow up Flight 253 on Christmas allegedly turned toward al Qaeda at London University. Alum Venetia Thompson on going to school at terrorism's Ivy League. When former University College London mechanical engineering student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a plane on Christmas Day, he became the fourth president of a student Islamic society to face terrorist charges in three years. Waheed Zaman, former president of the Islam Society at London Metropolitan University, is facing a retrial on charges that he was involved in the 2006 liquid-bomb plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners, and two others have been convicted of terrorist offenses since 2007. The government-funded Islam and Citizenship Education Project, which aims to encourage British citizenship to be taught in madrassahs, and even supplies teaching materials, clearly has a lot of work to do, as do British universities. "Everyone knows London universities are full of would-be nutters honing their engineering skills whilst simultaneously becoming increasingly religious. It's one hell of a dangerous combo when you think about it." When I was in my final year at UCL, the "Christmas undie bomber" would have been in his first year, a "fresher." We may even have crossed paths in the library or Students' Union. Like all freshers, he would have attended the annual Freshers' Fair and signed up to various clubs and societies, probably ignoring the Ultimate Frisbee Society and the Wilderness Medicine Society and making a bee-line for the Islamic Society, which he would then go on to lead. Whilst I was getting drunk and becoming increasingly convinced I was going to fail my finals, somewhere nearby he was beginning to be radicalized. I had various encounters with the UCL Islamic Society, from the relatively innocent (constantly trying to get me to sign their anti-Israel or anti-Iraq war petitions, to wear one of their "Free Palestine" T-shirts, or to take one of their seemingly endless supply of leaflets promoting protests, sit-ins, and lectures by extremists) to the slightly more sinister (the friends I made in first year whom I gradually saw less and less of, and who even began dressing more conservatively as they became more involved with the society, or the girl I knew who told me she was warned against adopting "their" — as in our "Western" — culture by an older student she'd met during Freshers' Week). One former UCL student even says he was told whilst enjoying a pint in the union that it was his "duty" as a Muslim to attend society meetings and that he was frequently invited to Islamic study groups. He jokes that he was "probably seen as a sitting duck — I was even studying 'bomb-making,' as we affectionately referred to the Department of Chemical Engineering." He goes on to say: "Everyone knows London universities are full of would-be nutters honing their engineering skills whilst simultaneously becoming increasingly religious. It's one hell of a dangerous combo when you think about it. We all used to joke about it back then, but it's not quite so funny anymore." Sadly, the average 18-year-old arriving in London, having spent the last eight years locked up in a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, or worse, getting beaten up at the local state-run comprehensive, is going to be looking for more than the Ultimate Frisbee Society when they finally arrive at university. They want guidance, identity, friends, and protection — to feel that they belong. Therefore they are perfect fodder for religious fanatics lurking behind the scenes. Of course most societies that scoop up lost "freshers" don't encourage known extremists to come and give lectures to their impressionable members. Incidentally, no former presidents of other societies have graduated and gone on to try and blow themselves up or plot terrorist atrocities. It could be argued that this seems to be a problem specific to university Islamic societies and the people who are allowed access, or invited to speak at, study groups, and events that appear to be totally unregulated. Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, an independent U.K. think tank specializing in the study of radicalization and extremism in the U.K., tells The Daily Telegraph, "UCL has not just failed to prevent students being radicalized, they have been complicit." Referring to Abu Usama, an extremist due to speak at UCL last month and known for preaching that homosexuals and apostates should be killed, Murray says: "If any other society at UCL invited someone to speak who encouraged killing homosexuals, that society would be banned immediately, but academics are afraid of taking action when it involves Islamic societies in case they are accused of Islamophobia." It is perhaps, therefore, unsurprising that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, during his time as president of the UCL Islamic Society, was able to launch what can only be described as an anti-Western propagandist YouTube video advertising the society's "War on Terror Week" without any intervention from the university. It isn't just UCL in the hot seat. A student at the prestigious London School of Economics — incidentally, where Omar Sheikh, who helped in the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl back in 2002, studied — recalls the friends made in first year who during the course of their degrees "took a mysterious turn to the conservative, stopped coming out and drinking." Then there are the "Death to Israel" T-shirts a Jewish LSE student tells me he has seen around the LSE campus, where, he says, "anti-Semitism is rife. There have been plenty of clashes between the Islamic Soc and the Israel Soc here. It's only going to get worse." Kings College London, another top university, was where Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif studied. They carried out a suicide bomb attack on a bar in Tel Aviv in 2003. Then there is City University, where Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the 2006 liquid-bomb plot, graduated from. It seems to be a struggle to find a London university without terrorist alumni. A YouGov poll conducted in 2008, the only documented extensive study of British Muslim students to be published, found that 32 percent of the 632 students who took part believed killing in the name of religion to be justifiable in order to "preserve and promote that religion" or if that religion is "under attack." UCL has issued a typically frothy statement claiming that "during his time on the course Mr. Abdulmutallab never gave his tutors any cause for concern, and was a well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man." The UCL president and provost, Professor Malcolm Grant is "deeply saddened by these events." It is surely about time that he, and other university heads, stop their clichéd "but he was such a nice young man" denial and fulfill their duty of care by monitoring their students, university societies, and who is being invited to speak on their campuses more closely. They cannot rely on there always being a heroic Dutchman around to bring down the next "bomb-making" graduate who decides to blow himself up. Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
|
2009 CHICKENS AND THEIR 2010 ROOST
Posted by Susana K-M, December 31, 2009. |
|
This is by Victor Davis Hanson and it comes from today's Jewish
World Review
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. Comment by clicking her |
|
In the coming year, plenty of our chickens will be coming home to roost. Take foreign relations. In 2009, the new administration assumed that George W. Bush was largely responsible for global tensions. As a remedy, we loudly reached out to our foes and those with whom we had uneasy relationships. But so far these leaders — like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Russia's Vladimir Putin — have only interpreted Barack Obama's serial goodwill gestures as weaknesses to be exploited. They play the part of the pushy class bully, we the whiny nerd. In the waning days of 2009, Iran has announced it has no intention of dismantling its nuclear facilities and ignored the latest Obama deadline to cease. There's no reason not to expect the theocracy to make significant strides in its nuclear program in 2010, while continuing without rebuke to beat and murder democratic dissidents in its streets. Russia has announced plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons — and scoffed at our polite suggestions that it should pressure Iran to stop its nuclear development. Venezuela brags of its own similar program to come — an act that could threaten all the neighboring democracies in the region. The administration courted China on a much-heralded Asian tour. President Obama even has said he would be our first "Pacific president." Unfortunately, China was not impressed. It declined our advice about reducing its carbon footprint and instead reminded Americans that we owe the Chinese people nearly $1 trillion. Expect much more of that hectoring in 2010 as our debt to China grows. Consider also the threat of Islamic terrorism. In 2009, some in the Obama administration decided "war on terror" was too provocative a label for what might be better dubbed "overseas contingency operations." Apparently, they were thinking a kinder, gentler image would discourage terrorists. Accordingly, the self-confessed architect of Sept. 11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was promised a civil trial in New York rather than a military tribunal normally accorded to out-of-uniform murderous terrorists. Expect a lot of soapbox speechmaking about America's sins during his testimony in 2010. As part of our efforts to break with the Bush anti-terrorism past, President Obama also vowed he would close the facility at Guantanamo Bay by Jan. 22, 2010 — another deadline that won't be met. But as 2009 ended, we were reminded that radical Islamic terrorists still want to kill us for who we are, and what we represent, rather than any particular thing we do. Maj. Nidal Hasan, nursed on radical Islamic doctrine, murdered 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian at Ford Hood, Texas. Five would-be terrorists with U.S. citizenship were arrested in Pakistan on their way to link up with Islamist militant groups. And Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was stopped in flight from Amsterdam before he could blow up an American passenger jet. Note that all these recent terrorists were not poor, lived in the hospitable West — and cared little that the Obama administration has been critical of the U.S.'s prior war-on-terror policies. So, while we assured the world in 2009 that we wouldn't be overzealous in our various efforts to stop terrorists, the terrorists proved they most certainly would be in theirs to kill us. Meanwhile, at home we operated on the same naive assumptions. The Obama administration inherited a $500 billion deficit and expanded it threefold. Its planned mega-deficits may well grow the aggregate national debt over the next decade to over $20 trillion. But the administration's 2009 calculations on how to service the growing red ink are based on continued cheap interest. Yet in 2010, it is likely we will see rising inflation, rising interest rates — and rising costs to the continual self-destructive borrowing. We were given a financial break on energy prices in 2009. The worldwide recession sent oil down to about $50 a barrel. But America did little during the year's reprieve to rush into production newly discovered domestic gas and oil fields, to tap existing finds in Alaska, or to license new nuclear plants. By year's end, oil was creeping back up to $80. If the economic upswing continues, in 2010 it may near its old high of nearly $150 a barrel. Soon we will wish we had done something concrete in 2009 rather than offering more stale rhetoric about wind and solar power. In other words, 2009 may seem to have ended relatively quietly. But in our foreign relations, in the war against terror, in our massive borrowing, and in our energy policies, we created chickens that soon will come home to roost in 2010. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. |
|
IN DEFIANCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FATALISM
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, December 31, 2009. |
|
This article appeared yesterday in the Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364552534& pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Shabbat Shalom and Happy New Year,
|
|
In 1948, prime minister David Ben-Gurion declared independence in defiance of demographic fatalism, which was perpetrated by the country's leading demographers. He rejected their assumptions that Jews were doomed to be a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, that a massive aliya wave was not feasible, that the Jewish fertility rate was declining to below reproduction levels and that the Arab fertility rate would remain the highest in the world, irrespective of modernity. Instead, Ben-Gurion highlighted demographic optimism and aliya as top national priorities, coalesced a solid Jewish majority and planted the seeds that catapulted Israel to a Middle East power, highly respected for its civilian and military achievements. In 2005, in capitulation to demographic fatalism, prime minister Ariel Sharon retreated from Palestinian terrorism, uprooting 10,000 Jews from Gaza and Samaria. Sharon abandoned his lifelong ideology of defiance, subordinating long-term strategy and security concerns to doomsday demography. Thus, he facilitated Hamas's takeover of Gaza and its ripple effects: slackened posture of deterrence, intensified shelling of southern Israel, the 2006 Second Lebanon War, 2008's Operation Cast Lead, the Goldstone Report and the exacerbated global pressure on Israel.
DEMOGRAPHIC ASSUMPTIONS have played an increasing role in shaping national security policy since 1992. But what if these assumptions are dramatically wrong? For example, since the beginning of annual aliya in 1882 — and in contradiction to demographic projections — the Jewish population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean has grown 238-fold, while the Arab population increased only sixfold. Since 1948, the Jewish population has increased almost tenfold, and the Arab population has expanded threefold. Israel's demographers did not believe that a massive aliya would take place in the aftermath of the 1948/9 war. One million Jews arrived. They projected no substantial aliya from the communist bloc during the 1970s. Almost 300,000 Jews arrived. They dismissed the possibility of a massive aliya from the USSR, even if the gates were opened. One million olim relocated from the Soviet Union to the Jewish homeland during the 1990s. Contrary to demographic assumptions, a rapid and drastic decline in Muslim fertility has been documented by the UN Population Division: Iran — 1.7 births per woman; Algeria — 1.8 births; Egypt — 2.5 births; Jordan — three births; and so on. The Arab fertility rate in pre-1967 Israel declined 20 years faster than projected, and Judea and Samaria Arab fertility has dropped below 4.5 births per woman, tending toward three births. Precedents suggest that low fertility rates can rarely be reversed following a sustained period of significant reduction. At the same time, the annual number of Jewish births increased by 45 percent between 1995 (80,400) and 2008 (117,000), mostly impacted by the demographic surge within the secular sector. The total annual Arab births in pre-1967 Israel stabilized around 39,000 during the same period, reflecting the successful Arab integration into the infrastructure of education, employment, health, trade, politics and sports.
AN AUDIT of the documentation of Palestinian births, deaths and migration, which is conducted by the Palestinian Authority ministries of Health and Education and Election Commission, as well as by Israel's Border Police and Central Bureau of Statistics and by the World Bank, reveals huge misrepresentations by the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics. For instance, the PCBS's census includes about 400,000 overseas residents who have been away for more than one year, ignores high net-emigration (28,000 in 2008, 25,000 in 2007, etc.) and double-counts some 250,000 Jerusalem Arabs, who are also counted by Israel. Furthermore, a 40,000-60,000 annual birth gap is confirmed between PCBS numbers and the documentation conducted by the PA Health and Education ministries. The audit of Palestinian and Israeli documentation exposes a 66% bend in the current number of Judea and Samaria Arabs — 1.55 million and not 2.5 million, as claimed by the PA. It certifies a solid 67% Jewish majority over 98.5% of the land west of the Jordan River (without Gaza), compared with a 33% and an 8% Jewish minority in 1947 and 1900, respectively, west of the Jordan River. An 80% majority is attainable by 2035 with the proper demographic policy, highlighting aliya, returning expatriates, etc. In conclusion, demographic optimism is well-documented, while demographic fatalism is resoundingly refuted. There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal, and the tailwind is Jewish. Therefore, anyone suggesting that there is a demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish state and that Jewish geography must be conceded to secure Jewish demography, is either grossly mistaken or outrageously misleading. The writer is executive director of Second Thought, which researches national security aspects of Judea and Samaria. |
|
ISLAMISTS ERASE JEWISH IDENTITY FROM EZEKIEL'S TOMB IN IRAQ
Posted by Boris Celser, December 31, 2009. |
|
This was written by Shelomo Alfassa and it appeared in |
|
BREAKING NEWS NEW YORK (December 29, 2009) — The Iraqi news agency Ur News has revived fears that under pressure from Islamic political parties, the original Hebrew inscriptions and ornamentation on the walls around the tomb of Ezekiel are being (or have been) removed, this under the pretext of restoring the site. According to sources, the Antiquities and Heritage Authority in Iraq has been pressured by Islamists to historically cleanse all evidence of a Jewish connection to Iraq — a land where Jews had lived for over a thousand years before the advent of Islam. Four months ago a German-based Iraqi journalist tipped off the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq in Israel that plans were afoot to build a mosque on the site of the shrine of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel at al-Kifl, this was first reported on the "Point of No Return" news blog. The rumours were investigated by a philo-Semitic Iraqi Shi'a, Dr. Jabbar Jamal al-Din, a lecturer in Jewish Thought at the Kufa University. They were denied by the shrine's director. Now a report by Ur News revives fears that in the absence of Jews on the ground, nothing, not even UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), stands in the way of politically-motivated plans to erase all Jewish traces of this ancient holy site. 
Drastic changes taking place currently at the tomb of Ezekiel will change its character and prompt UNESCO to delete it as a protected site on the World Heritage List, similar to what happened to the historic city of Babylon, where old buildings were demolished and new layers of construction added. Prof. Shmuel Moreh, the Chairman of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq, Israel Prize Laureate in Arabic Literature and emeritus Professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has indicted that the Arabic news stories have tipped him that the Archeological Authority in Iraq has started a campaign to erase the Jewish aspects of the tomb of the prophet Ezekiel and the original inlay Hebrew inscriptions have been destroyed and covered by new Arabic inscriptions and Islamic symbols. Here is an extract, paraphrased from an Arabic translation of the Ur News agency report: The officials of the Department of Antiquities and Heritage say that their restoration programme will continue until 2011 and is designed to carry out essential maintenance and prevent the dome and roof from collapsing. But their hidden purpose, sources say, is the removal of features that emphasize a historical connection with the Jews who built the shrine and lived in the city for hundreds of years after the Babylonian exile. Hebrew writings will or already has been erased from the site and from the room that houses the shrine. Restoration work includes skimming the walls, 3 metres high in the yard, 2 metres high inside the shrine. Sources say that the media are not allowed to take pictures and visits to the shrine are limited to pilgrims. The city of Kifl contains tens of thousands of acres of land belonging to the Jewish community before their displacement from Iraq in the last century. The majority of tenants' shops around the shrine still pay rent to their original Jewish owners through accredited mediators. Iraq — the Biblical Mesopotamia — is almost as rich in Jewish history
as the Land of Israel. The tomb of the prophet Ezekiel dates back to
the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE. It was there in Iraq
that Abraham discovered monotheism, and it is where the prophets Ezra,
Nehemiah, Nahum, Jonah and Daniel are all buried.
Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net
|
|
FROM PARSHA VAYIECHI: AND HE LIVED
Posted by Rabbi Tzvi Tauby, December 31, 2009. |
|
This week: Parsha Vayiechi A title usually reflects the theme of the subject matter. "Genesis" is about the beginning of the world, "Exodus" is about the Jews leaving Egypt. The title should convey the main idea of the content it describes. Which is why the title of this week's parshah (Torah reading) seems highly inappropriate. Vayechi means "And He Lived." The name derives from the parshah's opening line, "And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years..." The parshah, however, goes on to tell us not about Jacob's life, but rather about his death: his last will and testament to his children, his passing, his funeral, and his interment in Hebron in the Holy Land. Why then is he name of the Parsha Vayechi "And He Lived?" The answer, say our sages, is that we are not discussing biological organisms, but Jews. And the test of true life for a Jew is whether he lived an authentic, consistent Jewish life — for life. Did he falter before the finish line, or was he faithful to his value system until the end? How do we know that Jacob did indeed live, in the fullest sense of the word? That his was a genuine, G-dly life? When we see that he remains true to those ideals until his dying day. Only then can we say with certainty that his life was truly alive; that his was a Vayechi life. The fact that Jacob died a righteous man validated his entire life-span, establishing it as a true life, alive and real from beginning to end. There are individuals who have their 15 minutes of fame, who shine briefly and impress the world only to fade away and leave us disappointedly watching so much unfulfilled potential dissipate into thin air. Others are longer lasting, but don't quite go all the way. Complacency can be dangerous. There are no guarantees. One must constantly "live" — i.e., grow and attempt to improve oneself — lest one falter before the finish line. As the great sage Hillel says in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), "One can never morally trust oneself, until their last day". I will never forget my experience with a very fine man who was remarkably loyal to the company he worked for. For 45 years he was with the same group, totally and absolutely dedicated. Then he reached the age of compulsory retirement. Suddenly he took ill. The doctors had no real diagnosis. But he got sicker and sicker until he became incapacitated and eventually died. To this day, nobody knows what he died from. But those who knew him well understood that once he left the workplace to which he had devoted his entire adult life, he had nothing left to live for. Sadly, he had no other interests. His work was his life, and without his work there was no life left. It is psychologically sound to take up a hobby, learn to play golf or develop other interests outside of work. A Jew, though, should ideally start studying Torah. Go to classes, read a stimulating book. Studying and sharpening the mind is good for the brain. Recent medical research confirms that it can even delay the onset of Alzheimer's. Most importantly, a person must have something to live for. Find new areas of stimulation. Discover, dream, aspire higher. Life must be lived with purpose and vigor. That's why at the end of this week's parsha, which also concludes the Book of Genesis, the congregation and Torah reader will proclaim Chazak, chazak v'nischazek — "Be strong, be strong, and we will all be strengthened." Because the tendency when we finish a book is to take a breather before we pick up the next one. Such is human nature. But a book of the Torah is not just any book. Torah is not just history or biography. Torah is our source of life, and we dare not ever take a breather from life. "Chazak" energizes us to carry on immediately. And so we do. The very same afternoon we open the Book of Exodus and continue the learning cycle without interruption. Truth is consistent, from beginning to end. May our lives be blessed to be truly alive — with authenticity, faithfulness and eternal fulfillment. Good Shabbos
The Chabad iVolunteer group is based in Brooklyn. Contact them at
programs@ivolunteerny.com
This article is archived at
|
|
FROM ISRAEL: LOOKING MORE DEEPLY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 31, 2009. |
|
I confess it: For me, the secular new year is marked chiefly by the need to remember to write the correct date on my checks and at the top of these postings. But I am mindful of what the New Year means to many of my readers. And I most certainly wish one and all blessings — for peace, health, inner contentment and prosperity — in the coming year. The imagery for the new year is one of beginnings that are fresh and hopeful. May 2010 bring the world better tidings than it received in 2009. ~~~~~~~~~~ In my last posting, I raised the question as to whether Obama will grapple with the root of the "systematic failure" that led to a terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, getting on an American plane and attempting to blow it up outside of Detroit. There is a vast amount of material on this subject coming my way, and so I return for a closer look. We will pass by the idiocy of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who told CNN, after the incident, that "the system worked." A ludicrous attempt to put a good face on what — but for the courageous response of passengers and a failed detonator — would have been a very major terrorist attack. Of great concern, however, is that fact that the Obama government seems to be treating this as an "incident," and an isolated one at that, rather than as a symptom of something a great deal more ominous. In fact, Napolitano also alluded to this, saying that, "We have no indication that it's part of anything larger." Come on! Yes, there will be examinations of how screening failed to pick up the explosives being carried on to a plane. This is the "systemic failure" that the president is concerned with. And as a result all passengers flying in or to the US will be considerably inconvenienced. There is talk of such measures as body-frisking and preventing passengers from getting out of their seats for a period before landing. But there is no mention of the fact that the would-be terrorist was a Muslim. No talk of Islamists, or radical Islam or jihadist ideology. ~~~~~~~~~~ So thoroughly is Abdulmutallab being treated as a criminal rather than a terrorist that he is simply being charged — within the civil criminal system — with committing two felonies: trying to destroy a plane in U.S. airspace, and bringing a "destructive device" on an aircraft. JINSA (in Report #951) quotes counterterrorism expert Steve Emerson: "I'd like to first find out who recruited him. I'd like to find out where he got the explosives...I'd like to find out who sent him. How he was recruited...." However, laments JINSA: "...being charged in a U.S. court means that Abdulmutallab is now entitled to Constitutional protections, including the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. And we are sure that if Abulmutallab doesn't know about those rights, his court appointed lawyer or the ACLU will surely tell him. How much we will learn from him under the circumstances is unclear. A Wall Street Journal editorial, "The Terror This Time," on Monday made the same points: "[The Obama administration] immediately indicted Mr. Abdulmutallab on criminal charges...despite reports that he told officials he had ties to al Qaeda and had picked up his PETN explosive in Yemen. The charges mean the Nigerian can only be interrogated like any other defendant in a criminal case, subject to having a lawyer present and his Miranda rights read. Yet he is precisely the kind of illegal enemy combatant who should be interrogated first with the goal of preventing future attacks and learning more about terror networks rather than gaining a single conviction." (emphasis added) Miranda rights for terrorists. Setting up a situation that makes it significantly less likely that information will be secured that might help prevent future attacks. Not a good way to go! Obama has not internalized the fact that we are at war. ~~~~~~~~~~ I recommend here the very excellent piece — "The Wake up call from flight 253" — by Jeff Jacoby. "...As the near-unanimity of 9/11 receded, Americans divided into what the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes dubbed September 12 people, for whom 9/11 had changed everything, and September 10 people, who believed the terrorist threat was being exaggerated by the Bush administration and who regarded the fight against Islamist extremism as chiefly a matter of law enforcement. "...Would that divide have closed if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had succeeded...? If Al-Qaeda...had succeeded in carrying out another 9/11, would the short-lived unity and moral clarity of that terrible day in 2001 have returned?" Jacoby then lists for us the lessons that too many have been inclined to dismiss in recent years: [] "Terrorism isn't caused by poverty and ignorance.Abdulmutallab came from a wealthy and privileged family, and had studied at one of Britain's top universities. He wasn't trying to kill hundreds of Americans out of socioeconomic despair...Abdulmutallab was motivated by ideological and religious fanaticism. The teachings of militant Islam may seem monstrous to outsiders, but that is no reason to doubt that their adherents genuinely believe them..." Jacoby provides a link to "Domestic Terrorism Hits a Peak in 2009":
There have been 32 terror-related events in the US since 9/11, and 12 of them were in 2009. Jacoby's article is at:
~~~~~~~~~~ A hope for 2010, then, would be an awakening on the part of 9/10 people in the US (which undoubtedly includes Obama and the bulk of his administration) before a tragedy ensues. ~~~~~~~~~~ Analysts are viewing the unrest inside Iran with increased seriousness. Some are even saying that this is a grassroots rebellion that in due course will either seriously affect the nature of the current regime or even overturn it. Reuters has reported that police in central Teheran are refusing orders to shoot at demonstrators. Such situations are volatile and difficult to predict. Certainly — we know this already — change, if it comes, would not be without cost in limb if not life for some protesters. But I am mindful of what I reported the other day when Professor Irwin Cotler spoke, and the need to support these protesters. Cotler yesterday called a press conference here, in concert with other lawyers doing the same in other places, to announce the release of the petition he had spoken about, which details actions the international community must take against Iran. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so this, too, may be a hope for 2010: that the situation in Iran might resolve itself internally, without the need for military intervention by Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ 
Sheikh Abdul Palazzo Sheikh Abdul Palazzo is a good man. I've known of him for several years now. Born in Rome to an Italian Catholic father who had converted to Islam, and a Muslim mother whose roots were in Syria, he is today the leader of the Italian-Muslim Assembly co-founded and co-chairman of the Islam-Israel Fellowship, which promotes a positive attitude in Muslims to Jews and Israel. He is profoundly pro-Israel, believing that this is what the legitimate teachings of Mohammad say before they are corrupted by the Ahab perspective. My biggest quandary, with regard to the Sheikh, is understanding how he has managed to stay alive in spite of what he says publicly. I mention him now because I have just read that he visited in Hevron — Jewish Hevron, that is. Do I expect to see other Muslim clergy such as him? Not really. He's an anomaly. But we can hope. ~~~~~~~~~~ The rest of the news, such as it may be? It can wait.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il
and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
|
|
WHAT ISRAEL CAN TEACH US ABOUT SECURITY
Posted by Daily Alert, December 31, 2009. |
|
This was written by Cathal Kelly, staff reporter, and it appeared in
The Star and is archived at |
|
While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification. That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threats with far less inconvenience. "It is mind boggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He has worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world. "Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.'" Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that? The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Ben Gurion is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from? "Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said. Once you've parked your car or gotten off your bus, you pass through the second and third security perimeters. Armed guards outside the terminal observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behaviour. At Ben Gurion's half-dozen entrances, another layer of security is watching. At this point, some travellers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage run through a magnometer. "This is to see that you don't have heavy metals on you or something that looks suspicious," said Sela. You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side? "The whole time, they are looking into your eyes — which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds," said Sela. Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far. At the check-in desk, your luggage is scanned immediately in a purpose-built area. Sela plays devil's advocate — what if you have escaped the attention of the first four layers of security, and now try to pass a bag with a bomb in it? "I once put this question to Jacques Duchesneau (the former head of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority): say there is a bag with Play-Doh in it and two pens stuck in the Play-Doh. That is 'Bombs 101' to a screener. I asked Duchesneau, 'What would you do?' And he said, 'Evacuate the terminal.' And I said, 'Oh. My. God.' "Take (Toronto's) Pearson (airport). Do you know how many people are in the terminal at all times? Many thousands. Let's say I'm (doing an evacuation) without panic — which will never happen. But let's say this is the case. How long will it take? Nobody thought about it. I said, 'Two days.'" A screener at Ben Gurion has a pair of better options. First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away. Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes.' If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation. "This is a very small, simple example of how we can simply stop a problem that would cripple one of your airports," Sela said. Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben Gurion airport shares with Pearson — the body and hand-luggage check. "But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said. "First, it's fast — there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys." The goal at Ben Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in 25 minutes tops. And then there's intelligence. In Israel, Sela said, a coordinated intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies. "There is absolutely no intelligence and threat analysis done in Canada or the United States," Sela said. "Absolutely none." But even without the intelligence, Sela maintains, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — who allegedly tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day — would not have gotten past Ben Gurion's behavioural profilers. So. Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive? Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training," Sela said. "But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept." And rather than fear, he suggests outrage would be a far more powerful spur to provoking that change. "Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody," Sela said. "But they say, 'So far, so good.' Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and you've spent eight hours in an airport. Which is ridiculous. Not justifiable." The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
|
L@@NEY T@NES
Posted by Susana K-M, December 31, 2009. |
|
We can only hope that psychiatry makes BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome, a recognized ailment in 2010. And Obamacare should provide free treatment for those afflicted, starting with its own troops. From The Hill: Democratic strategists Wednesday asserted President Barack Obama "has been far more aggressive in fighting al Qaeda" than the previous administration. We've noticed the dramatic results. We noticed them at Fort Hood, we noticed them last Friday over Detroit... In an e-mail this afternoon to supporters — which incidentally excoriated Republicans for politicizing the attempted bombing of Flight 253 — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) stressed it was President George W. Bush, not his successor, who relegated the fight against the terrorist network to the back burner by turning "its focus from al Qaeda to Iraq." Again, Bush. Always Bush and, of course, Cheney. It's a BDS epidemic. Swine flu is nothing compared to this. The outrage here, among others, is that the Dems never noticed that we fought al Qaeda in Iraq, and defeated it. We've seen that al Qaeda travels from place to place. It doesn't have just one address on Cave Boulevard in Afghanistan. Bush can be criticized for many things, but there's been a dramatic increase in terror attempts since Obama took office, and it may not be a coincidence. When you flash weakness, an enemy notices. It's odd that the Dems accuse the GOP of politicizing terror and then go on to attack the Bush administration on the same subject. It's unlikely that the Democratic political planners anticipated that terror would erupt once more as a political issue, but it has. Defense is not exactly an Obama strong point. Add that fact to the general unpopularity of some of the domestic issues he's pushing, and Democratic political concern is likely to grow. A year ago the Democratic Party was in political heaven. Now it's headed in the other direction, where global warming is a constant reality. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
SECURITY FORCES ARREST SON OF RABBI BINYAMIN KAHANE FOR MOSQUE ARSON.
THEN NEED TO RELEASE HIM
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, December 31, 2009. |
|
Why do I find this not only hard to believe but I smell the stench of intimidation as well? First there was the Freeze, then the "leaked" plans for the next Pogrom, a terrorist murder and now the taking of a high profile hostage. Every effort is being made to break the resolve of Jewish patriots by this Government of National Betrayal.
This article was written by Gil Ronen and appeared today in
Arutz-7 (IsraelNationalNews.com).
|
|
Police and Shin Bet operatives arrested a Jewish youth from Kfar Tapuach in Shomron, a grandson of former MK Rabbi Meir Kahane, on Thursday morning. Eyewitnesses said the youth was not told why he was being arrested, but only that he would be taken to Tel Aviv. Police stated later in the day that he was suspected of involvement in an arson attack on a mosque at Kafr Yasouf in Samaria three weeks ago. His father, Binyamin Ze'ev, and his mother, Talia, were murdered in a terror gun ambush on December 31, 2000. His grandfather, MK and fiery rabbi Meir Kahane, was assassinated ten years earlier. Nationalist activists reacted to the arrest by saying: "We hope the Shin Bet and police do not abuse the boy the way they usually abuse settlers. He is an orphan without a mother and father, who were murdered in a terror attack." Security forces have been busy trying to identify and arrest the people involved in the mosque arson at Kafr Yasouf in northern Samaria on December 11. Unknown people entered the mosque in the pre-dawn hours, set alight a carpet and bookshelves, and scrawled some graffiti on the floor in Hebrew promising revenge for Arab terror. In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means. Have a nice day
UPDATE: January 1, 2010 Kahane proved he was elsewhere at the time and the police were forced to release him. Yaacov Levi writes, "I am familiar with Tapuach, and the nearby sprawling Saudi financed village where the mosque is. There is NO WAY a Jew could approach the mosque in the middle of the night with all of the stray dogs there. Additionally no one just walks into the village unnoticed, its lit up and so is the mosque. A Jew did NOT do this fire. There would have been more fire, not some disposable books and carpet burnt, this was pure and simple a fabrication on the part of the arabs and/or the shabak. The shabak is starting the New Year off badly, but in character." Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
|
HUMAN RIGHTS NGOS NEED A MONITOR
Posted by Gerald M. Steinberg, December 31, 2009. |
|
Most people prefer giving, rather than receiving, criticism. Leaders of powerful non-governmental organizations are no exception. Human rights NGOs have long benefited from a "halo effect" that has protected them from scrutiny; reporters quote their research widely, assuming it is accurate. But in recent years, the protective coating has worn thin, and the heads of these organizations are finding themselves squirming uncomfortably in the spotlight. Events of the past year have highlighted the vital need for accountability, transparency and informed debate on the activities of NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B'Tselem. These NGOs have played a central role in charging Israel with "war crimes" and "collective punishment." To the degree that these groups' agendas and claims prove to be biased, unfounded or simply invented, their accusations against Israel also lose credibility. Understandably, NGO Monitor's research reports airing NGOs' dirty linen often trigger intense counterattacks. There have been angry insults from HRW officials and crude accusations of "McCarthyism" from apologists for some of the groups that NGO Monitor has researched. (One such online attack was linked to prominently on the home page of the New Israel Fund.) Then there are criticisms from more serious individuals, such as Forward columnist Yossi Alpher, author of the December 25 article "NGO Monitor Needs a Monitor." To his credit, Alpher acknowledges the work that NGO Monitor has done exposing "the funding by European governments and reputable American philanthropies of NGOs that smear Israel with lies and classic antisemitic rhetoric." He also affirms the validity of NGO Monitor's complaints about Human Rights Watch. (Alpher doesn't elaborate, but NGO Monitor has documented deep biases among the heads of HRW's Middle East division, the dispatching of an obsessive Nazi-memorabilia collector to assess Israeli military actions and the group's use of anti-Israel themes to raise funds in Saudi Arabia.) Alpher, however, goes off track, making the bogus assertion that NGO Monitor is motivated by the goal of "eliminating human rights monitoring of Israel entirely." He accuses us of "running roughshod" over groups "that are working to maintain Israel's integrity in the context of its ongoing occupation of the West Bank." Yet for the majority of Israelis — who support territorial compromise and are not right-wing fanatics — NGOs' abuse of human rights principles to condemn self-defense suggests that an end to the occupation would not stop the NGO-led war. In 2005, Israel removed every settler and soldier from Gaza, and it received 8,000 rocket attacks and a Hamas-led coup in response. Every attack was a war crime, but where were the self-appointed human rights guardians? And in the more than three years of Gilad Shalit's captivity by Hamas in Gaza, the international human rights community has not given enough attention to his plight. Israelis see that human rights organizations are propelling delegitimization campaigns against Israel — from the NGO forum of the United Nations' 2001 Durban conference to the Israel-bashing sessions of the U.N. Human Rights Council — and waging "lawfare" against Israel's elected officials. The most potent attack, in the form of the report by the U.N. Human Rights Council-mandated fact-finding mission on Gaza — headed by a judge, Richard Goldstone, who is closely affiliated with HRW — is largely a rehashed compilation of NGO allegations. We also see NGO superpowers like HRW and Amnesty International and dozens of Israel-based NGOs that are funded largely by European governments providing the ammunition used to attack Israeli leaders as "war criminals." The latest low-water mark for this abuse was the arrest warrant briefly issued in London for Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni. NGO Monitor's criticism of organizations that abuse moral principles for gratuitous Israel-bashing is not evidence of a "right-wing" agenda, as Alpher seems to suggest. Rather, holding NGOs accountable should be a top priority for liberals. The left should be leading demands for an end to the corrosive double standards that have debased the moral currency of human rights and neglected the mass killings in Sudan and the Congo. By the same token, the funders that enable the small group of ideologues who run these NGOs must also be held to account. Although they may see themselves as promoting progressive principles, benefactors such as the Ford and Soros foundations, the New Israel Fund, the governments of Sweden and Norway, and the European Union foot the multimillion-dollar bill for NGO press conferences, submissions to the U.N., media blitzes and speaking tours. In an October op-ed published in The New York Times, Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, wrote: "I must publicly join the group's critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state." Bernstein is the antithesis of a knee-jerk right-winger, and his was not a narrow, ideological stance, but rather a principled position. Wide cooperation among individuals of varied political views is necessary if we are to restore the moral force and credibility of the movement for universal human rights. Gerald M. Steinberg is president of NGO Monitor and a professor of Political Science at Bar Ilan University. |
|
EGYPT AND U.S. ON ISRAELI NEGOTIATIONS; U.S. RENEGES ON ISRAEL OVER
JERUSALEM CONSTRUCTION; P.A. HONORS SLAIN TERRORISTS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 31, 2009. |
|
FOREIGN-OWNED ISRAELI BANK DENIES BOYCOTT OF JEWS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA The Israeli Municipality Treasury Bank was sold to a European bank, Dexia. This summer, Dexia signed an agreement to lend the Judea-Samaria regional councils $70 million. Some shareholders protested. Dexia denies that it acceded to pro-Arab groups' demands, and it did refuse to stop lending to Jerusalem. However, it has not lent to the regional councils for months. Now it has asked them to close their accounts. Some Israelis urge remaining account-holders to do likewise (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/29). This is the danger a country runs, when it sells critical assets to foreigners. Dexia denies caving in to boycott pressure, but did not cite economic reasons for blanket withdrawal from Judea-Samaria soon after agreeing to lend the regional councils $70 million. For another obvious acquiescence to demands for boycott,
WAKE-UP CALL IN EGYPT ON ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT 
About a thousand foreigners gathered in Cairo for a march to Gaza in commemoration of the recent war and in protest over Israeli control over Gaza and its partial blockade of Gaza. They found that Egypt had its own partial blockade, when it refused to let this undifferentiated mass through. Instead, citing security precautions, Egypt offered to let a hundred delegates through. One of the protesters is a Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, age 85. She is on a hunger strike. She said, "My message if for the world governments [i.e., governments of the world] to wake up and treat Israel like they treat any other country and not to be afraid to reprimand and criticize Israel for its violent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians." (Mona El-Naggar, NY Times, 12/30, A8.) Ms. Epstein needs a wake up call. Governments should treat Israel like any other country, and not be afraid to reprimand and criticize the Arabs for their violent polices against Israel. First came the violence from Gaza, and not peace negotiations. Then came the partial blockade, primarily to block entry of potential war materiel, and an incursion, primarily to stop the war crimes by rocket. How did Epstein fail to notice that the UN regularly reprimands Israel, more than it criticizes the rest of the world put together? She failed to notice that the accusations are devised by brutal, aggressive dictatorships, haphazardly explained, and automatically approved. Victimized by one totalitarian movement for world conquest, she should have learned better than to abet another, the Islamist one, which again, like the others, targets people of her religious origin, among others. Will her protest persuade bigoted anti-Zionists that they err in brushing off a Jew's reports and opinions as automatically slanted for Israel? No, they prefer flinging mud. They see an outlet for antisemitism, not a duty for integrity. Let some enterprising reporter describe Epstein's plea to Holocaust-deniers Abbas and Ahmadinejad, and then elicit comment on her being a survivor of the denied Holocaust! EGYPT AND U.S. ON ISRAELI NEGOTIATIONS 
Mubarak with Obama (A.P./Amr Nabil) PM Netanyahu spent a day with the President and Foreign Minister of Egypt. The hosts criticized his excluding Jewish construction in Jerusalem from the freeze. "Such behavior raises questions about the serious willingness of Israel to reach a definitive agreement and leads one to believe that Israel is trying to Welch on its obligations for a just and lasting peace," Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit stated to the official MENA news agency." "The Obama administration reportedly is drafting letters for both Israel and the PA with unknown guarantees for the resumption of negotiations over the PA's stated desire to become an independent country." What do Arabs mean by the code phrase, "just and lasting peace?" (1) Giving them what they demand; and (2) Leaving Israel with indefensible borders. Foreign Min. Gheit did not state what obligations Israel has that it is reneging on. It never obliged itself to freeze construction in Jerusalem. That is insulting. I do not believe in starting diplomatic huffs and tit-for-tat withdrawal of diplomats over minor spats. But Israel has let Egypt treat it insultingly too long, without standing up for itself. Result: Egypt's contempt for Israel grows. So would anybody's. A short time ago, the Obama administration used duplicity to deny Pres. Bush's letter of assurance to Israel about U.S. policy. As I have written earlier, the U.S. does renege on many promises to other countries. I want my country to maintain its honor. Unfortunately, no country can trust the U.S.. This is an old story. I learned early that FDR had sold out Spain to the fascists, while Britain and France sold out Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. There are many examples. Israel's government lacks the courage to tell the U.S. that Israel cannot rely upon Presidents' assurances, and will not weaken its security for U.S. "guarantees." How can the U.S., whose power is declining, and whose ruling class is wrecking the economy and drowning it in debt, promise money or anything else? Israel also ought to bar U.S. participation in Israel's diplomatic affairs. The State Dept. seeks to dictate terms to Israel. Those terms would favor Arab aggressors. As for the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), it is not rejecting negotiations conditionally. Frankly, it is attempting to dictate what would be determined either way, by negotiations. Have you noticed that nobody else asks the P.A. to make concessions or even to show good faith by implementing its signed agreements that would make for peace? More frankly than our world of make-believe admits, holding negotiations would make no sense. The Arab side does not want to resolve the problem. It wants to get enough out of Israel so that Israel cannot defend itself from a final onslaught. The name for that is Arafat's "phased plan for the conquest of Israel." Since there is no point to negotiations, and the Arabs remain enemies, but especially the Palestinian Arabs who violate all their signed agreements with Israel, Israel should start annexing areas not filled with masses of Arabs, and should stop shoring up the P.A. economy. Then it would gain secure borders. ISRAELI FEMINIST ISSUE OR EXCUSE FOR ANTI-ZIONISM? A coalition of Israeli feminist groups criticized the Israel Land Council for having only Ashkenazi men on it. [Many of these articles are not worded clearly. I think they mean only Ashkenazi men and women.] They demanded that Sephardic and Arab women be appointed to it, too. The demand was countered by the Zionist Women's Forum. It calls this an anti-Zionist issue masquerading as a feminist one. The Forum accused the coalition of seeking to "use the status of women as a means of advancing their political views but in reality, their goal is that the State of Israel's lands will be transferred on an ethnic bases. Their aim is to help non-Zionist ethnic elements to take over the lands of the State of Israel." Judge the sincerity of the coalition's feminist groups, the Forum
suggests, by the absence of Arab women in most of them
One would have thought the Forum would suggest appointing Sephardic women. (I am awaiting clarification of this issue, before evaluating it.) Americans reading this story probably would evaluate it from the perspective of their own society. We try to treat groups equally, and they contribute to society. In Israel, many Arabs call themselves the people "of 1948." They thus identify themselves with their past attempt to take over the country, in concert with foreign Arabs. Israel has to take care not to let subversive elements grasp certain levers of power. Survival is at stake. On this particular issue, we need more information. U.S. RENEGES ON ISRAEL OVER JERUSALEM CONSTRUCTION 
Secretary of State Clinton had hailed an understanding the U.S. reached with Israel to temporarily freeze Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria, and exempt eastern Jerusalem. Now that more Jewish construction was announced for eastern Jerusalem, a White House statement opposes it. What is the point of Israel reaching an agreement with the U.S., only to have the U.S. rebuke it for operating in accord with that agreement? The Zionist Organization of America opposes any freeze. A freeze implies some basis to false claims that Jews do not belong in those parts of their homeland or are an obstacle to peace. Suspending home-building for Jews was not an Arab-precondition for negotiation until President Obama insisted on a freeze. [That makes him an obstacle to peace.] Real obstacles are Palestinian Authority: (1) Refusal to accept Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state [if not legitimate, it may be fought]; and (2) Support for terrorism, a means of fighting Israel. Why should concessions be by Israel only? If construction by Jews obstructs peace, what about construction by Arabs? If Arabs can live among Jews in Israel, why not Jews among Arabs in Judea-Samaria? (12/30 press release by Zionist Organization of America, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member.) EU NGOS BLAME ISRAEL FOR GAZA PLIGHT AND EXEMPT HAMAS "Amnesty-UK, Trocaire (Ireland), Finn Church Aid, Diakonia (Sweden), Oxfam, Oxfam-NOVIB (Holland), Cordaid (Holland), Christian Aid (UK) — issued a report: 1 "…primary responsibility lies with Israel" to end the blockade — repeats the unsupported legal claim that Gaza remains occupied, as well as the false allegation of "collective punishment." As legal scholars note, Gaza cannot be considered occupied, and economic sanctions are not illegal. These tendentious claims were apparently made in order to condemn Israel and create fictitious obligations." NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg commented: "These NGOs are continuing to exploit moral, legal and humanitarian principles in order to promote political warfare against Israel. Many of the claims in this report are not supported by credible evidence, and reflect the double standards that are all too common. Through this systematic bias regarding Israel, these organizations have lost respectability, and the European governments that fund such attacks share responsibility for this abuse." (www.imra.org.il, 12/29.) PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY HONORS SLAIN TERRORISTS 
Palestinian Authority head Abbas, P.A. TV, and leaders of his Fatah organization honored three terrorists who murdered a rabbi in what they call a "quality operation," of which Fatah promises more. They called the three men "holy martyrs" to "jihad," after Israeli forces tracked them down and killed them. The P.A. denounced this as murder; the IDF said the men refused to surrender www.imra.org.il, 12/29.) If Abbas and his P.A. were against violence and for peace, qualities that the U.S. claims he has and that Israel should make concessions for keeping in power, would he and his organization honor or condemn terrorist murder and promise more of it? AL-QAIDA AGAINST LEBANON AND UNIFIL A Lebanese security source alleges that Al-Qaida is infiltrating Lebanon, in order to attack its state institutions and UNIFIL forces in it. The infiltrators would hide in Palestinian Arab refugee camps (www.imra.org.il, 12/29). PALESTINIAN ARAB NGO REPORT VERSUS IDF REPORT The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports that the IDF opened intensive fire on four unarmed Arabs near the Gaza border, killing three. The four had attempted to infiltrate into Israel, to find jobs, the Center reports. Where they had been crawling were found explosive devices, indicating they sought to commit a terrorist attack (www.imra.org.il, 12/29). Some readers will ignore the IDF code of honor and integrity in
reporting to suggest that if Israel reports it was justified, it is
covering up. They will suggest this despite evidence for doing so.
They also will ignore the Palestinian Center for Human Rights record
of covering up for Arab crimes against Israelis. They may be too
young to remember, and may not have read the history books, the Six
Day War, when the Arab belligerents and USSR issued reports that the
Arab armies had destroyed the Israeli Air Force, tank forces, and were
pushing into Israel. When the dust cleared, it turned out to be the
opposite.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
|
|
PILAR RAHOLA, A PASSIONATE DEFENDER
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, December 31, 2009. |
|
This is an article about Pilar Rahola. It comes from
|
|
Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist. She is a passionate defender of the United States and Israel and an indefatigable fighter against anti-Semitism. All these despite being ideologically from the left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America. She is the recipient of major awards by Jewish organizations. I came across this speech and felt that it was worthwhile placing it in my blog. I translated it and assume full responsibility for any errors. If you want to visit her blog, with some of her articles translated into English, you can do so by clicking here. Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona? Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship? Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection? Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam? Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan? Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel? Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism? Why don't they defend Israel's right to exist? Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism? An finally, the million dollar question:Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn't care. Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
|
CANDLES OF DARKNESS
Posted by Ari Bussel, December 31, 2009. |
|
It was the last Monday of the year 2009, and at 5PM already dark here in Los Angeles. The weather treated us nicely, so we stood with only one or two layers, signs in our hands ("We Stand with Israel") along with US and Israeli flags and candles. We were greatly outnumbered, almost five to one. On the other side of the street, just in front the Israeli Consulate building, about 120 anti-Israel protestors, all white-Caucasian, children to the elderly, stood with candles and signs. The darkness and lights of passing cars obliterated them, all except the candles. I was thinking: Hanukah was just ten days ago, Christmas last Friday, how befitting, albeit slightly late? A peaceful protest, quite unlike most held here. The police in great numbers stood on both sides, ready to react if necessary. Even the darkness could not completely disguise the hatred that emanated from the anti-Israel protestors who were on the way to join the protest and passed by us. We stood just near the crosswalk, so people faced our "We Stand with Israel" signs and the American Flag we held. I thought to myself, "What an eloquent statement, an appropriate way to greet!" One protestor could not hold back and repeated "SHAME, SHAME." Another joined in chanting "Children Murderers, Occupiers." The first continued "Shame, Shame." How ironic from those who condone using babies as human shields. Slightly later, another woman became furious. She warned me, lest I was confused, "USA IS NOT ISRAEL." She, too, like the man who repeated SHAME earlier, chanted her anti-Israel mantra with a practiced ease time after time. I imagine my smile irritated her as much or more than the flag and sign I carried. Just being there was all it took. Having just returned from a mission to Israel, I still felt the remnants of jetlag. I could not fathom the reason for their vitriolic protest, or even why it was being held on this particular Monday afternoon when most people are not even in Los Angeles. A fellow reporter stopped to ask me why do we stand here. I replied that Israel is the last fortress standing in the way of radical Islam's expansion to conquer the world, so for our own sake, we must support her. The region is reaching a boiling point, I said, and the rattles we now feel are just precursors to an imminent major explosion. Iran's evil tentacles have already spread via Iraq, Syria and parts of Israel to either side of the Mediterranean, like claws holding the sea from North and South. If Israel falls, the USA is next in line. For the sake of both, I said, we must stand strong together. For America's sake, we must make our position clear and visible. I connected this belief with the attempt by the Nigerian national to blow the plane inbound from Amsterdam to Detroit. My most recent return flight was on Swiss from Israel via Zurich to Los Angeles. I already know to fly as inconspicuous as possible. Now with the use of blankets prohibited, only one handbag allowance and new restrictions coming and going with the hour, my flying habits will have to change. In addition to arriving three hours in advance, taking off our shoes and belt and turning on our computer, we may soon have to submit our underwear for inspection — can you imagine the sight? The rules, designed to protect us, are not only meaningless, they are laughable. At first, anything small we used to carry (clippers, scissors, pocket knives, cutters, etc.) was confiscated. Silverware (the type used in Business and First) was eliminated in favor of plastic, later only the knife was kept out, now all is once again available. Let us not forget, a metal fork can be as deadly as a knife. If one wants to be really creative, a pencil will suffice as well. Then the authorities decided to confiscate our liquids, making my mother quite unhappy. Her bottle of water is taken away from her, just to force her to spend four or five dollars on a new bottle on the other side of the examination site. If anyone wants to sneak explosives onto an airplane, it is still very easy to do. I can even think of a few ways myself. Terrorists so far seem to be steps ahead of our intelligence efforts. They are already devising the next, more ingenious, more deadly trap. All along, our enemies from within urge us not to profile. It is wrong, they say, not all terrorists are Middle Eastern, not all are Muslim. Those spokespersons of the Arab Anti-Defamation League should take the opposite approach altogether. If I were at the helm or one of their slick spokespersons, I would instruct a complete change of course along the following lines: We know that all attacks against the West since 2001 were done by a small group of Islamist extremists shouting "Allah u Akbar" as they exploded themselves and as many innocent bystanders as possible. Therefore, we, devout Muslims, declare these acts are AGAINST ISLAM, a blasphemy of the Koran and The All Merciful. Accordingly, we welcome the most strict security measures. Please, check and verify, ask and inquire. We will cooperate. It is our security on the line exactly as much as everyone else's. It is our objective to catch and punish the extremist minority that stains us all very badly. The spokespersons' opposite approach, teaching how to avoid scrutiny, argue rather than cooperate, is very telling. These are the true enemies of the West and the Democratic Ideals it provides and protects. They use the system against itself, wishing for its demise, aiming to replace it with a Caliphate. Time and again we fail. We are all inconvenienced with checks that are as meaningless as they are expensive. Grandmothers are stopped randomly along with Senators and former Vice Presidents (when the latter take commercial flights which they seldom do), while those with clear warning bells and whistles are completely ignored. The TSA has become a huge mechanism, its value — little if any. Profiling must be used. We must disconnect ourselves from arguments raised in the name of freedom and humanity while designed to undermine them. We long ago lost our freedom. We experience great discomforts while the perpetrator dances around taunting us "Islam is a peaceful religion, do not use the word 'terrorist,' all is relative, one's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, it is not me but a few extremists, how dare you profile, look there — the culprit is just around the corner." Leading the choir in the background is none other than the President of the United States of America. Either we do what must be done to suit the new age of terrorism or soon we will be bowing on the floor five times a day facing Mecca. Thanks, but not for me. I shift my thoughts from the flight situation and the greater discomforts I will have to face in my future travels to the people across the street. Just moments ago they accused me of being a child murderer and an occupier, Israel of committing war crimes. They brandish signs that read the same and express hatred toward Israel and to the USA. Why do people hate our way of life so much? If it is that bad here, get involved, vote, try to change. If you absolutely hate it here, move. Go away. That is another freedom we afford: You do not need to stay. But why teach your children from young age to hate? Celebrate America and all it has to offer. You may find that it is the source of much goodness, trying to share some of its wealth with the world. Other immigrants came here, embraced their new land and became invaluable to the American way of life. Why must you seek to destroy it instead? I proudly continued to stand with the American Flag and the sign reading WE STAND WITH ISRAEL. Two countries, shared values, with endless possibilities and mutual goals. Who would have believed, just half a century ago, that a person whose skin color is black would be the President of the USA? Who would have fathomed the possibility of equal rights, women voting, improved working conditions? Only in America — the country we love and must always protect and cherish. In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point-counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
|
IS IT TIME TO BOMB IRAN? THE LAST RESORT
Posted by Michael Freund, December 31, 2009. |
|
Recent events have made it clear that sanctions and diplomacy have
failed to halt Iran's nuclear program, which is nearing the brink of
developing an atomic arsenal.
Israel's future and everything we hold dear is at stake, and we may very soon wake up to discover the would-be Hitler of Persia with his finger on the button, threatening to exterminate the Jewish state. As I suggest in the column below from the Jerusalem Post
Iran can and must be stopped, and military force may be the only way to do so. Less than 1,000 miles east of Jerusalem, a new Auschwitz is steadily being prepared as the international community dithers over what to do. Six decades ago, the world watched in silence as the Germans tossed us into Hitler's ovens and turned six million Jews into ashes. We cannot assume they will act any differently if Iran seeks to do the same. So we dare not tarry. There is little room left for delay. If the world fails to act, the option of last resort — bombing Iran — may be Israel's only choice. Comments and feedback may be sent to: letters@jpost.com or to me directly. Thanks,
|
|
As 2009 draws to a close and the second decade of the 21st century looms before us, there is no greater danger facing the world than the prospect of a nuclear Iran. As the events of recent weeks have made abundantly clear, sanctions and diplomacy have utterly failed to stop Teheran's march down the road to an atomic arsenal. The ayatollahs have gleefully ignored repeated warnings from the West, and stubbornly insisted on proceeding apace toward nuclear proficiency. We can no longer continue to ignore this reality. Our future and everything we hold dear is at stake. The danger is simply too great, and the threat is too real. As frightening as it sounds, Israel must give serious consideration to bombing Iran before it is too late.
MAKE NO mistake. If a halt is not put to Iran's efforts, we will soon wake up to discover the would-be Hitler of Persia with his finger on the button, threatening Israel and the world with nuclear blackmail and destruction. What the Nazi leader could only dream of accomplishing more than half a century ago, will soon be within reach of his Iranian disciple. Indeed, the clock is already winding down and we are nearing the end of the game, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's scientists prepare to cross the threshold and storm past the nuclear goal line. Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave a chilling account of just how close Iran is to meeting its nefarious goal. By early 2010, he said, the mullahs will have the technology to build a nuclear bomb, and they will be able to produce one within a year. That means that sometime in the next few weeks or months, Teheran will reach the technological point of no return, beyond which lies a future clouded in darkness and uncertainty. And so, less than 1,000 miles east of Jerusalem, a new Auschwitz is steadily being prepared as the world dithers over what to do.
MONTHS AGO, Washington and its allies set a year-end deadline for Iran to accept a deal drawn up by the UN under which their uranium would be enriched abroad. But even this proved unacceptable to the hard-liners in Teheran, who are not exactly quaking in their boots at the prospect of additional economic penalties. In a speech delivered last Tuesday, Ahmadinejad made clear that he remains unmoved by warnings from the West. The international community, he said, can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care." And why should they? The UN Security Council has already imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran with little to show for it. Does anyone really think that yet another round of injunctions and hand-wringing will do the trick? In fact, just a few days ago, reports surfaced in the press that Iran was once again actively seeking to violate existing UN resolutions by trying to import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan to further bolster its enrichment program. This is just one more sign that the West's efforts to freeze Teheran's nuclear program have come up short.
MOREOVER, THE Iranians continue to improve their strategic missile capability, heightening the peril should they succeed in constructing a nuclear warhead. In mid-December Iran test-fired its latest missile, the Sajjil-2, a sophisticated solid-fuel rocket that is more advanced and more accurate than its predecessors. With a range of 1,200 miles, or nearly 2,000 kilometers, it can hit anywhere in Israel and even reach parts of Europe. Iran's defense minister boasted on state television that the Sajjil-2 can be fired more quickly and reaches its target faster, which makes it harder to intercept or shoot down. Since it is a solid-fuel rocket, it can be prepped in advance and hidden in silos, thereby decreasing its vulnerability to a preemptive attack. And lest there be any doubt about the ayatollahs' real intentions, the Times of London reported two weeks ago that Western intelligence agencies have obtained an internal Iranian document detailing plans for neutron initiators. These are the triggers which set off nuclear explosions, and they have no other use.
TAKEN TOGETHER, all these pieces combine to form a frighteningly unambiguous picture: Iran is terrifyingly close to becoming a nuclear power. With each passing day, this nightmare scenario moves one step closer to fruition. And so we must look ourselves directly in the mirror and ask a simple yet very pointed question: Are we really prepared to allow the tyrant of Teheran to threaten our very existence? An atomic Iran would transform the strategic dynamic of the Middle East, strengthen radical and fundamentalist forces and spark a region-wide nuclear arms race. It would raise the specter of terrorist groups allied to Teheran, such as Hamas and Hizbullah, getting their hands on the most devastating of weapons. And we all know how Iran's leaders have repeatedly and brazenly vowed to exterminate the Jewish state and wipe us off the map. The alarm bells are ringing and the danger is near. Iran can and must be stopped, and military force may be the only way to do so. Six decades ago, the world watched in silence as the Germans tossed us into Hitler's ovens and turned six million Jews into ashes. We cannot assume they will act any differently if Iran seeks to do the same. So we dare not tarry. There is little room left for delay. If the world fails to act, the option of last resort may be our only choice. Michael Freund is the founder and chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which assists Anousim in Spain, Portugal and South America to return to the Jewish people. He served as an adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. |
|
ISRAEL'S FOREIGN POLICY IN THE SHADOW OF IRAN AND THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT
Posted by JCPA, December 31, 2009. |
|
This is the summary of JCPA's ICA Jerusalem Issue Brief Vol 9, No 19, December 31, 2009. It was written by Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister. |
|
|
|
SAVE THE BABY POLAR BEARS! BUILD MORE ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS!
Posted by Steven Plaut, December 31, 2009. |
|
HELP ME!! HELP ME!!! Well, the Copenhagen conference was over just a few days ago but now it turns out that there is a horrendous anti-environmental aspect of Obama's policies that is contributing to global warming and energy inefficiency. I am referring to Obama's demand that Israel end all construction activities in the West Bank, accepted under bullying by the Netanyahu gang. You see, as part of the "freeze" of those "settlements," a number of projects for installation of solar panels that generate renewable energy cleanly from solar energy are blocked. The Knesset this week discussed this anti-environmental initiative of the Obama Administration following a question raised by Knesset Member Uri Orbach. The weather in Israel makes generating electricity by means of solar panels popular. EMPOWER SETTLERS (with Solar Power!) But now, alas, freezing settlements threatens the wellbeing of the entire planet, destroying the polar icecaps, killing coral reefs, and drowning polar bears! The solution? Build more settlements!
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
|
|
OH DEAR, THE BRITS NAIL OBAMA AGAIN
Posted by Susana K-M, December 30, 2009. |
|
This was written by Bill Katz. |
|
OH DEAR, THE BRITS NAIL OBAMA AGAIN — AT 12:58 A.M. ET: British writers are coming down hard on Obama, a man most of them don't like anyway, over the terror issue. Tony Harnden, in The Telegraph, nails the president: Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a "B+" for his 2008 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a "systemic failure has occurred". Well, he's in charge of that system. Actually, the White House thinks that Bush is still in charge of that system. In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an "isolated extremist" who "allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body" — phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. And... Today's words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things — we'll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling. Whenever there's a flap, Obama thinks he can fix it with words. It isn't working. We've heard the CD too many times before. There has been a pattern developing with the Obama administration trying to minimise terrorist attacks. We saw it with Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June. We saw it with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, a Muslim with Palestinian roots who slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas last month. In both cases, there were Yemen connections. Obama began to take the same approach with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. We'll see whether this incident shakes him out of that complacency. Whether it's called the war on terror or not, it's clear that the US is at war against al-Qaeda and radical Islamists. The president does not want to admit that. It's a visceral thing. Janet Napolitano, Obama's Homeland Security Chief, has been a disaster in this, exhibiting the kind of bureaucratic complacency that makes ordinary citizens want to go postal. She should go, but I doubt if Obama has the guts to fire a female department head. There's a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. The public is on to this. Obama can't get away with it much longer. Will there be US air attacks against targets in Yemen? Watch this space. It's safe to say that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, described to me by a senior intelligence official today as "officially recognised and in corporate terms a sanctioned franchise of al-Qaeda" that is plainly now seeking to become an international rather than just a regional Islamist player. COMMENT: The president cannot seem to use words like "victory" or "Muslim extremist." He wants to fight a politically correct war. So far it's been a failure. Next year, almost upon us, will be decisive. If Obama is perceived as weak and drifting at the end of two years, he might have to check out the want ads. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
PANIC IN TEHRAN
Posted by Susana K-M, December 31, 2009. |
|
This was written by Bill Katz. |
|
PANIC IN TEHRAN — AT 7:53 A.M. ET: There are signs the regime in Tehran is starting to panic, aware that both its legitimacy and its longevity are being seriously challenged. From Martin Fletcher at the Times of London, via the superb Planet Iran website: Iran's panicking regime is once again seeking to suppress the Green Movement by decapitating it. Just as it did after June's hotly-disputed presidential election, it is arresting high-profile reformists, academics and journalists who support the opposition... The response of the president of the United States has been some gosh-darned nice words about the right to protest. "Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards still don't get it," said one Iranian academic. "The Green Movement is a decentralised popular front run by local cells and local leaderships across the country. The main opposition figures do not control it. They are spiritual leaders, but do not provide any direction in regard to demonstrations or slogans." And... One activist said: "Do Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the elite of the Revolutionary Guards really think that I, or anyone else, after being beaten by the police, witnessing the murder of Iranians on the streets, hearing stories of rape and murder in the prisons, and knowing of electoral cheating, will ever remain passive and quiet? None of us will ever accept the rule of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei after what they have done." Tehran's police chief today promised increased brutality toward the demonstrators. That is likely to make matters worse for the regime. The pot is boiling. An informed source told me that March may well see the tipping point. We're making a list and checking it twice, and noting the silence of "human rights organizations," especially those who've been obsessed with Guantanamo. And, by the way, we haven't heard a word from the secretary of state. We're following this. Iran may well be the biggest foreign story of 2010. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
A UN OFFICIAL SEEKS TO DESTROY ISRAEL — WHAT YOU CAN DO
Posted by AFSI, December 30, 2009. |
|
Dear AFSI members,
Please write your letters to the editors and to U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice regarding the lies and distortions being promulgated against Israel by UN Special Rapporteur, Richard Falk. His hatred against Israel and America is intolerable. Thank you Helen Freedman |
|
From: Lori Lowenthal Marcus
Z STREET ACTION ALERT! Once again a vituperative Israel-hater is given a bully pulpit (he's the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 — yes, that's actually the name of his position) for inciting world hatred against Israel. This time the UN official — Richard Falk, a Princeton professor, and a Jew (at least by chance, probably not by choice) is calling for economic sanctions unless Israel removes any efforts to protect itself from Gazans dedicated to its destruction. How bad is Falk? He was barred from entering Israel a year ago — when Ehud Olmert was PM, not the current "hardliner" — because he compared Israelis to Nazis, saying the Gaza "closure" was the same as the Warsaw Ghetto. And yes, he also hates the US. During his tenure with the UN Human
Rights Council he called for a fresh investigation into the 9/11
attacks in order to examine the possible role that "neocons" may have
played in the attacks. And it isn't only the neocons he points his
finger at — Falk also wrote a laudatory introduction to a book
claiming that George Bush and other "elites" in the US administration
very likely played a role in the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, when
publicly asked at a UN session to state whether he ever made the
statements 'that no plane hit the Pentagon,' and that 'the World Trade
Center was brought down by a controlled demolition'? Falk did not
respond.
WHAT TO DO? We don't think there is much point complaining to the UN, as he is their point man on these issues. What you CAN do is be prepared to write letters to papers that present his latest attacks on Israel and set them straight on Falk's record. Tell your friends about it. Send this information around so that people who don't already "get it" can see what a farce the UN is and how blatant is its anti-Israel animus. AND write to the US Ambassador to the UN, telling her to exercise good moral judgment and denounce Falk's bias and inflammatory attacks. Of course, she's not likely to share our position, but the more she hears from interested citizens perhaps the more she will at least be careful about how she comports herself. Here's her contact info: Ambassador Susan Rice
Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website: www.afsi.org. Helen Freedman is Executive Director. |
|
CONFESSION OF THE ANTI-ISRAEL BIGOT; NETANYAHU IS BRIBING
TRAITOROUS RATS; TIME TO REMEMBER BASICS ON ISRAEL
Posted by Steven Shamrak, December 30, 2009. |
|
Confession of the anti-Israel Bigot. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is asking for forgiveness for stigmas he caused against Israel as a result of his peace agenda. In a letter sent to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) in time for the Christmas season, Carter wrote: "We must recognize Israel's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het (a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement — that signifies a plea for forgiveness) for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." (Quite possible that he is gravely ill now and is trying to obtain redemption for his consistent anti-Israel bigotry. Isn't it too late and insincere?) Vatican: No Reconciliation, No Respect! Plans by Pope Benedict XVI to relaunch the process of beatification of Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church leader during World War II who remained silent as the Nazis exterminated Europe's Jews, have provoked criticism in Israel and in Europe. (At a time when Christians all over the world are supposed to pray for peace and forgiveness, the Vatican has again shown disrespect and contempt toward Jews and a complete lack of interest in reconciliation. Why must only Jews be polite and considerate toward their enemies, oppressors and haters? Common moral and international legal standards must be applied to all, especially to the Vatican — the moral leader of 1.3 billion of the world's Christians!) Tribute to a Hero of Zion #1: Yitzhak "Ike" Ahronovitch, the captain of the Exodus ship whose attempt to take Jews to Palestine built support for Israel's founding, has died. He was 86. The Exodus 1947 ship left France in July 1947 carrying more than 4,500 people — most of them Holocaust survivors and other displaced Jews — in a secret effort to reach Palestine. At the time, Britain controlled Palestine and was limiting the immigration of Jews. Tribute to a Hero of Zion #2: Thousands of people took part in the funeral of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai who was murdered on Thursday by 'peace loving' and 'moderate') a Fatah terror squad. He lived in Shavei Shomron for 14 years and was married with seven children. Samaria Regional Council Head Gershon Mesika said "Rabbi Meir is a victim of the folly of the government of Israel... (its inaction against Arabs, anti-Jewish policy and political games)" "I demand that you (Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu) face the widow and orphans and ask forgiveness" (Two weeks ago the main checkpoint between Shechem and Tulkarm was opened) IDF Can when Politicians Want. Security Services in partnership with soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed the murderers of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. All three were convicted terrorists who had been committed to and later released from Israeli prisons. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak Once again, the Israeli 'justice' system, controlled by a corrupt and self-hating Labor party, is able to claim success. After threats of prosecution, the Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman was effectively silenced and marginalised. The same tactic was previously used against Ariel Sharon when threats were made to prosecute him and his son for corruption. To Visit the Jewish Temple Mount a Jew Must go to Court. The High Court has ordered Israel Police to allow Yehuda Glick, chairman of the Human Rights on the Temple Mount group, to ascend the Mount, after having denied him the right to do so for many months. Police last year banned Glick because of his activities in promoting Jewish visits to the Mount. Goldstone Report Works Both Ways. Fifteen Israelis who were injured by Kassam rockets from Gaza Arab terrorists during Operation Cast Lead have filed a lawsuit against Hamas in a Belgian court. The Israelis are demanding that Belgian authorities issue international arrest warrants for senior Hamas terrorists, including Khaled Mashaal, Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmoud a-Zahar, Ahmad Jabbari, and Muhammad Deff. Part of the case rests upon the Goldstone report, which ruled that Kassam rocket fire by Hamas was a violation of international law, and that the court could not ignore the case. Netanyahu is Bribing Traitorous Rats. Several Kadima MKs have committed themselves to leave the party. Netanyahu and his associates have negotiated with 15 Kadima MKs about leaving Kadima over the past three months. Each of the MKs who leave Kadima will become a minister, deputy minister or Knesset committee chairman. (In order to improve his position in Likud, Netanyahu is trying to bring traitors into the party.) Foreign Media is Anti-Semitic. Nearly three-quarters of Israelis view the foreign media as being negative towards Israel . The Palestinian Authority's information campaign and poor public relations by the Israeli government were close behind as reasons for the bad image. (The self-hating Israeli media is also not a big help!) Israelis Oppose Foreign Funding of Self-Hating Groups. A new poll has found that a majority of Israelis oppose European government funding of non-governmental 'human rights' organizations, such as the leftwing groups Peace Now and Betzelem, in order to increase domestic pressure on the Israeli government. The poll's findings show that 59% oppose foreign contributions while only 28% support them. Swastikas on Walls of Ancient Synagogue near Hevron. A group of Jews, in a rare visit to the ruins of an ancient synagogue in a PA controlled village southwest of Hevron, was shocked to discover that swastikas had been scrawled on the walls. (No international outrage. It was not even covered by the mainstream news! Why is Arab/Muslim thuggery not news worthy?) Quote of the Week: ''I do not believe in truces with the Hamas. We must respond to terrorism with force.'' — Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said not long ago — Another political stunt from the Israeli left! While being in power her party has forcibly removed 8,500 Jews from Gaza but has not done the same to the hostile Arab population of Gaza! IDF Fighting Jewish Patriots, not Enemies. The Israel Defense Forces will use air reconnaissance and photography to detect violations of the freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank, as well as special forces raids on violators. The document, issued by officers from the Central Command, details the intelligence-gathering methods to be used to detect freeze violations and plans to demolish 'illegally' built structures. (Why is the same vigour and determination not used against enemies and truly illegal Arab constructions? Stupid appeasement games must end, it has never worked for Jews!) EU/Spanish Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic Hypocrisy. The Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Moratinos, who will assume the EU presidency on Jan. 1, at a Brussels news conference. "Of course I cannot guarantee that at the end of the year we will have a Palestinian state. But we are going to fight for this final aspiration to become a reality." (I wonder why the independence of the Basque people, whose land is in Europe and is occupied by Spain and France, is not a priority for the future EU president?) Jewish Music Banned at Jewish Holy Site. The Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria has accused Israeli authorities of unfairly and selectively enforcing laws for Jewish and Arab residents of the mixed city of Hevron . For years, visitors arriving at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the holy city have been greeted by Jewish music. Last week the Jewish music was banned by Israeli police! Retaliate by Refusing Arabs' Goods. Palestinian Authority (PA) Economics Minister Hassan Abu-Libda said that his office has decided to make 2010 the year that the PA economy stops accepting goods from the Jews of Judea and Samaria (Yesha). PA authorities confiscated and destroyed a large shipment of Yesha produce delivered to Jericho that they valued at $50,000 and almost three times that much were seized in other parts of the PA. (There aren't many Arabs' goods on the market but we can start with driving less and checking where the figs, sultanas or dates are produced.) The Result of Non-Jewish Migration and Political Apathy. 1. The government discussed imposing limitations on the sale of alcoholic beverages. Under the proposed rules, individuals under 21 will not be able to purchase alcoholic beverages, and no sales will be permitted after 11 PM. In addition, drinking in public places would be prohibited, and alcohol will be sold only in specially licensed stores. 2. Five men were stabbed in a mass brawl that broke out in Kiryat Gat early on Saturday a week ago over music blasting from a car. ''The husband (of kiosk owner) was stabbed and seriously wounded. A number of passersby came to his aid, and four more people were stabbed,'' said a police spokeswoman. Hypocrisy of the Headlines. Israel feels tarnished as critics apply apartheid tag... — Why don't Arabs feel 'tarnished' wearing the well deserved tag of blood-thirsty terrorists, anti-crusaders bigots and heroin pushers? Where are the headlines about it? Iran's $250M Terror Gift. Iran "wants to hold all the cards in its hands" in any future dialogue with the United States and for that reason it gave Hamas 250 million dollars to derail the internal Palestinian Authority talks over unity, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas said. "Every six months Iran transfers this sum to Hamas." Opposition to Rabin Bank Note. Bank of Israel was asked by Land of Israel activists to reconsider its decision to put the portrait of former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin on bank notes: "Let it be clearly understood that Rabin's image was controversial... Rabin caused inestimable and indescribable damage to the state of Israel." (And it is conveniently forgotten that Yitzhak Rabin was a Haganah commander who carried out the attack on the Irgun weapon supply boat, the Altalena, killing and wounding Jews and sinking the boat, at the time when Jews needed weapons most!) Arabs Stand United Against Israel. The close relationship between Syria and Lebanon strengthens both countries and reinforces the united Arab stance against Israel said Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, who has blamed neighbouring Syria for the assassination of his father, during a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Lebanon's prime minister. (Even a blood feud is unable to break the bonds of Arabs hatred against Jews. I wish Jews would show the same unity in pursuit of the Jewish National goal!) Time to Remember Basics on Israel . At a Knesset discussion last week, MK Yariv Levin (Likud) said that it is time to return to some "basic truths" about the State of Israel, which he said was established not as a "Jewish, democratic state," but a "Jewish state with a democratic system of government. Israel was established in order to be the state of the Jewish people." (Both ideas have unfortunately been ignored by Labor and Likud governments) Levin made the comments after discussion in the Knesset on a law he proposed that seeks to preserve a law that prevents Palestinian Authority Arabs from acquiring Israeli citizenship if they marry an Israeli Arab. Steven Shamrak was involved in the Moscow Zionist movement. He worked as a construction engineer at the Moscow Olympic Games project and as a computer consultant in Australia. He has been publishing an Internet editorial letter about the Arab-Israel conflict since August 2001 and has a website www.shamrak.com. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com |
|
BLEEDING HEARTS AND JIHADI REVOLVING DOORS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 30, 2009. |
|
This was written by Michelle Malkin. |
|
Sen. Joe Lieberman was right to sound the alarm about Yemen in the wake of the Undy-Bomber's Christmas Day terror attack over American skies. But he was wrong to call it "tomorrow's war." The Yemen-based jihadist network has been at war with us for years — since before the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, since before Sept. 11 and well before our current commander in chief had begun his vaunted work as a community organizer. The bleeding-heart ostriches of the left are blaming (who else?) cowboy George W. Bush for radicalizing poor, oppressed Yemenis. But the killer fruits of botched bomber Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's loom have nothing to do with poverty, social injustice, Western imperialism or Bush Derangement Syndrome. The fundamentalist Muslim is the privileged son of a Nigerian public official. He lived a "gilded life," as the Independent of London described it, studying engineering at one of Britain's most prestigious universities before training for terror in Yemen. Media sympathizers have spotlighted Abdulmutallab's web postings bemoaning his "loneliness." But more compassion and empathy — the remedy Barack Obama prescribed in an infamously clueless Chicago community newspaper op-ed after the Sept. 11 attacks — are useless salves to the terrorist's damned soul. Like so many of his wealthy, educated jihad brothers and sisters before him, from Osama bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan, M.D., Abdulmutallab targeted us for who we are — dirty, unbelieving infidels — not anything we've denied him. And for his failed act of self-eunuchery and mass murder, the all-too-enlightened leaders of al-Qaida in Yemen and beyond hailed Abdulmutallab as a "hero." Another of these "heroes" in Yemen is Jamal Muhammad Ahmad Al Badawi, the convicted mastermind of the U.S.S. Cole bombing that took the lives of 17 American sailors in October 2000. Despite being sentenced to the death penalty, escaping twice from jail and being indicted in the U.S. on terrorism charges, the Yemeni government freed him in 2007 in exchange for a promise that he renounce his old infidel-murdering ways. More than two dozen of Badawi's jailbreak buddies, including bin Laden's former secretary, Nasir al-Wahayshi, reunited to form the jihadi training team that now claims it supplied Abdulmutallab with his incendiary device. Yemen human rights activist and blogger Jane Novak has reported for years on how Yemeni intelligence and military officials have facilitated al-Qaida training camps — often providing "safe houses, training and passports to the jihadists that travel to Iraq to attempt to kill U.S. troops." The Yemeni government, Novak points out, has also used al-Qaida mercenaries to fight northern rebels and train tribal militias. Jihad spiritual advisor Anwar al-Awlaki, linked to the Sept. 11 hijackers and Fort Hood mass killer Hasan, also calls Yemen home — and reportedly blessed the Crotch Bomber attack, according to The Washington Times. Now, the Yemen government has the gall to blame the West for not providing enough assistance to stop the breeding of hundreds of future flying Crotch Bombers. America, unfortunately, is hardly in a position to criticize Yemen's jihadi revolving door. ABC News reported this week that two of the four jihadi leaders behind the Christmas Day terror plot were released from Gitmo during the Bush administration in November 2007. (What a quandary for Bush-bashers who have stubbornly denied that Gitmo recidivism threatens our national security.) The freed detainees were shipped off to terror-friendly Saudi Arabia, where they underwent "art therapy rehabilitation" — the ultimate bloody brainchild of the jihadi-as-victim mindset. In January 2009, the two "rehabilitated" recidivists released a video vowing to wage jihad to "aid the religion," "establish the rightly guided caliphate" and " fight against our enemies." One of the duo, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September 2008. Another Yemeni at Gitmo, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, was convicted by a U.S. military tribunal in the last days of the Bush administration for conspiring with al-Qaida, soliciting murder and providing material support for terrorism. He had scripted the videotaped wills of two Sept. 11 hijackers and boasted of making a two-hour al-Qaida commercial designed to recruit suicide bombers, according to FBI testimony. The recruitment ad celebrated the U.S.S. Cole bombers in Yemen. Hundreds of Yemeni detainees at Gitmo abandoned the benefit of the doubt years ago. Yet, Attorney General Eric Holder's law firm, Covington and Burling, has provided dozens of them pro bono legal representation and sob-story media relations campaigns. True to form, former Covington and Burling lawyer Marc Falkoff dedicated a book of Gitmo detainee poetry to his Yemeni suspected terrorist "friends inside the wire." And the White House is rolling out the red carpet to bring them to U.S. soil for civilian trials. At a time when we should be disabling the jihadi revolving door, its rotating shaft is spinning out of control. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
US ON ISRAELI BUILDING PLAN; PAKISTANI TERRORISM; SUPREME COURT LETS
ARABS BACK ON HIGHWAY THEY TERRORIZED
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 30, 2009. |
|
U..S. STATEMENT ON ISRAELI BUILDING PLANS IN JERUSALEM 
"The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved by the parties through negotiations and supported by the international community. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations. Rather, both parties should return to negotiations without preconditions as soon as possible. The United States recognizes that Jerusalem is a deeply important issue for Israelis and Palestinians, and for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. We believe that through good faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem, and safeguards its status for people around the world." Dr. Aaron Lerner asks, shouldn't that mean that nobody should build there, for now? Why should only Israelis be asked not to build, why not Arabs, too? (www.imra.org.il, 12/28). ISRAEL LETTING GLASS INTO GAZA 
At the request of UN head Ban, Israel is letting glass into Gaza for post-war reconstruction (www.imra.org.il, 12/25). Will ordinary houses be rebuilt or buildings Hamas used for war? PAKISTANI TERRORISM AND WHO HATES MUSLIMS Part 1. bombing in Karachi 
A suicide bomber killed five people and wounded 80 more at a Shiite gathering in the Pakistan city of Karachi. A thousand people were commemorating an important Shiite holy day. The carnage would have been worse, but police stopped the murderer at a checkpoint. Hence, two of the fatalities were police. Usually, Pakistani terrorists attack Hindus and Sikhs in the Indian sector of Kashmir. However, Sunni terrorists have often struck Shiites on that holiday. The irony here is that several terrorist organizations were, to an extent, formed by, or with the support of Pakistan, against India. Now that the U.S. has gotten Pakistan to reduce support for these groups, they have "turned against their former patron." They make alliances with the Taliban. That enables the Taliban to strike further into Pakistan (Wall St. J., 12/28, A13). Part 2. Who hates Muslims? As jihad grips more of the world, its reporting, meaning, cause, and solution become critical. The leftist tendency to blame Islamic terrorism on how Israel treats Palestinian Arabs becomes more absurd. Most victims of jihad are fellow Muslims. I report that. Some readers, however, claim that my reports reflect hatred and defamation of Muslims. There is a tendency of totalitarians and their fellow travelers to consider someone's citing the journalistic and historical record as defamation. They want clear passage for their own, actual defamation. Some of them put their accusation in crude, bigoted and personal wording. That is where the hatred is, as it surely is among the bombers! Not one anti-Zionist has ever expressed in the comment box any sympathy for the Muslim victims of Islamist jihad or Arab and Iranian oppression in general. None has rebuked other readers for expressing crude antisemitic sentiments (and I am not referring to policy differences with Israel). Their indignation seems hypocritical or insincere. Even worse, some readers claim that persecution of Jews is because of general Jewish misbehavior, which the historical record disproves. They even make excuses for the antisemitism of Adolph Hitler, a criminally insane dictator who started a world war and who, outside of the war, murdered 10 million people. Ironically, the Jewish citizens of Germany had been patriotic and a mainstay of its culture. I suppose those readers also would claim that the antisemitic persecution by Stalin, another criminally insane dictator, who helped start that same world war, and who had 20 million people murdered and millions exiled or enslaved, had legitimate grievances against the Jewish people. Don't adopt the insanity of mass-murderers! One person put it that "you" show no gratitude for Muslims having given Jews refuge from persecution by Christendom. This is prejudicial. It assumes that I report only as a Jew, and that I stand for all Jews for all time. Don't flatter me or blame the rest for me! One of the pertinent traits among Palestinian Arabs is recalling a version of historical events as if they happened yesterday. Hence they quote statements about ancient, exterminated Jewish tribes in Arabia, as if all Jews descended from non-exterminated ancestors are "sons of apes and pigs." That epithet is racist and expresses hatred. I do not use language like that. A couple of times, readers did use such language about Muslims, and I deleted the comments. Nor is it correct about other Jews, me, or the blanket assumption that Islam gave such sanctuary to the Jewish people for all time. Most Jews have accepted the myth of uniform tolerance under Muslim rule. The Arabs took over the Jewish homeland and prompted most Jews to emigrate. Jews in Muslim countries were second class citizens. They suffered centuries of persecution, with pogroms like in Christendom and children being taken from their families if their father died. Large numbers of Jews expelled by Spain were enslaved when they fled to Morocco. Turkey gave Jews who came to it, sanctuary. In a later period, my paternal ancestors were among them, as one of my articles acknowledged. Grandpa was the last Sultan's clock repairman. The Jewish state has had friendship with Turkey and an informal alliance with Iran. Reports about Arabs standing up for Jews, I recount. A culture may have certain traits and tendencies that most of its people adopt. Not all do. One should be careful about over-generalizing about people of certain ethnicity. There were Christians who persecuted Jews and there was the family I had mentioned that, at risk to their own lives, hid my great-uncle from the Nazis. I have reported Muslim persecution of Christians. I would like to see full inter-faith reconciliation, in a spirit of live and let live in peace. Let each faith believe it has the best path, but not deem others inferior people who must be forced into the same path. Judaism judges people by their ethical behavior, not by their religion. The more bigoted commentators sneer at the Jewish concept of "chosen people," which they obviously to me do not understand. They assume it reflects a conceited sense of superiority. Basically, it is a call to be ethical, to follow Jewish as an example to help others. The task is so daunting, that many fail to fulfill it sufficiently. This results in the humility that religious Jews have expressed in the Bible. Jews historically have gotten along well with gentile neighbors, until gentile clergy intervened. SUPREME COURT LETS ARABS BACK ONTO HIGHWAY THEY TERRORIZED Israel built highway 443, 14 kilometers of it across the Green line, some parts of which were annexed by Israel. Some of it lays upon land that had been owned by Jews and Arabs. The government expected mostly Arabs to use it. Arab terrorists used the highway for staging attacks so much, that the Army ordered it closed to them. Representing some Arab petitioners, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to re-open the highway to Arabs. ACRI based its case upon the Geneva Convention, which Israel states it does not have to follow but usually does follow. The Convention holds that an occupier is not supposed to construct something solely for its own use. Last year the Court admitted that the road is used by tens of thousands of Israelis, whose lives would be endangered if Arabs were allowed to share it. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled that Israel should not take land from Arabs solely for its own use. It advised Israel to take other, unspecified measures for security. Dr. Aaron Lerner, head of IMRA, commented, "There isn't another way to put it: The High Court of Justice of Israel ruled that the restoration of access for Palestinians to Highway 443 was more important than the lives of Israeli driving on that road — as well as the lives of the millions of Israelis that terrorists driving on Highway 443 can reach within minutes." "The court argued that the Palestinians should have access since otherwise it would not be proper for Palestinian land to be confiscated for the construction of the road. The court ignores that the road indeed was originally opened for Palestinian use and the restriction was only imposed as a result of Palestinian violence. This is not a matter of 'collective punishment' but instead a decision based on practical security considerations." "The judges can hide behind instructions that measures be taken to insure that security is not impacted by their decision, but they know damn well that there are serious limits to the ability to stop terror activity." (www.imra.org.il, 12/29). What is "Palestinian land?" Does that concept apply within Israel? Background: Israel's Supreme Court is not a democratic institution. It is self-perpetuating, unaccountable to a constitution or separation of powers. Its members predominantly are Far Left. They overrule the elected Knesset, to impose their own views not of the law but what they would like the law to be. This is subversion. The leftist media browbeats as "undemocratic" mere criticism of this non-elected court's abuse of power which aids Arab anti-Zionist efforts. 700 NEW HOMES IN JERUSALEM: Part 1: The News Israel announced that it would allow to be built 700 new housing units in annexed, Jewish areas of Jerusalem. The State Dept. usually condemns "Israeli steps in East Jerusalem as harmful to peace efforts." After a previous announcement for another area, Pres. Obama said that such building did not make Israel safer," it makes peace more difficult to attain. PM Netanyahu has been trying to persuade the P.A. to resume peace negotiation. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian Authority (P.A.) [non-]negotiator asked, if there is supposed to be a housing freeze, what is this increase in housing? Part 2: Analysis Unlike most NY Times articles, this one gives more of the historical background of how territory was distributed. I find this background obscuring the full story almost as much as does the usual absence of background. For example, referring to Israel's policy on Jerusalem, reporter Ethan Bronner wrote, "its assertion that the reunified city would remain under its control as the capital, has won almost no support worldwide." What does not having world support mean? Does it mean that most countries assiduously follow international law and practical solutions? We know that half the countries break international law. Truth is, foreign governments take positions out of prejudice or economic interest. They distort the meaning of international law in order to justify their positions. As for practicality, we know that foreign governments propose as solutions impractical schemes, such as the International Atomic Energy Association that did not detect members' nuclear proliferation and may have fostered it. Another example is as the original proposal for the second partition of what was left of the Palestine Mandate by 1947. The rump, isolated pieces that it suggested form a Jewish state would have been non-viable. When Jerusalem was divided, the Arabs used their nearness to Jewish neighborhoods to fire into them. To want to return to such a situation is foolhardy. Is the U.S. really interested in peace? Then why does it arm Arab belligerents, who repeatedly commit Intifadas, terrorism, or major wars? Why does it demand that Israel withdraw from areas, although earlier withdrawals led to war? Why does it demand that Israel give up areas that would provide the secure borders required by UN Resolution 242 and advised by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff study? Why does it encourage the P.A. to raise its demands upon Israel? What did Israeli building in the Territories have to do with negotiations, until Obama demanded that Israel cease, and Abbas felt he had to make it a condition of negotiating? (For more on that, click here ) How can there be peace when the jihadists prefer conquest? Has the New York Times ever admitted that it and the State Dept. traditionally are anti-Zionist? Mr. Erekat's comment is disingenuous. He knows that Israel announced a freeze in areas outside the State of Israel. He pretends that housing built inside annexed parts of Israel violates the freeze. He and the State Dept. should be asked why the freeze does not apply to building by Arabs? Why does the State Dept. object to "unilateral" steps by Israel and not by the Arabs? Religious discrimination? If President Obama understood Israeli history and studied a map, he would know that Jewish housing does make Israel safer. It blocks P.A. expansion and keeps terrorists further away from Israeli population centers. It provides an anchor for the Army and a breakfront against the waves of jihadists. In the background material, the newspaper reverted to its vague statement of how the 1947 war started — it "broke out." No, the Arabs of Palestine and volunteers from Syria and Iraq attacked Jews. Soon foreign official Arab armies invaded. If the New York Times frankly attributed to the Arabs the start of that and the other wars, it would not be so easy for anti-Zionists to get away with claiming that Israel started the wars. Thus the Times, which knows better, withholds the information, leaving others not to know. It is true, as stated, that Jordan held the eastern part of Jerusalem. Unstated is that such seizure was another act of aggression. Therefore, the eastern part of Jerusalem had not been part of a country since it was part of Judea, the ancient Jewish country there. Therefore, Israel is not an occupier. Still cagey in wording, Bronner puts it that in "1967 — when Israel took the rest of Jerusalem from Jordan." Might have mentioned, in "1967, when Jordan opened fire upon Israel and advanced its army for another invasion..." That would give a fuller picture and show who is responsible for what. At least he admitted that Jordan barred Jews from "the Old City, the site of the ancient Jewish temple" [that the P.A. denies exists, because that denial is convenient for its writing the Jews out of Palestinian history and themselves into it (12/29, A4). ISRAELI POLITICS AND HOW NETANYAHU AND LIVNI ACT PM Netanyahu: (1) Tried to induce of Members of Knesset from the rival Kadima Party to rejoin his Likud Party, from which Ariel Sharon had led them out; and (2) Asked MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into his coalition regime, to form a government of national unity, as it faces the threat of war again. [MK Livni has an internal party rival who is trying to wrest its leadership from her. If half her party bolts, the rival is likely to gain control of the other half.] Kadima's Knesset delegation spurned the coalition offer and the Cabinet posts that came with it. They called it not serious and an attempt to destroy their party. Livni replied, "The cynical use of threats in order to appear to be calling for an emergency government — and bring in parts of Kadima — is not an act worthy of a prime minister." "Mr. Netanyahu expressed regret at Kadima's answer." (New York Times, 12/29, A6.) He wanted all of Kadima in the emergency regime. Since the founder of Kadima had taken MKs from Likud, Netanyahu's attempt to return them is fair turnabout. But simultaneously trying to enlist her as a coalition partner leaves a sour taste. Livni's rejection, however, is unpatriotic politics. Indeed the signs of war are growing. Hamas and Hizbullah are preparing for it. Iran is gathering allies and neutralizing rivals. Iran is closing in on its nuclear weapons goal. Similar circumstances have brought Israelis into wide coalitions, before. A wider coalition does not help prosecute a war, but it can help keep rival parties from exploiting the war for politics at the expense of national security. Shimon Peres of the Labor Party sabotaged Israel's prosecution of the first Lebanon War, because he did not want Prime Minister Menachem Begin's regime, chiefly the Likud Party, to get credit. Here is another Livni motive. She was Foreign Minister before this Netanyahu regime. She shares in the failures of the recent Lebanon and Gaza wars and the resulting build-up of the emergency to which Netanyahu refers. She does not admit her failures, which left Israel the target of tens of thousands of rockets. She pretends that her diplomacy was a success. I find her more polarized and political about it than the U.S. parties. I think that Netanyahu plays dirty with the Jewish people, by promising nationalist policies and reneging, though not 100%, so that the Arabs and the State Dept. claim he is too nationalist. GIVING OBAMA TOO MUCH CREDIT OVER IRAN? The New York Times editors called President Obama "...right to condemn the violence against Iranian citizens and to place the U.S. on their side, as he did in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and in comments on Monday" (12/29). The Wall St. Journal Opinion section welcomes the Monday speech, but feels it must be followed up or it be too little and too late. It felt that the Nobel speech merely mentioned the Iranian people. Indeed, the Iranian protesters started to accuse the President of being against them. The Journal noted Obama's general appeasement of dictators and snubbing of democrats, as with Honduras. If the Iranian people turn anti-American, it would be one of Obama's worst failures. If he were wise, he would have encouraged them, and perhaps assisted in a change of regime before the Islamist one acquires nuclear weapons. Instead, Obama conceitedly appeased the dictators, with whom he felt he could make a deal. He is finding he cannot. Will he learn in time, or is he too obstinately radical? Imagine if George Bush or Ronald Reagan were President now. They most likely would have understood the opportunity for democracy in Iran, would have sided with the people, and would have condemned their evil rulers.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
|
|
BETRAYAL BY DM BARAK LEADS TO RABBI'S MURDER
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 29, 2009. |
|
The betrayal of the Jewish nation began long before the murder Thursday, December 24th, of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai as his killers, a Fatah Terror squad, came in and exited through the 'removed' checkpoints just 2 weeks ago. Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai (40) lived in Shavei Shomron for 14 years. He was married with 7 children, the youngest of whom is 2 months old. At his levaya (funeral) his family, Eliyahu, the Rabbi's son, said "Father wanted faith; he wanted Torah study; he wanted prayers — no revenge". Ten bullets hit him in the head as he drove home at 4:30 pm Thursday. If you translate his name literally: Meir means Enlightenment; Avshalom means the Father of Peace; and Chai means Life. His murderers, as claimed by an announcement of Fatah that their "Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade" killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. The United States assists the Fatah and its "Al Aksa Martyrs" which are a Terror group whose men receive financial aid and training from the U.S. under General Dayton. This means that the Israeli Government passively and actively agrees with building a Muslim Arab Palestinian Army and, therefore, has indirect responsibility for training and funding the Terror force which murdered Rabbi Meir Chai. There is every indicator that Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak — at the instigation of the U.S. State Department re-adopted the earlier Rabin-Peres-Arafat plan of the early 1980s to drive the Jews out of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem. As reported, former Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met illegally then with Yassir Arafat, head of the PLO, Palestine Liberation Organization (illegal because the PLO was then — as now — a Terrorist organization). Rabin, Peres and Arafat had created a multi-layered pressure scheme to force evacuation of all Jews from Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. Removal of patrols and checkpoints was only one vital point, among others, of the insidious and treasonous plan to ramp up the fear of Terror attacks by Arafat's Terrorists. Other tactics were to interfere with building permits, initially of water, sewage and the electric grid, or otherwise known as "freezing construction". The law at that time was that it was a crime to meet Terrorists but, neither the Leftist Courts nor the Police charged Rabin and Peres for not only breaking the law by meeting with the arch-Terrorist Yassir Arafat but, conducting treasonous planning during the war of Terrorism. Leftists do stick together and nothing is too low to achieve their goals of re-partitioning the State of Israel. When the earlier plan to drive the Jews out of their homes in the territories didn't take hold, they moved to another perfidious plan later, called "The Oslo Accords". This Plan, plotted in secret by Rabin, Peres and Yossi Beilin — with the secret collusion of the Norwegian government, and with the later acquiescence of Yitzhak Rabin — gave Arafat the Oslo surrender of 7 major cities in Judea and Samaria with their surrounding rural areas. Many European nations provided unreported funds to complete and pay for the scheme. After Oslo became "facts on the ground", a Knesset member demanded an investigation of how Oslo came about and who supplied the money. Shimon Peres, then a key part of the "Unity Government", went ballistic and threatened to leave the government IF such an investigation was undertaken. At that time Ariel (Arik) Sharon was Prime Minister (2001-2006) and he immediately quashed any official government investigation, not only to protect Peres but, his reaction to the proposed investigation made it amply clear that he knew about the secret Oslo subversion. Sharon's facade as a Likud person of the political Right began to show major cracks. Who was actually behind his public false face? Now, Netanyahu, Barak and, no doubt, in consultation with Shimon Peres and the Arabist State Department have re-adopted the earlier plans of forcibly evacuating all Jews who live in Judea, Samaria (Jewish Gaza has been sacrificed already) — with the Golan Heights now part of the equation. Removing Checkpoints and Patrols repeats the Rabin-Peres-Arafat 1980s concept of allowing the elevation of Terror to ramp up pressure for what looks like the planned use of Israeli troops to force Jews out of YESHA (Yehuda and Shomron, called the "territories"). The recent expose' of a document from Barak's office calling for special forces (6 Army Divisions), plus Police, helicopters and drones to aggressively and brutally move against Jewish civilians in Judea and Samaria is nothing less than a "coup d'etat" by Netanyahu and Barak. Working with the Arabist State Department with the prompting and approval of President Barack Hussein Obama, amounts to "high treason" during a war when Israel's very survival is at stake. In the time of Neville Chamberlain, when he accepted the word of Adolph Hitler and came back raving that he secured "Peace in Our Time",one could mark this up to sheer stupidity. But, when the plan is to dismember large parts of ancestral Israel — then it is High Treason even when covered up with sweet words like "Peace in Our Time". When Arik Sharon and Ehud Olmert sold out the safety of the Jewish Nation/State by abandoning Gush Katif/Gaza we discovered that the Leftist psyche of surrender was always deep in their thoughts and planning. Now we see that this warped thinking has similarly been in Netanyahu's thinking from the time he gave up 80% of Hebron and the burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah — our forefather and mothers in the Cave of the Machpelah. If that didn't alert us, then his cave in at the Wye River Conference should have more than plainly declared in what direction Bibi was headed. Bibi was always an acceptable candidate for higher office by the Washington crowd, especially the "Shadow Government" that really runs America's foreign policy in the Middle East and is literally joined at the hip with the Saudis and Arab nations. Therefore, their policy decisions have brought the current cruel construction freeze in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the removal of Checkpoints and military Patrols, training the Army to attack Jewish civilians, including minor children — both boys and girls, as was done during the evacuation/eviction of 21 Jewish communities in Gush Katif/Gaza plus 4 in Northern Samaria of 10,000 Jewish men, women and children. (Somehow I keep hearing the shouts of Nazis during one of their round-ups of Jews..."Juden Raus" (Jews Out). The Construction Freeze being implemented by the Army Forces is merely the forerunner of the Greater Push to make Judea and Samaria "Judenrein" for the entry of several million Muslim Arab Palestinians. Today, Bibi and Barak are following the Rabin-Peres-Arafat plans of the early 1980s and have reactivated the same plan of betrayal. The Government of Bibi, Barak, Peres is no longer a Government of the Jewish people of Israel but, rather a puppet Government of the Arabists in Washington, the E.U., the U.N. the Arab Bloc, and Russia. It is a perfidious assembly of Leftists (as we saw with Sharon and Olmert) who have literally overthrown what should have been the sovereign elected Government of Jews, dedicated to the safety and sovereignty of the Jewish people and the preservation of the fragile Jewish Nation/State. Regrettably, it is none of these and should be removed from power forthwith. Clearly, the jews of Likud are not a great deal different than the Leftists of Kadima. Bibi is presently courting Tzipi Livni to join his Government in order to present a solid front when they attack the 300,000 Jewish men, women and children whose homes are in the Jewish settlements in the next forced evacuation. Any leader who adopts dictatorial methods to subjugate their own population has moved to overthrow the system of elected government under cover of being called "Democratic" and is, therefore, a traitor to the Nation. We observed Hitler prepare his army and Gestapo to subjugate the people of his own nation and later all the nations he conquered. His goal was to create a Thousand Year Third Reich of Nazi Domination of the World and he needed obedience of a cowed population. He too used the cover of legal elections at first and then morphed into the dictatorial monster he was. Josef Stalin also had his brutal troops and his KGB. East Germany had their Stasi Secret Services linked to the Soviet KGB. These 70 year old means of evil are now being repeated by the radical Muslim Islamists. Iran has its Republican Guards under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs. Their goal is a Global Caliphate for Islam — not unlike Hitler's planned 1000 year old Reich. Syria has its Army and Secret Services who terrify their own people. The main reason Israel has had peace with Syria is because the IDF sits on the Golan Heights and can see into Damascus if even one tank or plane starts up. Netanyahu and Barak are once again courting Turkey's Muslim leader Erdogan to assist Israel's surrender of the Golan to Syria. Ehud Barak has at numerous times tried to remove Israeli civilians and soldiers from the Golan and gift it to Syria. To its everlasting shame, we observe Washingtonian Arabists assist the Palestinian Terrorist leadership, train and arm their Terrorists with the Muslim Arab Palestinian people totally subjugated as "human shields". If they demonstrate any protest, they are arrested, tortured and murdered — as in Iran. Here again, we see Obama "reaching out" to the Muslim Terror States of Iran and Syria. Who would have even thought that a Jewish nation would adopt these same dictatorial methods to threaten their own Jewish population and all in the interests of foreign nations? To aspire to a dictatorship one needs a warped ideology, arrogance, the need to dominate, mean-spiritedness — mixed together into one poisonous soup, makes for an ugly and dangerous leadership. It is one thing to observe the disgusting corruption that plagues successive Israeli governments but, quite another when the vaunted leadership to re-partition the Jewish Nation/State and commit other subversive acts of political collusion for the benefit of dedicated enemies. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
|
DON'T RUSH TO JUDGMENT?
Posted by Arnold Beizer, December 29, 2009. |
|
In November, Americans soldiers were attacked and mass murdered by a U.S. Army Muslim major at Ft. Hood who had Al Qaeda terror ties and the president defends him and exclaims as a first reaction, Let U.S. not rush to judgment, about this man's motives. On Christmas day, a Muslim terrorist is allowed to board an American Delta jetliner and attempts to set off an incendiary bomb in Detroit while Obama's Chief of the Dept. of Homeland Security assures Americans that the system worked like clockwork and the lone extremist was captured before any harm came to 300 airline passengers (who just happened to luck out when the incompetent Jihad warrior failed to properly ignite his bomb). The President who says there is no war on "terror" and who bans use of the word by his administration wants to close the Camp Gitmo terrorist detention Center in Cuba and send enemy combatant detainees back to Yemen where they can be rehabilitated and then recycled so they can come back again to fight against U.S. another day. Reluctantly, the president acknowledges that there is indeed a catastrophic, systemic failure of our intelligence and security system and the President is so incensed about it that he orders an immediate investigation to determine who is to blame, how to discipline those responsible and to correct the problems identified. But wait a minute, who is in charge of the system that failed and the U.S. intelligence agencies that acted with an utter lack of intelligence and common sense? It seems the president (our Chief Elected Official and Commander In Chief) who gave himself a B-grade on handling the economy, is giving himself a pass-ing grade for ordering an immediate investigation into who failed U.S. on Christmas Day when the Muslim kid bomber so successfully skirted security measures in place designed to protect U.S. from such "man made disasters." If you ask the president he seems to be pointing the finger at those he appointed and those who serve in his administration (at everyone and anyone but himself). They deserve failing grades but he is somehow above it all. He would have us believe that he inherited this mess in which we find ourselves. But the intelligence agencies report to the president and despite the president telling U.S. he inherited a failing economy and a broken security system, wasn't it the president who promised U.S. that he was going to bring U.S. revolutionary, sweeping change. He was going to change America for the better. He said so eloquently in his inauguration speech, America can "emerge into a sunlit harbor, united by the memory of having conquered some of the greatest dangers, domestic and foreign, that it once braved." So tell U.S. what has changed and how is it better? The president wants to appear as if he is on top of this unfortunate and unforeseen situation and issues multiple press releases, special messages and makes presidential appearances from his Hawaiian holiday vacation resort headquarters calculated to inform and insure the American people that he is on the job and has our safety foremost in his mind. He then goes back to his golfing, pick up basketball games with his National Security Adviser teammate and religiously and rigorously gets in his scheduled gym work outs. In Hawaii, Obama is enjoying his time in the sun, yet all the while the enemy is planning another Pearl Harbor! They warn U.S. they will attack our airplanes and Obama and his worshiping mass media fall for this deception as the man made disasters of our own making (according to Obama) plot to bomb our cities and bring bloody terror to our city streets not the airports! The Overseas Contingency Operations supposedly meant to deal with man made disasters over there will not help U.S. when real Terrorists strike over here without warning and with no mercy. What we have over here is a systemic failure of leadership at the highest level. Our problems are of our own making. We have leaders who have stuck their heads in the sand and followers who blindly follow the leader with no vision or battle plan. We are at War. This is no time to take a holiday or a leave of absence. The nation was asleep when Pearl Harbor was attacked. America had sleep in her eyes and was just awakening when the enemy struck the Twin Towers and Pentagon on 9/11. We have once again been lulled to sleep and have become complacent listening to a naïve, inexperienced leader who has already cut back defense spending, who wants to disarm unilaterally, phase out nuclear weapons, and shrink our nuclear arsenal while being unwilling to confront Iran from developing a nuclear capability. The president wants to talk to nations that sponsor terror and to make peace treaties and peace deals with our enemies who will strike U.S. after we disarm and place our trust in them instead of in God. If We The People continue on this present ill conceived course we will soon face another rude awakening only this time it will be a catastrophe of nuclear proportions. God save U.S. In God We Trust not in any false messiah. Contact Arnold Beizer by email at arnybarnie@aol.com |
|
FROM ISRAEL: TRACKING EVENTS
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 29, 2009. |
|
Sometimes it feels as if it's impossible to keep track of news events without a score card, so quickly does the situation shift. A major project during the course of the day today prevented me from analyzing what is happening in several spheres. Here, I would like to touch base, in an effort to keep on top of events. Most likely my next post will follow on Thursday. ~~~~~~~~~~ Tzipi Livni and members of Kadima have unanimously said no to a "unity government" with Likud, which allows us to sigh with relief, at least for the moment. Kadima's charge was that the offer was not sincere as it didn't provide genuine shared power. Netanyahu, for his part, called Livni a "serial unity refuser" (as he had also offered unity when he was forming his coalition) and said he didn't understand what her problem was, as Kadima would have participated in major government decisions. My take has been to see more than a bit of game-playing in the offer. However, while he was waiting for Kadima's decision, he offered more generous terms as a lure. Did he genuinely want her in the coalition? The possibility exists. What is more surprising than the rejection by Kadima is the fact that Livni used this as a means to rally unity inside her party. Seems those seven who had signed an agreement with Netanyahu will not be bolting the party now and coming back to Likud after all. It had sounded close to a done deal. Livni referred to Netanyahu's attempt to split her party as "gutter politics" and accused him, not without reason, of inappropriately attending to this when more important issues should have occupied him. I would guess that her anger at and mistrust of the prime minister played into her decision not to join his government. Netanyahu, for his part, said he was still determined to broaden his coalition because of the crises we will be facing, and declared that it was only a matter of time until Kadima did split apart. ~~~~~~~~~~ Nowhere is a score card more necessary than with regard to the politics of the Palestinian Arabs: Fatah is the major party of the Palestinian Authority. But it is not synonymous with the PA and is sometimes at odds with it. (More on this follows.) The terrorist Al Aksa Brigades is officially part of Fatah, and protected by it. Some of its members are even part of the PA security forces — if they "renounce terror" it is made possible for them to receive PA salaries. But some Al Aksa members operate outside of the scope of Fatah. On top of all of this, the US, under the supervision of General Keith Dayton, is training some of the PA forces (which means, in the main, Fatah forces), which are supposed to combat terrorism. That should mean terrorism instigated by Hamas (and there is a problem sometimes with this), and certainly terrorism instigated by Al Aksa. Terrorism is terrorism, is it not? Except it depends on the definition, it seems. As it happens, the PA only takes on Hamas when it threatens its stability and not because of attacks on Jews. And terrorism by Al Aksa, well... that's another matter all together. ~~~~~~~~~~ If what I've just written sounds convoluted, I apologize. It is no more than a reflection of a convoluted situation. What has generated the current confusion is the drive-by shooting of Rabbi Chai by three Al Aksa terrorists, who were subsequently pursued and then shot by IDF forces (when they refused to surrender). No Palestinian Arab group and no Palestinian Arab leaders condemned the shooting forthrightly. It is important to understand that doing this is a "no no" in today's climate. It implies siding with the "Zionist enemy" instead of Arab brothers (who undoubtedly were acting against "the occupation"). But, because there is security cooperation in some respects between the IDF and PA security forces (especially those trained by Dayton), and because the IDF pursued the terrorists into Arab areas, on the ground there was coordination. And it seems this has enraged a great number of Palestinian Arabs associated with Fatah. Yesterday, according to Khaled Abu Toameh, Fatah warned of a third intifada. But this one would not be against Israel, it would be against the Palestinian Authority. The funerals of those who shoot Rabbi Chai in the head turned into a major protest in which a demand was made that all security coordination with Israel be stopped and that the PA be dismantled. ~~~~~~~~~~ What fascinates me as I watch this unfold is how oblivious to this the US administration remains, as it continues to tout the idea of "peace negotiations." How, precisely, is a peaceful and stable state supposed to be established in this atmosphere? If Abbas was reluctant to come to the negotiating table before, he has to be doubly so now. I would guess that he would be risking his life to sit down with Netanyahu. According to Palestinian Media Watch, "PA-controlled media have continuously portrayed the killers as Palestinian heroes and Shahids — holy Martyrs — while describing Israel's killing of the three terrorists as 'murder in cold blood' and 'assassination.'" Abbas personally sent envoys to the families of these murders. ~~~~~~~~~~ It would be my guess, however, that when Netanyahu makes all of his very public (and to my ear terribly distasteful) calls to Abbas to stop the games and come sit down to talk, he is not oblivious to this situation. That is, it seems to me he knows, even as he makes his earnest calls, that this cannot happen. ~~~~~~~~~~ But what shall we conclude about Mitchell, who is due back here soon? Does he begin to understand the futility of his stated goals? It is said he is working on "terms of reference," which would theoretically permit agreement so that Netanyahu and Abbas could sit down together. I have checked with analysts whom I respect, who are not overly alarmed by what is transpiring here, as it all very vague. And I will note that Israel has announced, to the displeasure of the US, that we will be building hundreds of new housing units in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem beyond the Green Line. ~~~~~~~~~~ Rumors still abound about the possibility of the Shalit deal going through. The Hamas website is saying that Israel is refusing to release four "heavy-weight" prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti. So perhaps the earlier alleged leaks were incorrect. A refusal to release this man, and three others guilty of particular evil, would be a major step in the right direction, and would make the deal less likely to be completed. (I know, each one who has committed a terrorist act is guilty of particular evil.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Could the averted disaster on the plane bound for Detroit serve as a wake-up call for Obama? He has now said: "When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable." Indeed. But will he now grapple with the root of the systematic failure? ~~~~~~~~~~ Airport security without profiling is a joke: Dry Bones cartoon. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
A MASS GRAVE NO MORE
Posted by Ari Bussel, December 29, 2009. |
|
Like an ancient song, the melody has not changed: a group of Palestinians, armed and trained by the USA with Israeli consent, target a single driver in Judea and Samaria. He was just 45 when his life was taken. His only fault: being Jewish. He dies, leaving a wife and seven children behind. A senseless act of murdering another human being is "heroism" to a barbarian. We, the Jewish People, cannot comprehend this murder. Everything we believe points to holding the sanctity of life above all else. Our enemies, animals of the worse type, know nothing of goodness and virtue. Thus, like animals they must be treated. We bury the dead, mourn and try to resume our lives. They view their evil and our strange response as permission to act again, attack once more. Our enemies understand the rules of the game — their rules. They instigate, murder for their convoluted ideals and a merciful god and expect the upper hand. Retaliation or a response are neither warranted nor permitted. After all, it is their "right" as "Freedom Fighters" to kill at their will. If Israel responds, an immediate chain reaction will ensue. Their deterrence works. We lament and go on with our lives. Like a leaf in the wind, we fly, dead and useless. Our enemies only understand strength, and this they must taste every so often. The IDF and the Israeli Security Services (Shin Beit) were able to immediately locate the terrorists. Normally, they would be brought to Israel for interrogation and then off to summer camp. Not this time. Life in prison without any restrictions is a marvelous thing. One sleeps, trains at the gym, watches TV, communicates with one's cohorts via the Internet or cell phone, eats, studies and waits for the next round of releases. In the meantime the person hosted by Israel receives visitors, conducts interviews and from time to time enjoys sex. "Multiple life sentences?" the greater the number, the greater the respect yielded and the higher the monetary rewards from Iran and various Arab countries and organizations to one's family. One of those terrorists had been previously released under the condition he would refrain from engaging in terror. The word "Terror," apparently, was ill defined. Thus, he has done once again what he did before, knowing well there will be no punishment for his crimes. What is the worst that could happen — another few months in an Israeli jail? With pleasure, visitation rights are permitted, after all. When the IDF soldiers approached, the Muslim terrorist used his wife as a live shield. This is definitely permissible, for in Islam the wife's position is that of servitude to the man. Normally, he would not have hesitated for a moment to use any child who might have been around, but it was late in the evening, the children were asleep. Children make the best sort of shields — they protect and provide for wonderful TV coverage if shot or hurt in defense of the defenseless (yet armed to the teeth) Freedom Fighters. Grab a child as you go, wave him in front of you for an added fanfare. It never fails to accomplish your ends. When using children as shields or active participants, casualties-in-action are unlikely, for the stupid Israelis stop; they actually care. We will erect a mourner's tent — just imagine the rewards on this earth and beyond, the honor bestowed on the parents, the virgins awaiting the child (oh, never mind, the virgins will be reserved for the next homicide bomber of an older age; however, if it is a girl, she may be ripe already as a fruit offering to those ascending to this afterlife). The world is messed to the point where children are trained to serve a cause, women participate willingly and the men no longer resemble anything human. We do not speak different languages any more; we represent the clash of good and evil, day and night, light and darkness, life and death. The murderer claims he is just and the victim is silent. To our utter astonishment, the IDF did what a defense force should do. The higher-ranking officers did not go on national or international interview cycle. They did not talk; they acted. To quote Israel National News: "In swift action by the Shin Bet and the IDF the three murderers responsible for the attack were eliminated." Refreshing and unique behavior and what the military is all about. Intelligence was insufficient to prevent this evil deed ("Kill a Jew driving down the highway") but amazingly successful at pinpointing those involved. The operations side then took over, except this time did not bring the perpetrators for a brief rest in Israel. "Purge the evil from within your midst, and those remaining will hear and fear and will not continue doing the same evil thing in your midst. Your eye shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." Deuteronomy 19: 19-21 The murderers become the new "martyrs," and Israel was immediately promised to suffer as a result, but the message was clear and understood. For every action there is reaction. You murder, you pay with your life. No bargains, no discounts, no discussions, no give and give-some-more. The time for retribution has come. The IDF might actually be a step ahead — finally! The other lesson that needs to be embraced is that the best defense is often offense. If one plans to murder, for the sheer madness and pleasure of the act (the more family members that can be butchered at the same time, the greater the satisfaction), he should not remain alive to execute. Was there not a sentence in this regard in the Jewish Bible? But Jews, pigs and apes, have long forgotten their own Holy Book. If one's fantasy is to smash a four-year old skull against a rock or murder a wife, or a father before a child's eyes, it may be the last convoluted sick picture that person sees. If, like Barguti, now on vacation in an Israeli prison, a person sends someone else to explode as a martyr, then goes to his four year old daughter's music lesson, he will no longer be rewarded with a stay in Israel's prisons. Punishment will be swift and unequivocal and even those who do not understand the language or Western values will begin to comprehend the new IDF — our lives are at least as worthy as yours. Treat us with respect, and you will be treated the same. Try to kill us, and you will pay the price, and better an hour earlier. One other reminder to the IDF and to Israel: Those terrorists are armed to the teeth and beyond by arms the USA, the EU and others have supplied, all with Israeli consent. Time to round up the weapons, confiscate them and declare to the users — be caught with a weapon, near or hiding one, and the punishment will be severe, so severe in fact that the perpetrator will not get the opportunity to exercise the same stupidity again. There will be no questions asked, no second, third or fourth chances extended. Act stupidly; pay accordingly, pay heavily, pay and be an example for all to fear. Then again, "stupid," is a function of definitions. Israel thus far has allowed the flow of armaments, without which peace and order could not prevail in the Palestinian authorities. The result: peace and order have not been achieved, but we armed the enemy who now uses the weaponry and know-how against Israel. How can anyone be blamed when the message was clear, it was allowed. Now that the rules of the game are changing, there will be an adjustment period. Normally, the shorter the time frame the greater the shock, the swifter the change. No firearms of any type should mean just that. It is not a child's game, in English or in Arabic. The penalty for continuing to play with other people's lives is one's own life. It has come down to us or them, life or death, a future or an unnamed mass grave. Israel should not consent to walk like a lamb to slaughter. The last mass graves were those in Europe filled with our people. We swore to future generations and the ghosts of the past, "Never Again," and we must always remember that promise. Apparently someone at the IDF finally has! In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point — counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
|
TOO LATE?
Posted by Tom McLaughlin, December 29, 2009. |
|
Some of us want to win, but a lot of us don't. "Our leaders are a reflection of our culture," my friend said, "and our culture wants our soldiers to fight without hurting anybody." That's impossible, of course, but it does seem to be what too many Americans want — and our elected leaders are willing to pretend it's possible. So we send our finest young men to fight with one arm tied behind their backs because of our asinine rules of engagement. Our soldiers cannot shoot until the bad guys shoot at them first. Fifty-three percent of us elected a president last fall who thinks he can talk our enemies into liking us. Since his inauguration, he's traveled the world bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing for America when there's nothing to apologize for. He says the War on Terror is over and what we've got now are "Overseas Contingency Operations," whatever the hell that means. His interview with ABC News last July is instructive: ABC'S TERRY MORAN: Define victory in Afghanistan, or maybe that's not the right word. What would be wrong with that? If you ask me, it would be wonderful to see Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashir Assad, Mullah Omar, Hassan Nasrallah, and the rest of our enemies lined up to sign unconditional surrenders. Is President Obama forgetting that he's our Commander-in-Chief? We have a C in C who doesn't want to even say victory? I want one who'll settle for nothing less. Meanwhile, all that bowing and groveling doesn't seem to be working very well. Iran — the world's biggest supporter of terrorism — burned Obama in effigy during their annual "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" festival. One of our own army officers shot dozens of American infidels at Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akbar" and our president wasn't even sure he was a terrorist. A wealthy, British-educated, young Nigerian tried to blow up an American passenger plane with 289 people, Obama called him a "suspect" and an "isolated extremist" who "allegedly" tried to set off a device, as if the terrorist were entitled to the same rights American citizens are. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said: "the system has worked really very, very smoothly" and there was "no indication of a larger terror plot." As if there were no connection between all the RADICAL MUSLIM terrorists who've been attacking Americans, Israelis, British, Spanish, Russians, and others for decades. So many of us are so infected with political correctness, we go to astonishing lengths to avoid calling our enemy by its name. So indoctrinated with self-hating, leftist propaganda about the evils of western civilization are we that we think it's no wonder they hate us and want to kill us. 
An increasing number of Americans don't want to do what it takes to win because they don't believe our way of life is worth fighting for. They don't believe America is unique. Their brains are so addled with multicultural malarkey, they think all countries and all cultures are equal — even if they enslave women, kill homosexuals, execute anyone who converts to another religion, and continually promise to kill anyone who isn't like them — it doesn't make them bad people. They're just another part of the wonderfully diverse human family and should be celebrated like any other part, including ours. And now we've installed an entire national government with that world view. How do you like the way they're functioning so far America? Do you feel safe? Just as the leaders we elect are a reflection of us, so are our children. A fellow teacher asked his writing students recently if the America was the best country in the world and most didn't think so. I teach the same kids, and when I asked them which country was better they looked at me blankly. They couldn't name one. They just parroted the diversity doo-doo they were raised with. This is what America is becoming. Is it too late for us? Are we going to lose?
Tom McLaughlin is a teacher and columnist who lives in Lovell, Maine.
His column is published in Maine and New Hampshire newspapers.
Email: tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net
|
|
MUSLIM SHEIKH PAYS SOLIDARITY VISIT TO THE JEWS OF HEVRON
Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, December 29, 2009. |
|
Noam Arnon, a spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hevron, told Arutz Sheva about a very unusual guest who came to show his support on Monday. Making the trip from Italy to Hevron for the second time in recent years, the head of the Italian Muslim Assembly, Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, met with local Jewish leaders in a show of solidarity. The sheikh, an Italian national who received his Islamic education from leading mainstream Saudi and Egyptian Sunni institutions, believes that his religion obligates its followers to support Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. In support of his position, Sheikh Palazzi quotes Koranic passages and traditions that affirm God's assignment of this land for the Jews. As Palazzi has written of himself, he is "a Zionist Muslim clergyman and a friend of the Jewish people." "We are talking about a unique personality," Arnon told Arutz Sheva. "A man who connects warmly with everyone he meets. A very brave individual." During Sheikh Palazzi's visit to Hevron, community leaders discussed with him ways in which Islamist fundamentalism might be curbed. "He emphasized Saudi Arabia as responsible for extremism," Arnon said. "It funds mosques in Europe and the United States and then determines who will be allowed to speak in them. In this way, Islam becomes more and more extreme, which is a dangerous trend." In his activities in Italy, Arnon explained, Palazzi teaches what he calls "the real Islam", which he believes includes tolerance, Jewish-Muslim fellowship and Zionism. "He even organized a protest outside the Iranian embassy in Rome when Ahmadinejad talked about destroying Israel," Arnon added. Sheikh Palazzi, who is also the Muslim co-founder of the Islam-Israel Fellowship of the Root & Branch Association, told his Hevron hosts that Italian Jews are now shifting their political positions further to the Right. In the past, according to Palazzi, Jews in Italy were primarily supporters of the Left, but a slow change in underway. Arnon said that Sheikh Palazzi believes his efforts, as a non-Jew supporting Israel, have contributed to that shift. Asked about threats against the Zionist sheikh Arnon was adamant that he was perfectly safe in Hevron. "He walked around [he without bodyguards," he said. However, Arnon said that he would probably be unable to openly enter Gaza or Ramallah under current circumstances. Palazzi's visit in Israel continues for another few days, during which he will be making his way to other communities in Judea and Samaria to express his support for continued Jewish development and sovereignty in those regions. In 1998, Palazzi and Dr. Asher Eder (Jerusalem) co-founded the Islam-Israel Fellowship, promoting a positive Muslim attitude towards Jews and Israel based on what Prof. Palazzi believes are the authentic teachings of Muhammad as expressed in the Qur'an and the Hadith. Prof. Palazzi serves as Muslim Co-Chairman of the Fellowship. Dr. Eder serves as the Jewish Co-Chairman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hadi_Palazzi |
|
RABBI'S MURDERERS, THE P.A. & ISRAELI SUPREME COURT; ARAB TRIES TO
STEAL JEWISH FARM; WARS OF THE FUTURE; IRAN'S ALLIANCES
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 29, 2009. |
|
RABBI'S MURDERERS AND THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY & ISRAELI SUPREME COURT The three suspected murderers of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai had been convicted of deep involvement in terrorism. They were released by order of Israel's Supreme Court, despite its being warned how dangerous they were. National Union chairman MK Yaakov Katz demanded that the Supreme Court judges be indicted for having released the terrorists. CEO Meir Indor of the organization representing terror victims, Almagor, demands that Israel stop releasing terrorists and re-evaluate Israel's relationship with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) leadership. He claims "that the PA leaks information, training, and arms to Tanzim terrorists on a regular basis." The family of the slain terrorists claimed that their men were not armed and were executed. The P.A. and the so-called human rights organization, B'tselem, reiterated the complaint, which the P.A. made to the U.S., which asked Israel for an explanation (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/27.) The P.A. complaint said the raid was destabilizing; it did not condemn the murder that its citizens committed. I think that shows us what kind of society the P.A. is. These terrorist had been released as "part of the amnesty deal with the P.A. in 2007, in which Israel agreed not to pursue gunmen who lay down their arms (www.imra.org.il, 12/27 from Justice for Pollard). [Other reports described weapons found by them, which tests proved their use in murdering the rabbi, and that their refusal to surrender necessitated opening fire. ] MK Katz did not state what crime the judges should be indicted for. ISRAELIS OWNED FARM ARAB GOT THEM INVITED FOR TRESPASSING ON Four years ago, an Arab started plowing land on the Maon farm, run by Jews. Four farmers put him off the land. The Arab brought charges against them. Police charged them with trespassing. Documents brought in court proved that the Arab did not own the land. His testimony was self-contradictory. Defense attorneys asked that the case be dropped. The judge agreed, but it was up to the police whether to drop it. They did (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/27.) Israel is not known for speedy trials. Shouldn't judges have the power to drop cases? The police have too much power to relentlessly persecute dissidents. In case after case, Arab claimants are found not to own the real estate, and Jews are found not to have assaulted them except in defense of their lives or property. Why wasn't the Arab, who plowed land not his own, indicted for trespassing? Note: There, plowing land starts to establish ownership. Hence the Arab was attempting to usurp the land. It is a common practice. Groups predisposed to sympathize with the Arabs tend to accept Arab claims without proof. How do they justify their indignation without their having proof? WARS OF THE FUTURE, AND ISRAEL 
As usual, I don't go into much technical detail on military matters. This newspaper reporter was upbeat, but his report saddens me. Always preparing for more war may be necessary, but it is a sad comment on the human condition. The U.S. once had hoped that space would be kept a war-free zone. It contains the communications hubs of the world, thereby becoming a target whose destruction could cripple a whole country. Space now contains so much non-recycled junk that it becomes a hazard to navigation. Countries that develop the weapons of the future sell them to other countries, including aggressors, making possible more wars of the future. In this way, some advanced countries make a little money, but lose a lot more in the resulting wars. OBAMA MADE IT HARD FOR ABBAS TO ENTER NEGOTIATIONS? 
"When asked in an interview last week with the Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat how he ended up in the tree, Abbas replied, 'Obama laid down the condition of halting the settlements completely. What could I say to him? Should I say this is too much?' The Palestinian president, it appears, 'blames' his American counterpart for landing him in this diplomatic predicament." In other words, since Obama went too far, Abbas could not demand less, and Netanyahu could not concede that much used (www.imra.org.il, 12/27). Perhaps I was a little too severe about Abbas, who understands his culture, which Obama apparently does not. At least the U.S. seems to be saving travel expenses as envoy Mitchell has less to do now. ISRAELI PEOPLE APPROVE OF PRISONER TRADE By 76% to 14%, according to a Dahaf poll commissioned by Yediot Ahronot, Israelis approve of the proposed prisoner exchange (www.imra.org.il, 12/27). I wonder whether the poll would have found the same, if those opposed to it could have publicized bereaved relatives of hundreds murdered by terrorists released in earlier exchanges or gestures. One of the current stories is about the release of four terrorists who went on to murder an Israeli a few days ago, and then were shot by the IDF. 
IRAN'S STRATEGIC ALLIANCE GROWING 
Ahmadinejad (A.P./Bebeto Matthews) Hizbullah deployed at the Israeli border, in collusion with the Lebanese Army that the U.S. arms, while Lebanon unilaterally declared itself unbound by the mandatory UN ceasefire resolution that Hizbullah must disarm [and not fortify the border]. The Prime Minister of Iran went to Damascus, apparently to submit to its authority, and Syria's Foreign Minister visited Beirut, apparently to issue orders. Turkey signed 47 trade deals with Syria. Syria put it, ""We are working to establish close ties between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq so these countries can act as one regional bloc in order to promote peace, security and stability in the Middle East, while keeping the West's dictates and lust for the region's natural and oil resources at bay." Egypt had just denounced Iran for sponsoring a terrorist plot against it. Then an Iranian envoy visited Egypt, whose President flew to Saudi Arabia. Something big is brewing. For one thing, apparently Egypt reconciled itself to Iran becoming the strongest regional power, long Egypt's supposed prerogative. Israel had hoped the U.S. would take care of Iran's nuclear violations and weapons development. Pres. Obama on the one hand indicated approval of the House of Representatives' intent to levy harsh sanctions against Iran, but on the other hand helped block a similar discussion in the House of the Senate. China still rejects sanctions. Obama is letting Sen. Kerry beg Iran for an audience. Appeasement is Obama's only policy (Caroline Glick, www.imra.org.il, 12/27). IDF FUMBLES IN WAR AND SHUNS RISK, BUT RISKS NATIONAL SECURITY The government of Israel seems oblivious to recent strategic setbacks. It has been distracted by the proposed prisoner exchange, which is not a strategic issue except that the conditions of the exchange imperil Israeli security. The national security adviser criticized the Chief of Staff for approving the exchange [which is a political issue] and without ever having offered the government a plan for freeing Hamas' Israeli captive. IDF forces were ordered not to try, when they recently were entering Gaza. The Israeli media discusses who should have consulted whom, not the substance of the security adviser's criticism. Just as the IDF fumbled the Lebanon war by relying solely upon air power even after that power was found inadequate for the task, the IDF fumbled the Gaza war by various self-restrictions, including not re-taking the Gaza-Egypt border. Now top commanders admit they will have to do so, but at a higher price in lives. Refusing to fight and defeat the enemy, the IDF is pursuing Israelis, before in Gaza, now in Judea-Samaria. One wonders whether the Israel army is a competent defense force (Caroline Glick in www.imra.org.il, 12/27). The problem with the IDF is that it has become politicalized and that its politicians even more narrow-mindedly so. OBAMA OFFICIAL ON ANTISEMITISM BASHES ISRAEL President Obama appointed Hannah Rosenthal to head the Office to
Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Rosenthal belongs to the
anti-Israel lobby, J-Street. J Street organized an Israel-bashing
event. Israeli Ambassador Oren declined to attend. Rosenthal rebuked
him for it.
IDF CLARIFIES WHAT IN GAZA IS A TARGET The Jerusalem Post reported the IDF position that it has a list of targets in Gaza that it will not bomb unless it is attacked from there. My source, IMRA, asked the Post reporter whether the IDF would "respond with force" against buildings used for storing weapons or as a command post. The reporter said his understanding is that the IDF would, even if the firing emanates from another building. An IDF map of Gaza has about 1,500 dots, each representing a hospital, UN facility, school, or home of foreigners and journalists. Those are off-limits to IDF military response. The IDF keeps the map up-to-date. The map reflects a policy different from what the UN accused it of — deliberately firing upon UN and other civilian facilities. Hamas is building large missile silos capable of firing 20 missiles at-a-time (www.imra.org.il, 12/25). When Hamas allows a rocket to be launched against Israel, why does the IDF make only a minor retaliation, such that Hamas claims to be winning? Why doesn't it eradicate half the fortified positions, ammunition dumps, and command posts. Might that not make the price for attacking Israel too high?
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
|
|
AFTER THE WAR
Posted by Sandra Levy, December 29, 2009. |
|
AFTER THE WAR This was written by Liat Collins and it appeared in the
December 27, 2009 Jerusalem Post
|
|
It has been exactly a year since Israel launched what is officially known as Operation Cast Lead, but often referred to as "the war in Gaza." At some point during the campaign, my Sabra next-door neighbor found me in the kitchen helping my son pack a care package for soldiers — part of his elementary school's war effort. "Oh, it's so sad," she sighed. "I don't think there has ever been a generation that hasn't sent packages to soldiers. I remember doing it in the Six Day War." Until Cast Lead was launched on December 27, schoolchildren all over the country had been sending care packages to children in Sderot and other communities close to Gaza which were suffering from constant missile attacks. A friend in Sderot, fed up with the government's policy of restraint, once quipped that she had considered lobbing the stale cakes, cookies, chocolate bars and doughnuts over the border into Gaza as ammunition. When the war finally broke out — after even Ehud Olmert's government couldn't ignore some 80 missiles a day — she felt more relief than fear. Having spent eight years raising her children under fire, she realized
war would not be worse than what had been considered peace until then.
Her family was already used to living with missiles: At home, not
locking the bathroom door and sleeping in the safest part of the
house; when out, automatically judging the location of the closest
shelter. In Sderot, they have just 15 seconds from the Color Red
warning until the missile lands. It's probably the only place in the
world where wearing seat belts was banned as dangerous.
IN ASHKELON, the situation was different. Although under threat, residents hadn't had to live with Kassams before. It was really tough," says Dr. Stephen Malnick, a longtime resident. "There are so many things we had taken for granted that we suddenly couldn't do: like going shopping and walking along the promenade on the beach. My daughter, a student at Sapir College, didn't leave the apartment for two weeks — except once: She went to a salon and had her nails manicured. She told me, 'There are some things a woman just doesn't give up on,'" he recalls. Malnick, who immigrated from England, jokes that one of his strongest memories was missing the end of a sports broadcast in which Manchester United was playing. "I mean, is nothing sacred? Can't a man watch a football match in peace?" he demands, his British sense of humor reminiscent of the spirit that got his parents (and mine) through the Blitz in World War II. Malnick, whose wife's family were also suddenly under attack in Beersheba, says traveling to work in Rehovot, just outside the Kassam/Grad range at that time, was like visiting a different world. "We went to a restaurant and when we mentioned we came from Ashkelon we were treated like war heroes and given a 10 percent reduction." Quickly the Malnicks got used to the situation and even Fluffy, the family dog, learned to recognize the sirens and the need to take shelter. My cat had a similar Pavlovian response to the sirens of the 1991 Gulf War. It's not just generation after generation of children who are learning to live with war, it seems. A veterinarian in Sderot recently told a television interviewer that in addition to the usual work you would expect in a small-town practice, he has to cope with traumatized animals, and sometimes physical injury as a result of the Kassam attacks. My friend swears that all the birds fled the town. Malnick, director of Internal Medicine C Department at Rehovot's Kaplan Medical Center, well knows the effects of stress. He has written papers, together with his colleagues, on what he calls the first known case of "Kassam colon" — the irritable bowel syndrome suffered by a 35-year-old who worked in Sderot. "IBS is very common," he says. "But to the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of IBS triggered by missile attacks or an early warning system." A year after the war, life is back to normal in the South. Actually, it's better than before. Friends in Sderot, Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod report a rise in real estate prices. "Suddenly, everyone realizes that the whole country is in the same boat so it doesn't matter so much where you live," says Malnick. "And we've also learned that the shelters and reinforced rooms really work." Enrollment at both Sapir College, next to Sderot, and Beersheba's
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is up.
THERE ARE plenty of stories that should give our enemies pregnant pause for thought: As in every previous war, Operation Cast Lead has been followed by a baby boom, with proud parents in the South joking that they had had to find some way of reducing tension. (In the 1991 Gulf War, sexologist Ruth Westheimer memorably told Israelis how to make love while wearing gas masks.) Twelve months later, the press is full, too, of opinion pieces debating whether or not the war was a success — hard to assess when the aims were not clearly set out. On the negative side, the world, while grudgingly admitting Israel has a right to defend itself, has condemned the IDF response as disproportionate. This is easy to do when 1,166 Palestinians died compared to 13 Israelis (including 10 soldiers). But it ignores the fact that the terrorists chose to hide behind civilians while Israeli citizens took to shelters. Another failure: Gilad Schalit, abducted by Hamas three and a half years ago, is, at the time I'm writing, still in captivity. And although the rocket fire has been seriously reduced since Cast Lead ended on January 18, it has not stopped and the range of the rockets has even increased. Nonetheless, whereas in 2008, more than 3,200 rockets and mortars were fired on Israel from Gaza, since the end of Cast Lead, that number has dropped to 242. These figures mean that when friends in Sderot and nearby Kibbutz Sa'ad invite me to visit, I don't immediately think "over my dead body." That my friends say "only" 242 missiles is both shocking and sad: What other country thinks that is a reasonable number of rockets aimed at civilian targets in one year? Just how do you define proportionate? I truly feel for the innocent residents of Gaza. They undoubtedly suffered greatly in the war. And, sadly, I suspect they will continue to suffer: While Israel has spent the past year feverishly adding protective rooms and shelters in areas closest to Gaza, Hamas has spent the year digging more tunnels to smuggle in arms. And while my friends have resumed normal life — or in the case of the kids growing up in Sderot started to live one — residents of Gaza have had to cope with the increasing imposition of Shari'a law and ever-stricter Islamist norms. Israelis and Palestinians both know that the current calm won't last. Hamas, and its Iranian backers, pin their hopes on the ever-increasing rocket range which now, quite possibly, reaches as far as Tel Aviv. Israel, on the other hand, is developing new missile defense systems — the Arrow 3 for long-range ballistic missiles, the Iron Dome for short-range rockets and David's Sling for medium-range ones. It is only a matter of time before Israelis are again under attack — from rockets and public opinion. Fortunately, if nothing else, Cast Lead has shown that we will survive and bounce back — with more babies. And we'll all sigh and again express the hope that finally a generation will grow up in peace. Contact Sandra Levy by email at shula2933@gmail.com |
|
MITCHELL DRAWING UP 'TERMS OF REFERENCE' FOR RELAUNCH OF TALKS
Posted by Boris Celser, December 29, 2009. |
|
My comment to an article on Mitchell shuttling to restart "peace process."
Mitchell is coming with a letter to Israel and another to the Palestinian Authority. According to an Arab diplomat: "The United States is hoping that the two letters will serve as a basis for the relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but we don't know if they will satisfy the Palestinians." The White House worries about satisfying the Palestinians... |
|
4. Two draft letters of guarantee — will Israel fall for it again? A few months ago the Obama administration claimed it had no record of any guarantees given by the Bush administration. They seemed to have lost all documents. Will these new letters of guarantee be made available to the world, and authenticated as legitimate by a notary in the US? I mean, what we are talking about here are "guarantees" from him who can not produce even a birth certificate. I also bet that in the future, should any letter go missing, it will be the one given to Israel, not to the Palestinians. Any takers? Bori s — Canada (12/29/2009 06:06) Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
|
THE JEW FROM KUWAIT
Posted by Roberta Dzubow, December 28, 2009. |
|
This was written by Mark Halawa, the Jew from Kuwait. |
|
My Muslim background left me unprepared for this shocking discovery.. Growing up in Kuwait, I had the best of everything. My father owned a successful construction company, and provided us five children with amenities like piano lessons, swimming, calligraphy and trips all over the world. Although we were Muslims like everyone else, we were totally secular and my father always aimed to shield us from religious people whom he described as crazies. I grew up being told that Israelis and Jews were the lowest type of creature in existence, put on Earth only to kill us Arabs. In math class the teacher would say, "If one rocket killed X number of Jews, how many would six rockets kill?" My father was rabidly anti-Israel. He was a product of Nasser's school of thought: secular from a Muslim point of view, yet deeply dedicated to the idea of pan-Arab unity. Israel, he believed, was an American proxy in the post-colonial Middle East. 
My father was a supporter of the PLO since the 1960s when Yasser Arafat (who founded the PLO while living in Kuwait) was raising money from wealthy Palestinians working in Gulf States. As an engineer, my father participated in a program where the engineering association in Kuwait would deduct money from his monthly salary to be sent directly to the PLO. He insisted that war and resistance was the only way to deal with Israel. In the summer of 1990, when I was 12 years old, our lives changed completely. We were on vacation when Saddam Hussein invaded and annexed Kuwait. My father's business — along with much of the country — was ravaged. Our savings became worthless pieces of paper. We could not go back to Kuwait, so we immigrated to Canada. My father did manage to sneak back in for a few days to retrieve important busine! ss documents that would later be useful in recovering compensation from a United Nations fund. Praying in the Dark Of my family, I'm the only one who stayed in Canada. My father never really adjusted to life in the New World, and he had good business contacts back in Jordan, so my parents returned there. All my siblings also moved back to the Middle East. One brother runs a successful company in Jordan, two brothers are studying in Egypt (one dentistry and the other business), and my sister lives in Dubai where she works in the banking industry. One evening in 2003, I was studying at the university library in London, Ontario, when I happened to notice an older man. From his chassidic garb, he looked like a religious Jew. My curiosity was aroused, so I approached him and asked, "Are you Jewish?" With a gentle smile on his face, he said, "No, but I like to dress this way." I didn't know whether he was joking or not. All the religious people I had come across in the past were pretty scary. Are Jews supposed to be funny? His name was Dr. Yitzhak Block, a retired professor of philosophy. We exchanged a few words and then he asked about my background. My family history is pretty complex, and I get a headache every time I have to explain it all. So I simply told him that I'm an Arab from Kuwait, and mentioned that my grandmother from my mother's side is Jewish. My mother's parents met in Jerusalem when my grandfather, an Arab from the West Bank, was serving in the Jordanian army fighting the Zionists. He was 18 years old and my grandmother was 16. Her father ran a school in Jerusalem — the same school where she would jump off the wall to meet my handsome, uniformed grandfather. They fell in love, got married, and lived for a number of years in Shechem (Nablus). After my grandfather was discharged from the Jordanian army, the family moved to Kuwait, where oil profits were fueling huge business and construction projects. That's where my mother met my father and got married. 
Knowing about my grandmother's Jewish background always made me curious about Jews. Whenever we were on vacation in Amman, Jordan, I used to constantly watch the Israeli channel — when my parents weren't around. My favorite was the Israeli national anthem, and I would stay up late waiting to hear them play it at the end of the TV transmission. Standing there in the university library, this religious Jew, Dr. Block, looked at me and said, "In Muslim law, you're considered Muslim, since the religion goes by the father. But according to Jewish law, you're Jewish, since Jewish identity is transmitted by the mother." My head started to spin and memories of my childhood in Kuwait began to surface. I recalled how my grandmother had a funny name on her documents, Mizrachi, which I never heard before. She also had a small prayer book with Hebrew letters, and she prayed in the dark crying. (I thought the Wailing Wall was so named because crying was a part of prayer.) Aside from a vague family legend, my grandmother never mentioned anything about being Jewish — but now the pieces were fitting into place. I thanked Dr. Block for the conversation, and ran home to tell my roommate what I heard. He smiled and said, "So you're a Mus-Jew!" I was not amused. I went to my room and called my mother. She rebuffed the story, saying, "Don't listen to people like that. We are Muslims and that's that." 
I decided to call my grandmother myself and bring up the subject. I beat around the bush a bit — after all, she'd been denying it for the past 50 years — and then finally blurted out, "Grandma, are you Jewish?" She didn't answer the question directly, but she started crying and spoke about the years of Arab-Israeli conflict. She told me how her brother Zaki had been killed in Jerusalem before the rebirth of the State. To me that was sufficient confirmation of her Jewishness and I decided to leave it at that. Over the next few months, I avoided the whole issue of Judaism, mainly for the sake of not upsetting my mother. Besides, I was just finishing university, and career was my main priority. I was content with telling myself that I belonged to a mixed-faith family. Streaming Tears About a year later, I was rollerblading one day in my neighborhood when I took a hard fall and badly sprained my wrist. The road was smooth so I couldn't figure out why I had fallen. I couldn't stop thinking that it seemed like a push from Above. These thoughts caught me by surprise, since I wasn't into spirituality and I never had any religious connection. I was a bodybuilder, had tons of friends, and was on the heels of a successful career as a foreign exchange trader. So why had this happened? Because my wrist was heavily bandaged, I was forced to take off work for a few days. Dr.. Block had mentioned the name of his synagogue, so that Saturday morning, I decided to go check out the scene. I was hesitant at the thought of everyone being from European background and me the only Middle Easterner, but I decided to go anyway. I called a cab and got dropped off at the synagogue. As I walked in, the first person I saw looked Indian. He shook my hand, said "Shabbat Shalom," and handed me a kippah. Then I saw a black man which really surprised me. And Dr. Block was there, too. I was handed a prayer book, shown the proper page, and before I knew it everyone was singing, V'Shamru:
Something hit me and I felt as though I knew this song. I just stood there taking in the sounds, the smells and the sights. Everything felt whole and perfect. It was the opposite of everything I'd ever heard about Jews or Judaism. At this point my tears were streaming in freefall. It was the opposite of everything I'd heard about Jews. After the services finished, I met everyone over Kiddush. I spoke with an Egyptian couple and we shared our personal stories. Jews from all backgrounds were gathered together and I was another piece of this puzzle. After Kiddush, I accepted Dr. Block's invitation to join him for lunch. I told him: "I can't believe I'm here, singing and praying in Hebrew. I could never have imagined it." He smiled and said, "It's not so hard to believe. Every Jew is born with a little Torah and a little Menorah inside." He then pressed his shoulder up against mine and said, "All it takes is for another Jew to bump into him and light it up." Dreams of Peace My interest grew from there, and I began studying Torah and keeping Shabbat. Last year I spent a month in Israel touring and studying on Aish HaTorah's Jerusalem Fellowships program. It was a great "homecoming.! " 
I still keep in close contact with my family and old friends. They're wonderful people and I love them very much. Yet it's hard to relate to them on many levels. In the Arab world there are tons of misconceptions and misinformation regarding Israel. So I am working to develop a program to educate Arabs about Jews and Judaism, to dissolve the stereotypes propagated by the Muslim media and schools. I hope that my unique background can help bridge some of that divide. Another way I hope to achieve this is to help establish economic relations between Israel and Arab countries.. That would create trust and shared experience, which could be directed toward the goal of a genuine and lasting peace. Another issue I'm trying to address is how the Arab world is filled with Holocaust denial. This past summer I went to Auschwitz, and I am working to produce the first-ever Arabic documentary about the Holocaust. I want to explain to Muslims in their own language exactly what happened. It often seems like the Arab-Israeli conflict is intractable. Yet I believe in today's world, there is a real opportunity for a breakthrough. Arabs today have a more universal education, which makes them more open and curious. Also they are meeting Israelis and Jews in their travels around the world, which breaks down misconceptions. And as we saw during the recent protests in Iran, many young people in the Muslim world are yearning for reform. On top of all this, they have high-speed Internet access which opens up all kinds of new avenues of communication, and the possibility of forming new friendships unrestricted by borders or political agendas. Perhaps this can be the basis of a grassroots movement to mend relations and hopefully one day achieve peace. My Jewish cousins are all living as Muslims in the Middle East. The other issue that needs urgent attention is intermarriage in Israel. Unfortunately, a story like my grandmother's is not so rare. Many young Jewish women are wooed by Arab men and brought back to live in their villages. The children and grandchildren are never told the truth, especially with political tensions and the emotional unrest this would cause a family. As a result, many Jews are lost to our people. My mother has five sisters, and from there I have a few dozen cousins who are all Jewish — all living as Muslims in the Middle East. I recently met a seventh-generation Israeli, whose cousin married a Palestinian and went to live in Saudi Arabia; her descendents are Jews living in Saudi Arabia. All my relatives know that I'm practicing Judaism, and for the most part they're accepting. I can talk to them about Judaism and they're politely interested. We love and respect each other. My father is resistant, however, given that secularism and war against Israel are the two ideological pillars of his life. When I first became interested in Judaism, I didn't tell him straight out. We were having a political discussion and I mentioned that I support the State of Israel. That ignited a big clash and I've learned to only discuss these matters with him in an indirect way. I always know when I've crossed the line; he gets angry and calls me a "Zionist." The other big exception — not surprisingly — is my grandmother. I've asked her a number of times for more information about her family background, but she refuses to talk about it. Maybe one day I will find the key to opening her up. Growing up, I was taught that Jews were the source of all evil, descended from monkeys and pigs. On the other hand, I had the image of my grandmother holding her small prayer book with the Hebrew letters, praying with tender devotion. She is the sweetest person I know and there's no way she came from a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. She gave me a Jewish soul, and in her own way, it was she who kept my Jewish spark alive.
Contact Roberta Dzubow by email at Roberta@adgforum.com
|
|
WHAT IF ...?
Posted by Paul Lademain, December 28, 2009. |
|
The leadership of Israel allowed the US State Dept. to poke its nose into Israel's internal affairs in a way that violates established international law. International law and treaties committed the Balfour Declaration into law that binds the US and the UK and obliges them to recognize then more extensive boundaries for the nation of Israel than BHusseinO and HIllary are currently willing to admit. Their feigned ignorance. however, is of no moment because these two individuals cannot modify established law. Nor may the governments who bound themselves to the Treaty that recognized Israel's boundaries (and Jewish Palestine's paramount claims to its land) repudiate their agreements and this is so despite Barack and Hillary's current attempts to tell Israel where to park its citizens. The State Dept. has damaged Americans and diminished US influence throughout the ME by aligning itself with the Saudis to nobody's benefit other than the members of the Carlyle Group and former Secy. of State James Baker. The Euroids like to talk about refusing to recognize Israel's right to develop its lands. They like to say that refuse to recognize Israel's right to its lands. Their recognition is unnecessary — because the nation of Israel has always had a paramount claims to the lands recognized as "Jewish Palestine" during the Twenties and in 1967 Israel merely asserted authority over lands that already belonged to them and this land includes the West Bank and Gaza and most of the Golan Heigths. Jerusalem is the holy city of Isrel. It is only by the good graces of Israel that Jerusalem is open to religions other than Judaism. Hillary, especially, is prone to forget that Jesus was a Jew. So, what if Israel decided not to "recognize" Belgium? Or Jordan? Something to think about. Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
|
BRITAIN TO SEND $80 MILLION IN JIZYA TO THE PALESTINIANS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 28, 2009. |
|
Thiis was written by Robert Spencer and it appeared today in
Jihad Watch
|
|
Part of the money is earmarked to fight "extremism" — although how this will be spent will be interesting, given that the British authorities have no clue about what exactly constitutes "extremism," and are failing miserably at countering it in Britain itself. "Britain to send £50m to Palestine," by Donald Macintyre in The Independent, December 28 (thanks to Weasel Zippers): Britain yesterday marked the first anniversary of Israel's military onslaught on Gaza by announcing a £50m aid package for Palestinians, including backing for what it called "a drive against extremism" among the territory's young people. Once again the mainstream media fails to note how Hamas launches attacks from civilian areas in order to draw retaliatory fire it can portray as wanton targeting of civilians. The British aid is in part intended to alleviate that crisis. The bulk of the money will go to budget support for the moderate-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. But £7m has been earmarked to help war-stricken Gazans in the winter. Another £5m will pay for 562 teachers in UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in the area.... Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
EUROPE WE HARDLY KNEW YE
Posted by Norma Zager, December 28, 2009. |
|
"The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay,
The latest terrorist attempt on a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Detroit is the greatest example and warning to the world that a sleeping giant has awakened. We are all bursting with pride. Obviously, the terrorist had no idea what city he was headed for or he would have thought twice. Detroit? Are you kidding me? Murder capital USA? I can tell you the difference between Detroit and other cities. In Los Angeles they hire people to come to your house and beat you up and call it a personal trainer. In Detroit people come to your house and beat you up for free. They call it a crime statistic. The terrorist attempt may also have been a call to arms to the enormous Arab population that exists just outside Detroit in Dearborn. This latest incident is proof-positive, that although America's leaders are buffoons of the highest order, Americans are not. While Europe is busy doing nothing as Islamic extremists slowly take over each country one by one, Americans will kick your bottom and beat you senseless with their purse if you start with them. I am certain the passengers on that Northwest plane had to be pulled off the bomber or he'd have been beaten to a pulp. He may have been for all we know, no details about his injuries have been released. Europe has already lost the war unaware they were under siege. Americans get it. They know the wind blowing across the Great Plains is a dangerous one and they are up for the challenge. Why, because we're Americans. We belly up to the bar and throw our hats into the ring. We charge full speed ahead and take no prisoners. We are simply the gutsiest, people on earth. Detroit? What was this fool thinking? Detroit? The guy is lucky to be even somewhat alive. No one need apologize for America. Yes, we butt into the world's business too much. More than we'd all like sometimes, but it's because we are the planet's Big Brother. We look out for nations weaker than ourselves. It's what we do and we take plenty of heat for our protective attitude toward this crazy world. And what a world it is now. Lord how I long for the good old days when we wore the badge reading Ugly Americans with pride and dignity. When we walked the streets of European capitals amid scorn and ridicule. Ah, those were the days my friends. I believe the expression became part of popular culture when The Ugly American, a political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer, became a best seller in 1958. We were reviled like a shapely prom queen who is the target of vicious catty attacks by every wallflower at the dance. However, unlike the wallflowers that outgrow their ugliness and bloom into beautiful women, Europe has turned into something neither pretty nor appealing. France, long the arrogance and cowardice capital of the world is in danger of losing Brigitte Bardot to a burka? Wonder if those rude Parisian waiters speak Arabic? Guess English and those "obnoxious American tourists" are looking pretty good to them right about now. Long after the Eiffel Tower is turned into a Mosque, the U.S. will still be waving its flag and singing God Bless America at baseball games on Sunday afternoon. At least France is putting up as much of a fight as the French are capable of, but England and its Westminster Abbey will soon crumble under the oppressive weight of a growing Muslim population. The Queen better save her money because as soon as Islam is running the show in Parliament, royalty will take a backseat to Allah in Buckingham Palace. And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, The Jew-hating-hypocritical-British government is still waging their anti-Semitic war diplomatically, since another crusade would be too high profile. Guilt ridden and fearful after their iffy, trumped-up record against the Muslims in the eighteenth century, Britain has decided to give in and literally hand over the keys to the Kingdom. They safely assert their minimal masculinity through infrequent attempts to show "those Jews in Israel" who's the boss. Scotland, who decided to release the Pan Am terrorist bomber to the heather on the hill is, in a word, useless. By the way Scotland, the bomber ain't dead yet. Maybe you should have just fed him to the Loch Ness monster. Then we have Italy, so full of art, culture and pasta, giver of all things Mafia, the Vatican, Marcello Mastriani and gelato. Don't think anyone ever believed the Mob would roll over for guys with schmatas on their heads. The eternal city is in serious danger of becoming the ghost of pizzas past. What will become of the Catholic Church? Can the armies of the Vatican match the army of Allah? I don't think so! Take a good look at the Israeli churches after the Muslims took over the region and removed every last vestige of Christianity. Germany, once a Fascist republic hell bent on reaching new heights of evil, and succeeding beautifully I might add, has succumbed to reason. As compared with Sweden, Belgium and Norway, Germany today is a breath of fresh air in a Europe so filled with hatred it cannot avoid being crushed under the weight of its own evil deeds. Go figure. I would be remiss if I failed to mention Spain. So tied into its past, Spain is considering reinstating the inquisition. Since Jews are more hated and reviled than ever, who'd care? In Spain, Torquemada still rules, and the U.S. is busy elsewhere pursuing a Miss Congeniality Trophy. At the Solar Decathlon in Europe next summer, where teams from 20 universities around the globe will participate, the team from Israel's Ariel University Center of in the West Bank had qualified, but the Spanish government recently told the team it was removed from the competition because the university is in "occupied territories." They U.S. didn't even utter a peep despite the fact it is one of the event's most significant financial sponsors. But then it is also responsible for the financial wellbeing of yet another organization — the U.N. The similarities are frightening. Yes, the European Union is a thing of beauty all right. It is a sad, pathetic remnant of a continent's former glory. Raggedy and shabby, awash in its own cowardice, it is a testament to the power of Islam and Islam's driving force. The Churchill Museum features a war room intact. The phone sits at the ready to receive calls from Washington and other allies. Sir Winston was unafraid to stand up and shout, "There is evil, we must destroy it." And destroy it they did with lots of help from those "Ugly Americans." All of Europe would easily have succumbed to the powerful Nazi War Machine and would be speaking German had not we joined the battle. Now Europe is rolling over for the Islamic extremist machine while the Ugly Americans are busily apologizing, for what I can't even imagine. Europe has already lost the war. It is under the influence of a new Hitler and a new Mussolini and hatred reigns supreme once again. Their leaders believe they are hurting the Jews, but they are not. They are signing their own death warrant. Israel will do what it must to survive. Long after Britain, Sweden, Spain and all the other pathetic countries of the EU are Muslim, Israel will be a refuge for the Jews in Europe. It will gain in power and prestige and continue to thrive using intellect to further its position and gain might. Israel's leaders are trying to get along and play nice with the world. Make no mistake when the time comes, Israel will not go gently again. The Arabs know this well and although they rage, rant and beat their chests like monkeys at the Bronx Zoo, they don't doubt for a minute Israel will destroy them if pushed too hard. Wake up and smell the hummus guys. Those Ugly Americans aren't going anywhere. Just look toward Detroit and an airplane sitting on a tarmac and that is all the proof you need that Americans got game. In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point — counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
|
NO PEACE DEAL IN NEXT 10 TO 20 YEARS
Posted by Truth Provider, December 28, 2009. |
|
"We need to tell the world that there are no 'magic solutions,'" Lieberman said. "We will not get to a permanent agreement in the coming decade, or the one after that. The Palestinians are even unable to reach a stable peace agreement among themselves." Dear friends, Even if you do not like Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, it does not mean he is always wrong. In fact, he has proven correct all along. Not one liberal wish or prediction has ever materialized or was proven correct. So why do so many continue to believe in the possibility of a permanent peace rather than learn to read the glaring facts? Why does PM Netanyahu continue to make painful concessions instead of declaring that Israel has tried everything and now it is the Palestinians' turn to do something? Your Truth Provider,
This was written by Herb Keinon and it appeared today in the
Jerusalem Post
|
|
Even as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to lure the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday that he does not see any chance for a comprehensive agreement in the next 10 to 20 years. "We think that if we make more concessions everything will work out," he said at a speech to the country's 140 ambassadors and consul-generals who are participating in a conference this week in Jerusalem. "Even if we return the last grain of sand, and divide Jerusalem, and agree to all the demands, nothing will change and we will be in the same situation." Lieberman cast doubt on the ability of the Palestinian leadership to ever reach an end of the conflict with Israel. "Israel has proved more than any other country that it is ready for painful concessions," he said. "We brought here a group of terrorists from Tunisia, we gave them guns and a government and even gave up Gush Katif." Lieberman said that the leadership of the PA was neither ready nor willing to "sign on a peace agreement whose significance is an end to the conflict. It doesn't matter what we offer, they will always find an excuse to say 'no.'" As proof of his thesis, Lieberman pointed to former prime minister Ehud Olmert who he said agreed to give the Palestinians "everything, including Jerusalem, refugees and a return to the 1967 borders — and nothing happened." The foreign minister said Netanyahu went a long distance toward the Palestinians by delivering his Bar-Ilan University speech on June 14, in which he spoke of a demilitarized Palestinian state, removed numerous roadblocks throughout the West Bank, and declared a 10-month moratorium on housing starts. "We need to tell the world that there are no 'magic solutions,'" Lieberman said. "We will not get to a permanent agreement in the coming decade, or the one after that. The Palestinians are even unable to reach a stable peace agreement among themselves." Lieberman also used the forum to make it perfectly clear that he was opposed to indirect talks with Syria, and especially opposed to mediation from Turkey, whose prime minister has lambasted Israel continuously over the last year. "I am not picking a fight with anyone," Lieberman said, "but unsuitable things were said by the prime minister of Turkey." In an apparent reference to the recent meeting in Copenhagen between President Shimon Peres and Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Lieberman said, "If anyone thinks that there will be meetings at the highest levels, and everything will be okay, they should forget about it. "As long as I am foreign minister, and as long as Israel Beiteinu is the senior member of the coalition, there will not be Turkish mediation between us and Syria, but rather only direct talks, in Jerusalem and in Damascus." Taking a swipe at Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who went to Turkey recently and hinted that Ankara could still play the role of a mediator, Lieberman said that "just because some actors on the fringes in the government offer a role for Turkish mediation, they should forget about it and concentrate on the business of their own ministries." Lieberman said there was no need for secret diplomacy with Syria. "Those who want to be a friend, let them do it publicly." He did not field questions or comments from the ambassadors, but is scheduled to meet with them again during the week. After he left, a number of ambassadors, including Ambassador to the US Michael Oren, Ambassador to the EU Ran Curiel, and Ambassador to Britain Ron Prosor briefed their colleagues on the situation in their respective countries. These briefings were closed to the press. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are scheduled to meet the envoys on Monday. Lieberman's comments about Turkey stood in stark contrast to comments his deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, made three weeks ago to a group of visiting Turkish journalists and academics. "We appreciate Turkish efforts and the previous talks [with Syria] did not fail because of Turkey, but rather because of Syrian intransigence," he said. "However, if in the future we make progress with the Syrians and we will seek assistance from a third party, Turkey will be the first nation we will turn to," he said. Netanyahu, meanwhile, has made clear that he preferred direct talks with Syria, and that if third party mediation was necessary, he would rather see France than Turkey involved. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
|
ANTI-ZIONISTS FEIGN CONCERN FOR PALESTINIAN ARABS; POST-AMERICAN
PRESIDENT OBAMA & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY; PEACE PROCESS & ISRAEL'S REPUTATION
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 28, 2009. |
|
ANTI-ZIONISTS FEIGN CONCERN FOR PALESTINIAN ARABS
They also judge one's standards by one or two articles. Many such folk call for my articles to be shut off, but cry out against any deletion of their ethnic or personal name-calling. Although blind to their double standards, they erroneously decry double standards in others, whose points they have oversimplified or misunderstood, and then imagine reflect double standards. Some of the comments suggest that Israel be atom-bombed, that Jews must be evil to be discriminated against, and that I cause gentiles to hate Jews. They distort the "chosen people" concept and then disparage it. In other words, they don't know what they are talking about. What a lot of baggage to support without citing facts. Apparently they have no understanding of antisemitism having been spread by international ideologies of earlier Christian replacement theology, Islam, Soviet Communism, and Nazism. They do not appreciate the psychological human need for a scapegoat, which, ironically, Judaism may have reflected first in historical lore but using only goats. How little these abusive commentators know about the antisemitism they espouse. I learned about antisemitism on July 4, when I was 5. Two slightly older Catholic boys started hitting me on the head with their American flags, calling me "Christ-killer." They were taking out on an innocent child a perverted notion of inherited guilt because of a judicial act that they mistakenly think that a small proportion of ancient Jews committed thousands of years ago. I had no idea what they were talking about. They think the comments box is for venting bigotry, writing ad hominem, or expressing their view on topics not relevant to the article after which the comments box is placed. A few readers comment a dozen times about the same article and repeatedly about other articles. I sense a type of hysterical insistence upon their way. I delete these. This site is not for verbal brawls. Neither is it for venting. It is for respectful dialog. Many Examiners pay no attention to readers' comments. Some hope that readers will see the sense of their articles, but I find common sense absent and lack of knowledge present. Some Examiners think that responding ends with them down in the gutter with such readers. I try to give new commentators a chance. Having discovered that many readers have too little reliable information, I lay out the facts. Many dismiss the facts because they do not support their positions, and not usually because they can challenge those facts or present others. When I find them unable to discuss the issues maturely, and stop answering them, they think they are betrayed. After I explained and deleted a comment for irrelevancy, the commentator replied, why don't you answer it "if you can." Note the implied sarcasm. When I delete one fellow's many nasty remarks, he keeps reinserting them. Too self-centered. One urges me to read some book and review it. When I don't immediately comply, he asks disrespectfully, what I am afraid of. He does not notice that I answer many comments, do debate, and had just looked up an incriminating quote from another reader as attributed to AIPAC, found it fraudulent, and earlier had posted Congressional denunciation of the fraud. Such readers assume: (1) Their misconceptions have great merit; (2) It is my duty to devote my time mostly to them and right away, to the neglect of my column; (3) They have a right to make irrelevant, personal, or religiously insulting remarks at a low level. They have the petulance of children. My column is not for their therapy, it is a serious column. Some put it like this, "How can you make excuses for racist apartheid Israel? That is not a question. It is a taunt. Is presumes that I know Israel does those thinks but I cover up. How would I know it? They don't provide evidence. The accusations come from fanatics. I find that many readers take these canards for granted or use them as a club, and only a few have some knowledge about the events. What they heard of those events is distorted or fabricated. Some commentators ask, don't I care what happens to the Palestinian Arabs. (1) I deny the accusations. )2) I report much harm to the Arabs by their rulers and ideology. (3) No anti-Zionist commentator has ever expressed sympathy for Arabs oppressed by Arabs. What are the logical deductions? The logical deduction are: Whereas I report real problems of the Palestinian Arabs, these abusive anti-Zionists do not care about the Palestinian Arabs. They use the issue as a pretext for bashing the Jewish state. Some readers reply to my points non-responsively. They ignore my refutation. Instead, they repeat points or documents I have refuted as triumphant answers to my debunking of those very points or documents. How logical is that? Again, they act puzzled when I break off attempts at dialog. With them, real dialog is futile. My series on the big lie technique stresses that lies get repeated until people mistake them for truth. These anti-Zionists judge their views by how much they get repeated. They don't realize how little they know, how much they hate, how poorly they reason), how self-centered they appear, and how immaturely they debate. POST-AMERICAN PRESIDENT OBAMA & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 
President Obama wants to finish with present foreign policy commitments and devote himself to changing the structure of the U.S. economy. Obama does not consider the world as dangerous for the U.S.. He does not worry about terrorism or ideology. This is his neo-isolationist side. We will come to see how he also is a multi-lateralist. Impressed with his own charisma, he thought he would work matters out with China on trade, currency manipulation, Taiwan, and global warming. He thought he would resolve Iranian and N. Korean nuclear weapons development and the Arab-Israel conflict. He undermined the little realistic hope of his objective by excessive deference [to the point of anti-Americanism]. He got nowhere. He does not want to impose our ways on others [except Israel]. Why? [Because, he tells them, we are ordinary. As a result, the U.S. has less influence now than it did when Pres. Bush had the policy that liberals despise. Obama thinks that eliminating our nuclear weapons would induce others to follow suit. [Dangerously naïve!] He is reducing them via budget and agreements. He unilaterally reduced missile defense efforts. He has stalled military high-tech and re-supply of our armed forces [without finding a different military way]. His arrangements with Russia leave them their full capability. He also wants UN agreements and treaties that the US previously rejected. He wants non-treaty-members possessing nuclear arms to give them up. He is drafting an arms trade treaty for conventional weapons that is seen as an end-run around the legislature. But his main interest is in global management of the economy. He would join foreign countries in a statist control of climate behavior. It is part of a leftist practice of internationalizing issues they can't manage to control domestically by our democratic, legislative process. Such issues are gun control, death penalty, abortion, and "rights of the child." [To be fair, our legislative process is becoming an unmanageable travesty.] Executive agreements would be used to avoid treaties, which need Senate ratification. The Law of the Sea Treaty is a backdoor environmental regulation. He joined the UN Human Rights council. He treats international terrorism as a matter of law and order, waiting for plots and crimes to strike us. He does not believe in American law. He is trying to move us, step-by-step into the International Criminal Court [though it is likely to be anti-US.]. Thus he would diminish both our sovereignty and our self-defense (John Bolton, Commentary, 1/2009). The article did not have the space to take up any economic ill effects of Obama policies. I recommend the full article, to see how the author supports his case. I think that Mr. Bolton should have cautioned that U.S. interventionism sometimes has been excessive and ethno-centric. He assumes that people know what I think many do not, that European-type policies largely have failed and that depending on foreign countries to resolve polices, even though many of those regimes are despotisms, is futile. The question is when Americans will realize that Obama's foreign policies already have failed, just as have his domestic policies. PEACE PROCESS & ISRAEL'S REPUTATION Oslo was touted as the way to raise Israel's reputation. It did not. (Indeed, anti-Zionists tried to blame Israel as having offered too little. They were wrong, based on what we knew even then. Now, even more sacrificial spurned offers have been made known.] Unfortunately, the Left does not learn from failure. Suppose Israel offered more. It would make no difference. [The Arabs would just demand more, as they repeatedly have done.] The process left Israel's 'reputation much worse, because the popular onus for the failure is put on Israel. Popular movements to ostracize Israel and only Israel resulted from it. People now question whether Israel should exist. They do not question the existence of failed, vicious, imperialist, or terrorist states. Israeli military operations lead to global protest. [There is no global protest over the terrorism that provoked the operations.] Protests did not occur before Israel had withdrawn, evacuated, or refused to negotiate with the PLO. [Israel raised the PLO to semi-legitimacy.] Oslo led Israel to downplay its known claims to the Territories. In the past, those claims were more widely accepted. Now most people do not know of their prior acceptance. They think that Israel owes land to Palestinian Arabs. Withdrawal is seen more as simple justice than as sacrifice. Israeli concessions have been followed by more terrorism. It therefore is more difficult to justify concessions. So the Left switched from calling it peacemaking to a matter of Arab "rights." Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert then declared withdrawal necessary for Israel for [mistaken] demographic reasons. When such Israeli leaders do not speak up for Jewish rights, more friendly European governments will not do so, either. Israel does not promote its own case to compete with the Arab narrative. [But my anti-Zionist readers imagine a powerful Zionist propaganda machine.] The increases in terrorism mean more deaths of Arabs. Photos of carnage lead to more anti-Israel outrage abroad. By contrast, the presence of the IDF means less terrorism in favor of quiet arrests rather than military reaction and more deaths. Israeli withdrawal energizes anti-Zionist radicals. Handfuls of activists manipulate whole organizations. For example, the British lecturers union has 67,000 members. Only 198 members voted on the matter of academic boycott of Israel. A mere 106 passed it. Some such initiatives occurred during withdrawals, meaning protest occurs because of Israeli weakness, not because of Israeli offensiveness. "Israel's increasingly frantic pursuit of peace has aroused not admiration, but, rather, the instincts of a predator scenting blood." Israel keeps making more concessions for less or nothing in return. Israel's stance deteriorated from no negotiation with terrorists, to no terrorist state, to no concessions on Jerusalem, to no negotiation or withdrawal under fire, to no unilateral withdrawal, all flouted. Radicals and Arabs believe that Israel can be pressed to ignore all "red lines," until a "right of return" is implemented that ends Israel [and the Jews in it]. Ehud Olmert thinks that Israeli survival requires peace, but to get a treaty, he would make concessions that ensure Israel's demise. By following Arab rejections with bigger offers, Israel gave the impression that failure of diplomacy was its fault for not offering more. [The offers encourage Arabs to raise their demands]. The increase in terrorism after concessions shows that peace is not possible. Withdrawals turn areas into safe zones for terrorists. Nevertheless, Israeli leaders continued telling their people that peace is possible. So do U.S. and EU leaders, who know better. Obama is going too far, in attributing Israel's formation to the Holocaust, and denying Jewish history. This may be invoking an adverse reaction, in which even the moderates in Israel reassert Jewish claims. That is the answer. For example, to end terrorism from Gaza, Israel may have to re-take Gaza. There would be protest of that, but such protest usually fades, as casualties go down and the partial blockade would end. Also part of the answer is for Israeli leaders to tell the truth about peace being impossible. Israel must stop seeming to panic, for that emboldens its enemies (Evelyn Gordon, Commentary, 1/2009). What I summarized, Ms. Gordon bolsters with more explanation, so I recommend the full article. She should have explained that peace is not possible while the Arabs have religious bigotry against the non-believers and an ideology of having to conquer them, especially since they once had been conquered by Islam. PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY REMISS AGAINST TERRORISTS 
A former head of Israel's secret service observed that four terrorists successfully plotted a recent murder. One turned himself in to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) police. Did the P.A. use him to discover the others? No. As a result, the IDF had to ferret out the others, itself, and take military action against them. Because the other three refused to come out of their house, and they were experienced and armed, the IDF had to raid them and kill them. Israel praised the P.A. for holding the fourth one and detaining 120 others. The praise is premature. The P.A. has not indicated it would charge the fourth with plotting murder rather than "harming P.A. interests." If the P.A. does not charge him, would Israel file for his transfer to Israel for trial? How did the P.A. view the incident? The Prime Minister of the P.A. presented condolences to the residents of the house where the plotters were killed. He called the plotters martyrs. He called the IDF raid an escalation (www.imra.org.il, 12/27), though Israel raids several times a day. One of the earliest violations of Oslo was P.A. refusal to transfer wanted terrorists to Israel. SWEDISH FIRM BOYCOTTS ISRAELIS, HARMS ARABS A Swedish company, Mul-T-Lock, had a factory over the Green Line, in the Barkan industrial zone. The Swedish Church and other Swedish organizations threatened the company with prosecution, claiming it was illegal for it to operate in an "occupied" area. As a result, the company moved the factory back from the Green Line, to Modiin in Israel. The company plans to invest more in Israel. As a result, many Arab workers lost their jobs (www.imra.org.il, 12/27).
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
|
|
PA REWARDS HAMAS AND FATAH TERRORISTS FOR LONG JAIL TERMS
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, December 28, 2009. |
|
The Palestinian Authority revealed on Sunday that it rewards both Hamas and Fatah terrorists with higher "salaries" for committing more serious terrorist attacks that are followed by convictions for long-term sentences in Israeli prison. Most of the PA's funds come from European Union countries, and the United States earlier this month, for the first time ever, included the PA in its foreign aid package with a $500 million grant. Twenty percent of the American money is earmarked for training the PA's new army, under the guidance of American army General Keith Dayton. A condition of the aid is that the PA recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous agreements with Israel, including a halt to anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist incitement. The PA Minister for Prisoners told the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency Sunday that it pays out three million shekels ($790,000) a month for monthly stipends for prisoners and their families. The minister specifically denied a complaint that Hamas terrorists were being cut off from receiving fund. The monthly payment amount to 1,000 shekels ($260) but rises to four times that amount, more than $1,000, to terrorists who have served more than 25 years in jail for more serious attacks on Israelis. In addition, terrorists who are released by Israel receive another 1,200-2,000 shekels ($316-$525) a month for half a year if they were in prison for at least five years. The total payments for their time in jail and release amount to as much $10,000. This was written by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva
|
|
DANGEROUS MYTHS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 28, 2009. |
|
For many people, especially those on the left side of the aisle, there is nothing more disturbing than a reality which reveals the fraudulence of one's ideology. The latest terrorist wannabe, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is yet another proverbial poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the dewy-eyed among us. To wit: Airport security is effective. Time-consuming, annoying, muddle-headed and oh-so politically correct? Absolutely. Effective? Abdulmutallab was one faulty fuse away from blowing a jetliner filled with three hundred passengers out of the sky. His "bomb?" A condom filled with an explosive compound sewn into his pants. Question: what airport security system is ready to start patting down peoples' genital areas? Answer: none. Al Qaeda one, airport security, zero.
Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
AIRLINE TERROR & FOREIGN POLICY
Posted by Susana K-M, December 27, 2009. |
|
This ws written by Bill Katz. |
|
AIRLINE TERROR AND FOREIGN POLICY — AT 5:51 P.M. ET: ANDY McCARTHY, WHO PROSECUTED MAJOR TERRORIST CASES IN NEW YORK, HAS A FEW COMMENTS ABOUT THE AIRLINE GUY AND HIS RELATION TO OBAMA'S "OUTREACH" TO THE WORLD. FROM NRO: I couldn't help but be struck by this ambiguous passage in the Washington Post's report this morning: "The incident marks the latest apparent attempt by terrorists to bring down a U.S. aircraft through the use of an improvised weapon, and set in motion urgent security measures that disrupted global air travel during the frenetic holiday weekend." No doubt the Post means that "the incident" has "set in motion urgent security measures," but it was just as clearly "an attempt by terrorists" — and a successful attempt, at that — to "set in motion urgent security measures." It sounds trite but it's worth repeating: The object of terrorism is to terrorize, and obviously the mission has been accomplished even if the plane was not brought down. Correct. And McCarthy notes that this incident took place despite all the well-publicized attempts by the Obamans to change American foreign policy and be kind to everyone: I wonder what the media would be saying if George Bush were still president. Yes he has, and he isn't moved. Is anyone surprised, except maybe the so-called "intellectual" elites, who thought it would be so easy? Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
JEWS OCCUPY FRONT-ROW PEW IN CHURCH OF LIBERALISM
Posted by Don Feder, December 27, 2009. |
|
Among life's most perplexing mysteries:
My friend Ira, a Hasidic Jew who lives in the Boston-area, once told me if he goes to vote and sees two candidates for an office, and he knows nothing about them other than that one has a Jewish name and the other doesn't, he automatically votes for the non-Jew. He assumes, quite logically, that the gentile is less likely to be mushugana (just plain nuts) than the Jew. President Obama — the clearest evidence yet that most Jews are delusional on matters political — just appointed Hannah Rosenthal the State Department's special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. Apparently, Pat Buchanan was unavailable. Coming soon: Obama appoints "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Rosenthal sits on the board of J Street, the Soros-funded, Jewish cell which wants negotiations with the Hitlerites of Hamas, opposes sanctions on the nuclear-armed Holocaust-deniers of Iran, and believes anti-Semitism is caused mainly by Israel's survival instinct. Obama's policy toward Israel has been exactly what you'd expect from someone who sat in church for 19 years listening to his Afro-centrist preacher spew hatred of America, Israel and Jews, while fawning on Farrakhan. If B.O. can't rouse Jewish voters from their 80-year coma, nothing can. Nothing can. An October 3 headline in The National Catholic Register read, "President Obama Finds Greatest Support Among Atheists and Jews." The story reported on a September Gallup poll that showed 66% of Jewish voters approve of Obama's performance, that's 22 percentage points higher than the president's approval rating among the general public at that point, and 27 points higher than his white Protestant support. Granted, this is considerably lower than Obama's 83% Jewish approval rating in January. But the president's ratings from all segments of the electorate have declined proportionally. Israelis (of necessity more connected to reality then their American cousins) don't share this euphoria. According to an August Jerusalem Post poll, only 4% believe Obama's policies are "pro-Israel," versus the 51% who think Barak Hussein is "pro-Palestinian." People like Norman Podhoretz (admittedly, a great man) keep writing books with titles like "Why Are Jews Liberals?' Every other talk show that I do begins with the question: "Mr. Feder, as a practicing Jew, perhaps you can explain why most American Jews are so liberal, when self-interest and common sense dictate the opposite." I can in less than 10 words: "Liberalism is the religion of secular Jews" — as well as the religion of ex-Catholics, Jack Mormons and evangelicals who've left the fold. Jews and liberalism go together like bagels and cream cheese, blintzes and sour cream — like ACORN and voter-fraud. Podhoretz tells us that since 1928, Democrats have, on average, taken 75% of the Jewish vote in presidential elections. Despite warning signs the size of billboards (surrounded by blinking electric lights), Obama captured 78% of the Jewish vote last year, compared with 53% of the electorate. Other than black voters, Jews remain the Messiah's most reliable constituency. The standard explanations for Jewish leftism are:
These rationalizations can almost be dismissed out of hand.
No, we must look elsewhere for the gnarled roots of Jewish liberalism. Above all, Jews are believers. In fact, they are the original believers. In a world of idols, fertility rites and infant sacrifice — a world where the strong took what they wanted — the Jews came with their belief in an invisible, universal God who demands righteousness and holiness (sacrifices of the heart). More than any other people, Jews must believe in something. When that something isn't Torah, it's something else — scientific determinism, socialism, welfarism, animal rights, global warming, transcendental meditation or real-estate investment trusts. Of these, liberalism is the most satisfying and most closely resembles traditional religion. Like Judaism and Christianity, liberalism offers a vision of salvation (the secular liberal state) and damnation (an eternity of being forced to watch FOX News). It has its roster of saints and sinners. The former include feminists, environmentalists, gay-marriage activists, the ACLU, NOW, Amnesty International and Ted Kennedy. Amongst the latter are gun owners, those who drive SUVs, families with more than four children, oil companies, advocates of intelligent design and Sarah Palin. Each has its rituals. For the left, it's recycling, multiculturalism, sex education, Harvey Milk Day, a woman's "right to choose," and an activist judiciary. Liberalism even has its sacred writings — "The Population Bomb," "The Earth In Balance," "The Feminine Mystique," "Dreams of My Father," and the editorial pages of The New York Times. There is a direct correlation between a lack of involvement with traditional religion and membership in the Church of Liberalism. Voting in the 2000 presidential election precisely paralleled church attendance. Those who went to church more than once a week voted for Bush over Gore by 68% to 32%. Voters who went weekly favored W. by 58% to 42%. Gore captured the occasional churchgoers (59% to 41%). Seldom went to church voted Democratic by 61% to 39%, and the I-don't-believe-in-superstitious-mumbo-jumbo backed Gore by 65% to 35%. Church attendance/religious involvement is a better indicator of voting patterns than income, education, race or employment. Jews, who are more secular than any other segment of the American people, fit this pattern perfectly. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 39% of Americans attend religious services weekly, while 56% say religion plays a "very important" role in their lives. For Jews, those figures are 16% and 31% respectively. How the Jews became so secular is another story. Depending on the country and era, European Jews were circumscribed socially, segregated, limited professionally, stigmatized, attacked, plundered and murdered en mass. Leaving their rabbis and great teachers behind in Europe for the most part, many who came here during the great wave of Jewish immigration (1880-1920) were desperately eager to assimilate and take advantage of American openness and opportunity. There are stories of Jewish men throwing their tfillin (phylacteries) overboard as their ship approached these shores. The exception to Jewish secularism is Orthodox Jews, who attend synagogue religiously and generally vote Republican. Among the Orthodox, affinity for Republicans rises from modern Orthodox to very Orthodox to Hasidic. The latter vote like life-members of the NRA. Of an American Jewish population of 5.3 million, only 10% are Orthodox. That's changing. Among Jews under 21, 20% are Orthodox. American Jews generally have a well-below replacement birth rate — 1.86 children per woman. They not only embrace liberalism, they practice it — in terms of late marriage, no marriage and a desire for small families. In consequence, they are becoming an endangered species. The Jews who do have large families are overwhelmingly Orthodox. Go to the Crown Heights or Boro Park sections of Brooklyn and you'll see Jewish mothers with 4 or 5 children in tow, and a few more at home. (The birth rate for Orthodox Jews ranges from 3.3 for the modern Orthodox to 7.9 for Hasidic Jews.) Go to New York's Upper East Side, and, instead of pushing strollers, you'll see Jewish women cuddling careers in law or investment banking, with a "life-long partner" at home. The problem of Jewish liberalism will correct itself — as the Orthodox become a greater portion of the Jewish population and secular Jews go the way of the dodo bird — which, come to think of it, weren't kosher, just like Jewish liberals.
Don Feder was an opinion writer for the Boston Herald and a syndicated columnist. He is currently a political/media consultant. An earlier version of this commentary appeared on GrassTopsUSA.com |
|
KITTY WERTHMANN'S STORY
Posted by Midenise, December 27, 2009. |
|
Kitty Werthmann tells a powerful story about what it was like growing up during the Third Reich. |
|
What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard, nor will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I will not tell you that the German chancellor took Austria by tanks and guns. I will not distort history. We Austrians elected him by a landslide — 98% of the vote. I've never read that in any American publication. Everyone thinks that the Germans rolled in with tanks and took Austria by force. Not at all. In 1938, Austria was in deep depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily.Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs. My mother was a kind Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people — about 30 daily. The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks in cities like Vienna, Linz, and Graz were destroyed.The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted. We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have employment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed. After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service. Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could return to the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage. Hitler Targets Education — Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children: Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles," (Germany, Germany, Over All) and had physical education. Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had. My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun — no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of big-brother philosophy. Equal Rights Hits Home: In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men. Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and to participate in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service. Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare: When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew that we had been had. Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls: Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into our daily medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government inspectors told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. Since the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it was in control. We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The bureaucrats would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it. "Mercy Killing" Redefined: In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said that they were going to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness. As time passed, letters started to come saying that these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. It was euthanasia. The Final Steps — Gun Laws: Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily. Freedom of speech was diminished by various regulations. Eventually, anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years after 1938 to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought it to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. In 1943, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea is unbelievable now, that the state, little by little can take away our freedom. After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, pre-teen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they burned. We called it "The Burned Earth". Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks in order to be safe. Those who couldn't, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. America truly is the greatest country in the world. We mustn't let freedom slip away! After America, maybe we can move to Canada or Australia. Contact Milton Franks-Lhermann at midenise@zahav. net.il |
|
PILOTS' COURSE: FEW KIBBUTZNIKS, SOME RELIGIOUS/TRADITIONAL ZIONISTS
Posted by Gil Ronen, December 27, 2009. |
|
The Israel Air Force published statistics about the graduates of the Winter 2009 Pilots' Course. They show that the course is still overwhelmingly dominated by secular soldiers. Two percent of the graduates are religious, and another 16% define themselves as traditional. This is in contrast to other elite units of the IDF, where knit-kippah wearing soldiers make up 25% to 40% of the soldier and officer corps. Regarding the ground forces, it is generally accepted that the religious Zionists have taken the place of the 'kibbutzniks,' or sons of the kibbutz communities — the socialist communal agricultural villages of Israel — who used to be backbone of the IDF's elite units. Five percent of the latest Pilots' Course graduates are 'kibbutzniks,' up from 2008, when there were no kibbutzniks at all among the Pilots' Course graduates. These statistics marks a meaningful downward shift: In the 1980s, about 30% of Pilots' Course graduates were kibbutzniks, and their proportion went down to about 20% in the late 1990s. Kippahs hit a glass ceiling? The proportion of kibbutzniks has dwindled in the IDF's officer corps as well. Less than 5% of recent IDF Officers' Course graduates were kibbutzniks, while over 25% wore knit kippahs. However, while the proportion of religious soldiers is growing in the ground forces, it does not seem to be doing so in the air. There are different opinions as to the reason. An article last year in the now-defunct daily newspaper HaTzofeh determined that the number of religious pilot cadets was shrinking. It speculated that there may be an intentional policy of keeping the religious out of the IDF's most prestigious unit, but did not have conclusive proof. In recent years the pilots' terms of service have been changed to include the acquisition of a bachelor's degree. 49% of the 2009 Pilots' Course graduates chose an academic track in Economics and Management; 20% chose Politics, Government and Management; 19% chose Mathematics and Computer Science and 12% chose Management of Information Systems. Pilots serve three years' of regular service and another nine years in the professional standing army (Tzva Keva). Other statistics from the course: 63% are from central Israel, 28% from the north, and 9% from the south. 54% live in cities, 30% are from small communities, and 7% are from 'moshav' agricultural settlements. Five percent were not born in Israel. 88% studied in a math/science track in high school, 16% in the humanities and 9% in art, music and theater. This was written by Gil Ronen, writer for Arutz Sheva, and it was published today in Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com) |
|
IDF OFFICER STALKS OUT OF SHOMRON POST-MURDER MEETING
Posted by Gil Ronen, December 27, 2009. |
|
.A meeting between residents of Shavei Shomron in Samaria and the Commander of the Judea and Samaria Regiment, Col. Itzik Bar, ended in discord Saturday evening when Bar walked out angrily. Bar had come to the Shavei Shomron clubhouse building to talk to the residents after the murder of their neighbor Rabbi Meir Chai, in a shooting attack Thursday night. While Israelis are justly proud of the Army Intelligence Services that succeeded in naming and tracking the murderers in record time, they want to know that all the means to prevent terrorism are in force. Thus, the residents of Shavei Shomron echoed many Israelis' worries when they voiced sharp criticism of the defense establishment and said that the removal of an IDF checkpoint near the community helped the terror cell that murdered Rabbi Chai. Col. Bar rejected the criticism and said that the removal of the checkpoint had not harmed security. After a heated discussion, he stalked out of the meeting. "The Regiment Commander spoke arrogantly, and in a condescending and cold-hearted manner, which angered the residents," a participant in the meeting said. "It was a shameful sight. The regiment commander said, with great insensitivity, even said that removing the checkpoint actually improved security. How can you say something like that to 150 people who are mourning the murder of their friend?" Residents noted that this was not the first time Col. Bar showed a condescending attitude. They pointed out his instructions to soldiers not to eat at settlers' homes — an order that was repealed after the Chief of Staff intervened. The Shavei Shomron secretariat did not issue a response after the meeting, stating that the media was not the proper place for working out disagreements with the military. Menorah Chazani of Shavei Shomron told Arutz Sheva that the residents feel that they have been abandoned by the political leadership. She said that Bar admitted that the IDF had failed to prevent the murder. Limor Sohn Har-Melech, whose husband Shalom was murdered six years ago, noted that her husband's killers are among the terrorists that are supposed to go free in the Shalit deal. "After we saw that these terrorists go back to killing, the feelings are very bad," she said. "We feel that releasing the terrorists in a deal with Hamas would set the entire country on fire." This was written by Gil Ronen, writer for Arutz Sheva. It was published today in Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com) |
|
EHUD BARACK'S DISMAL RECORD
Posted by Victor Sharpe, December 27, 2009. |
|
On Christmas Eve, Palestinian terrorists belonging to a gang linked to the Palestinian Authority's Fatah organization murdered a young rabbi, firing seven bullets into his head in a drive by shooting. The atrocity occurred in Samaria, the northern part of the so-called West Bank and was a direct result of the Israel Defense Forces removal of more roadblocks, perceived as yet one more Israeli gesture toward US President Barack Obama, who has pressured Israel to take "risks for peace." Indeed every time Israel succumbs to requests from a U.S. Administration to provide one more in the endless procession of Israel goodwill gestures to the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, more Jewish civilians perish at the hands of Arab terrorists. The terrible irony is that some of those Arabs who perpetrate such murderous acts may well have been trained by American instructors creating a Palestinian security brigade, which is designed specifically to prevent such terrorism. According to Israel National News, "Israeli soldiers recently removed the concrete cubes and metal gate that made up the roadblock north of Shechem, (Nablus) near Shavei Shomron, despite pleas by Samaria residents to the IDF not to remove it. Israeli residents of Samaria reacted to the murder by saying: "The blood of the murdered man is on the hands of the Defense Minister and the Prime Minister, who have carried out a morally corrupt policy of turning the beloved into an enemy, and the enemy into a loved one. It is time to wake up from illusions for which Jews and their families pay with their lives." The ancient Talmudic saying from the Ethics of the Fathers sums it up. "...Those who are kind to the cruel, end by being cruel to the kind." The Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, does not seem to have ever taken this ancient wisdom to heart. This foolish removal of a security road block is but one more of his dismal acts. It would be instructive, therefore, to look back at some of his many errors in judgment. On May 24, 2000, during Ehud Barak's term in office as Prime Minister, Israeli troops withdrew from the "security zone" in southern Lebanon, ending 18 year's of what had become known as the "Good Fence." Barak caved in to leftwing protests at Israeli military casualties and what the ever misguided Left termed the "purposelessness" of maintaining the 10 mile wide security strip that ran along Israel's northern border with Lebanon. On hindsight we now see how vital that zone was to Israel's security. But Ehud Barak had campaigned during his election for Prime Minister on a promise to bring the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) home from southern Lebanon. As Prime Minister he acted on his problematic promise and almost overnight the hasty withdrawal took place. Many Israelis believe that Israel's Christian Lebanese ally, the Southern Lebanon Army (SLA) was shamefully abandoned after giving almost 18 years of support to Israel's efforts at protecting northern Israel as well as the Christian villages in southern Lebanon threatened by Islamic hostility. Before the zone was created, the massacres of Israeli children by Yasser Arafat's PLO infiltrators from southern Lebanon traumatized Israel. These atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian Arabs based in Lebanon occurred in the northern villages and towns including Avivim, Kiryat Sh'mona, Metullah and Nahariya. The security strip was created in order to protect Israeli civilians in the north of the country from such barbarous acts. The foolish abandonment of the "Good Fence" became one more relic of Barak's dismal record and led inevitably to the growing strength of Hezbollah, which quickly filled the vacuum left by the destruction of the SLA and the withdrawal of the IDF. Barak had gambled that the withdrawal would boost Lebanese friendship towards Israel and that a mutually recognized border would encourage the creation of a strong Lebanese government and a cessation of Arab terrorism against the Jewish state. He could not have been more wrong. Ehud Barak dealt a severe blow to Israel's future security and embittered the lives of loyal Christian SLA soldiers who had fought alongside the IDF, many giving their lives, in protecting Israel's northern border. The hasty rush to vacate southern Lebanon and the commensurate distress caused to past allies is not something Ehud Barak should ever feel proud of. It was clear to most Israelis that the Lebanese army would not fill the vacuum and instead give the Islamist terrorists a golden opportunity to quickly occupy southern Lebanon and use the Muslim Arab settlements there as future bases for aggression against Israel. Those fears have come true. Barak left the door open for Hezbollah, and now the Jewish state has an Iranian Islamist proxy armed with nearly 100,000 deadly missiles aimed at Israel's civilian population centers. Not a very good legacy, Mr. Barak! Now, acting as Defense Minister, he is creating yet again a situation, which is aiding and abetting Israel's sworn enemies. His decision to send elements of the IDF to enforce a shameful, inhumane and humiliating freeze — at the behest of Barack Hussein Obama — on construction within Israel's Jewish villages in Judea and Samaria is divisive and patently hostile to the Jewish communities there. In the meantime, Mr. Barak is turning a blind eye to the feverish and illegal Arab building that is taking place everywhere throughout the territories and in East Jerusalem.[emphasis added] And all has happened as a result of this freeze; this umpteenth Israeli concession in pursuit of a delusional peace with the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. Predictably, Palestinian Arab Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, has reportedly upped the ante even more. He has essentially reneged on the so-called U.S created "Roadmap" by demanding Israel not only cease any building within the territories and East Jerusalem but accept that the Jewish state must withdraw to pre-1967 armistice lines before the Palestinians will talk peace. These are the same borders that in places are only nine miles wide and which the late Israeli statesman, Abba Eban, once described as the "Auschwitz borders." It is also said that when President George Bush was Governor of Texas, he flew with Ariel Sharon over the area, saw the narrow Israel border, and reportedly said: 'Why in Texas we have driveways longer than that." We should remember that it was Ehud Barak who offered to arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, practically all of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) along with East Jerusalem. This breathtaking concession was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leader for the simple reason that Arafat, just like his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, reject a state side by side with Israel: the Arabs want a state without an Israel. Barak is alienating those young patriotic Israeli soldiers who are drawn from the religious seminaries and who are appalled at the orders to tear down Jewish homes and even synagogues if Barak deems they offend the Obama freeze. These questions must be asked. In view of the apparent abandonment of the Roadmap by Abbas, will Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, respond by now abolishing the imposed freeze? Will he order Defense Minister Barak to end the distress caused to the Jewish villagers in Judea and Samaria? Or will he be forced, by the crushing pressure from the U.S., the EU, and the U.N., to keep the immoral freeze in place and, for the sake of his coalition, continue to placate Ehud Barak? How many times must Israeli politicians be reminded that the Muslim Arabs will never accept a Jewish state — however tiny it might become — in land once conquered in the name of Allah? Politicians like Ehud Barak are forever willing to inflict misery upon Jewish villagers and townsfolk rather than refuse the arrogant dictates of foreign leaders who endlessly indulge the oil rich Arab world by outdoing each other in their anti-Israel policies. As a direct result of the removal of a security barrier on orders, presumably from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, yet another Israeli civilian has been gunned down by Palestinian thugs. Such idiotic attempts to placate Barack Hussein Obama, other western leaders, and the Palestinian Authority inevitably result in the slaughter of more Jewish souls. This has been another decision Ehud Barak should never feel proud of. It is also another sad act in a dismal record. Victor Sharpe is a freelance wrier and author of Volumes One and Two of Politicide: The Attempted Murder of the Jewish State. Contact him by email at janvic@verizon.net |
|
AFTER THE RAIN
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, December 27, 2009. |
|
Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il Go to http://freifenberg-newblog.blogspot.com/ to see more of his graphic art. |
|
STOP FINANCIAL AID AND MILITARY TRAINING TO FATAH!
Posted by Dave Alpern, December 27, 2009. |
|
Dear Mr. Wolf, I was told that I should contact you for assistance from Senator Brownback regarding this top urgent matter. First, I am a US citizen residing in Israel and registered to vote in Kansas via absentee ballot (voting address below). I write you now regarding the unspeakably monstrous murder of innocent Israeli citizen Rabbi Avshalom Chai in yet another Arab terror attack. The Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, the "military wing" of the "moderate" Fatah organization led by "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") has taken credit for this horrendous crime against humanity and barbaric act of war. For too long now, the US has provided financial aid and military training to Fatah, which does little or nothing toward the stated goal of these actions: combatting and defeating Arab terror against Israel. This is obviously impossible when these same Fatah brigades continue their refusal to recognize Israel's existence and commit these blood-curdling acts. The Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades are classified by American law as an illegal terrorist organization: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm. Therefore, American funding and military training of these brigades are a direct and blatant violation of US law. This patently illegal, immoral, obscene and INSANE situation must be terminated immediately. It can be resumed only upon Fatah's clear and unequivocal renunciation of terror and other "acts of armed resistance" against Israel's citizens, not one moment before. Consequently, I urgently and respectfully ask you to speak with Sen. Brownback and request to do everything possible in both the Senate and House to bring about a swift and complete cessation of the above funding and training following this inexcusable assault on human life and rights. I hope that many other concerned US citizens will also contact their Congressmen and Senators accordingly. Thank you in advance for your attention, cooperation and timely reply. With best wishes for 2010, David Alpern
Registered voting address:
Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
|
NOT A SPOOF — MEET ADI KUNTSMAN!
Posted by Steven Plaut, December 27, 2009. |
|
If this were my attempt at a spoof, I would agree with you that it is in really poor taste. After all, it is insensitive to invent an Israeli sociologist devoting his or her life to "Queer Studies," claiming he is organizing a special academic journal volume on "Queering the Middle East," promoting transvestism and cross-dressing, and then making up for him or her an insulting mock name to top it off. Only one problem. Even I could not invent such a critter. He or she really exists. In fact, he/she is one of the leaders and founders of the communist-front pro-terror group "Machsom Watch." I keep saying he-or-she because, frankly, I do not know which he-or-she is. I must explain that several web pages describe her as a female, although she sure looks like a male to me. And — please forgive me — this critter's real name is (gulp!!) Adi Kuntsman! No, I did not make that one up, so do not scream at ME for vulgarity! It is what the he-or-she-or-it is now calling itself. His/her web page is here: See also Here is a testimonial about young Adi from his/her anti-Israel
wife/partner: Here is the announcement for the conference: Queering Middle Eastern Cyberscapes Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
|
|
THE TRAGIC RESULT OF FREED TERRORISTS
Posted by Justice for Jonathan Pollard, December 27, 2009. |
|
This was written by Rabbi Lazer Brody and appeared today on his
website
|
|
Raed Sarkaji, one of Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades members responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Rabbi Meir Chai HY"D, was killed by IDF troops during a daring anti-terrorist operation in Shechem yesterday. The terrorist leader had been interned in an Israeli prison until January 2009. Sarkaji took almost no time in returning to terrorism, the very activity for which he was arrested in the first place. Anan Sabeh, Sarkaji's accomplice whose rifle was found to be compatible with the bullet shells found at the scene of Rabbi Chai's murder, had also been released from an Israeli prison as part of the amnesty deal with the Palestinian Authority in 2007, in which Israel agreed not to hunt down Palestinian gunmen who agreed to lay down their arms. Until Rabbi Chai was murdered, I had expressed my support for the release of terrorists in a deal to gain the freedom of Gilead Shalit. Reality has painfully shown that releasing such terrorists is worse than folly — it costs us more blood. My desire to see Gilead Shalit come home soon simply overcome my better judgment. Stark reality proved me wrong. As much as we want Gilead home, we can't look into the eyes of any more orphans while advocating the release of terrorists. Just today, I heard something unbelievably courageous: The highest echelons in Israel wanted to engineer a swap with the USA and the PA — Marwan Barghouti's freedom for Jonathan Pollard. Jonathan heard about it, and despite 25 years of indescribable anguish in prison, he refused to be a part in any deal that sets him free if a single terrorist will be freed as well. May Hashem free all our prisoners in His own miraculous way! As for us, we have to beef up our prayers for Yehonatan ben Malka and Gilead ben Aviva. Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com |
|
DRIVING WHILE JEWISH FATAL IN JUDEA-SAMARIA; TO STOP IRAN
DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS; CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED IN P.A.
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 27, 2009. |
|
DRIVING WHILE JEWISH FATAL IN JUDEA-SAMARIA; TO STOP IRAN 
An Israeli man was shot to death while driving "on a road between En av and Shave Shimmering. IDF soldiers are currently searching the area of the incident in order to find those responsible for the shooting. Road blocks have been erected in the area and comprehensive security checks have been implemented at all of the relevant crossings. The Israel Defense Forces will do everything in its power to bring those responsible to justice" (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). "Everything in its power?" How about restoring the checkpoints and roadblocks before more murders? They were removed to please President Obama and former Sec. of State Rice. Those two will not be sued for this, but their policies are partly responsible for some such incidents. ONLY WAY TO STOP IRAN FROM DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS There's Only One Way to Stop Iran," writes Alan J. Kuperman, in the New York Times. Mr. Kuperman directs the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention program of the University of Texas in Austin. 
Pres. Obama had offered Iran a deal via the UN. Iran rejected it. The deal was, Iraq to turn over to Russia 2,000 pounds, or three-fourths of its known supply, of lightly enriched uranium. In a year, Russia would return the material as processed fuel enabling Iran to run its Tehran research reactor for 30 years. The proposal ignored prior UN demands that Iran cease its enrichment program. Thus this deal would be like a reward for Iran's violation. What is more, in a year, Iran probably would be capable of having replenished its stock of enriched uranium, thereby making the deal ineffective against proliferation. Iran could divert some of the enriched fuel to further enrichment for bomb-making. That is a simple technical feat, contrary to Obama administration assurances that further enrichment would not be possible. Indeed, it is more feasible to further enrich fuel of foreign origin, because Iran's fuel has impurities that impede processing. Thus foreign countries would do some of Iran's processing into weapons grade. The research reactor to be kept running by the deal is used to train Iranian scientists in weapons-manufacturing techniques, such as plutonium separation. Iran rationalizes that the reactor produces medical isotopes, but isotopes are available on the market. Mention of isotopes is just an excuse. Suppose there were no deal. In two years, Iran's reactor would run out of fuel that only half a dozen countries could supply. That would give foreign governments some leverage against Iranian weapons development. [I think some of them don't care.] The deal would have helped Iran develop nuclear weapons and would have hindered U.S. attempts to prevent that. Ironically, Iran rejected the deal and the U.S. laments the rejection. Why? Domestic politics in both countries. Pres. Obama wanted the deal so he could deflect GOP criticism now that his "engagement" with Iran was fruitless, although in a year they would find radioactive fruit. Iran first accepted the deal, but then, as objections to the vote count grew, the regime was reluctant to appear subservient to foreign demands, as political opponents accused him of being. Iran probably would continue violating UN requirements in small steps, none of which seem dramatic enough to incur military intervention, until it has weapons. Here is an example of Iranian tactics aimed at stalling the UN while proceeding in its program. Iran permits international inspectors at its declared plant, but ignores orders to close the plant, where it learns how to produce weapons-grade material at secret facilities, like the one discovered near Qom. Upon reneging, Iran threatened to enrich its own fuel, though that may be somewhat of a bluff. The threat was meant to cajole foreign countries to provide the fuel without Iran having to surrender the enriched uranium it already had. So now Iran offers to exchange just a quarter of its enriched uranium for the immediate 10-year supply. The new offer would enable Iran to run its reactor, keep most of its enriched uranium, and process it more. Win, win for Iran! By reneging, Iran demonstrated that its politics prevent if from making even temporary concessions to foreign inducement. Where does that leave us? Acquiescence to Iran's plans is not acceptable. Iran already violates international embargoes of terrorist groups, to supply them with arms. Pres. Ahmadinejad's political opponents support those violations. It might do the same with nuclear weapons. It might bully its neighbors. Invasion would be foolhardy. That leaves the option of aerial bombardment. How feasible is it? Some sites may not be known as targets. Some known targets may be too deep for bombs to penetrate to. Bombing might accelerate Iranian development and unify all factions in Iran. Iran might retaliate against U.S. regional forces and allies. Iran could rebuild them, but the U.S. could bomb them again. Mr. Kuperman cites other successful raids on nuclear facilities [but they weren't so hidden, deep, or hardened]. He cites the air raids on Yugoslavia. They united the country against the U.S., but the people overthrew the regime the next year. Iran already aids enemies of the U.S.. As for retaliating against U.S. forces, Iran might not dare risk stronger U.S. retaliation, if the original raids are restricted to nuclear facilities. Who should conduct the raids? Kuperman nominates the U.S.. The U.S. has better weapons against underground facilities, has enough planes to threaten to expand the bombing if Iran retaliates, and has a global reach so that raiding Iran might inhibit other foreign proliferation. The U.S. tried diplomacy, but it did not work (Op.-Ed.,12/24). Candidate Obama said he would make friends with our enemies. It was a fatuous boast. In any event, Iran doesn't let him even talk with it. A reader had commented that Iran did not reject the deal, and that the US refused to negotiate. The article is a lesson against accepting Iran's excuses and rationalizations. As with other rogue regimes, the U.S. spends years trying to negotiate, but they toy with us. Finally realizing it was played for a fool, the U.S. stops negotiating. In such cases, it is not the U.S. that acted in bad faith, but the rogue regimes. PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS IN PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY 
Yusuf Khoury is a Christian who had to flee from religious persecution in Gaza. Hamas men tried to capture him twice. His sister is under pressure to wear a head scarf. As Muslim religiosity intensifies in Gaza, Christians feel more under siege. Within a year of Gaza's take-over by Hamas, the owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore was abducted and murdered. Christian stores and schools were firebombed. Like most of his friends, Mr. Khoury had enough. He went to the Judea-Samaria part of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). He studies theology in the Bethlehem Bible college. The Western media usually ignore the plight of Christians in the P.A.. They just denounce Israel's security barrier. However, until Arab terrorists "turned Bethlehem into a safe haven for suicide bombers, Bethlehemites were free to enter Israel, just as many Israelis routinely visited Bethlehem" [as I once did]. Israel's security barrier helped restore security in Israel and in the P.A.. Pilgrims and tourists have returned to Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, that P.A. terrorists had defiled in 2002. [How did the barrier foster security in the P.A.?] In Bethlehem, too, life is difficult for Christians. Khoury says that Muslims stand in front of his college to intimidate the students by the way they read the Quran. Other Muslims place their prayer rugs in Manger Square. The college dean would not explain why. He said that Muslims and Christians live in "relative harmony," but admitted that Christians "feel the pressure of Islam..." The head of a Christian TV station denied any "Christian suffering," but then described land theft, beating, and intimidation by Muslims, and his own house's firebombing. Muslim gangs seize Christian-owned land, as P.A. security forces stand by. "always a minority religion upon the predominantly Muslim Palestinians, Christians are...fleeing (Daniel Schwammenthal, Wall St. J., Opinion, 12/24). When Muslim armies conquered the region, Christians were the majority. One hears claims that Israel is compelling Christians to flee. No facts are adduced to explain why would it be just Christians. Truth is, Muslims are compelling a Christian exodus, as they have from other states, in our time, particularly in Lebanon. Some of the pressure is official. When the pressure is individual, P.A. authorities condone it.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
|
|
THE MIRACULOUS STORY OF THE JEWS OF ZAKYNTHOS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 27, 2009. |
|
This is a very nice story. It was written by Leora Goldberg
and it appeared December 13, 2009 in the Jerusalem Post
|
|
I needed a break at the end of a long and exhausting semester. My family was off to the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula, to an unknown island in Greece. I decided to join them. We flew from Tel Aviv to Athens. From Athens, towards the famous sunrise of the eastern isles, we landed on the island of Zakynthos — "Fiore di Levante" (Flower of the East) — which is also known by its Italian name — Zante. During the ride, I read the travel guide, and learned a little about the history, the agriculture, the weather and finally about the poetic origins of the national anthem. I did not read one word about what I was really about to discover on the island. The drive from the airport to our villa lasted a few minutes. From the coastal plateau, we drove up through twisted village bends to our destination. An old lady, a typical Greek villager dressed all in black, welcomed us with a warm smile into her home. She asked to show us around her beloved mansion. It was obvious that this place was the source of her pride. The landlady gave us a short tour of the old-style bedrooms, bathrooms and salon. In the kitchen, we noticed the beautiful authentic Greek dishes that were hanging over her antique-looking stove. All these were for our use. We explained to her that for religious reasons, unfortunately, we would not be able to enjoy using her kitchenware and that we had brought our own. This is when it all began. She seemed confused. She looked at my dad and suddenly her eyes lit up. She noticed his kippa (yarmulke). We were asked to follow her out to the garden. From the high point where we were standing, we saw a fantastic view of the ocean and the ships. But she pointed the other way completely. "Look over there!" she said. She wanted to know what we saw. "Trees, vegetation," we said. "Look again and focus!" she demanded. "Something unidentified that looks like teeth, white dots," my dad said. She stared at us for a long moment and said: "That is the Jewish cemetery." I was shocked. We were all astounded. Here were were on an isolated island in Greece. Who ever heard of Jews here? I tried reminiscing about stories and experiences I had heard from friends who had visited here. Nothing came to mind. From this moment on until I left Greece, the relaxing summer holiday drinking ouzo on the beach became a fascinating journey. By the end of it, I uncovered an unforgettable story. The next morning, I got on my rented moped and drove to the cemetery. The shudder that went through me started when I first saw the Star of David on the little black gate. The trembling grew as I walked in. It was a huge cemetery containing hundreds of graves from the 16th century up until 1955. The grounds were well-kept and little stones were set on many graves, as if they had had visitors recently. 1955. I thought for a moment. Whoever knows the history of Greece and its islands even faintly knows that there was no place struck harder by the Nazis. Rhodes, Corfu, Salonika, Athens. The loss of Jewish life in Greece was devastating. From 1944, there were almost no Jews left even in the bigger communities. I did not, however, understand the meaning of the "1955" grave, and decided to investigate. In a small house that stood in the heart of the property, I found the cemetery keeper, a third generation of custodians of the Jewish graveyard in Zakynthos. My inability to speak the language prevented me from having a deep conversation with him. I sought to continue my search for the Jewish history of this town, and within five minutes I was at City Hall. When I told the clerk at the front desk what I was after, he asked if I had already been to the synagogue. The question was posed casually, as though it's asked on a daily basis. "Excuse me?" I thought I hadn't heard right. "A synagogue on this island?" He gave me directions. The synagogue was located on a busy road in the center of the island. Off the main street, in a space between two buildings, was a black iron gate, just like the one I had seen not long ago at the cemetery. Above it was a stone arc with an open book. It read, in a loose translation from the original Hebrew, "At this holy place stood the Shalom Synagogue. Here, at the time of the earthquake in 1953, old Torah scrolls, bought before the community was established, were burned." Through the locked gate I saw two statues. Judging by their long beards, they looked to me like rabbis. The writing on the wall proved me wrong: "This plaque commemorates the gratitude of the Jews of Zakynthos to Mayor Karrer and Bishop Chrysostomos." What was the acknowledgment about? Who were these people? Why the statues? What happened here? I had lots of questions. I had to find a lead, if not an answer. I returned to City Hall, excited and trembling. I approached the clerk, who already recognized me, and started questioning him about what had happened here. He referred me to the mayor's deputy on the third floor. I found his room, knocked at his door and asked him if he would spare me a few minutes. He willingly accepted.
HALF an hour later I came out with this: On September 9 1943, the governor of the German occupation named Berenz had asked the mayor, Loukas Karrer, for a list of all Jews on the island. Rejecting the demand after consulting with Bishop Chrysostomos, they decided to go together to the governor's office the next day. When Berenz insisted once again for the list, the bishop explained that these Jews weren't Christians but had lived here in peace and quiet for hundreds of years. They had never bothered anyone, he said. They were Greeks just like all other Greeks, and it would offend all the residents of Zakynthos if they were to leave. But the governor persisted that they give him the names. The bishop then handed him a piece of paper containing only two names: Bishop Chrysostomos and Mayor Karrer. In addition, the bishop wrote a letter to Hitler himself, declaring that the Jews in Zakynthos were under his authority. The speechless governor took both documents and sent them to the Nazi military commander in Berlin. In the meantime, not knowing what would happen, the local Jews were sent by the leaders of the island to hide inside Christian homes in the hills. However, a Nazi order to round up the Jews was soon revoked — thanks to the devoted leaders who risked their lives to save them. In October 1944, the Germans withdrew from the island, leaving behind 275 Jews. The entire Jewish population had survived, while in many other regions Jewish communities were eliminated. THIS unique history is described in the book of Dionyssios Stravolemos, An Act of Heroism — A Justification, and also in the short film of Tony Lykouressis, The Song of Life. According to tour guide Haim Ischakis, in 1947, a large number of Zakynthinote Jews made aliya while others moved to Athens. In 1948, in recognition of the heroism of the Zakynthians during the Holocaust, the Jewish community donated stained glass for the windows of the Church of Saint Dionyssios. In August 1953, the island was struck by a severe earthquake and the entire Jewish quarter, including its two synagogues, was destroyed. Not long afterwards, the remaining 38 Jews moved to Athens. In 1978, Yad Vashem honored Bishop Chrysostomos and Mayor Loukas Karrer with the title of "Righteous among the Nations." In March 1982, the last remaining Jew in Zakynthos, Ermandos Mordos, died on the island and was buried in Athens. Thus the circle of Jewish presence came to its close after five centuries. In 1992, on the site where the Sephardic synagogue stood before the earthquake, the Board of Jewish Communities in Greece erected two marble memorial monuments as a tribute to the bishop and mayor.
A FEW days before I had planned to leave the island and return home, I went into a bank to convert some dollars into euros. But even in a simple place like a bank, I managed to add another piece to this Jewish puzzle. A clerk who had been on the phone and eating a sandwich, called on me when my turn came. When I gave her my dollars to be changed, she handed me the converted money in an envelope without asking for any identification. Later on, when I opened it, I was surprised to see so much money. The money that had been put into the envelope had not been counted properly, and instead of changing $1,000, she had given me the equivalent of $10,000! This was really no surprise to me, because the clerk hadn't paid me any attention. Ultimately, however, once the bank realized that the money was missing, it would have no way of reaching me since no contact information was requested. The following morning, I called the bank and asked to speak to the manager. I inquired to know if there was a problem with the previous night's accounts. "You must be the woman with the dollars," he said, immediately inviting me to his office. An hour later, I was at the bank. When I walked into the office, the man sitting across from the manager moved to another chair and gave me his seat. I shared my bank experience with him, saying how easy it would have been for me to disappear with the money. The manager himself was profusely apologetic about the unprofessional way I was treated and thanked me repeatedly for returning the money. To express his gratitude, he invited me and my family to dinner at an exclusive restaurant. I explained that eating out was too complicated for us due to the fact that we were observant Jews. He asked for my address so he could send us a crate of wine. "That is a problem too," I said. I told him I had come from Israel a week ago for a holiday, but had gotten sidetracked. "A few days after I landed, I was surprised to discover the Jewish community that was here up to 25 years ago," I said. "You don't owe me anything. Indeed, you have given me and my people a lot. The least I can do as a Jew to show my appreciation for what you have done for the Jews of Zakynthos is to return this money that doesn't belong to me and say, 'Thank you!'" There was silence for what appeared to be a long minute. The man who had given me his seat when I walked in and hadn't said a word during the conversation, stood up with tears in his eyes, turned to me and said: "As the grandson of Mayor Karrer, I am extremely overwhelmed and want to thank you!" Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
FOR ISRAEL, GOOD PROSPECTS IN 2010
Posted by Barry Rubin, December 27, 2009. |
|
In contrast to my rather gloomy assessment of the Obama Administration's prospects in the Middle East, Israel's prospects look rather good. This is granted, of course, that the chances for any formal peace (note the word "formal") with the Arab states or the Palestinians are close to zero. In addition there are two longer-term threats in the form of Iranian nuclear weapons and Islamists one day taking over one or more Arab states. But let's enjoy ourselves while we can. It's also important to remember in the Middle East, optimism does not mean forecasting blue skies but merely ones only lightly overcast. It's funny, though, how much better Israel's situation is then it's generally perceived. Consider the pluses:
That's not at all a bad list. There are many who think that Israel cannot flourish, perhaps cannot even survive, without having formal peace with the Palestinians or perhaps also Syria and the Arabic-speaking world in general. This is simply untrue. The lack of a signed peace treaty with everyone (not to mention that such documents exist with Egypt and Jordan) is not the same as war. From the usual standards of no war, no peace this is a pretty good one. Of course, there are negatives yet they really don't amount to anywhere near as much as it seems on a superficial glance. The virtual defection of Turkey's regime from the Western alliance (yes, it really is that bad) and the end of the special relationship between Jerusalem and Ankara is a bad thing. But the Turkish semi-Islamist rulers are restrained by their desire to play a role in regional peacemaking and not to make the Americans or Europeans too angry. Most distressing of all is the noise. The virulent hatred of Israel by large sections of the American and especially European intelligentsia goes along with the endless outpouring of academic, media, and EU sniping can be dispiriting. Yet even here there is some silver lining. The more extreme and outright crackpot the attacks, the less credible they are. Public opinion polls, especially in the United States where they are through the roof, are not so bad. In addition, the lies and screaming have little material effect on the region itself. Something to worry about but don't lose sleep. What's most important of all is this: A willingness to assess your problems accurately, guided by reasonable expectations. Not being crippled with ideology, blinded by misconceptions, swayed by bad international advice and the desire to be popular. And with determination and courage to implement policies that do the best with the hand you've been dealt. If only others were doing the same thing, the world-and especially the Middle East-would be a better and more peaceful place. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center and co-author of "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and
"Hating America: A History" (Oxford University Press).
His latest book is The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).
Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at
http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html.
Contact him at profbarryrubin@yahoo.com
This article is archived at
|
|
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE: A SUBJECT FOR AN OBJECTIVE ACADEMIC STUDY
Posted by Maurice Ostroff, December 26, 2009. |
|
China's Grisly Practices With the launching last month of David Matas and David Kilgour's book "Bloody Harvest" every fair minded person must wonder why there has been no public outrage at its gruesome revelation of wide-scale harvesting of organs from live prisoners of conscience in China. The authors estimate that 41,500 organ transplants using Falun Gong prisoners have been done in the past five years. Their vital organs were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.
This is not merely a journalist's report that can be taken lightly. Matas is a lawyer who received the Order of Canada for his human rights work, and Kilgour, a is former crown prosecutor and former Member of Parliament. The allegations are not new. According to the British Medical
Journal of Nov 24, 2001 prisoners in China can be executed for crimes
such as black market activities, in addition to murder. Ambulances
wait at the site of the executions and the fresh organs from healthy
young persons are harvested, to be transplanted into recipients from
abroad.
10,000 African Albinos in hiding And why, one must ask, is there no outrage at reports by the International Federation for the Red Cross and Crescent societies, that 10,000 Albinos have gone into hiding in East Africa because of the common belief that body parts of albinos have magical powers? http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/732206-- east-african-albinos-flee-murder-dismemberment India's Black Market in Organs And are we too indifferent to express outrage at India's black market organ scandal as reported in Time magazine of Feb 1, 2008, revealing an organ transplant ring that has been harvesting kidneys from poor Indian laborers, sometimes against their wishes? Doctors pay $1000 for the kidneys and sell them for $37,500. Another massive transplant ring in Punjab was uncovered in 2003. Police there believe at least 30 of the donors, died, despite promises that they would receive excellent post-operation medical care. Some donors were forcibly brought to clinics at gunpoint and forced to undergo operations that they didn't want. On Feb 09, 2008 Live.com reported that Amit Kumar, the well known Indian trafficker in human organs who was arrested, claimed that the 3,000 kidney transplants he was involved in were a social service. Even Britain In 2000, pathologist Dick Van Velzen at the Alder Hey Children's
Hospital in Liverpool confessed to removing hundreds of thousands of
organs from children's bodies and storing them in hospitals all over
the country. In addition to over 2,000 hearts, there were a large
number of brain parts, eyes taken from over 15,000 stillborn foetuses
and perhaps most disturbingly of all, a number of children's heads and
bodies.
Gaza's Grisly Trophies And there was not even a hint of outrage when Mideast Dispatch Archive reported on May 11, 2004 that body parts of six murdered Israelis were paraded around in Gaza as trophies by Palestinian mobs, including members of the PA security forces. Some even played football with body parts in the street. One disembodied head was placed on a table so television cameras could film it close up.
But there is no lack of outrage when Israel is in the dock How does one explain the glaring difference between the mild media reactions to the above well documented reports and the immediate frenzied response to the unsubstantiated inference that the IDF harvested body parts of Palestinians, in the article by Donald Bostrom in the Swedish Aftonbladet? And how does one explain the instant fame acquired by the author whose name suddenly achieved over 400,000 Google results. Bostrom's own words confirm that his accusations are based on
flimsy inferences rather than evidence. In an interview with the
Jerusalem Post on August 20, he said critics "think I'm
accusing the IDF of stealing organs. That's not what I'm doing. I just
recorded the Palestinian families saying that." He went on to say "I
don't think there is a connection between the New York thing and what
happened in the West Bank in the 90s." Astonishingly, Mr. Bostrom
nevertheless used the NY story in his leading paragraph together with
a prominent photograph of one of the accused, a bearded Mr. Rosenbaum.
More egregiously, Mr. Bostrom omitted to tell his readers that there
were only five Jews among the 44 people arrested in the NY corruption
and organ brokering scandal, including two New Jersey mayors, an
assemblyman, and a city deputy mayor.
Evidently, when Israel is in the dock, an accusation doesn't need to meet even the minimum requirements of journalistic integrity to be widely accepted. The tenuous nature of Bostrom's accusations are all too obvious when one considers that he refers to hearsay incidents in 1992, to infer that the IDF harvested organs in the Cast Lead operation in 2008-9 Exaggeration In enjoying his new fame, Mr. Bostrom is evidently not averse to exaggeration. On receiving an award for excellence from the National Federation of Algerian Journalists he casually increased the number of Palestinians victims whose body parts had been harvested, to more than 1,000.
Prof. Hiss Most of the articles that followed Bostrom's, see a conspiratorial link between the IDF in 2009 and the unrelated 1990 incident in which Professor Hiss, who was then head of Israel's forensic institute admitted that he had harvested organs from cadavers without permission of their families. This incident closely resembles the Dick Van Velzen case in Britain cited above. Israel's Health Ministry responded that the guidelines at that time were not clear, but that they have been severely tightened and strictly enforced since then. Although Professor Hiss still works as chief pathologist, he was dismissed as head of the forensic institute. Israel's attorney-general Rubenstein at the time decided not to indict him since "there is no suspicion of corruption or profiteering on the part of Prof. Hiss, and the only interest he had was the advancement of medical research." There was a great deal of dissatisfaction with Rubenstein's decision. Former Health Minister Dahan said he was sure that there was room for a criminal investigation but that there was at least one encouraging result, namely, that the questionable practices in the Forensic Institute would not continue. Disgusting as this episode was, it is dishonest journalism to draw a false link from it to the IDF's behavior in Operation Cast Lead. Journalistic standards Even one of Israel's severest critics, Matthew Cassel, assistant editor of The Electronic Intifada, cannot close his eyes to the obvious defects in the Bostrom article. Cassel regards Bostrom's baseless organ theft accusations as a propaganda gift for Israel. He wrote "I support uncovering human rights violations and war crimes wherever they occur, especially in Palestine, where I have worked for many years. I do believe Bostrom's intentions were to do much the same but that his process was highly irresponsible. The problem is not that he is accusing the State of Israel of wrongdoing, but that he is making accusations of what would amount to extremely serious war crimes while providing absolutely no evidence to support his claims.. Conclusion Like all types of incitement to hate, this example of reckless
journalism, is harmful to peace efforts. Like real viruses and
computer viruses they spread and mutate and acquire long lasting lives
of their own. Predictably, Boström's story has spawned cartoons of
Jews stealing body parts and drinking Arab blood. Algeria's
al-Khabar newspaper has fantasized Jewish-directed gangs of
Algerians and Moroccans capturing children for harvesting of their
body parts.
Even Al Jazeera Magazine has been infected with the hysteria. In a December 3, article it refers to an international Israeli conspiracy to kidnap children and harvest their organs and repeats a Pravda story that Israel has brought some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the occupied entity over the past two years in order to harvest their organs. Contact Maurice Ostroff by email at maurice@trendline.co.il |
|
WHAT IS JUDAISM?
Posted by Boris Celser, December 26, 2009. |
|
This comes from http://www.jewfaq.org. The original article has live links to additional material. The site is well-worth visiting. |
|
What is Judaism? What does it mean to be a Jew? Most people, both Jewish and gentile, would instinctively say that Judaism is a religion. And yet, there are militant atheists who insist that they are Jews! Is Judaism a race? If you were to say so, most Jews would think you were an antisemite! So what is Judaism? Is Judaism a Religion? Clearly, there is a religion called Judaism, a set of ideas about the world and the way we should live our lives that is called "Judaism." It is studied in Religious Studies courses and taught to Jewish children in Hebrew schools. See What do Jews Believe? for details. There is a lot of flexibility about certain aspects of those beliefs, and a lot of disagreement about specifics, but that flexibility is built into the organized system of belief that is Judaism. However, many people who call themselves Jews do not believe in that religion at all! More than half of all Jews in Israel today call themselves "secular," and don't believe in G-d or any of the religious beliefs of Judaism. Half of all Jews in the United States don't belong to any synagogue. They may practice some of the rituals of Judaism and celebrate some of the holidays, but they don't think of these actions as religious activities. The most traditional Jews and the most liberal Jews and everyone in between would agree that these secular people are still Jews, regardless of their disbelief. See Who is a Jew? Clearly, then, there is more to being Jewish than just a religion. Are Jews a Race? In the 1980s, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race, at least for purposes of certain anti-discrimination laws. Their reasoning: at the time these laws were passed, people routinely spoke of the "Jewish race" or the "Italian race" as well as the "Negro race," so that is what the legislators intended to protect. But many Jews were deeply offended by that decision, offended by any hint that Jews could be considered a race. The idea of Jews as a race brings to mind nightmarish visions of Nazi Germany, where Jews were declared to be not just a race, but an inferior race that had to be rounded up into ghettos and exterminated like vermin. But setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race. Race is a genetic distinction, and refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic traits. You can't change your race; it's in your DNA. I could never become black or Asian no matter how much I might want to. Common ancestry is not required to be a Jew. Many Jews worldwide share common ancestry, as shown by genetic research; however, you can be a Jew without sharing this common ancestry, for example, by converting. Thus, although I could never become black or Asian, blacks and Asians have become Jews (Sammy Davis Jr. and Connie Chung). Is It a Culture or Ethnic Group? Most secular American Jews think of their Jewishness as a matter of culture or ethnicity. When they think of Jewish culture, they think of the food, of the Yiddish language, of some limited holiday observances, and of cultural values like the emphasis on education. Those secular American Jews would probably be surprised to learn that much of what they think of as Jewish culture is really just Ashkenazic Jewish culture, the culture of Jews whose ancestors come from one part of the world. Jews have lived in many parts of the world and have developed many different traditions. As a Sephardic friend likes to remind me, Yiddish is not part of his culture, nor are bagels and lox, chopped liver, latkes, gefilte fish or matzah ball soup. His idea of Jewish cooking includes bourekas, phyllo dough pastries filled with cheese or spinach. His ancestors probably wouldn't know what to do with a dreidel. There are certainly cultural traits and behaviors that are shared by many Jews, that make us feel more comfortable with other Jews. Jews in many parts of the world share many of those cultural aspects. However, that culture is not shared by all Jews all over the world, and people who do not share that culture are no less Jews because of it. Thus, Judaism must be something more than a culture or an ethnic group. Are the Jews a Nation? The traditional explanation, and the one given in the Torah, is that the Jews are a nation. The Hebrew word, believe it or not, is "goy." The Torah and the rabbis used this term not in the modern sense meaning a territorial and political entity, but in the ancient sense meaning a group of people with a common history, a common destiny, and a sense that we are all connected to each other. Unfortunately, in modern times, the term "nation" has become too contaminated by ugly, jingoistic notions of a country obsessed with its own superiority and bent on world domination. Because of this notion of "nationhood," Jews are often falsely accused of being disloyal to their own country in favor of their loyalty to the Jewish "nation," of being more loyal to Israel than to their home country. Some have gone so far as to use this distorted interpretation of "nationhood" to prove that Jews do, or seek to, control the world. In fact, a surprising number of antisemitic websites and newsgroup postings linked to this page (in an earlier form) as proof of their antisemitic delusions that Jews are nationalistic, that Israel is a colonial power and so forth. Because of the inaccurate connotations that have attached themselves to the term "nation," the term can no longer be used to accurately describe the Jewish people. The Jewish People are a Family It is clear from the discussion above that there is a certain amount of truth in the claims that it is a religion, a race, or an ethnic group, none of these descriptions is entirely adequate to describe what connects Jews to other Jews. And yet, almost all Jews feel a sense of connectedness to each other that many find hard to explain, define, or even understand. Traditionally, this interconnectedness was understood as "nationhood" or "peoplehood," but those terms have become so distorted over time that they are no longer accurate. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has suggested a better analogy for the Jewish people: We are a family. See the third essay in his recent book, We Jews: Who Are We and What Should We Do. But though this is a new book, it is certainly not a new concept: throughout the Bible and Jewish literature, the Jewish people are referred to as "the Children of Israel," a reference to the fact that we are all the physical or spiritual descendants of the Patriarch Jacob, who was later called Israel. In other words, we are part of his extended family. Like a family, we don't always agree with each other. We often argue and criticize each other. We hold each other to the very highest standards, knowing that the shortcomings of any member of the family will be held against all of us. But when someone outside of the family unfairly criticizes a family member or the family as a whole, we are quick to join together in opposition to that unfair criticism. When members of our "family" suffer or are persecuted, we all feel their pain. For example, in the 1980s, when Africa was suffering from droughts and famines, many Jews around the world learned for the first time about the Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia. Their religion, race and culture are quite different from ours, and we had not even known that they existed before the famine. And yet, our hearts went out to them as our fellow Jews during this period of famine, like distant cousins we had never met, and Jews from around the world helped them to emigrate to Israel. When a member of our "family" does something illegal, immoral or shameful, we all feel the shame, and we all feel that it reflects on us. As Jews, many of us were embarrassed by the scandals of Monica Lewinsky, Jack Abramoff and Bernie Madoff, because they are Jews and their actions reflect on us all, even though we disapprove. The Madoff scandal was all the more embarassing, because so many of his victims were Jews and Jewish charities: a Jew robbing from our own "family"! We were shocked when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was killed by a Jew, unable to believe that one Jew would ever kill another member of the "family." And when a member of our "family" accomplishes something significant, we all feel proud. A perfect example of Jews (even completely secular ones) delighting in the accomplishments of our fellow Jews is the perennial popularity of Adam Sandler's Chanukkah songs, listing famous people who are Jewish. We all take pride in scientists like Albert Einstein or political leaders like Joe Lieberman (we don't all agree with his politics or his religious views, but we were all proud to see him on a national ticket). And is there a Jew who doesn't know (or at least feel pride upon learning) that Sandy Koufax declined to pitch in a World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur? Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
|
AIRLINE SECURITY TERROR UPDATE
Posted by Susana K-M, December 25, 2009. |
|
This was written by Bill Katz. |
|
TERROR UPDATE — AT 7:04 P.M. ET: A White House official is quoted by Fox as saying the incident aboard the Delta flight today (see below) was an attempted act of terrorism, and that the president is monitoring the situation closely. Congressman Pete King (R-NY) is saying that the Nigerian perpetrator suffered third-degree burns, and that the device he attempted to set off was "fairly sophisticated." He also is saying that the detonator was different from what we've encountered before. Stand by. FURTHER BULLETIN — AT 5:37 P.M. ET: Here is the NBC News report on the airliner incident that we're following, related to the two stories just below: A 23-year-old Nigerian man tried to light a powdery substance aboard a Northwest Airlines flight before landing in Detroit on Friday, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told NBC News. Two people noticed the attempt and a third person jumped on the man and subdued him, an airline official told NBC News. The man is being treated at the burn unit of the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, officials said. COMMENT: The issue, of course, is whether this man acted alone, is the only one to plan such an act today, or whether there are more. You can be sure that this is what counterterrorism people are focusing on right now. BULLETIN — AT 5:24 P.M. ET: Relating to the story just below, the incident aboard the Delta airliner may — repeat may — have been more serious than originally thought. Fox reports: A male passenger reportedly linked to terrorist organization al-Qaeda ignited a powdery substance prior to landing on a Delta Airlines flight to Detroit Friday. The suspect is believed to be Nigerian, Fox News reported. Several people were hurt and one person was admitted to the University of Michigan Medical Center at Ann Arbor, hospital spokeswoman Tracy Justice said. An emergency was declared aboard the flight, operated as Northwest flight 253, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson. The suspect, who suffered second-degree burns, told federal investigators he was directed by al-Qaeda, though authorities are questioning the veracity of that statement, ABC reported. A federal situational awareness bulletin noted that the explosive was acquired in Yemen with instructions as to when it should be used, ABC said. COMMENT: We will follow this very closely. It may well be that the guy was just engaging in bravado when he mentioned al-Qaeda. HOWEVER, we have seen incident after incident where the "authorities" deny at first that an event is terror-related, the better to be politically correct, and then later have to crawl under a rock when the truth comes out. Witness Fort Hood. The fact that a bulletin has been put out noting that the explosive was acquired in Yemen should alert us all. Blowing up an airliner on Christmas day is what al-Qaeda is about. This story may grow. This a Dry Bones cartoon. Yaakov Kirschen is the creator of the Dry Bones cartoons, which he started drawing in January 1973. Contact him at blog@mrdrybones.com 
Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
|
A LESSON FROM JOSEPH: CONFRONTING YOUR FRIEND'S PAIN
Posted by Tzvi Tauby, December 25, 2009. |
|
This week: Parsha Vayigash At the event is the tearful reunion between Joseph and Benjamin described in Genesis 45:14: "And [Joseph] fell on the neck of his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck." The Talmud (Megillah 16b) interprets their weeping on each other's necks as expressions of pain and sorrow over future tragedies in their respective histories: "[Joseph] wept over the two Sanctuaries that were to stand in the territory of Benjamin and were destined to be destroyed ... and Benjamin wept over the Shiloh Sanctuary that was to stand in the territory of Joseph and was destined to be destroyed."[*] Self and Fellow But why did Joseph and Benjamin weep on each other's necks, Joseph crying over Benjamin's two destroyed Sanctuaries, and Benjamin over Joseph's? Were they not distressed by the future breakdown of their own "necks"? The same question arises further on in the Torah's account, when Joseph's reunion with his father, Jacob, is described. The Torah relates that "Joseph readied his chariot, and went up to meet Israel, his father ... he fell upon his neck, and he wept more on his neck" (Genesis 46:29). Here, too, our sages explain Joseph's weeping on Jacob's neck as an expression of distress over the destruction of the Holy Temple. But what about Jacob? Why didn't he weep? Our sages tell us that he was reciting the Shema. But if it was time to recite the Shema, why was Joseph weeping? Indeed, is distress over the negative state of the connection between G-d and His creation inconsistent with the recitation of the Shema? We see a pattern emerging: Joseph weeps over the destruction of the Sanctuaries which lay in Benjamin's province, but not over the Sanctuary which lay in his own. Benjamin weeps over the destruction of Joseph's Sanctuary, but not of his own. And Jacob weeps over neither, since, as the father of all the tribes of Israel, his province includes all Sanctuaries of Israel. The question remains: why should one weep over another's spiritual deficiencies but not over one's own? To address this question, we must first examine the nature of weeping in general. What do tears actually achieve? Tears give vent to the feelings of distress and frustration that accompany the knowledge that something is not as it should be. After a "good cry," a person is somewhat relieved of these feelings, although the situation that prompted his tears remains unchanged. Is this a positive phenomenon? At first glance, it would seem not. Distress and frustration are what drive a person to rectify the negative reality that gave rise to them. To lessen them by other means would seem to counteract their purpose and utility. But what if one has done all there is to be done? In such a case, where weeping cannot be faulted for reducing the impetus for action, one can point to its constructive uses. It may serve to communicate one's empathy with a fellow's troubles. And it may serve to alert others to the gravity of the situation — others who are in a position to do something about it. Thus, Joseph and Benjamin allowed themselves to weep over the destruction of each other's Sanctuaries. Ultimately, only Joseph can repair the destroyed Sanctuary at Shiloh, the "Joseph" dimension of Israel's relationship with the Almighty; Benjamin can only encourage and assist. After contributing all he could to Joseph's efforts, Benjamin wept his agony and concern on his brother's neck. The same applies to Joseph's weeping over the Sanctuaries in Benjamin's domain. Instead of weeping over the destruction of the Holy Temple and the resultant galut ("exile"), Jacob recited the Shema — the Jew's proclamation of the unity of G-d and the imperative to translate his comprehension and awareness of G-d's unity into thoughts in his mind, feelings in his heart, and words in his mouth and concrete actions in his physical life. Instead of giving vent to his pain, Jacob directed his inner turmoil toward the endeavor of rebuilding the damaged necks of Israel. Sixty years ago, the great spiritual leaders of Europe were counting their losses — in the millions! The great Chassidic courts of Poland, the prestigious yeshivas of Lithuania, were all destroyed by the Nazi hordes. What did these righteous people do? Did they sit down and cry? Of course there were tears and mourning and indescribable grief, but the emphasis quickly shifted to rebuilding. And today, thank G-d, those same institutions are alive and well, thriving and pulsating with spirit and energy in Israel and the United States. The leadership focused on the future. And painstakingly, over time, they were able to resuscitate and rejuvenate their decimated communities. Those leaders cried bitter tears for their fallen comrades, but for themselves they did not sit and weep. They set about the task of rebuilding — and succeeded in the most inspiring, miraculous way. When we have problems (and who doesn't?), so many of us simply moan and sigh and heave a good old-fashioned yiddishe krechtz (Jewish groan). How many times have we sighed, What can I do? And what does that leave us with? — with the moaning and groaning and nothing else. There is well known Jewish quote. "One good deed is worth more than a thousand sighs". Good Shabbos. [*] (Each tribe received a portion in the Land of Israel. Although a
significant part of the Temple Mount and the Temple courtyard
[azarah], as well as the rest of the city of Jerusalem, was in the
territory of Judah, the main part of the Holy Temple — the heichal,
the Holy of Holies and the Altar — lay in the adjoining territory of
Benjamin. Both the First Temple, erected by King Solomon in the year
2928 from Creation [832 BCE] and destroyed by the Babylonians 410
years later, and the Second Temple, built on the same site in 3408
[352 BCE] and destroyed by the Romans in 3829 [69 CE], were thus
situated. Preceding the two Temples, however, was the Mishkan, the
portable Sanctuary which served the People of Israel in their
journeys in the desert; following the People of Israel's entry into
the Holy Land in the days of Joshua, the Mishkan was erected in
Shiloh in Joseph's territory, its wooden wall-sections replaced with
walls of stone. The Shiloh Sanctuary served as the spiritual
epicenter of the Jewish people for 369 years, until its destruction
by the Philistines in approximately 2872 [888 BCE].)
The Chabad iVolunteer group is based in Brooklyn. Contact them at
programs@ivolunteerny.com
This article is archived at
|
|
ISRAEL'S PTA COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
Posted by Paul Rotenberg, December 25, 2009. |
|
This was written by Caroline B. Glick, the senior Middle East Fellow at the
Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing
editor of The Jerusalem Post. Her book "The Shackled Warrior:
Israel and the Global Jihad," is available at Amazon.com. Visit her
website at www.CarolineGlick.com. Contact her by email at
caroline@carolineglick.com
|
|
Unbeknownst to most Israelis, this week marked a critical shift for the worse in the regional balance of power. While IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was busy demanding that the government pay a ransom of more than a thousand terrorists for captive soldier Gilad Schalit, few paid attention to Iran's newest strategic successes. Over the past week Lebanon capitulated to the Iranian axis. Turkey solidified its full membership in the axis. And Egypt began to make its peace with the notion of Iran becoming the strongest state in the region. Less than five years after former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated by Syria, his son Prime Minister Saad Hariri paid a visit to Damascus to express his fealty to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Beirut and began giving the Lebanese government its new marching orders. On Wednesday, Hizbullah forces deployed openly to the border with Israel under the permissive eye of the US-armed Lebanese army. Lebanon announced that it was no longer bound by binding UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that requires Hizbullah to disarm. And Hariri announced that he will soon visit Teheran. While Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his media echo chamber insist that Turkey has buried its hatchet with Israel, on Wednesday Prime Minister Recip Erdogan led a delegation with 10 cabinet ministers to Damascus. There, according to the Syrian and Turkish Foreign Ministries, they signed 47 trade agreements. This Turkish-Syrian rapprochement is not limited to economic issues. It is a strategic realignment. As Assad's spokeswoman Buthaina Shaaban explained to Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam television channel, "We are working to establish close ties between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq so these countries can act as one regional bloc in order to promote peace, security and stability in the Middle East, while keeping the West's dictates and lust for the region's natural and oil resources at bay." For years Egypt has been the most outspoken Arab opponent of Iran's moves towards regional hegemony. This past summer Egypt did not hesitate to accuse Teheran of trying to overthrow the regime when it discovered a network of Iranian-commanded Hizbullah operatives planning a massive terror assault on the Suez Canal. Yet on Sunday, Mubarak hosted Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear boss and current speaker of Iran's parliament in Cairo. Following their meeting Mubarak traveled to the Persian Gulf for consultations on Iran's nuclear program. Given Mubarak's poor health, the fact that his meetings with Larijani sent him flying to Saudi Arabia indicate that something of major importance has just occurred. Many IDF commanders are happy to leave the issue of Iran to the US, which they insist is capable and willing to deal with it. But the fact is that since Iran rejected President Barack Obama's diplomatic overtures, the US has shown clear signs of strategic dissonance. While Israel clings to the hope that sanctions might prevent Iran from going nuclear, this week that notion was exposed as a fiction. Although Obama gave the House of Representatives a green light to vote on sanctions against Iran, he quickly demonstrated that Teheran had no reason to worry. First Obama and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry blocked discussion of sanctions in the Senate. And now — with full White House backing — Kerry is trying again to appease the Iranians by begging them to let him visit Teheran. Clearly appeasement is the only play in Obama's book. Furthermore, China's refusal to back sanctions in the UN Security Council coupled with Lebanon's and Brazil's ascension to the council next month obviate any possibility that a harsh international sanctions regime will be instituted against Iran any time soon.
FOR ISRAEL, Iran's successful moves to preempt American threats to isolate it should have been the top news story and the main issue on the government's and the General Staff's agendas. But it wasn't. Indeed, no one seemed to notice. They were otherwise occupied. For the past week, the government's security cabinet and the IDF's top commanders have devoted themselves entirely to discussing how many terrorists Israel will give Hamas in exchange for captive soldier Gilad Schalit. For three days, the security cabinet met around the clock to discuss this issue alone. And the most insistent advocate for accepting Hamas's demand that Israel release over a thousand terrorists has been IDF Chief of General Staff Ashkenazi. On Monday, Channel 2 reported that National Security Adviser Uzi Arad accused Ashkenazi of acting like the president of the IDF's parents' association rather than the chief of General Staff. Arad criticized Ashkenazi for demanding that Israel ransom the captive soldier while failing to supply the government with any option to use force to rescue Schalit. The media pounced on the Arad-Ashkenazi story like hungry wolves. The national debate was dominated for two days by the burning questions of whether or not Arad would apologize, and whether Netanyahu can continue to retain Arad's services after he insulted Ashkenazi. Conspicuously absent from the media's coverage of the spat was any discussion of the reasonableness of Arad's criticism. So, too, the media ignored the question of what — if anything — Ashkenazi's behavior tells us about the IDF mindset and disposition as Iran consolidates its regional power. The fact is that Arad's criticism was on point. Schalit has been captive in Gaza for more than three years. At no point has the IDF provided the government with an option for rescuing him. A year ago, Ashkenazi sent the IDF's best combat units into Gaza. During their stay, they were not ordered to rescue Schalit. And now, a year later, Ashkenazi is demanding that the government pay for the IDF's failure to rescue Schalit by accepting a deal that will imperil the country. And he is claiming that failure to do so will constitute nothing less than an abdication of Israel's moral responsibility to its soldiers. Following the publication of Arad's attack on Ashkenazi, the IDF's Spokesman's Office issued a statement that army commanders are fulfilling their "professional duties" by insisting that Israel ransom Schalit. This is untrue. It is not the professional duty of IDF commanders to opine on ransom demands. They have no professional qualifications to determine the reasonableness of ransom demands. In Jewish history, the role of ransoming captives has traditionally been the writ of rabbis, not military men. The writ of military men was to rescue them. The professional responsibility of the IDF is to provide the government with military options for achieving its strategic objectives — including rescuing Schalit. By failing to provide such options, the IDF — with Ashkenazi at its helm — has failed to uphold its professional responsibilities. Worse still, by demanding that the government endanger the country to ransom Schalit, Ashkenazi and his generals are telling us something distressing about how they define their role as military commanders. The IDF's apparent confusion about its role is not new. It was this confusion that led the army to fail to present the government with options for defeating Hizbullah in Lebanon in 2006 or for defeating Hamas in Gaza last year. Whereas former prime minister Ehud Olmert properly received most of the blame for Israel's poor performance in the Second Lebanon War and in Operation Cast Lead, the fact is that it was the IDF that failed to deliver the goods. The operations the IDF designed, recommended and carried out in both campaigns were not meant to defeat Israel's enemies. All they were supposed to do was demonstrate Israel's firepower. And even this wasn't done particularly effectively. In 2006, then-chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz rejected a ground invasion of south Lebanon in favor of an air campaign. When it became clear some 24 hours into the operation that an air campaign would be incapable of defeating Hizbullah or even degrading its ability to paralyze northern Israel with short-range rockets and missiles, Halutz and his deputies refused to conduct a ground assault. And, when after three weeks of failure they finally deployed ground forces in significant numbers, they didn't know what to tell them to do. For his part, Ashkenazi sat on his hands for months as southern Israel was pummeled with rockets and mortars from Gaza and refused to offer the government a military option for protecting the South. When last December Hamas forced his hand by announcing that it was abrogating its cease-fire with Israel, Ashkenazi grudgingly agreed to let the IDF respond to its aggression. But even then, he opted for an operational concept that had no chance of defeating Hamas. Ashkenazi rejected the notion of retaking the Gaza-Egypt border. He refused to order IDF forces into Gaza's population centers. By opting not to do these things, Ashkenazi guaranteed that the IDF would accomplish little. Consequently, even top IDF commanders acknowledged this week that the army will be forced to return to Gaza in due course. There, thanks to Ashkenazi's refusal to defeat Hamas, Israel's soldiers will face a far more formidable foe than the one they were not allowed to defeat last year. While refusing to fight Israel's enemies, under Ashkenazi, like under Halutz before him, the IDF has enthusiastically attacked religious Zionists. Since 2002, the only sustained operation the army has carried out successfully was the expulsion of all Israelis from Gaza and northern Samaria in 2005. When Defense Minister Ehud Barak severed the IDF's ties with the Har Bracha Yeshiva last week, he was acting on Ashkenazi's advice. Ashkenazi has promoted anti-settler commanders like Col. Yitzhak Barr. As a brigade commander in Samaria, Barr has reportedly prohibited his soldiers from fraternizing with Israeli families on Shabbat and personally refused to visit IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Avichai Rontzky at his succa during Succot.
EVERY DAY the dangers to Israel's security and very survival mount. At this time, the government and the people of Israel need to be able to trust in the IDF's ability to defend the country. Rather than earning that trust, those tasked with our defense are spending their time berating the political leadership for their own failures. Moreover, they are expressing a disturbing desire to pass the buck on fighting Israel's enemies while aggressively hounding Israelis. This situation is unacceptable. Either Ashkenazi and his generals should prove they are capable of performing their jobs, or they should be replaced. Paul Rotenberg lives in Toronto, Canada. Contact him at pdr@rogers.com |
|
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO OUR CHRISTIAN READERS
Posted by Think-Israel, December 25, 2009. |
|
We picked this as a fascinating read for today: Amil Imani, "Christmas Spirit and Islam" And this to watch: "A Different Christmas Poem." |
|
This is the time of the year that the air is filled with everything Christmas. There is something for everyone: gifts for family and friends, prayers at churches, and Christmas music everywhere. It puts me in a contemplative mood, particularly when I hear the delightful Christian refrain, peace on earth, goodwill to men. This is the gift I want. This is my Christmas. When there is peace on earth and all people dispense and receive good will. Yet, I am saddened to see the world as it is, particularly with what Islam is doing to it, which is the exact opposite of working for peace and extending goodwill to all people. My contemplation takes me to the genesis of Islam. Something I have come to view as a scourge of humanity, and here are a few of my random thoughts about the founder of Islam: the person who launched a religion that has denied peace to mankind right from the start, the person who advanced a religion that began with war, continues with war, and aims to carry on with bloodletting to the end of time. All this makes me think and shake my head in bewilderment. Starting with the premise that an all-knowing powerful God is the creator of this awe-inspiring universe where we humans are an infinitesimally insignificant part of his creation humbles me. Muslims call this creator Allah — a recast of one of 360 idols in the pre-Islamic Idolatry of Mecca — and attribute numerous superhuman qualities to him. It is awe-inspiring to realize that a being of that description may indeed exist. That leads me to some questions: Why would such an indescribably exalted creator, with his ascribed boundless wisdom and resources, pick an illiterate Bedouin to become his prophet for then and forever? The man himself, Muhammad, admitted in the Quran to his own illiteracy. Yet, Allah persisted in choosing this man? Was Allah bored with the rest of his universe and playing a joke on us helpless mortals? Or was it a case of Allah not being able to get any reasonably literate man to take the job? I don't have an answer to this or a bevy of other questions and the answers I have seen so far from Muslims are far from satisfactory. I am forced to mark this as one of the enigmas of life and move on to further look into Muhammad, his claims, his life and the way all might come together with Allah's choreography of our life of drama. Muslims claim that Muhammad was the most perfect man, the kind of saintly man that each and every one of us should adulate and aspire to follow. On the top of their list is the desire to lead their lives in such a way that would please Allah, if they can. Muhammad has done that, Muslims claim. And apparently Allah, in his infinite kindness, does not require the rest of us mortals to do things that we are incapable of doing. And Muhammad has brought us the perfect life manual, the Quran, to help us in our quest, we are told. Besides, a great inducement for me to check Islam out is the promise of eternal life in an indescribably lush sensual paradise of Allah if I make the grade. If I fail, I am told, my forever destination is the dreadful inferno of hell. I have also checked out those schools of thoughts that say life starts here and ends here. End of discussion. Well, buying into the idea that I am going to end up as fertilizer in some desolate cemetery is not something I would like to contemplate. So, I kept looking into this Islam thing since I was born and raised in it. After all 1.5 billion people have bought into it. They can't all be misguided, can they? This quest led me to examine the teachings and life of Muhammad closely. And here are a few of my findings that have thrown me for a loop. Hence, I am sharing my findings with the readers in the hope that someone would supply me with explanations that would relieve me of my perplexities. I have, in my quest, read, re-read, and read again the Quran — purportedly the literal word-for-word of Allah transmitted to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel over the course of some 20 years. Right away I am troubled. Is Allah the same creator who has created the entire universe by a single word of his mouth — kon va yakoon — be and became, as Islam claims? Then why did it take this magnificent all-knowing lightingly-fast-Allah 20 years to get across a dime-novel-size hodgepodge of contradictory and nonsensical verse called the Quran, to us poor creatures? Was it because Muhammad was illiterate and he couldn't write them down? But that can't be. He didn't write down anything himself. He dictated to anyone who could write and was around at the time to do it. Therefore, in the course of some 20 years what is claimed to be the word-for-word dictates of Allah went through a number of intermediaries and materialized in several versions. First the Archangel Gabriel whispered it to Muhammad, then Muhammad found some Arab who could write — not an easy find among the masses of the most backward illiterates of Arabia — and who happened to have a pen of some sort and a parchment to jot down what Muhammad still managed to recall. Perhaps this does explain the several versions of the Quran that popped up after Muhammad's death and the Caliph Othman's choice of one as the genuine and burning of the others. The practice of burning books Muslims don't like to talk about, goes all the way back to their venerated second Caliph, Othman. Now, how could a fallible politician like Othman be the judge of Allah's genuine utterances? Was there another Archangel that helped him out, or he just simply liked that particular version best? One thing you can say about Othman. He was an astute enough politician to realize that you can't have one Islam with several versions of the word-for-word revelation of Allah. Here is another problem. Even the chosen version of the Quran, if you can make any sense of it at all, reads like two different books. The early part is known as the Mecca Quran. This part is much about meekness, tolerance, kindness and so forth. This was the time that Muhammad's wife Khadija — a monotheist Hanif, in contrast to polytheist idolater Muhammad — introduced her young troubled husband to her Christian uncle and exposed him to the teachings of Christianity that influenced his "revelation." During this early phase of his ministry, Muhammad spoke respectfully about the "people of the book," — Christians and Jews, the people from whose book he liberally plagiarized to launch his monotheistic faith with the invaluable encouragements of his wife Khadija. It was Khadija who convinced the young man that he was indeed chosen by Allah to be his spokesperson; that the jinn and angels communicated with him were parts of Allah's plan for him. Muhammad, during his Mecca years, was ridiculed for his confused sayings by his own tribe of Quraish. He was called shaeron majnoon — crazed poet. At this early stage he went by his birth name of Abulqasem. It was later that he took on the new name of Muhammad — Praiseworthy-One — to go better with his ministry. Muhammad, having been judged as a hallucinating insane poet, was tormented by the Meccans in many ways. It got so bad, that after his wife's death he left for Medina where a significant Jewish community provided a safer place for him to gather followers, build a powerbase, reveal his Medina Quran of intolerance and vilification, and launch his religion in full force and by brute force. Once in Medina, Muhammad hit on a most powerful formula for success. He justified everything, on the spot, by saying that Allah wants it this way. And Allah was nothing to trifle with. He held the key to the most magnificent paradise as well as to the dreadful hell. The duty of a good Muslim became unquestioning obedience to everything that Muhammad said and wished. Muhammad became Allah's gatekeeper to paradise and hell. Muhammad's formula worked magic with the Bedouins of Arabia who thrived on robberies and killings. His religion spread like a pandemic disease in no time at all. And here we are in the 21st century, at Christmas time, praying for peace and goodwill to men, while Muhammad's men are working overtime to make sure that men see neither peace nor goodwill. I would like to join the chorus of peace on earth and goodwill to men. Yet, deep in my soul, I find it my solemn duty to keep on sounding the alarm about the fire of Islam even at this poignant moment of Christmas. Peace on earth and goodwill to men is a perennial prayer. It can be only when enough men and women of goodwill, with iron resolve arise and disempower the Islamist people of war and ill-will. Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy
activist residing in the United States of America. Contact him by
email at editor.amilimani@gmail.com. This article is archived at
|
|
RESIDENTS PLAN TO THWART FREEZE; ARMY-YESHIVA CONTROVERSY; DID AIPAC
GET US INTO THE IRAQ WAR?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 25, 2009. |
|
FREEZE MODIFIED The Israeli Cabinet has modified the freeze on Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria. The modification would allow repair, renovation, house-expansion, and completion of buildings whose foundation already had been laid. The Cabinet explained that it found that the freeze orders sent out exceeded the authority granted by the Cabinet. National Union Party MK Aryeh Eldad thinks that the government wanted to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits for arbitrary damages (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/24). NETANYAHU TRIES TO ABSORB OPPOSITION PARTIES Israel's Likud Party is offering Cabinet posts to Kadima Party MKs who return to Likud. Kadima MKs, out of power, are restive. Labor Party MKs are disenchanted with their head, Ehud Barak (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/12/23). PM Netanyahu urged MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into a coalition of national unity. Such coalitions tend to be formed in preparation for a major war (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). Yes, but which war? Could be that Netanyahu is diluting the nationalist element in the regime, so that he and Barak can make war on the Jews of Judea-Samaria. As earlier reports revealed, Netanyahu and Barak have committed the entire Border Guard and several battalions of troops to freeze-enforcement. The plan is to cut off cell phone communication among residents, isolate them, impose curfews, etc.. Israel's Likud Party is offering Cabinet posts to Kadima Party MKs who return to Likud. Kadima MKs, out of power, are restive. Labor Party MKs are disenchanted with their head, Ehud Barak (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/12/23). PM Netanyahu urged MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into a coalition of national unity. Such coalitions tend to be formed in preparation for a major war (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). Yes, but which war? Could be that Netanyahu is diluting the nationalist element in the regime, so that he and Barak can make war on the Jews of Judea-Samaria. As earlier reports revealed, Netanyahu and Barak have committed the entire Border Guard and several battalions of troops to freeze-enforcement. The plan is to cut off cell phone communication among residents, isolate them, impose curfews, etc.. Israel's Likud Party is offering Cabinet posts to Kadima Party MKs who return to Likud. Kadima MKs, out of power, are restive. Labor Party MKs are disenchanted with their head, Ehud Barak (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/12/23). PM Netanyahu urged MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into a coalition of national unity. Such coalitions tend to be formed in preparation for a major war (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). Yes, but which war? Could be that Netanyahu is diluting the nationalist element in the regime, so that he and Barak can make war on the Jews of Judea-Samaria. As earlier reports revealed, Netanyahu and Barak have committed the entire Border Guard and several battalions of troops to freeze-enforcement. The plan is to cut off cell phone communication among residents, isolate them, impose curfews, etc.. RESIDENTS PLAN TO THWART FREEZE 
The Jews of Judea-Samaria do not believe that the freeze order is temporary and isolated. They think its removal from local communities of the power to authorize building is intended to be permanent. "The very day (Friday) after the construction freeze order was signed, and up until the minutes that the Sabbath began, freeze orders were distributed to local mayors. Aerial photos were even taken in order to document the status quo. The speed with which this process was done shows that this was not a sudden decision, but one that was preceded by careful, long planning — far from the eyes of the public and by deceiving the voters." [That kind of military dispatch and with deception was the way Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert managed the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria. It was more a blow to the religious, to Zionism, and to the Right, than anything to do with peace, as it simply let Gaza become a terrorist haven. The expulsion was characterized by approved brutality.] "The next logical step is negotiations and Israeli withdrawal from most of Yesha and the destruction of the towns and expulsion of their residents." "The defense establishment is relating to the enforcement of the freeze as a national mission encompassing the entire IDF, from the Chief of Staff down to the regional brigades in Yesha. Just like before the Gush Katif expulsion, the army is preparing to provide "mental preparation" for the policemen and soldiers who will take part, including motivational talks about how the freeze is critical for national security. Some 40 teams of inspectors, including representatives of the Civil Administration, Border Guard, and IDF guards, will enforce the freeze, driving around in bullet-proof vehicles to the various communities." "They will attempt to create a 'deterrence effect' by arresting individuals who will serve as scapegoats by being punished severely, with the expectation that others will be afraid to follow in their footsteps. This is critical for the government, since they know that they will not be able to deal with thousands of opponents — but if we realize that in truth they cannot punish thousands of us, and we thus break their "deterrence effect," and simply not be afraid of them — we will have won." "We must also employ psychological warfare, in the sense of, "We're upsetting the board and not playing anymore." There must be no dialog with the government or the IDF. Dialog only serves their purposes, of keeping things under control. Their fear of the unknown and lack of control is much greater than ours, and if we don't talk with them, they have more to lose than we do. "Netanyahu, for instance, has humiliated the Yesha leadership by refusing to meet with them ever since he was elected — except for immediately after the freeze orders were issued, when he wished simply to calm us down and neutralize our ability to fight. Meetings of this sort can help us in small things, but the price will be our ability to wage an effective fight." We call upon the mayors, rabbis and community leaders not to meet with or have any contact with anyone connected with the enforcement of the freeze. This "extreme" move will significantly complicate the enforcement, and will also broadcast a message of how grave the construction freeze truly is." "A basic assumption is that the State will not be able to enforce the freeze in the face of thousands and tens of thousands of opponents. Neither will the IDF be able to handle refusals by dozens and hundreds of soldiers." "The struggle must therefore be broad and comprehensive, and supported by public leaders and rabbis. Groups of dozens and hundreds of adults and youths must be organized, where everyone places on brick on a new building. In this relatively simple manner, we will show that enforcing the freeze is impossible and that we will not take it lying down." "We must also not be afraid to be arrested. We must fight their psychological warfare by showing that we are not afraid, and turning this approach to our advantage. The courts will not be able to deal with hundreds and thousands of indictments and arrests. It will not only stop up the court system, it will also broadcast a message of lack of control, of impending catastrophe, of a nationalist party against the public, etc. " (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/24.) In the prior tenure of PM Netanyahu, right after his election, Netanyahu cold-shouldered his nationalist and religious supporters. I discussed with some of them at the time his rebuffs. That is when we realized that his reputation as right-wing is not warranted. The plans would seem wiser if they renounced the yesha Council leadership that betrayed their attempt to prevent the expulsion of Yesha Jewry and if they warned against government spies. ARMY-YESHIVA CONTROVERSY: MORE Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, dean of the Har Bracha Hesder Yeshiva, which helps prepare ultra-Orthodox youth for the Israeli Army, and rabbis in similar institutions, signed a declaration against political protest in the Army. Defense Min. Barak declared that he was severing the Army relationship with Har Bracha, because, "'After two attempts to demonstrate within the army, it turned out that there is a yeshiva whose head openly preaches for refusal of orders, and is unwilling to denounce acts of protest within the IDF,' Barak said in a speech before high school students in Rishon LeTzion." (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/23.) Earlier, Rabbi Melamed had said that he would not volunteer to tell students what to do, but if they consulted him, he would suggest they not demonstrate. I think that Barak has his own agenda, regardless of the facts. ISRAEL INVITING PALESTINIAN ARAB CHRISTIANS FOR HOLY DAYS Israel has offered an unlimited number of permits to Palestinian Christians, to enter Israel for religious and family reasons, for a month during the holidays. So far, 10,000 have accepted. Israel offered a few hundred permits to Christians in Gaza (www.imra.org.il, 12/23). What is the biggest Christmas shopping list in history? The just-passed medical insurance bill. DID AIPAC GET THE U.S. INTO THE IRAQ WAR? More than one reader has claimed that the Jewish lobby got the U.S. into the Iraq war [meaning the continuation of the Gulf War]. One cited an alleged boast by the Executive Director of AIPAC that his organization's influence had that result. I checked with AIPAC, because the accusation does not make sense. (1) Even if true, a lobbyist would not boast about having gotten his country into an unpopular war; and (2) I recall reporters and Israeli leaders asserting that such a war would be a mistake and that they did not want those who prompted such a war to try to bolster their position by claiming it would help Israel. An AIPAC spokesman replied, "Hi and thank you for your note. AIPAC did not lobby for the Iraq war and took no lobbying position on the matter. Assertions to the contrary are patently false, and in some cases, malicious. In fact there was a letter from several members of Congress a few years ago making this point from the Hill's perspective. There was one article that made this claim, but it was false." Links to a news story on this topic and to a letter by Members of Congress rebuking a fellow Representative for making such a claim:
The news story starts: "Sixteen of Democratic Rep. Jim Moran's House colleagues rebuked him in a withering letter Wednesday for saying last week that the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 'pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning.'" (Reply from AIPAC,12/24.) Such fabrications are malicious. Their reiteration is in some cases naive and in others a studied willingness to accept any mud to fling at Israel. ISRAELI VICTIMS SUE HAMAS FOR WAR CRIMES, IN EUROPE Fifteen dual citizens of Israel and Belgium, who suffered injury, property damage, or loss of kin during Hamas bombardment of Israel sued Hamas for war crimes, in a Belgian court. The suit named 10 Hamas leaders. This is the first of a series of cases to be brought in Europe. Plaintiff's hope to bring to public attention Hamas' crimes, hitherto muted, including in the Goldstone Report. They hope to show the difference between Hamas war crimes and the proper way to conduct war that Israel practiced. The Report's brief mention of Hamas' war crimes was noted in the legal brief. Meanwhile, Hamas is advising Europeans on what suits they should bring against Israel (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/24). I think that lawsuits have been abused so as to become a nuisance and are meant as a nuisance. I reported and wrote my own extensive analysis of the Goldstone Report. Anti-Zionists condemned the analysis without addressing them. The comments tried to refute the analysis by citing the original Report that the analysis debunked. Not logical. I have a question for those defenders of the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone mission was sent out specifically to report on Israeli military conduct and not on Hamas military conduct. The lengthy Report had just a brief mention of Hamas war crimes, which were extensive, both in Gaza and against Israel. By then, Hamas had fired between 6,000 and 8,000 rockets at Israel. My question is, how do they reconcile the limited and mild mention of the extensive Hamas war crimes, with the extensive and caustic expounding on the limited alleged IDF war crimes? What does that show about the integrity of the UN and its Report?
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
|
|
TO FAT ABE FOXMAN ON CARTER'S APOLOGY
Posted by Paul Lademain, December 25, 2009. |
|
We are the PC-free Secular Christians for Zion (PC-free SC4Z): To make ourselves clear (nod to BHO) we respond to Jimmy's "apology" to the Jews: Jimmy Carter apologizes to Jewish community
The former U.S. President released an open letter offering an apology for previous remarks. Atlanta (WiredPRNews.com) — Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter recently released an open letter to the Jewish community, apologizing for possible offenses to his previous words or actions. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), Carter, who upset many Jews with a South African apartheid comparison to Israeli treatment of Arabs in a book released while he was in office, spoke of his hopes for respect and cooperation between Israel and its neighbors in the letter initially released to JTA. Carter is quoted by the AP as stating in the letter, "We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel... As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League who criticized Carter's previously stated notions about Israel, is quoted in the report as stating of welcoming Carter's apology, "When a former president reaches out to the Jewish community and asks for forgiveness, it's incumbent of us to accept it... To what extent this is an epiphany, only time will tell. There certainly was a lot of hurt, a lot of angry words that need to be repaired. But this is a good start." _________ The SC4Z awards Carter's apology 2 points out of 10. His apology is not coached in terms of confessing to the magnitude of his offenses against truth — offenses that directly led to the incitement of war against Israeli civilians — but merely expresses his belated sorrow at having said or done things "that upset Jews." Such tepid language! Especially so when considering the miles Carter marched in service of the Saudis, their proxy, Yasser Arafat, and the Israel-hating Texan, Jim Baker (former US State Dept. Secretary.) Jim Baker makes no bones about his hatred for Israel, a Jewish State, and his alliance with if not his allegiance to the Saudi royals who enriched him.* See: Craig Unger's* "House of Bush, House of Saud". (Scribner) "Apologies for possible offenses." Possible? Carter is a university grad, schooled in nuclear technology. He is neither stupid nor dense. His words against Israel and Jews in general were designed with a certainty that forwarded the mawkish propaganda writ by the Saudis on behalf of their proxy, the Egyptian-born terrorist, Yasser Arafat. Jimmy Carter has already spent decades aiding and abetting this terrorist as well as any arab from any arab country who falsely claims to be a "victim of Jewish persecution." Jimmy deliberately ignores the near million Jews who were forced to become refugees when they were attacked and robbed and slaughtered and driven from their ancestral homes in the Muslim-controlled regions surrounding Jewish Palestine during the Forties. Jewish communities in Saudi Arabia — Medina in particular — fled for the lives. Nobody knows exactly where the Muslims who later swarmed into Jewish Palestine originated. With the help of Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat, they simply entered the region formerly called Jewish Palestine and began calling themselves "Palestinians" and the naive and semantically-challenged Jews, many speaking neither English nor Arabic, adopted the self-serving semantics designed by the Muslims to diminish through co-option the Jews' rightful claims to their homeland; lands which had long been referred to as "Palestine, the Jewish Homeland". After WWII, Jews — weakened by persecution and wholesale extermination and eager to be treated as human beings by their traditional persecutors — were easy marks for the Britz, who deliberately abused their assigned powers and simply handed the Hashemite Muslims 90% of what International law and treaty had defined as "Palestine — the Jewish Homeland". Worse still, at that time many Jews, deeply wounded by British insults and trickery, assuaged their humiliation by accepting only "the tail of the chicken" while pretending that British spittle was but a spring rain. The Britz thereafter impeded Israel when this tiny nation, now shorn of 90 % of its land, faced military invasion by the surrounding new arab states created by the British "mandate". The Euroids were shocked when Israel vanquished their would-be conquerors. Jimmy Carter knows all this; he is well aware of the tribulations visited upon Israel and Jews, but still, he deliberately ignored international law, ignored the truth, and used his bully pulpit as X-POTUS to attack Israel with the most scurrilous and false allegations which only malice could imagine. Yes, Mr. Foxman, we know how nice it feels to to "go along to get along" — how wonderful it is supposed to feel to forgive during the Forgiving Season — but we remind you that no Sharia-bound Muslim will entertain similar sentiments nor will Sharia urge Muslims to voluntarily cease attacking non-Muslim civilians. Mr. Foxman, you cautiously hint that Carter ought to back his apology with rehabilitation. But we are the PC-free SC4Z, and we are the majority, and we needn't squirm when we say that WE DEMAND it. Viva to Israel from the Secular Christians for Zion. Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
|
NETANYAHU, BARAK, PERES AND THE KNESSET DESTROYING THEIR OWN COUNTRY. SOUND FAMILIAR?
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, December 24, 2009. |
|
This is by Yehudit Tayar, a veteran spokesperson for the Jewish pioneers living in Yesha. For the past 30 years she and her family have lived in Bet Horon, in the Benjamin Region of the Shomron. |
|
It is up to us to save Israel for the Jewish people The Apartheid, anti-Zionistic meticulous plans of the Netanyahu/Barak government against Israeli citizens in the heartland of Israel are an ominous omen for the future of the Jewish State. Think of the amount of money that would be poured into the "operation" that this deceitful company of politicians plans to use in order to destroy Jewish homes, freeze any building, cut off communications to prevent any possible enlistment of people coming out to help to protect their fellow citizens. Think of the number of police, the military forces, the amount of money for aerial photography, etc. Then let us compare this to the current lack of efforts and lack of governmental financial backing for our military operations to protect the citizens in Israel from the continuing violence directed against us. Every day citizens and military all over Israel, not only in Yesha (Judea and Samaria), are being attacked by terrorists with missiles and advanced weaponry. The media has learned nothing from their collaboration in the previous "operation treason" during which the Sharon government promised both quiet to the citizens of Israel and a "solution for every resident" of Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron. The media collaborated with the government and orchestrated the promotion of this deceitful, traitorous plan. When implemented this plan proved disastrous with the uprooting of our families, living and our dead, and the destruction of our towns, villages and synagogues. The entire country has paid the price for the Hamas terror-based Gaza that was the immediate result of the operation. The rocket attacks and subsequently the military operation inside of Gaza were the direct result of the destruction of Gush Katif, the small but vibrant area cultivated by Israelis, that so benefited the Arab economy. Now what will happen to the country following the plans this government has for the center of Israel, the very heartland of Israel — Judea, and Samaria? How will this deter our enemies from within and from outside our borders from planning even more terror against us? One would surmise that the bitter lessons of the mistakes made by previous governments would have been learned. Sadly, the opposite is the case. That leaves the ordinary people, the residents of Israel who understand the implications of this undemocratic, unlawful plan against us, to protest the land in any way we can. To stop this from happening we must continue to build, we must prevent the forces sent to implement these unlawful anti-Jewish decrees from entering our communities. Sometimes it is in the hands of the simple people to change history. We must learn from the bravery of the freedom fighters from the time of the Maccabees and from the heroes of the Mossad L'Aliyah Beth. These brave citizens, who against the wishes of the so-called leadership in Eretz Yisrael, continued to bring in Jews from Nazi Europe during the War of Independence to save their own lives and the existence of the entire country. The compliance by so-called leaders of Israel with the wishes of foreign nations, not in the best interest of the security of Israel, is a tragedy repeated time and time again. It happened first with the British occupying forces in our Land, and now with the pressures from Barak Hussein Obama, Europe and the rest of the world. Those misguided pathetically weak "dreamers of peace at any price" acted like a fifth column. They did not live in reality but rather with some pipe dream that if we only do what the world wants maybe we will be loved or at least left alone. We have finally come home to our Land as a people and we cannot afford to allow weak, misguided politicians to endanger the future of the Jewish State by dangerous, anti-Jewish plans. It is up to us to fight to prevent this not only for ourselves, the Jewish pioneers in Yesha, but for all Israeli citizens who will pay the price if, G-d forbid, a Muslim Palestinian state is allowed inside our borders. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America and hosts the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
|
POLICE VS. PROTESTERS — WORLD-WIDE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 24, 2009. |
|
Police around the world are thinking up new ways to discourage protestors. Their problem is when the protesters are engaged in legal civil disobedience and when the Police are acting as storm troopers on behalf of a dictatorial government. A few weeks ago I saw a brief YouTube clip where the Police were wielding batons on an unarmed crowd. Police on horseback were charging into the crowd. The Police had plastic see-through visors — as did the horses. A small segment of the crowd threw what looked like baking flour which coated the see-through visors of the Police and the horses. The horses simply stopped in their tracks as did the Police. What you can't see, you can't beat on. The surge of attacks against unarmed civilians slowed down and almost ceased while the protesters simply calmed down when the beatings ceased. Windshields of the Police Cars were similarly coated with baking flour. While, no doubt, the Police with their batons were frustrated, it seemed that using passive baking flour was a pretty safe way to protest. Regrettably, I saw this in passing so I didn't notice if this was occurring in China, Belgium, or in Iran. With clouds of baking flour powder in the air, it looked like it was snowing. It was a laughable sight. PLEASE FORWARD TO THOSE WHO MIGHT NEED THIS INFO. ### Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
|
RABBI MEIR CHAI, FATHER OF SEVEN, IS DEAD IN SAMARIA. SHOT
BY ARAB SNIPER
Posted by Yaacov Levi, December 24, 2009. |
|
This article was written by Gil Ronen and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva. |
|
(IsraelNN.com) Rabbi Meir Chai, 45, of Shavei Shomron, was mortally wounded in the head Thursday afternoon when terrorists fired at the car he was traveling in, between the Jewish communities of Shavei Shomron and Einav in Samaria, west of Shechem, according to preliminary reports. A spokesperson for Shavei Shomron said that Rabbi Meir Chai worked as an educator at the local school and kindergarten, and that the children were very attached to him. He lived in the community for 14 years and was considered a wise Torah scholar, modest and well-loved. A large force of Israeli soldiers and police has started searching for the terrorists, who escaped the scene. Magen David Adom emergency services declared the victim of the shooting dead late Thursday afternoon. Rabbi Chai was a father of seven children. He was driving on route 57 when terrorists opened fire on him. His car overturned and he was mortally wounded. His wife and a young son were found in good physical condition by Israeli troops, a short time after the shooting, near Einav. Until they were found, security forces were concerned that the terrorists had tried to abduct the two. Fatah faction: we did it The Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction said Thursday evening they were the ones who carried out the terror slaying. The Bethlehem-based Maan news agency says terrorists from a group named after slain Hizbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh carried out the attack and escaped. The murder was the first fatality in a terror attack in more than seven months. The last terror murder victim was Gregory Rabinovitch, 56, a taxi driver murdered May 10 near Gan Yavneh. Two months after the murder, security forces reported that it was carried out by terrorists. Local officials state that it was the Christmass releasing of travel restrictions that enabled the murder to happen. The restriction lifting was to please President Barak Obama. UPDATE 1:
Thousands of people took part in the funeral of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai who was murdered Thursday by a Fatah terror squad. The funeral procession started out at 10:00 AM from the Shamgar Funeral Home and went to the cemetery at the Mount of Olives. Chai (40) lived in Shavei Shomron for 14 years. He was married with seven children, the youngest of whom is two months old. Minister Yaakov Neeman eulogized Rabbi Chai tearfully and paid tribute to his great virtue as a teacher of young children. Samaria Regional Council Head Gershon Mesika said that "Rabbi Meir is a victim of the folly of the government of Israel. His murder is the result of the removal of checkpoints. Two weeks ago the main checkpoint between Shechem and Tulkarm was opened. The government of Israel preferred the Arab's fabric of life to the Jew's life." Mentioning Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Mesika said: "I demand that you face the widow and orphans and ask forgiveness because you cannot say 'our hands did not spill this blood.'" To the Arabs he said: "You have hit the lion in our ranks but you will not break our spirit. We vow to you, Rabbi Meir, that we will continue in your path, to settle in the lands of our forefathers, in spite of them." A father to hundreds MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) said that Rabbi Meir was "a father to all of us and to... hundreds of children whom he taught Torah." MK Yaakov Katz (NU) said: "Rabbi Meir, you are all of Israel; you are a hero of Israel in the instruction of Torah and in fear of the Heavens." Turning to the residents of Judea and Samaria, he said: "We are the few who hold the many. Rabbi Meir, you represent the courage of the settlers. You represent the courage of those who drive at night without guards or security details, you are the hero who shines his countenance to the children at night and in the day. With our devoutness and the willingness to sacrifice we will raise up those who are distant. We need to teach the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister some Torah." Study, not revenge Eliyahu, the Rabbi's son, said: "I want to say to the youth — continue in my father's path. Father wanted faith, he wanted Torah study, he wanted prayers. He could not stand to see that there are no tefillin. He had to see all of the mitzvot (commandments). If you want to memorialize my father these are the things you should do. Not to beat up Arabs with sticks. We are human beings and we will not shoot them in the head for no reason. We are human beings, we are the youth of Samaria... Father would be happiest if he saw us studying." He asked Defense Minister Barak to respect the dedication of the youth of Judea and Samaria. Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai left the community of Einav at 4:30 PM Thursday and drove toward his home in Shavei Shomron. Terrorists in a car that overtook him opened heavy fire at him. Ten bullets hit Meir in the head. He was mortally wounded and died a few minutes later. UPDATE 2:
The announcement by the Al Aksa Martyrs organization that its men are the ones who killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai raises some difficult questions, when one bears in mind that the United States assists the Fatah organization through military training under the supervision of Gen. Keith Dayton. Interviewed by Ben Bresky Thursday night, journalist David Bedein reminded Arutz Sheva's audience that the Al Aksa Martyrs formally joined Fatah's security forces at the Fatah convention in August. Fatah receives military training from US military forces with the full approval of Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Bedein noted that as a journalist, he recently submitted a query to the Minister of Defense and directed a similar question to the US authorities. In his queries he noted that despite their claims otherwise, the Al Aksa Martyrs are a terror group whose men receive financial aid which the US gives the group. He has not received an answer to the query. Bedein's description of the matter means that the United States (headed by President Barack Obama), with the Israeli government's passive agreement, has indirect responsibility for training and funding the terror force which murdered Rabbi Meir Chai. UPDATE 3:
General Security Services in partnership with soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed the murderers of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. All three were convicted terrorists who had been committed to and later released from Israeli prisons.[emphasis added] The Israeli military operation took place on the evening of December 25, the Jewish Sabbath. PA head Mahmoud Abbas was not forewarned of the mission. The homes of three men known to have taken part in the murder were surrounded by special forces units, who tried to arrest them. According to an army spokesperson, the men "refused to cooperate", rejecting calls to surrender. Troops subequently opened fire on the buildings. Nader Raed Sukarji, a 40 year-old inhabitant of Shechem, was arrested in 2002 and suspected of being a top Al Aksa terror group brigade operative and participant in many terror attacks. He also prepared bombs and helped establish explosives factories in Nablus (Shechem). He was released from prison in January 2009. Palestinian sources say Sukarji's wife was also injured in the operation, after her husband used her as a human shield while hiding in their house. Ghassan Abu Sharkh, 39, was imprisoned by security forces in 1990. His brother, Nayef, was the head of the Tanzim terror organization's military wing in Nablus. Nayef facilitated several terror attacks until being killed by IDF forces in June 2004. Anan Suleiman Mustafa Subih, 36, resident of Nablus, was an operative of the "Shuhada al-Aksa" brigade, which was involved in extensive Tanzim military operations as a cell of Tanzim in Nablus. The group was led by Nayef Abu Sharkh, until Nayef's death. Subih worked in trafficking weapons and supplies for use in terror acts. Subih had recently been accepted to Israel's amnesty program for Fatah gunmen. His participation in Tanzim activity was a direct violation of that agreement. In the process of attempting to arrest Subih, Israeli forces found 2 rifles and 2 guns hidden in the house. The weapons have been transferred to police laboratories to determine if they were the ones used to kill Rabbi Chai. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the IDF operation in Shechem, saying it would hurt the Palestinian ability to achieve stability and security. Terror organizations swore they would take revenge for the operation. National Union chairman MK Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz demanded the indictment of the judges of the Supreme Court, for having released the men from jail who went on to commit the murder of Rabbbi Chai and other terror attacks. "[.. prosecute the Supreme Court justices who took part in the freeing of the murderers of Rabbi Meir Chai (may G-d avenge his blood), although they were warned that these men would return to killing," Katz said. "This is the only way we can bring the infamous releases of our people's murderers to an end." CEO Meir Indor of the organization representing terror victims,
Almagor, praised the army's mission, but is urging citizens to contact
the Defense Minister's office and demand a cessation to the release
and pardon of terrorists. He says the government should re-evaluate
its relationship with the PA leadership, claiming that the PA leaks
information, training, and arms to Tanzim terrorists on a regular
basis.
Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com
|
|
NEVER AGAIN IS NOW. IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP.
Posted by Buddy Macy, December 24, 2009. |
|
This below was written by Stanley B. Zir. who writes of his experience at the UN Rally in September, 2008. |
|
Being an American and a descendant from one of the twelve tribes of Israel, I still consider Israel the refuge of every Jewish person in the world, because only she will extend her hand to us when the rest of the world has turned its back on the Jews. To that end, in September, 2008, I traveled from Long Island to New York City to attend a rally at the United Nations to protest the promise of a nuclear strike against Israel that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has guaranteed he would deliver. For a long time now, I've known that there are two actions we must take to ensure Israel's survival — the elimination of Iran's nuclear threat and Israel's disengagement from the two-state "solution." I know that in order to accomplish the above mission, the worldwide Jewish community must first rid itself of the false hope that sanctions would result in Iran's nuclear disarmament and that peace in the Middle East and economic security in the West would be achieved with the implementation of the two-state 'solution', a policy that validates a negotiation process which would turn over lands inside Israel's borders to people who are determined to destroy the Jewish State. Before I went to the UN rally this past September, I prayed to find a connection to the Jewish People's heart that would serve to unite all factions within the Jewish community under one roof, towards one purpose of mind — the need to pressure the leaders of the Free World to take immediate action to end the threat from those intent on Israel's destruction. I also knew that this connection must provide a message so powerful that it would override the fears that an attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure would lead to a global economic meltdown, a manufactured threat that is now preventing Israel from attacking Iran. At the rally that day, my prayers to find this connection were answered. I arrived at the rally early in order to position myself towards the front of the crowd. I had prepared a three-foot square sign that said "End the Sanctions, Bomb Buscher, Never Again is Now." For more than 2 hours I yelled out these and other words over and over again at the top of my lungs. At times, I hit my fists against the sign and shouted out, "This is the gas chamber of death being built for you by Ahmadinejad where a nuclear bomb will replace Zylon B to do Hitler's bidding. Bomb this place, this place of hell on earth. Bomb this place now." As expected, my protest was greeted mostly with derision and annoyance; some threatened me, some even tried to silence me and take away my sign. Except for Buddy Macy, a pro-Israel activist, and a group of women who emerged from the crowd to offer me their support, I stood alone in my protest. Then something occurred that I could never have imagined or be prepared for that provided me with the guidance and wisdom I prayed for before I went to this event. Every time I wanted to stop protesting, one woman from the group urged me on and said, "Keep yelling at them. These are the same Jews who would not listen when the Nazis took power — I know, because I was there. I am a Holocaust survivor." I thought to myself: "Now such as then, the Jews at this rally would never believe that the world would stand by and not intervene and eliminate Iran's threat to Israel!! Because, they never could imagine that the leaders in Iran, like the Nazis before them, were capable of such acts of horror." I then asked this lady: "If your friends who died in the death camps were here today at this rally, would they also be yelling, 'Bomb Iran?'" Her response, unequivocally, was, "Yes. Do not listen to the people here today," she continued, "these are the same people who did not listen in Germany when the Nazis came to power." Without noticing it at first, I found myself shaking; then weeping!!! I had to leave the rally momentarily to gather myself. This heroic woman had touched something so deep inside me. It connected me to the souls of those who were the only ones truly qualified to tell the Jews of today what we have to do to rescue Israel. This is something that mainstream American Jewish organizations and politicians in the Free World have not been able to understand, because only the Holocaust victims can do this. The survivors I met with at the rally let me know in no uncertain terms that this is what their friends who died in the death camps are calling out from their graves. This is the connection all Jews must make in order to unite and defeat an entrenched enemy which is now dictating to us that the Jews again must go silently into the night. Although it is true that they had died and their voices could not be heard at the UN rally, I heard their voices loud and clear!!! And now, all six million voices must be heard again through us. We must honor the Holocaust victims by ensuring that 'Never Again' is not just a hollow phrase. We must say "No" to the Two-State 'Solution' in their names. Six million voices must be raised by Jews and non-Jews alike. "No more sanctions or dialogue — bomb Iran's nuclear gas chambers now," lest we fail to act and they died in vain because Israel was attacked by Iran or brought down by the insidious two-state "solution" from within. If the world has gone mad again, unlike the past, the Jewish People must now choose to stand alone until it regains its senses. That is why we must make sure that the Holocaust victims' message of "Never again is now" is heard throughout the world. Their voices must be heard in the halls of Congress, by American organizations such as AIPAC, in the synagogues and churches, and by all freedom-loving people of every race and creed. The Holocaust victims are the most powerful allies Israel has in ending the violence against her. Only the Holocaust victims can unify the Jewish People and bring clarity of purpose into the public debate as to what actions we must take against Iran and the two-state Jewicide pact. I am not King David, and I do not have a sling shot to kill Goliath. But I do have a proclamation and a shofar to bring down the wall of ignorance that is preventing us from bombing Iran's nuclear gas chambers and claiming the sovereignty of the State of Israel in King David's name. Today, I am asking you to join with me in this quest!!! Take the name of one Holocaust victim from the list, below, and make it your own. Research their history, and then in their name, call out for the bombing of Iran's nuclear gas chambers and for the elimination of the two-state "solution" — NOW! In closing, we can longer be deterred by nay-sayers or their disenfranchised core — their calls for restraint in the face of certain death has made King David's blood run cold in their veins. Stand up and take action!! Slay the Goliath of self-doubt inside yourself and stand with King David. We as a people have been worshiping G-d at the altar of false hope and compliance for too long; this is not the altar of faith that was built for the people of Israel. The Jews who survived the death camps and came to Israel and America said, "Never Again." Nathan Hale, in an act of defiance, declared, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." What do these two proclamations have in common, and why do they have such a powerful impact on the people of the societies they represent? Each one has captured the essence of the convictions that their fellow citizens can rally around in order to defend against and defeat an enemy that threatens to destroy them. I am convinced that "Never again is now" serves our just purpose and cause. So there is no longer any doubt in any nation in this world about the actions Israel must take to protect her sovereignty...so there is no longer any confusion among the Jewish People that sanctions can never provide a viable solution to end the Iranian threat...in the name of the Holocaust victims as representatives of the Jewish People here and around the world, we, the living, have a moral obligation to speak out for Jews in need and/or peril. Ours must be a unified voice of compassion and justice. It must be an unequivocal voice of strength, reason and protection against the "two-state FINAL solution" that would lead to the destruction of the Jewish State from within, and a mighty call for Israel to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Withdraw your support from those who lack the moral courage to act, and join us; the window of opportunity is small. Only with a unified voice and one purpose of mind, can we and will we rescue Israel now! To view the 'Never Again is Now' poster, click here. Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com |
|
I APPLAUD THE AUTHORS OF THE ANTI-FREEZE ACTION PLAN
Posted by Paul Eidelberg, December 24, 2009. |
|
Heroes and friends of Israel: I applaud the authors and supporters of the "Anti-Freeze" Action Plan. Allow me to say that the same "no-talking" approach to Israel's government is exactly the approach Israeli prime ministers should have applied to the PLO-Palestinian (terrorist) Organization. This wise and manly "no talk" approach is so fittingly and so splendidly opposed to the servile and spineless "talk-talk" approach of Binyamin Netanyahu. I would urge the heroic people of Judea and Samaria to convey to the citizens of Israel as a whole that upright Jews do not talk to morally retarded ministers of the government. Honorable Jews will not talk to and dignify those who give orders to commit such wicked and cowardly acts as expelling Jewish men and women — young and old — as well as children from their homes — acts which Benzion Netanyahu, the father of the Prime Minister, rightly called a "crime." Furthermore, in the name of reason, justice, and truth, we utterly denounce Defense Minister like Ehud Barak who insults the intelligence of our fellow citizens — yes, Ehud Barak — who even now is preparing to commit fascist acts and does in the name of democracy! Read 'Anti-Freeze' Action Plan Released' by Hillel Fendel here. Prof. Paul Eidelberg is an Internationally known political scientist, author and lecturer. He is President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy, a Jerusalem-based think tank for improving Israel's system of governance. Contact him at list-owner@foundation1.org |
|
FREEING 1,000 PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS FOR GILAD SCHALIT WOULD BE A TRAGIC MISTAKE
Posted by ZOA, December 24, 2009. |
|
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed its opposition to the possible decision of the Israeli government to free nearly 1,000 jailed Palestinians, including murderers, attempted murderers, accessories to murder and others involved in terrorism against Israel in return for the freeing of kidnapped Israeli serviceman Corporal Gilad Schalit as a tragic mistake. Corporal Schalit was kidnapped by Hamas infiltrators in 2006 and has been held by the Islamist terrorist organization in Gaza since that date. Hamas's Charter calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7). Among those likely to be freed, for example, will be the woman who drove the 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria bomber, who murdered 15 Israelis and maimed dozens more. Many others will be terrorists who directly committed murders. Also likely to be released with be Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah figure who commanded the Tanzim terror squads during the early years of the Palestinian terror wave beginning in September 2000 and who was arrested by Israeli forces in 2002 and imprisoned after being found guilty on five counts of murder. ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "We oppose this mass release of jailed terrorists for three primary reasons: it will result in more murdered and maimed Israelis, because many freed terrorists have returned to terror and claimed lives in the past. It will encourage more kidnappings of Israelis by Hamas and other terror groups as a means to extract their terrorists from Israeli jails, as they have just again succeeded in doing. And it will also give a boost to the most murderous elements in Palestinian society, especially Hamas, at once rewarding terrorists and encouraging them to continue shedding blood. "This release of 1,000 terrorists in return for one kidnapped Israeli also shows the slippery slope down which Israel is falling. At one time, Israel would release terrorists, but not those with 'blood on their hands' — a misleading euphemism for terrorists who failed to kill or who did not directly commit terrorist murders themselves — and only in return for live Israelis. "By July 2008, however, Israel had agreed to release to Hizballah a gruesome murderer, Samir Kuntar, and four others prisoners in return for the corpses of two kidnapped Israelis. In August 2008, it also freed a further 198 jailed terrorists, including two convicted murderers and 149 others guilty of attempted murder, as a 'confidence-building measure.' In October this year, in return for a mere video of Gilad Schalit, Israel freed 20 Palestinian prisoners. Now it has agreed to release a staggering 980 prisoners to Hamas to secure Schalit's return. "Clearly, Israel is giving more and receiving less — and that is not the worst of it. The fact is that freed terrorists frequently return to terror and end up murdering more Israelis. The evidence for this is clear: Col. Meir Indor, Director of Almagor Terrorist Victims Association (ATVA), disclosed in April 2007 that 177 Israelis killed in terror attacks in the previous five years had been killed by terrorists freed on the basis that they were "without blood on their hands." An earlier ATVA report showed that 123 Israelis had been murdered by terrorists freed during 1993-99. "Evidently, Israelis were fooling themselves if they thought that freeing attempted murderers and accessories to murder carried few risks. Freed terrorists, whether they succeeded to kill or not, often try to kill again. This aspect of the problem is routinely ignored by in discussion of prisoner releases. "Freeing terrorists in exchanges of this type provide a major incentive for more kidnappings of Israelis. As Hamas chief Khaled Mesahaal said only days ago, 'The resistance ... is capable of capturing [another] Schalit and [another] Schalit and [another] Schalit, until not a single prisoner will remain in the enemy's jails.' "Israelis' willingness to release live terrorists in return for even dead soldiers provided the terrorists all the incentive they required. Moreover, where Israel frees terrorists for corpses, it endangers the lives of those kidnapped, because it demonstrates that their deaths pose no obstacle to an exchange. This puts the lives of future kidnap victims in jeopardy. "Have we learned nothing from bitter experience? Freeing even hundreds of terrorists has never improved Israel's standing among Arabs, moderated their demands or mollified their hatreds. As Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shalom Harari of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya noted after this very prisoner release: 'On the morning after ... we heard Fatah blaming Israel. Whatever happens, they will blame Israel and fault everyone except for themselves.' "The appeals to put ourselves in the shoes of the families of the kidnapped are deeply moving and understandable, but remain false and can also be emotionally manipulative. In any event, they cannot be decisive. Would we allow relatives of people held up by bank robbers to decide whether or not the police accede to the demands of their captors? "The duty of the state is to protect its citizens. It follows that the most important consideration must be preventing the loss of further lives to terror. "We deeply sympathize with Israeli families when their sons are kidnapped by bloodthirsty terrorists. We would support virtually any efforts to bring them home safely. But when the record plainly shows that releasing terrorists brings only more terror and tragedy, the painfully necessary course of action is clear — no more rewarding kidnappings through terrorist releases." The Zionist Organization of America (www.zoa.org), founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver. |
