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ZIONISM IS BEAUTIFUL
Posted by Gary S., February 28, 2006. |
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This was written by Rabbi Shaul Praver Congregation Adath Israel, Newtown, CT. Israel", "Jew" and "Zionism" are beautiful words. Yet repetitive racial slurs concerning these words make them sound ugly and pejorative. Zionism means scorched desert wastelands transformed into magnificent gardens and green farm lands. Zionism means oppressed downtrodden Jews becoming uplifted and able to affirm their continuity from Biblical times. Zionism means Jews living proudly once again in their ancient homeland. Zionism means the collective creativity of Jews of very ethnicity coming together to build a free civilization. Zionism means the opportunity to enact an ancient dream that will not die. Zionism means establishing a modern civilization that shares a messianic vision of making earth a little more like Heaven. Zionism means sharing Israeli's blessings with the world. Zionism is not Racism. Jews come in every race and ethnicity. Zionism is not an apartheid State: While Jews are the Majority in Israel, Arabs vote and are represented in the Israeli government. Zionism is not Colonialism: Jews won the war of Independence against the British colonists and lay claim to only Israel. Furthermore, Israel is no more a racist state for creating a haven for Jews then Saudi Arabia is a racist state for creating a haven for Arabs. Whosoever points an accusing finger toward Israel in this regard will find four fingers pointing back at them, because Israel is a democratic state where freedom of religion is enjoyed by a multitude of ethnic groups. Charges of racism are empty and inflammatory. Jews are willing to share their land with the [Arab] Palestinians. But peace also depends upon the willingness of Palestinians to share their land with the Jews. Please ask yourself a basic question: If Israel laid down her weapons and retired her army, navy and air force, how long do you think it would take for Israel to be conquered by Muslims? Days? Weeks? Or Months? Now, ask yourself the question in reverse. If all of Israel's neighbors laid down their weapons in the same manner, is it likely Israel would attempt to conquer Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia? I believe honest answers to these questions clarify the essence of the conflict. Namely that only one party seeks the destruction of the other. Israel has suffered many horrible terrorist attacks in restaurants, hotels, city buses, trains, beaches, streets, universities, school buses, highways, banks, grocery stores, private homes, kibbutzim, parks, caves and fields. And if, God forbid, these same attacks occurred in the United States, our military would respond with decisive force and alacrity. Losing such a war on terrorism would be tantamount to losing one's country and losing one's very civilization; it is not an option. For half a century, [Arab] Palestinians have professed an interest in acquiring a state of their own. Several attempts to grant Palestinians their wish were made, starting with the 1948 U.N. Partition Plan and concluding with the offer made by former Israeli Prime Minister Barak in 2001 at Taba, 98% of the requested land - including east Jerusalem, as per Yassir Arafat's request - was offered. But, even that offer was answered with war. For many, it would seem that Barak called Arafat's bluff; revealing the peace process to be a process of war. Due to these harsh realities, the Sharon administration has pursued the building of a security fence and has just completed the disengagement of all the Jewish communities from Gaza. Yet, a million Arabs live in Israel and enjoy democratic rights and freedoms. Is this fair? Why can't Jews live under the Palestinian flag just as Arabs live under the Israeli flag? The Sharon administration say it's a practical matter; Israel no longer wishes to deploy its Army to defend a small number of Gaza Jews. But wait! Stop! Think! Is there a need for a Palestinian Army to protect Israeli Arabs? No! Israeli Arabs need no protection; they are safe as citizens of Israel. Israelis simply want peace and would much prefer spending their time, tending their gardens, doing art, finding a cure for cancer, composing and performing world class music, and inventing more incredible bio-pharmaceuticals and computer technology. Real time internet applications, cellular telephones, color printing are just a few examples of the technology developed in Israel. There is so much brainpower and creative energy emanating from Israel?s diverse ethnic population that benefits every person on the planet. Yet even at a time that Israel pursues territorial concessions for the sake of peace, many people lack the ability to say even a few kind words. I will say to them then, "Zionism is Beautiful!" Contact Gary S. at ahavat@telkomsa.net |
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KADIMA: FOLLOW ME TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Posted by Naomi Ragen, February 28, 2006. |
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Friends, This article appears in Hebrew on YNET at http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3221499,00.html It's gotten over four hundred responses. Perhaps the sheep following Kadima to the ballot box will turn around and stop in time. Naomi During dinner one evening at the recent Herzlyia Conference I sat next to a well-fed local businessman, a man of middle-age with an expensive black suit and shiny black hair. We were there to hear Benjamin Netanyahu, so we got to talking politics. Are you going to vote for him? I asked. He shook his head no. "I'm going to vote for Kadima," he said, painting a straight line in the air with his finger. "Right down the middle." "In what way," I asked him in surprise, "is Kadima in the middle?" He looked at me blankly, astonished at the question. Israelis love slogans. Come up with the right slogan, even if it makes no sense, if it's a total lie, and they will support anyone, and any cause. Sell them "Peace Now" wrapped up in little white doves, and they'll vote for that. And if instead they get exploding buses and pizza parlors, dead babies on the streets, they won't stop believing. They won't look back and say: "Gee, those politicians were incompetent liars, let's kick them out of office and keep them there. " Not at all. Come up with another slogan and the exact same politicians will get their vote again. Take Shimon Peres, architect of Oslo. author of the "The New Middle East" which has to go down in history with "Peace in Our Time" as the political blooper of the century. Peres has a new slogan: Kadima! Peres is now "in the center." Kadima is a great slogan. It's the cry of a general leading men on a battlefield. It means: Forward! Follow me! Don't look around at the fallen and dying all around you! Keep going. Don't look back! Never mind that it was founded by a controversial general known for his impulsiveness and determination - qualities sometimes helpful on the battlefield, but quite disastrous in matters of state. Never mind that his greatest accomplishment in office, carried out with bulldozer determination, has in record time already proven an unmitigated disaster: The disengagement provided the Hamas with its successful campaign slogan:" Ten years of negotiation, five years of Intifada." Never mind that daily rockets now land in the Negev and Ashkelon and Ashdod and Sderot. Never mind that for the first time in our history the national consensus towards the IDF has begun to unravel. Never mind that. Kadima! So the head of the party and its moving force is now incapacitated? Replace him! Never mind that Ehud Olmert was the worst Mayor Jerusalem ever had. A man whose coalition with the haredim turned the city into a filthy, poor backwater full of ugly high-rises. In between his own police investigations, Mr. Olmert has had a chance to totally change his political slogans with the times. He is a man who stands for nothing and has accomplished even less. But never mind that. Kadima! Never mind that the Party has collected such Israeli political luminaries as Dalia Itzik, Haim Ramon, Ruhama Avraham, and Omri Sharon. Never mind that Tzachi Hanegbi now sits with them, and that Avi Dichter, a former head of intelligence, who said: "The numbers speak for themselves... it is clear that disengagement has decreased terror" is number five on their list. Never mind. Give them your vote. Kadima! The Jews, the bible tells us, are a stiff-necked people. As everyone knows, when you have a stiff-neck, you can't turn around and look behind you. You have to face forward. Those voting Kadima can only do it if they stick with the slogans and don't check them against reality. If you turn around and look at where the party came from and who is in it, you, like my friend in Herzylia, would be astonished. Why, you would ask yourself, would anyone vote for the biggest collection of losers in Israel's political history all gathered in one spot? Brothers and sisters, we have a very little country. We have made so many, many mistakes. Isn't it time we stopped electing leaders who blindly put our women and children on the front lines against our enemies? Isn't it time we stopped listening to our not very intelligent journalists and TV news people, clueless leftists all? Isn't it time to look back before we jump over the cliff once more? Kadima is in the middle all right. In the middle of no where. Naomi Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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EVIL AT ITS BEST
Posted by Anita Tucker, February 28, 2006. |
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Most of Caravillas will NOT be ready at on March 23 according to almost all involved in the Ein Tzurim site ---therefore according to this letter from Prime Ministers office -- Sela -- they want us to be ready to be moved to another temporary something. What am I supposed to do -- put my few pairs of underwear and other minimums -- toothbrush etc -- back into my back back (sorry will need something larger cause of all the gifts we received from Jews who care, tell my grandkids to pack their few toys in a plastic bag, say goodbye to their friends in the Ein Tzurim Gan that they have finally adjusted to etc, etc, etc. The Caravillas are not ready and apparently more important guests than us must be hosted in the hotel rooms This involves about 130 families from Netzer HAzani, Neve Dekalom and several from Gadid. This is the newest edict signed "with the kings official seal" -- we are again to be sent to exile to wander again. It will be enforced by the "the kings men" erev Shabbat HAgadol -- so there is a plan to make sure that on that very Shabbat when all caring Jews express their renewed faith in Hashem's miracles and salvation, Sela has plans for us to be again sent to wander to a new exile in our own homeland. EVIL! We know that as always Hakadosh Baruch will be with us and we have faith that caring people who have stood with us and brought us light in this darkness will find a way to chase away this evil as well with more light. Let's get to work! This is not a Purim joke!
Anita Tucker lives in Gush Katif, Gaza, with her family. They grew
wonderful organic vegetables. They are no homeless in Israel, subject
to the vindictic whims of the "Disengagement Authority."
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DUBAI PORTS BOYCOTTS ISRAEL, VIOLATES USA LAW
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 28, 2006. |
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Dear Mr. President, Is it not illegal in our country to boycott Israel? didn't I read someplace where the USA decided that since Israel is an ally of the USA, the USA cannot support any efforts to boycott Israel? Is it not the case that in September, 2004, a bi-partisan group of thirteen Members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce, urging the shutdown of anti-Israel divestment campaigns, because they violate U.S. laws regarding the Arab boycott of Israel. The letter was initiated by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). As I recall, the bi-partisan group was led by U.S. Representatives Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and Rob Andrews (D-NJ), and also signed by eleven other members of the Congress. The signers pointed out that by urging Americans to divest their holdings in companies doing business with Israel, the divestment proponents were illegally furnishing information about U.S. companies that have business relationships in or with Israel, and specifically advocating that these companies be boycotted. Such actions are "expressly prohibited by the anti-boycott provisions of the Export Administration Act, which were enacted in response to congressional concerns about the Arab boycott of Israel." So the government of Dubai and the Dubai Ports World are actually in violation of U.S. law. Did their legal staff neglect to point this out to them before they entered into their deal with you? Did your legal staff neglect to point this out to you before you threatened a veto over Congressional action stopping the Dubai take-over of 21 ports? Would you be kind enough to explain this strange anomalous situation where our own president is aiding and abetting the violation of our country's laws? Israel news on line. 2.28.06: "Dubai Ports boycott Israeli products" David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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EU SUPPORT FOR PA
Posted by Dr. Asher Eder, February 28, 2006. |
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The EU has decided to pay 250 mio Euro to Abu Mazen's PA in an attempt to prevent its collapse. That money, it is said, should go only to civil services as hospitals, schools, road construction, salaries of PA personal; and the like. Sounds really nice in the ears of PA fans; and makes surely sense in the eyes of blockheads. Suppose, all that money would really go to the institutions mentioned (never mind if those hospitals treat also terrorists wounded in action), it would release the Hamas-government from taking up its financial responsibility for those civic institutions; and would allow it using all the money it gets from supporters like Iran, for its warfare against Israel. Why not? Didn't Israel's Acting PM state that Hamas is not a strategic threat to the country? So, let them have all the money they think they need, as long as it seems face saving. Quite in line with the above paper tiger's logic is also the fact that Hamas leaders can travel freely all over the world. True, Hamas is declared a terrorist organization (even by Pres. Bush); and our army units in risking lives of our soldiers chase its fighters, but their leaders can form the government of the PA (=Palestinian Aberration); and as said, can travel freely all over the world to garner support (so far not in Israel's rump state, but who knows?). Could someone imagine that in WWII, Churchill would have allowed a third nation to transfer money officially to Germany to help its suffering civilians; and let Hitler & Co travel to wherever they wanted to go in order to drum up support, or were invited to? And mind you, Hitler did not threaten England wiping it off the map; and butcher all her citizens... but Hamas, in chorus with Iran, proclaims Israel's destruction as the goal. Eviva democracia! Wouldn't that slogan make a nice inscription on our tomb stones? Or, perhaps better, buy for the above money some eye salve, and rub it into the eyes for getting a clearer sight? Or, should paper tiger's logic go on? Dr. Asher Eder is Jewish Co-Chairman of Islam-Israel Fellowship, Root and Branch Association Ltd, Jerusalem/Israel. |
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WE'RE YOUR FRIEND, YOUR ONLY FRIEND...
Posted by Eugene Narrett, February 28, 2006. |
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1956: USA diplomatic & Intelligence [sic] services to Israel "Please help us out with this one. You've got to withdraw from the Sinai. We can't have this perception of Western Imperialism in the Arab world. You know how they are..." What? you have over a hundred murders each year? It's a small price to pay for peace. It's better than 1944, right? You know how they are: we can't reason with them. But you're our friends, we rely on your good judgment. And we're your best friend, your only friend. You've got to withdraw from the Sinai. We don't want any more global increase in anti-Semitism, do we?' 1967: USA diplomatic & Intelligence [sic] services to Israel "Please help us out with this one. You've got to withdraw from the occupied territories. We can't have this perception of Western Imperialism in the Arab world. You know how they are about western Imperialism. Didn't you say the territories are bargaining chips? Please help us out just this time..." What? you have over a hundred murders each year? The Auschwitz borders? Isn't that a bit far-fetched? Holy sites? It's a small price to pay for peace. It's better than 1944, right? You know how they are: we can't reason with them. But you're our friends, we rely on your good judgment. You're always so reasonable. Besides, we'll guarantee the peace and your secure and defensible borders. We're your friends, your only friends. You've got to withdraw from the territories, with a few insubstantial modifications. We don't want any more global increase in anti-Semitism, do we? There shouldn't be a major accident, God forbid? You don't want to have an accident, right" 1978: USA diplomatic & Intelligence [sic] services to Israel "Please help us out with this one. You've got to withdraw from the occupied territories. We can't have this perception of Western Imperialism in the Arab world. You know how they are about western Imperialism. Didn't you say the territories are bargaining chips? Please help us out just this time..." What? The Auschwitz borders? Isn't that a bit far-fetched? Holy sites? It's a small price to pay for peace. It's better than 1944, right? Why do you need to live in Hebron or the West Bank? You know how they are: we can't reason with them. But you're our friends, we rely on your good judgment. You're always so reasonable. Besides, we're going to guarantee the peace. We'll put peacekeepers in place; nice European boys to guarantee your safety within defensible borders. What's that? No we're not laughing; just a tickle in the throat.... Remember, we're your best friend, your only friend. You've got to withdraw from the territories, with a few insubstantial modifications. We don't want any more global increase in anti-Semitism, do we? There shouldn't be a major accident, God forbid? You don't want to have an accident, right" 1991, Madrid: USA diplomatic & Intelligence [sic] services to Israel "Please help us out with this one. You've got to withdraw from the occupied territories. We can't have this perception of Western Imperialism in the Arab world. You know how they are about western Imperialism. Things are especially delicate now that we had to defend our allies the Kuwaitis. You know how much they mean for our deterrence and, uh, economy. Anyway, didn't you say the territories are bargaining chips? No, you didn't by your predecessors did. Please help us out just this time..." What? The Auschwitz borders again? Isn't that a bit far-fetched? Holy sites? It's a small price to pay for peace. It's better than 1944, right? Why do you need to live in Hebron or the West Bank? We told you to stop the settlers. No, Begin was too easy on them. And you know how the Arabs are: honor means alot to them. They're very proud people. We can't reason with them. And of course we need the oil so badly. But you're our friends, we rely on your good judgment. You're always so reasonable. Besides, we're going to guarantee the peace. Look, we didn't even ask you to participate in the War. There's a perception that you're not pulling your weight. We have to address this, at least in public. We'll put peacekeepers in place; nice European boys to guarantee your safety within defensible borders. What's that? No we're not laughing; just a tickle in the throat.... Remember, we're your best friend, your only friend. You've got to withdraw from the territories, with a few insubstantial modifications. We don't want any more global increase in anti-Semitism, do we? There shouldn't be a major accident, God forbid? You don't want to have an accident, right" We'll have a peace for a lifetime agreement and academy awards. 1993, Oslo: USA diplomatic & Intelligence [sic] services to Israel "Please help us out with this one. You've got to shake his hand and sign the paper. Yes, on the White House lawn. You know how much I love Jews. So just promise to withdraw from the occupied territories; sure, set limits. You can always take them back if they don't keep their word, and you know they never honor a deal. It's all for the cameras. Do it for me, a favor for a friend. You know we're the liberals and we know Jews love liberals. You help us out, we'll help you out. Some of my best girl friends are Jewish...... Besides, we can't have this perception of Western Imperialism in the Arab world. You know how they are about western Imperialism. Things are especially delicate now after that little nastiness in Waco. Anyway, didn't you say the territories are bargaining chips? No, you didn't but your predecessors did. Please help us out just this time..." What? The Auschwitz borders again? Isn't that a bit far-fetched? Holy sites? It's a small price to pay for peace. It's better than 1944, right? Why do you need to live in Hebron or the West Bank? We told you to stop the settlers. No, Begin was too easy on them. And you know how the Arabs are: honor means alot to them. They're very proud people. We can't reason with them. And of course we need the oil so badly. But you're our friends, we rely on your good judgment. You're always so reasonable. Besides, we're going to guarantee the peace. We'll put peacekeepers in place; nice European boys to guarantee your safety within defensible borders. What's that? No we're not laughing; just a tickle in the throat.... And hey, the Secretary of State is Jewish, at least, she used to be a long time ago... Remember, we're your best friend, your only friend. You've got to withdraw from the territories, with a few insubstantial modifications. We don't want any more global increase in anti-Semitism, do we? There shouldn't be a major accident, God forbid? You don't want to have an accident, right" We'll have a peace-for-a-lifetime agreement and academy awards. 1995; 1997; 2000; 2001 - 06, Oslo II to the Road Map, USA diplomatic & Intelligence [sic] services to Israel Your our friends, our dear, dear friends. And we're your friend, you're only friend. We're so sorry about the late Prime Minister. we'll all be there for his funeral, say, about 10 days before your elections. What? Jonathan Pollard? You don't want to have an accident, do you? The world's a dangerous place, you know. You know that; why, any day that maniac in Iran might do something very regrettable. But we'll be there with the payback, rest assured of that. Glad to see you beginning to work with the new Hamas. If we can, you can. They're going to recognize your right to exist. That will be big news. This is it; this is the end of concessions. Just brace yourself for this last round of disengagements and we'll put a lasting peace in place. We'll guarantee the agreement. We're your friends, your only friends...................." Sometimes, there's only one way to solve a problem. Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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WESTERN NON DEFENSE; HOPE FOR UNO & HAMAS REFORM? NY TIMES VS. DANISH CARTOONISTS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 28, 2006. |
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IDF RESPONSE TO P.A. ROCKETS The IDF, operating under government self-imposed restraint, declared it would not respond to every rocket attack. IMRA interprets that to mean it would respond only when Israeli casualties engender sufficient public outrage (IMRA, 2/10). Such policy violates the basic duty of government and sets the government at odds with the democratic ethos, that the government retains popular support by meeting the country's needs. There is some truth to IMRA's interpretation. The government is being directed more by the will of a leftist cabal and an anti-Zionist State Dept.. The people are dupes and pawns. The government media are in a conspiracy to persuade the people that its policies of surrender to the enemy are protecting them from that enemy or that their own patriots are the enemy. The White House and Congress often provide for special interests at the expense of the country as a whole, while misstating what is done as for the benefit of the whole. On the other hand, the IDF is right, it cannot respond to every rocket attack. It doesn't know where every rocket is fired from. That is no excuse for not stamping out the attacks. Nor should the IDF respond to every attack if it could. However, instead of picking off a couple of terrorists a day, it should bombard the rocket-launching area and send in ground forces to prevent more attacks. It also should shut off services to the P.A.. The P.A. should not be able to dish out total war, without taking total war. Israel should win this war. Victory would end the human casualties, the economic drain, the political toll, and the terrorists' hope. WHAT TO DO ABOUT IRAN Iran trains and sends forces into Iraq to battle civilians and Western liberators. The US has expelled many Iranian diplomats "caught photographing New York tunnels, bridges, subway stations, and monuments." Iran is coordinating international terrorism, particularly against the West. (Iran also is financing the terrorist war on Israel and is building missiles capable of bringing mass-destruction to Europe and beyond.) Despite being menaced by Iran, "...not a single Western country has come up with a serious Iran policy." No Western leader has called for the liberation of Iran (Jewish Political Chronicle, 1/2006, p.10 from Michael Ledeen, National Review On-line, 10/31). The West suffers from a dearth of information and a surfeit of propaganda), poor vision, unwillingness to pay for something not a consumer benefit, and failure of nerve. The US might have issued the call, but the State Dept. is tied up with petty squabbles over this, the Democrats are isolationist, and Bush has money for subsidies to rich corporations and a drug plan, but not for additional means of national defense. IS THERE HOPE FOR HAMAS TO REFORM? Sec. General Annan said "There is an opportunity here for Hamas to transform itself into a political party and work with the international community and the Israeli government." As if in refutation, the Hamas Web site has produced two videos. One vows they will drink the Jews' blood until they leave "Muslim countries." The other shows a mother dressing her son for suicide bombing (NY Sun, 2/15, Ed.). Happy Valentine's Day! Hamas is following the route of Hizbullah, entering politics but retaining terrorist militia. Islam defines a "Muslim country" as one that Muslims at one time conquered. They define "resistance" as their efforts to recapture a country liberated from them. Popular among Muslim government and media, regardless of whether the West dubs them "moderate", is the blood libel of Jews murdering gentile children for their blood in some religious ritual. But drinking blood, which religious Jews won't do even in the form of chicken gravy, is a powerful symbol that Arabs use and sometimes practice. IS THERE HOPE FOR UNO? Exhibit one: Sec. General Annan's remark, above, that did not take into account how fanatical Hamas is. Exhibit two: the editorial rephrased another remark as: "try to continue to negotiate with the Holocaust-denying, terrorist-supporting regime in Iran that is repressing its own people, yet that remains a member in good standing at the United Nations." Exhibit three: oil-for-food (Op. Cit.). Exhibit 4: Veto-wielding Security Council members deciding on inaction against Iran in order to "maintain unity." China and Russia oppose forcefulness against Iran. Iranian negotiators customarily retract hard-line positions just before Council meetings, so the Council can pretend to perceive moderation (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 2/15, p.7). Inside Iran, striking bus drivers have been fired and arrested. Their wives are so desperate as to defy the regime by appealing for charity. Students are taking an interest in this. Dissidents see an opportunity for uniting opposition and bringing down the hated regime, if supported by Western funds and publicity (Eli Lake, NY Sun, 2/15, p.7). Western assumptions about the Mid East are being shown up as its diplomacy unravels. The democratically elected Prime Minister of Lebanon failed to unite the factions, with the result that Hizbullah is leading what may become the dominant bloc. It allied with the Christians (Nibras Kazimi, NY Sun, 2/15, Op. Ed.), who thereby risk their necks!
Reform of the UNO is not likely while its membership includes many of the very kinds of governments that the UNO was established to check (NY Sun, 2/15, Ed.) Ambassador Bolton's reform efforts failed for that reason. As for the Council, "unity" for what? IRAN'S PRESIDENT VIDEOTAPED On tape, he commented to a cleric about his UNO speech. He claimed that a halo appeared around his head. "I felt the atmosphere suddenly change. And for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink... It seemed as if a hand were holding them there, and it opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic Republic." Charles Krauthammer notes, "Negotiations to deny this certifiable lunatic genocidal weapons have been going nowhere. Everyone knows they will go nowhere. And no one will do anything about it." (Jewish Political Chronicle, 1/2006, p.12.) Spread the word about this. No comment from me necessary. QUARTET TO THE RESCUE OF HAMAS Quartet envoy Wolfensohn said he would help the P.A. through its financial crisis unconditionally (IMRA, 2/11). He contradicts E.U. assertions that it is demanding that Hamas retract its declaration of war against Israel, in order to remain eligible for more aid. No evil too odious for him. Why set up a superfluous Arab state to be a charity case? The West has not explained its eagerness to do so. Is its appeasement so fixed that it supports an anti-Western terrorist entity? Is it doing so as a means of bringing down the Jewish state? The first motive is the more foolish, and the second is the more evil. THOMAS FRIEDMAN ADVISES ON THE P.A. Mr. Friedman admits that Hamas is murderous, but warns that letting the P.A. collapse would release more gunmen onto the street and appear as if Hamas didn't get a chance to run an effective government. He advises, "Let Hamas Sink or Swim on Its Own". Let it evolve, negotiate peace, and be more able to carry out any agreement it makes with Israel than was Fatah (NY Times, 2/17, Op. Ed.). He means, keep shekels and dollars flowing. Bear in mind that Friedman is obsessed with anti-Zionism -- he continually rationalizes for Israeli appeasement of the Arabs. Reasonable in tone, his advice is misconceived. Religious fanatics don't suddenly evolve. Hamas plans to recruit more. Friedman mistakenly implies that Fatah violated peace agreements because it was ineffective, rather than deceitful and dedicated to jihad. Instead of letting fanatical Arab terrorists hold us hostage for aid, we must fight them. If we withdrew subsidy, the P.A. would collapse, though Iran would give some money for terrorism. Israel could defeat that terrorism, if it weren't restrained by politically correct respect for fanatical terrorists' self-government. But if the West is to have any economic leverage with the enemy it must conserve fuel and get renewable energy. NY TIMES VS. DANISH CARTOONISTS A Times Op.-Ed argues that the West maintains a civil society by self-censorship. How can we ask Muslims to stop cartooning against the West, when we draw cartoons against them? As for violence, it has occurred in the West, too, such as American race riots. Therefore, why blame the Muslims for theirs? Actually, most Muslims aren't so exercised over the cartoons, but demagogues agitate them (Robert Wright, 2/17). My standards: allow opinions, including nonsensical ones that there was no Holocaust; stick to the truth; don't insult gratuitously; fight back against our enemies; stop political correctness; and ban inciting to violence. The Times article is sophistry. Is over-simplifies and it equates dissimilarities. The political correctness that Mr. Wright urges is more a model of totalitarianism than of consideration. It goes far beyond avoiding gratuitous insult. Wright implies that the Danish cartoons were offensive, but they were not. Moreover, we are in a world war against Islamism, but Wright would have our side not even raise the alarm. Imagine if in WWII we were worried about not insulting the fascists! Yes, there has been violence in the West. Mostly it was in the past. We have advanced beyond it. But Wright holds that violence up as another model. It was wrong then, and does not justify Islamist violence now. Those so easily roused are rabble. Equating cartoons of East and West is erroneous. (1) The Danish cartoons were accurate, whereas Muslim (not just Islamist) cartoons are blood libel. (2) The Muslims had been publishing vicious and defamatory cartoons for years, without much protest. Now some Westerners ask how can Muslims protest against the few Western cartoons about Islam that came in reaction to years of bitterly anti-Western cartoons. Wright turns the issue upside down, by making the Western reaction seem hypocritical, when it is the West complaining that the excessive Muslim reaction is hypocritical. Write thinks he is being considerate, but doesn't show that he protested against Muslim cartoons years ago. IRAN DURING THE HOLOCAUST Before WWII, Iran welcomed Gestapo agents to work there against the British and the Jews. During the war, Iran was regional Gestapo headquarters. The SS recruited Iranians into units murdering Jews and others in Bosnia. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company supplied the German forces in Central Europe. German crews escaped the British invasion of Iraq by flight to Iran. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem did likewise. The Allies had to invade Iran and oust the Shah Iran charged a lot but allowed Jewish refugees to escape through Iran and into Israel. Now Iran denies that the Holocaust happened (Jewish Political Chronicle, 1/2006, p.13 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 12/19). This is another example of Muslims' hypocrisy. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THE STATE DEPT'S VIEW OF ISRAELI LEADERS
Posted by Marcel Cousineau, February 28, 2006. |
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The U.S. Government and media no longer care about Israel, they ignore the fact that the UAE boycotts Israel as well as not recognizing Israel. This is intentional. It's past time for Israel to wake up and realize that it is only Hashem which they can turn to and trust? This parody has more truth than most people realize! Top Secret
Classified top secret: for your eyes only Standard U.S. Protocol as related to Israel and the Palestinian's 'There is to be no deviation from this list by any spokesmen or employees of those U.S. Government agencies involved in the final solution break up of Israel.' 1.Condemn all attacks against Israel but do nothing else. This is the standard 'condemnation' used since our Oslo Plan to weaken and dismember Israel, memorize it and use it. "We condemn this vicious action of terror".
2.Never, never follow up or expect the Palestinians to do more than their standard condemnation, and always keep their funding growing so they can become a greater threat to Israel than they are now. 3, With large and more serious attacks use the word's 'strongly condemn'. 4.A day after the attack, move Israel's leaders away from doing anything substantive as a deterrent with the Palestinians. This may set back our plans to finalize the Israel problem. Use the argument that it may harm the nonexistent peace process. 5. If Israel does hit back hard, begin major pressure to restrain them immediately. If threats are needed to put a stop to Israel's attacks against the terrorist hotbeds, this will be done by POTUS and or CONDI. 6. Remain silent and concillatory towards Israeli Government official's. We must keep them in our 'friend' box on a tight leash. If we antagonize them too much, they may break loose from our grasp, free to put an end to our agenda and this must not happen. They might just go in and defeat the Palestinian's and end the intifada. That would be disasterous for our plans. 7. The plan is working well. Olmert, Mofaz and Peres, our well trained puppets offer us no problems or resistance. They obey us quite religiously. We are their masters. Netanyahu is in place to surrender more Jewish land for our Palestinian state if there is a right wing win in Israel against Kadima and Olmert. 8. With Hamas in control and our continueing funding thru backdoor channels, Israel will be weakened even more, ensuring that our Arab and Saudi partners continue economic investments and keeping a strong U.S. economy. It's all about the oil and the money. 9. The media is doing a great job, so please keep a positive relationship with all of them. Buy them drinks, take them out to dinner, cultivate their continued loyalty and always focus them on the Palestinians as victimized and suffering, and never!, never never allow the Jews to be viewed in this light. liz Marcel Cousineau can be reached at up2zionsg8@yahoo.com. Or go to his website: A Very Heavy Stone (http://averyheavystone.blogspot.com). |
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EXPOSING HAMAS
Posted by Barry Rubin, February 28, 2006. |
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Read this column and find out how a conservative British aristocrat, a German revolutionary philosopher, and a New York Yankee's catcher can teach us to understand the Middle East's new era. Let's begin with the philosopher, Karl Marx who wrote that history does repeat itself but not precisely. The first time something happens takes place as tragedy, the second time as farce. This certainly applies to the way Hamas is repeating the history of the PLO, fooling the same people who should have learned better from the first go-round. Even the fact that virtually no one notices this duplication of the past is sufficient proof for the triumph of foolishness even more than happened in the original example. Back in February 1974, the PLO's basic program of "Let's throw the Jews into the sea" was not exactly an inspired public relations' slogan. As a result that master showman Yasir Arafat came up with a new idea. The PLO stated that its aim was to "establish a national authority on any lands that can be wrested from Zionist occupation." Arafat explained this did not mean peace or recognition of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. Instead, if the Palestinians gained the West Bank and Gaza Strip they would use them as a base to attain total victory. In this two-stage plan to eliminate Israel, terrorism, the demand that all Palestinian refugees return to their ancestors' pre-1948 homes and the rejection of negotiations with Israel would all continue. In Arafat's words, the strategy was not about peace but about "how the rest of Palestine is to be liberated." And if any regime was established in the territories its main duty would be to complete "the liberation of all Palestinian soil" by wiping Israel off the map in an act of genocide. Marx had written in favor of revolutionary candor, "The Communists disdain to conceal their aims." And the PLO told us exactly what they intended if one merely read the speeches and documents. If the rest of the world wanted to pretend otherwise that was scarcely Arafat's fault. Of course, there were cute gimmicks. For example, when a PLO leader declared, "We want to liberate all the Palestinian territories," Palestinians knew he meant everything while Westerners could pretend he was only talking about the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem. It is a strategy of what British comedians call, "Wink, wink; nudge, nudge." Shortly afterward, of course, Arafat was invited to the UN since this plan supposedly made him a moderate. Still, perhaps one shouldn't complain too much about the first coming of the two-stage plan since, after all, it took 20 years for the PLO to evolve far enough in terms of giving lip service to moderation for real recognition and negotiations to begin, with the 1994 Oslo agreement. Yet here we are 12 years after that and even the PLO's 1994 promises have been shown to be hollow. In fact, the Palestinian nationalists are still back in 1974. Now fast forward to the present and Hamas, which brings us to Lord Chesterfield who warned that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Hamas victory has rolled the clock back around 32 years. The statements which are winning Hamas nice treatment and the "moderate" seal of approval are almost precisely the same as the PLO's 1974 position. Indeed, the Hamas strategy must be deliberate on this point. The most important statement made by Hamas since the election was that of Hamas Political Bureau deputy head Musa Abu Marzouq in a February 14 interview with Dream 2 TV. (To see it go to http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1043.) 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, August 2006). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. |
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APPEASEMENT 101
Posted by Unity Coalition for Israel (UCI), February 28, 2006. |
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This article was written by Victor Davis Hanson. It appeared on the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, February 16, 2006. It is easy to damn the 1930s appeasers of Hitler -- such as Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain in England and Edouard Daladier in France -- given what the Nazis ultimately did when unleashed. But history demands not merely recognizing the truth post facto, but also trying to reconstruct the rationale of something that now in hindsight seems inexplicable. Appeasement in the 1930s was popular with the European public for a variety of reasons. All of them are instructive in our hesitation about stopping a nuclear Iran, or about defending the right of Western newspapers to print what they wish -- or about fighting radical Islamism in general. First, Europe had nearly been destroyed during the Great War, a mere 20 years prior. No responsible postwar leader wished to risk a second continental bloodbath. Unfortunately, Hitler understood that all too well. In a game of diplomatic chicken, he figured many responsible democratic statesmen had more to lose than he did, as the weaker and once-beaten enemy. British intellectuals, like European Union idealists today, wrote books and treatises on the obsolescence of war. Conflicts were supposedly caused only by rapacious arms merchants and profiteers at home, not by anti-democratic dictators who interpreted forbearance as weakness. Winston Churchill was a voice in the wilderness -- and demonized as a warmonger and worse. Today, the 50-year Cold War is over, and Europe is at last free of burdensome military expenditure and the threat of global annihilation. Like Osama Bin Laden, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad senses a certain weariness in much of the West as it counts on perpetual peace. He assumes that most sober Westerners will do almost anything to avoid military confrontation to stop a potential threat -- even though, unlike Hitler, Ahmadinejad not only promises to liquidate the Jews but reveals his method in advance by seeking nuclear weapons. Some naive conservatives in prewar Europe thought the German and Italian fascists would prove a valuable bulwark against communism, and so could be politically finessed. So, too, it has been at times with Islamic fascism. Arming the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia was once seen as an inspired way of thwarting Soviet communist imperialism. At the time of the Ayatollah Khomeini's homicidal fatwa against Salman Rushdie, religious conservative commentators from Patrick Buchanan to New York's Cardinal O'Connor attacked Rushdie, rather than defended the Western right of free expression. Apparently, they felt such Islamic threats to supposed blasphemers might have positive repercussions in discouraging left-wing anti-Christian attacks as well. In the 1930s, the doctrine of appeasement fobbed off responsibility of confronting fascism onto the League of Nations. Both France and England were quiet about the 1936 Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the German militarization of the Rhineland. They counted on multilateral action of the League, which issued plenty of edicts but marshaled few troops. Likewise, the moral high ground today supposedly was to refer both the Iraqi and Iranian problems to the United Nations. But considering the oil-for-food scandals and Saddam's constant violations of U.N. resolutions, it is unlikely that the Iranian theocracy has much fear that the Security Council will thwart its uranium enrichment. As fascism spread, France worked on fortifying its German border with the Maginot Line, Oxford undergraduates voted to refuse "in any circumstances to fight for King and Country," and British newspapers decried the Treaty of Versailles for unduly punishing Germany. This was all long before the "no blood for oil" slogan and Al Gore in Saudi Arabia apologizing to his Wahhabi hosts for the supposed American maltreatment of Arabs. But deja vu pertains not just to us, but our enemies as well. Like the Nazi romance of an exalted ancient Volk, the Islamists hearken back to a mythical purity, free of decadence brought on by Western liberalism. Similarly, they feed off victimization -- not just recent defeats, but centuries-old bitterness at the rise of the West. Their version of the stab-in-the-back Versailles Treaty is always the creation of Israel. Just as Hitler concocted incidents such as the burning of the Reichstag to create outrage, Islamist leaders incite frenzy in their followers over a supposed flushed Koran at Guantanamo and several inflammatory cartoons, some of them never published by Danish newspapers at all. Anti-Semitism, of course, is the mother's milk of fascism. It is always, they say, a small group of Jews -- whether shadowy cabinet advisers and international bankers of the 1930s or the manipulative neoconservatives and Israeli leadership of the present -- who alone stir up the trouble. The point of the comparison is not to suggest that history simply repeats itself, but to learn why intelligent people delude themselves into embracing naive policies. After the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the furious reply of the radical Islamist world was to censor Western newspapers, along with Iran's accelerated efforts to get the bomb. In response, either the West will continue to stand up now to these reoccurring post-Sept. 11 threats, or it will see the bullies' demands only increase as its own resistance weakens. Like the appeasement of the 1930s, opting for the easier choice will only guarantee a more costly one later on.
The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" |
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HAMAS AND EL-QAEDA: ALL NON-MUSLIMS AND FOREIGNERS OUT OF GAZA
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 28, 2006. |
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I recall, years ago, as a kid living with my grandparents in Baltimore, Md., learning from my grandfather why he left the Ukraine. He was a healthy young man from a well-to-do family in Yekaterinaslav (today's Dnieperpetrovsk, a major port and industrial city on the Dnieper river, south of Kiev) with a good future in his father's thriving business. His parents were aghast at his decision to go to 'der goldene medineh". He left because when he went for the first time as a young adult to a local town hall meeting, the Ukranian sergeant at arms, under the direction of the mayor of the city, started the meeting with the pronouncement: "all Jews and foreigners out". At that time, c. 1910, Yekaterinaslav was a city whose majority was Jewish. The Jewish community traced its roots back to the 9th century when the first 'pie-powders' (jewish peddlers with dusty feet who plied the dirt paths from village to village selling iron implements otherwise not available in the back country of the Ukra'ina wilds) came from Poland and Germany, settled, imported a Rabbi and a butcher, and started a small community with the blessing of the local warlord. Since Ukrainians at that time could not read or write, Jews were a welcome addition to the warlord's retinue; since they could manage the finances of his land holdings, run the lumber business based on his forest lands, and collect taxes (and thus inspire the hatred of the 'schlobs' - the serf- peasants). Now, a thousand years later, after being an integral part of the city's growth and entry into the modern era with industry and banks and international trading centers ...etc...many founded and owned by Jews, Jews were being unceremoniously pushed out by an armed policeman whose boss decided that Jews were the equivalent of foreigners and thus not true Ukrainians, not to be trusted, not to be involved in the business of the city. Only Christians could be true Ukrainians. By fiat the Jews were demoted to less than 2nd class. In his mind, that boded ill for the future of the Jews in the Ukraine. He was right. Interesting how the very worst psychoses of history repeat themselves....but in slightly different iterations. Now hamas and el-qaeda are doing the same thing in Gaza.....to all non-Moslems. All those sincere humanitarians in ISM, and the Peace and Justice folk, and Rachel Corrie's comrades, and the Justice for Palestinians activists, and the Presbyterian ministers who love to press the flesh with Hezbollah and Hamas, and the human shields,....all must go; all scrambling into high gear to get out of Dodge. They are not Moslem. Now lets recall that el-Qaeda's main enemy (per Osama's own video-tapes) is "Global Un-Beleif" (that's us), and Hamas intends to turn its guns on the USA and the West (the epi-center of Global un-belief) once Israel is no more. What fate awaits us non-Moslems if they win? Obviously Shari'a law and dhimmitude at best. el-Qaeda's hit-list below gives us an idea of what sort of society Osama et al will create. David ML DEBKAfile Reports: "Al Qaeda's Gaza Cell issues ultimatum
for immediate departure of all non-Muslim foreigners"
Urgent consultations in European and Arab capitals and Jerusalem are reported by DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources over the threatened targets published by Al Qaeda's Gaza cell -- the Army of Jihad - dated Feb. 16. Not only must "non-Muslim foreigners of all nationalities" leave, but "foreign embassies and consulates must be evacuated and their staff leave within one month of this warning." Our sources report that the al Qaeda communiqué was urgently translated by foreign embassies in Tel Aviv and transmitted to their governments. They concluded that the document was put together by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's subordinates posted in the Gaza Strip and contains a direct threat to unleash Iraq-style terror in the Palestinian territory against the targets listed below. Therefore, diplomatic, security and international aid staff can expect to be pulled out of the Gaza Strip without delay. DEBKAfile's sources stress that the meaning for the Palestinian Authority, Israel and even Hamas, is the launch of an al Qaeda offensive to transform the Gaza Strip into a radical Islamic entity as set out by the statement issued by the Army of Jihad "...we address all believers of our people and all those who sacrificed their blood and property to defend Islam and Muslims against the Zionist occupation. Allah ordered us to fight to combat atheism. With Allah's support we defeated our enemy and obliged Israel to withdraw in humiliation from the Gaza Strip. One thing remaining to be done is to implement Sharia laws." These are the targets listed in the al Qaeda statement:
Monday, Feb. 27, Israel's acting prime minister Ehud Olmert said he does not see Hamas as being a strategic security threat to the country. This is seen by DEBKAfile's political sources as an effort to soothe concerns and divert attention from the menace building up in the Gaza Strip. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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HAMAS DECLARED WAR....WHY FUND ENEMY WHO WANTS TO DESTROY US?
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 28, 2006. |
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Steven Erlanger's "Europeans offer $144 Million Aid to Palestinians" (NY Times, 2.28.06) bemoans the sad fiscal fate of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and urges that the West help Abbas and Hamas to bail the PA out of its bankruptcy. But one very important fact is omitted. The aid is not to the Palestinians. It is to Hamas. Hamas now runs the PA; and Hamas has declared eternal, total, apocalyptical war on Israel, on Jews world-wide, and on all non-Moslem states and institutions. If anyone doubts that, just read the Hamas Covenant. Why should any nation fund Hamas, knowing as we do now that some or all of the money will end up supporting their terrorist enterprise -- an enterprise that ultimately has all of us non-Moslems in its cross-hairs? Erlanger wrote that "[t]he Europeans acted in partial response to a letter from James D. Wolfensohn, the special Middle East envoy of the so-called Quartet made up of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. Mr. Wolfensohn warned in a letter dated Saturday that 'unless a solution is found, we may be facing the financial collapse of the P.A. within two weeks,'" "If we do not want to see rising tension leading to violence and chaos," Mr. Wolfensohn wrote, "we will have to develop urgently a convincing strategy addressing the P.A.'s financial and developmental needs not only in the short-term of the next few weeks but also in a longer time frame." That includes the revenues withheld by Israel, he said, adding, "It cannot be in Israel's interests to have a sharp deterioration of the economic and humanitarian situation next door." But a senior Israeli official said Monday that Israel could not stand by while a group it considered terrorist and sworn to its destruction consolidated power next door, and that neighboring countries like Egypt and Jordan were also extremely nervous. "We need to keep the pressure on Hamas and not give any discounts," the official said. "The U.S. is with us, that pressure is very important now." "We take Hamas too seriously to think they will change in the short or medium run," the official said. "It will take a lot of pressure to force them to change." The European Union is the largest donor to the Palestinians, but like the United States it lists Hamas as a terrorist organization and is reviewing its aid once Hamas takes power. No disrespect to Wolfensohn, but anyone suggesting that the Allies fund the German government in 1944, so that it could take care of its humanitarian needs and pay its government employees' salaries, would have been considered either insane or a traitor. The situation is no different today with Hamas. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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ISRAELI SUPREME COURT
Posted by Batya Medad, February 28, 2006. |
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Sometimes it's very difficult, even years after my aliyah to truly comprehend how things work here. The Supreme Court is a perfect example. In the United States the justices must decide according to the American Constitution and their interpretation of it. Of course their own personal philosophy colors and influences their decisions. I remember that one of my "Social Studies" teachers explained that: "Law is whatever 5 out of 9 justices decide it is, and it can change from year to year." Here in Israel, there is no constitution; there's just a hodge podge of laws, including some from the British Mandate that were never revoked. The Israeli justices take their responsibilities very seriously as "moral guides." In actuality, they make the law, rather than interpret it. Not only do they decide what is legal; they also decide what is moral and mix up the two concepts. Their recent decision, that Israeli soldiers cannot ask the neighbors of suspected terrorists to knock on t! he door seriously endangers our soldiers. This doesn't concern the Supreme Court Justices. What concerns them is the protection of Arabs, even those who may be terrorists. This is a moral decision, having no connection to law, and what's the morality in endangering Israeli soldiers? That's the issue behind the movement my neighbor, Moshe Keinan, started after his son, Avihu, was killed in a badly planned army action. That's why we have been marching to Jerusalem every Succot in recent years. This perverse morality endangers our very existence. Chodesh Tov Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be
reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il
This article is archived at
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NEEDING TO WAKE UP, WEST JUST CLOSES ITS EYES
Posted by IsrAlert, February 27, 2006. |
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This was written by Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times Columnist, www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn26.html In five years' time, how many Jews will be living in France? Two years ago, a 23-year-old Paris disc jockey called Sebastien Selam was heading off to work from his parents' apartment when he was jumped in the parking garage by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was slit twice, to the point of near-decapitation; his face was ripped off with a fork; and his eyes were gouged out. Adel climbed the stairs of the apartment house dripping blood and yelling, "I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven." Is that an gripping story? You'd think so. Particularly when, in the same city, on the same night, a Jewish woman was brutally murdered in the presence of her daughter by another Muslim. You've got the making of a mini-trend there, and the media love trends. Yet no major French newspaper carried the story. This month, there was another murder. Ilan Halimi, also 23, also Jewish, was found by a railway track outside Paris with burns and knife wounds all over his body. He died en route to the hospital, having been held prisoner, hooded and naked, and brutally tortured for almost three weeks by a gang that had demanded half a million dollars from his family. Can you take a wild guess at the particular identity of the gang? During the ransom phone calls, his uncle reported that they were made to listen to Ilan's screams as he was being burned while his torturers read out verses from the Quran. This time around, the French media did carry the story, yet every public official insisted there was no anti-Jewish element. Just one of those things. Coulda happened to anyone. And, if the gang did seem inordinately fixated on, ah, Jews, it was just because, as one police detective put it, "Jews equal money." In London, the Observer couldn't even bring itself to pursue that particular angle. Its report of the murder managed to avoid any mention of the unfortunate Halimi's, um, Jewishness. Another British paper, the Independent, did dwell on the particular, er, identity groups involved in the incident but only in the context of a protest march by Parisian Jews marred by "radical young Jewish men" who'd attacked an "Arab-run grocery." At one level, those spokesmonsieurs are right: It could happen to anyone. Even in the most civilized societies, there are depraved monsters who do terrible things. When they do, they rip apart entire families, like the Halimis and Selams. But what inflicts the real lasting damage on society as a whole is the silence and evasions of the state and the media and the broader culture. A lot of folks are, to put it at its mildest, indifferent to Jews. In 2003, a survey by the European Commission found that 59 percent of Europeans regard Israel as the "greatest menace to world peace." Only 59 percent? What the hell's wrong with the rest of 'em? Well, don't worry: In Germany, it was 65 percent; Austria, 69 percent; the Netherlands, 74 percent. Since then, Iran has sportingly offered to solve the problem of the Israeli threat to world peace by wiping the Zionist Entity off the face of the map. But what a tragedy that those peace-loving Iranians have been provoked into launching nuclear armageddon by those pushy Jews. As Paul Oestreicher, Anglican chaplain of the University of Sussex, wrote in the Guardian the other day, "I cannot listen calmly when an Iranian president talks of wiping out Israel. Jewish fears go deep. They are not irrational. But I cannot listen calmly either when a great many citizens of Israel think and speak of Palestinians in the way a great many Germans thought and spoke about Jews when I was one of them and had to flee." It's not surprising when you're as heavily invested as the European establishment is in an absurd equivalence between a nuclear madman who thinks he's the warm-up act for the Twelfth Imam and the fellows building the Israeli security fence that you lose all sense of proportion when it comes to your own backyard, too. "Radical young Jewish men" are no threat to "Arab-run groceries." But radical young Muslim men are changing the realities of daily life for Jews and gays and women in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo and beyond. If you don't care for the Yids, big deal; look out for yourself. The Jews are playing their traditional role of the canaries in history's coal mine. Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well: ''We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law.'' Stated that baldly it sounds ridiculous. But, simply as a matter of fact, every year more and more of the world lives under Islamic law: Pakistan adopted Islamic law in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Four decades ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it's in the grip of sharia, and the other half's feeling the squeeze, as the death toll from the cartoon jihad indicates. But just as telling is how swiftly the developed world has internalized an essentially Islamic perspective. In their pitiful coverage of the low-level intifada that's been going on in France for five years, the European press has been barely any less loopy than the Middle Eastern media. What, in the end, are all these supposedly unconnected matters from Danish cartoons to the murder of a Dutch filmmaker to gender-segregated swimming sessions in French municipal pools about? Answer: sovereignty. Islam claims universal jurisdiction and always has. The only difference is that they're now acting upon it. The signature act of the new age was the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran: Even hostile states generally respect the convention that diplomatic missions are the sovereign territory of their respective countries. Tehran then advanced to claiming jurisdiction over the citizens of sovereign states and killing them -- as it did to Salman Rushdie's translators and publishers. Now in the cartoon jihad and other episodes, the restraints of Islamic law are being extended piecemeal to the advanced world, by intimidation and violence but also by the usual cooing promotion of a spurious multicultural "respect" by Bill Clinton, the United Church of Canada, European foreign ministers, etc. The I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing-in-perfect-harmonee crowd have always spoken favorably of one-worldism. From the op-ed pages of Jutland newspapers to les banlieues of Paris, the Pan-Islamists are getting on with it. Harv Weiner, a businessman in Dallas, Texas, is the founder and moderator of Isralert. To subscribe to IsrAlert, send an email to isralert@aol.com |
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ISRAEL MUST BE THE MASTER OF HER FATE, THE CAPTAIN OF HER SOUL
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, February 27, 2006. |
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Israel must be the master of her fate, the captain of her soul. No other nation must be allowed to interfere with or attempt to influence her sovereign decisions, including any negotiations, crafted by leaders within an elected Knesset. Facts on the ground for one suggest Mahmoud Abbas lacks de facto authority, thus is "no longer relevant" per prescient Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, contrary to views expressed by the United States and the European Union. Ms. Livni told Israeli radio that Abbas "cannot serve as the pretty face of ugly terrorism, which is hiding behind him." Her perspective, in line with Israeli strategists, supersedes the wisdom of such powerful governments with recent less than inspiring foreign policy insights as demonstrated by a dysfunctional post invasion game-plan for tribally diverse Iraq and an International Court of Injustice at The Hague's bizarre less than erudite proclivity to skewer Israel for erecting a security wall to thwart homicide/suicide martyrs. Let Western powers tend to Western matters, the Jewish state comprehends its own neck of the desert quite well thank you, thus can deal directly and effectively with a fanatical "we don't recognize Israel" Hamas without wasting valuable time trading barbs and bargaining with a U.S. E.U. propped up "smoothie" having no teeth. In effect, the Roadmap was torn to shreds when so-called Palestinian voters vaulted a cadre of fanatical Muslims from street gang status to positions of authority. Alas, such lofty ascendance assures no make over of a mind set afflicted with the delusional mantra of a Palestine sans Israel. Hamas' bereft of nuance perceptions of strength and weakness preclude compromise, hence astute Israeli leaders will not repeat the Gaza give-away by ceding further territory or making other unconscionable concessions that will whet the salivary glands of a mortal enemy. Outsiders with opposing agendas can fumble or misplay footballs on their own fields of dreams without creating nightmares for the beleaguered state of Israel. Hamas not Abbas must attract the laser-like focus of Israeli politicos and generals, unblinking ever thinking, reacting to and thwarting with ten fold might any terrorist slithering. Let the Islamic zealots tend to the over-flowing sewers and disintegrating infrastructure of the populace they now steward. The Arab peoples' choice has much to do without tormenting its first world neighbor. Israel, no nation's protectorate, can steer its ship of state with sextant inspired by its own constellations' starlight. Isn't that what sovereignty is all about? Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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PA TV: MOM SAD DAUGHTER ARRESTED, BUT NOT BECAUSE OF BOMBING ATTEMPT
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, February 27, 2006. |
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A new interview on official Palestinian Authority television offers a chilling twist on the popular TV topic - Palestinian mothers' support for their children's suicide terror missions. The interview features the mother of Wafa Al-Bas, a 21-year-old Palestinian woman who was arrested at the Erez border crossing in June 2005 with a 20-pound bomb inside her underwear. Her target was the outpatient clinic of Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where she had been receiving regular treatments for serious burns to 45 per cent of her body from a gas stove explosion in her home. Her greatest wish, she said later, was to kill 30 to 50 Israelis, including children. The hospital attack would likely have killed or maimed the Israeli doctor who had saved her life. In last week's PA TV interview with Wafa's parents, her mother says the event was hard for her - not because her daughter was on a suicide mission, but because she was arrested. The mother says she knew that her daughter had wanted to be a martyr since she was a little girl, but the mother hadn't encouraged her - not because the mother opposed the idea of suicide bombing, but because Wafa was female. "If it was a boy, I would have supported, but since she is a girl I discouraged." Once again, the message to Palestinian society from broadcasts like this is that suicide bombing is not wrong. Indeed, it is seen as an honor and a joy to raise a child to be a suicide bomber - at least if that child is a son. Following the transcript of the interview are a series of examples of Palestinian mothers expressing joy on Palestinian television that their children became suicide terrorists - a popular subject on PA TV for many years. Transcript of Interview Interviewer: "How did you receive the news of Wafa's arrest?" Wafa's mother: "When I received the news, it was hard for me. Hard." Interviewer: "Excuse me, was the hardship in that she failed in the martyrdom-seeking operation and was arrested, or in the arrest itself?" Wafa's mother: "The arrest itself. Her wish was martyrdom, Wafa, since she was a little girl." Interviewer: "Meaning, you hoped she would be a martyr?" Wafa's mother: "Her wish was to be a martyr." Interviewer: "Did you encourage her?" Wafa's mother: "To tell you the truth, I didn't encourage her. I talked to Wafa about the issue, about not agreeing to it because she is a girl. Were it a boy, I would have supported, but since she is a girl, I discouraged." [PA TV, February 20, 2006] Previous Examples * Mother of suicide terrorist: My son's martyrdom was as a wedding, a time of joy, November 17, 2004 More examples of mothers expressing joy, and of Palestinian cultural and religious figures saying how mothers should be happy at news of their sons' martyrdom can be seen on the Palestinian Media Watch website. Itamar Marcus is director of PMW -- Palestinian Media Watch - (http://www.pmw.org.il). PMW is based in Jerusalem. Barbara Crook, a writer and university lecturer based in Ottawa, Canada, is PMW's North American representative. |
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WILL HAMAS RECOGNIZE ISRAEL?
Posted by Alex Grobman, February 27, 2006. |
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A number of reports in the media claim that Hamas is softening its position toward recognizing Israel. A careful review of the interview in The Washington Post with Hamas's new Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh reveals that this is nothing more than a ruse. In response to a question about recognizing Israel's right to exist, Haniyeh said, "The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Israel. Hamas will have a position if this occurs." The demand to release murderers and permit millions of Arabs to enter the country is not new. What self-respecting nation would allow individuals who have killed its citizens to go free? What message would Israel be sending to terrorists if they were to agree to this prerequisite to recognition? Arabs have been insisting on their "right of return to Israel" for so many years that they have convinced numerous people that this is a legitimate claim. Since 1947, the UN General Assembly (GA) has adopted a number of resolutions regarding the Palestinian refugees. GA resolution 194 (III) of December 11,1948, established the principle in paragraph 11 "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date." The operative word is peace. That is a sine qua non. Even before the resolution passed, David Ben-Gurion said on August 1, 1948, that as long as the Arab states refused to make peace with the Jews, Israel could not trust the assurances made by the Arab refugees that they would live in peace with their neighbors. He did not preclude the possibility repatriating a limited number of Arab refugees, but insisted that the fundamental solution was to resettle them in Arab States. Abba Eban, Israel's representative to the UN, reminded the UN delegates that seven states including six Members of the UN had attacked Israel in an effort to reverse the GA's resolution by force, driving out hundreds of thousands seeking refuge outside the country. Furthermore, Israel was the only state involved in the conflict that had complied with the Security Council's resolution of November 16, 1948, calling upon the warring governments to negotiate an armistice as a first step to a lasting peace. A.B. Yehoshua, one of Israel's most prominent writers and a leading figure in the Israeli left, contends that the Palestinian Arabs have no right of return. Either they or the Arab nations were responsible for their plight. Those who fled or were expelled are not refugees, he argues, but displaced persons (DP). The difference is significant. A refugee is an individual who fled or was forced out of his native country; a DP is a person who fled or was expelled from his residence, but stays within the border of his country of origin. When the Arabs forced Jews to flee from the Old City of Jerusalem, Kfar Darom, Beit Ha'arava, Atarot, and the Etzion Bloc into Israeli territory, the Jews were not refugees, they were DPs who were immediately given new homes in Israel. During the 19 years the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were under Jordanian, Palestinian and Egyptian rule, these refugees could have returned to their homeland, where they would be DPs instead of refugees. "This," he said "is the beginning of the tragedy of the Palestinians, for which they themselves and the Arab countries carry direct moral responsibility. Even if (from their point of view) they did have a legitimate hope that they would see the day when they would be able to eliminate the Jewish state and take back all of Palestine - or at least return to their homes just as the displaced persons from the Etzion Bloc and the Old City did - there was still nothing to prevent the Palestinian displaced persons from building real homes. They could have lived ordinary, respectable lives within their homeland, instead of humiliating provisional existences in miserable camps." Yehoshua believes the Palestinian Arabs confuse "the concept of homeland with the concept of home.." When the Soviet Union launched an aggressive war against Finland at the beginning of World War II, they expelled Finnish citizens to other parts of the Finnish state where they were DPs, not refugees. They built homes and new lives in their homeland. In contrast, Arab refugees and DPs harbor the idea of literally returning to their former homes. "When my Palestinian friends," he said, "demand the right of return I tell them that I would be prepared to bring all the Palestinian refugees back to their homes in Israel on the condition that they first bring back the 6,000 Israelis killed during the aggressive war of 1948, when Israel was pleading for its life after the UN partition plan and seeking peaceful coexistence." In determining a response to Hamas demands, Israel would be wise to consider what Edmund Burke said in 1775: "The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear." Appeasement has a place in resolving disputes, he believed, but not in dealing with aggression. Israel has yet to learn this lesson. Dr. Grobman's most recent book is "Battling for Souls: The Vaad Hatzala Rescue Committee in Post War Europe" [KTAV]. He is also co-author of "Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened?" (University of California Press, 2000) His most recent book is entitled "Zionism=Racism: The New War Against The Jews". |
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A PURIM READ
Posted by Shifra Shomron, February 27, 2006. |
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I've translated this Purim article from Hebrew by Israel Eldad. Briefly, he was the ideological successor of Yair Stern. Following Yair Stern's murder in 1942, Eldad became one of the three men who formed the Lehi's 'Center'. After the state, Eldad became active in publishing a monthly magazine named Sulam. This article is taken from a Sulam magazine. Written by Israel Eldad, "Sulam" magazine, Adar 5717.
Four Purim Questions Masks How does Purim in which we dress up, wear masks, play Purim games, differ from Pesach in which there are no costumes and no masks and no games? That Purim was all about dressing up, covering. Esther doesn't tell; dresses up to a Persian lady. And also when her heart was grieving she wore lovely royal garments and beautified herself in order to find favor in the king's eyes, and the fate of her nation depended in the perfection of her make-up and the comeliness of her blue eye shadow. And juxtaposed to her was Mordechai who was covered in sack and ashes as he prayed. She was before a king; he was before the King of Kings. And now to the feasts? From the beginning until the end -- feasts. Here is the origin of the games. And so many secrets and sly diplomacy. Bigtan and Terash, Achashverosh and Haman, Mordechai and Esther, Esther and Achashverosh. Secrets and conspiracies. Not so in Pesach. There everything is revealed. From Moshe's being revealed as a Hebrew until G-d's revealment to Moshe at the burning bush. And the much revealed exodus. And from the beginning until the end all is revealed and known and everything is deeply serious. Without games and feasts. There is no redemption in costumes. The redemption is visible. "To Life" How does drinking on Purim which is drinking "le chaim", differ from drinking on Pesach in which one does not say "to life"? Because that is the essence of Purim: the life was saved in the lottery, in fate. There was a decree to kill and the decree was canceled and the Jews of Persia and Madai were left alive. On Pesach we drink four cups of redemption. In Purim there wasn't redemption at all and only the life, the life alone, the life in its nakedness was given to us. And hence the drinking "to life". And in Pesach we drink to redemption. No Measurement versus Four How does Purim in which no measurement was set for the amount of drinking, differ from Pesach in which four cups were set? Because Purim is a matter of a miracle, and the miracle is a thing without measurement, without law. In fact: the miracle is the breaking of law. But Pesach is a matter of redemption, and redemption has laws and doesn't have chances, it has necessity and doesn't have successes, hence it has rules, and even drinking rules. Because there is law to redemption. Gifts How does Purim in which we were commanded to give Mishloach Manot, differ from Pesach in which we were not commanded thus? Since on Purim we were given life as a gift. It's a matter of rescuing, and every rescue is a gift whether if from Heaven or from human hands. But redemption is not a matter of a gift. Redemption is a law. Which we will take and we will receive not as a gift. As a law. Contact Shifra Shomron at shifra@email.com |
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RAV BENNY'S VISION OF NU, THE NATIONAL UNION, ICHUD LEUMI
Posted by Batya Medad, February 27, 2006. |
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This feature article from the Jerusalem Post gives a good clear explanation of Rav Benny Elon's vision and political stance. Personally, I found it reassuring, since there have been some things publicized of late which bothered me tremendously. I am 100% convinced that when taking all into account, that there is only one party to vote for in the upcoming Israeli elections, and that's the Ichud Le'umi, The National Union. I agree with Rav Benny that the Likud is finished. Honestly, I never liked Limor Livnat, even though her mother is wonderful. Limor destroyed her credibility as an intelligent human being, forget about being a wily, wise, ideological politician, when she developed and supported the Dovrat Commission, for the "restructuring" of the Israeli Educational System. She failed in every aspect of her job as Minister of Education. Her wishy-washy stance on Disengagement only confirmed my worst suspicions. About Sylvan Shalom, who sees himself as Likud leader vying for top spot, I still can't see him as a real Likud ideologue. He always impressed me as one of those who joined the Likud when it was the party in power, because he wanted to be on the winning team. Rather inexplicably he stayed with the Likud, while the super-dirty-oportunists, like Olmert formed Kadima. My feeling is that he was left to bring the rest of Likud into a coalition with Kadima. And how can I forget Bibi Netanyahu, who took the flack as the tough Finance Minister taking responsibility for unpopular decisions and policies in the Sharon Government. Somehow, I get this strong feeling that regardless of the outcome of next month's elections, his career is far from over, especially if he inherited his father's longevity. Yes, Bibi was already Prime Minister once and did a disastrous job, but he'll keep trying. As depressing as the present situation is, we must vote. By not voting we are giving victory to those who want to destroy the State of Israel. This article is called "The Likud has finished its historic role" and was written by Gil Hoffman and appeared in the February 23, 2006 Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1139395469007&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). National Union-National Religious Party leader Benny Elon had tried unsuccessfully for years to unite the Right. He attempted to draft enough support on the Right to topple Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and prevent disengagement. He tried to delay the election by drafting the 61 MKs needed for Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu to form a temporary government. And he sought to bring a cluster of right-wing parties -- or at least all the religious-Zionist parties -- into one bloc that would run together in the March 28 election. Elon succeeded in his last goal after weeks of bitter negotiations between the National Union and the NRP -- and, it emerged, after discovering that a tumor in his throat was malignant. Some people in both parties consider the partnership temporary, though, according both to Elon and to NRP head Zevulun Orlev, the cancer will impede neither the alliance nor Elon's ability to remain at its helm. In fact, Elon sees the merger as just the first step toward building a solid right-wing bloc that could prevent Kadima from forming a coalition, and then, as the basis for a ruling party. Even before the nascent political bond has been tested, its potential success has already been questioned by pollsters who have predicted that it will not add a single mandate and by naysayers to the right and left of the party on the political spectrum. (An editorial in The Jerusalem Post said that the merger "marks...the unfortunate dilution of a unique and proud political institution that combined Zionism and religious moderation.") Elon answers his critics by saying that religious Zionism can still maintain its role as a bridge between the world of Torah and the world of academia, and that the NU-NRP alliance will lead not to the death of religious-Zionism but to its renaissance. You succeeded in uniting the National Union and the NRP. What's your next step? Short-term, we want the public to see that together with the religious parties, Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu, it is possible to build a bloc of 61 MKs that could prevent Kadima from forming a coalition. Long-term, we want to present an alternative ruling party built by a different community, a community of believers. The political "big bang" that Sharon used to explode the Likud necessitates doing something different. It would be easier, more practical and more right to build a new framework -- a new house -- than to remodel the old Likud house that has been destroyed. The crisis in the country is a spiritual crisis. A Right that rests only on hawkishness and security without relying on heritage, Bible and Torah will not last. The young religious people in the army and all facets of society are building a new right wing that is more spiritual. This new Right is more right. It's not just a matter of wearing a kippa. It's a deeper matter of faith. But without Sharon, why can't the Likud start over? Sharon was a Right of lies and we can't let that happen again. I want a Right that believes in security but also says this land is ours according to the Bible. We won't defeat the Arabs if we forget that justice is on our side. Justice says this isn't occupied -- it's mine. The Likud gave us a supermarket with no ethics. Much of the Likud can integrate itself into our new framework. The Likud talked about Judaism but it was mostly a ploy to bring in votes from traditional Sephardim. The Likud has finished its historic role and become a trap with no hope. The Likud won 40 seats against [Labor candidate Amram] Mitzna and look where they brought us. They didn't bring us closer to security or peace. They did bring us a Hamas state. We can say "I told you so" about Oslo and disengagement, but it won't help unless we provide an alternative. Without a partner, what can Israel do? Israel should adopt the idea that Sharon once talked about and I support, which calls for Jordan becoming a Palestinian state, Israel exercising sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria, and the Arabs living there becoming full citizens of Jordan. The Palestinian problem can be solved using an existing country that we have relations with, instead of creating a third country run by a bunch of gangsters. We should have tried to reach a regional solution with our neighbors. Instead we tried to create something new, ex nihilo, and now it should be clear that it failed. We should say we won't create a new Palestinian state. We will sit with Egypt and Jordan and talk about how to redefine the situation. If we have to share some land with them, we will. If we only have to divide responsibilities, it would be even better. We cannot create a fundamentalist state that would become a monster. Another state would topple us. Jordan was the only possible partner. Without them, we would be left with no option. How would you solve the demographic problem? It's clear that a fence is not enough if we control both sides of it. The way to fix the demographic problem is aliya or deciding that Palestinians don't vote for the Knesset because their capital is in Amman. It's better than giving the other side of the fence to the chaos of Hamas. Kadima doesn't have anything to say about that. If they withdraw unilaterally, they have to realize to whom they are giving it. How do you respond to those who wrote recently that religious Zionism moved to the fringe when the NRP merged with the National Union under your leadership? It's true that I haven't been part of the political mainstream, but religious Zionism isn't just politics. The religious-Zionist renaissance is learning Torah while being part of academia, the army and settling all of the land. In this, I am mainstream. I don't believe in the secular Right anymore. I don't believe in hawkishness that's not based on anything. I believe in the classic religious Zionism of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook -- of Torah and being part of the world. That makes me mainstream. Religious Zionism is the alternative, not just in politics but in education and society. It's important for a secular kid to know how to open a siddur. Our agenda won't be just about the Land of Israel. We need all the kids of Israel to be connected to tradition. It's hard to live in this country with reserve duty and taxes. People need motivation to live here. We need a foreign minister who travels the world with the Bible and makes a coalition of all the believers who know that God wants a strong Israel. Aren't you worried about moderate people who might be frightened off? There is a natural tendency of some Rightists not to vote for us because the NRP is not right-wing enough and some because the National Union is too hawkish. We will make every effort to reach these people and convince them that what we have in common is much more than what divides us, and I believe we will succeed. These people are smaller in number than the majority that was enthusiastically in favor. How can you talk about building a ruling party when religious Zionists are a small minority? First of all, in the polls, the Likud has fallen to 13-15 mandates and our numbers say we have 14, so it's not that unrealistic. The numbers are that 24 percent of Israelis send their children to religious-Zionist schools and some 50% of people at different religious levels consider themselves traditional. I think socially and educationally we are already the alternative and we will become so politically, too. After this election, it will become a lot clearer, and after the next election, it will be clear to everyone. It's a historic process. I am not saying they are wrong and we are right; I think it's a relay race and our time has come to take the baton. How do you explain polls published in The Jerusalem Post that have found that the merger didn't bring the Right more mandates, and the National Union and NRP will combine for only eight or nine seats whether or not they are united? I don't think the poll is reliable. All our polls say we have at least 12 seats before we start working, and I believe it will be much higher, because we will go from house to house as we did with the Likud referendum, bypassing the press and getting to people personally. I always believed in direct marketing. What are the chances the NU-NRP will be in the government? I still think there is a chance for Bibi to become prime minister if the Likud runs better. If the Right succeeds in winning the 61 MKs needed to block Kadima and the Left from forming a coalition, Kadima will split and then the Right could have 80 seats in the next Knesset. And if Olmert wins the election? We don't boycott people. We could join the coalition if Olmert decides that because there is no partner on the Palestinian side, the government's efforts need to be focused on socioeconomic issues and education. Allowing diplomatic issues to set the agenda at a time when there is no partner would be a waste of time. We will not sit in a government that will uproot even one Jewish settlement, no matter who is prime minister. But with no partner, even Labor cannot uproot settlements. Therefore, even if Amir Peretz wins the election, and he asks us to join a government with a socioeconomic and educational agenda, I say why not? If you ask me, this is the most urgent thing that needs to be done now, and this can unify the country. I have no problem sitting in a coalition on socioeconomic issues, even with Meretz. My problem with Meretz was the pleasure that they took in seeing Jews uprooted from the Gaza Strip. They were willing to vote for the budget and they gave up their socioeconomic agenda to allow disengagement to happen. All the social justice they talk about took a back seat. What keeps them together is just their hatred of the settlers. I would sit with them if they can get over their irrational hatred. Why is your only secular candidate, MK Aryeh Eldad, only eighth on the list? With all the political limitations, it was the best we could do. Places on lists don't matter. The proof of that is that Ehud Olmert was 33rd on the Likud list. Eldad was the last candidate in the National Union to make it into the Knesset in the last election and he proved that he could be successful. We also tried to raise our Anglo candidate, Uri Bank, beyond the 16th slot that he is in, but I have no doubt that he will join the Knesset, too. If we are in the coalition, we can adopt the Norwegian Law and have all our ministers quit to make room for more MKs. Why don't you quit the Knesset now, so Uri Bank, who is next on the list, will get in? I am considering it, but I am afraid of the public reaction. The MKs who joined the Knesset temporarily were accused of stealing government benefits. But if the public would accept it, and it helps Uri win more votes from the Anglos, I would be fine with it. Why did it take so long for the deal with the NRP to be finalized? It took a long time to find the wording to ensure that it wouldn't be a fictitious marriage. For instance, we needed to find a way to prevent the NRP from joining the coalition without us, while still allowing the parties to remain independent. We want the deal to last a lot longer than just the few weeks until the March 28 election. For gentiles, weddings can be just cocktails and happiness. In Jewish weddings, we read the ketuba with all of its unromantic details about divorce. Then, we say mazal tov and move on. Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il |
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RABBI WOODSTOCK'S VENEZUELAN "CHAVER"
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 26, 2006. |
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1. Waskow's New "Chaver" Now if you are like me, you consider the term "Reconstructionist Rabbi" a bit of an oxymoron. I do not quite know what Reconstructionism is (I prefer to call it Reconstructionist Deconstructionism, by the way), but I certainly do not consider it to be a legitimate movement within Judaism (regardless of what it might have once thought it was becoming, back in the days of Mordecai Kaplan). It is today little more than a whacky-dopey political movement that is based on "belief" in nothing at all except the left's agenda. It's "Rabbinic Seminary" was long ago hijacked by Tikkunites, and evidently was then merged with Rolling Stone Magazine, based on course contents. Many members of the Reconstructionist congregations I am familiar with are not even Jewish. Reconstructionism is about as legitimate a branch of Judaism as is the "Jews for Jesus". And while the entire movement is muddled and loopy, none come close to the level of complete lunacy as "Rabbi" Arthur Waskow. Long nicknamed Rabbi Woodstock in these corners, Waskow has devoted his life to promoting a pseudo-Judaism based upon bashing Israel, bashing America, green environmentalist extremism, and recently has even been promoting polygamy as a great Judaic ethic. His understanding of Judaism evidently comes from the Easy Rider movie. He plays Rabbi Cheech to Michael Lerner's Rabbi Chong, and the Cheech-and-Chong tag team have long dominated Tikkun and its satellites. Waskow is not taken seriously by anyone with any semblance of an understanding of Judaism, but nevertheless is a regular commentator at the Jerusalem Report, which has staked out the Jewish Left as its own turf. The magazine is popular among the Woodstockischer Chassidim. Which brings us to Rabbi Woodstock's letter in the Jerusalem Report of March 6, 2006. Responding to complaints among Jewish leaders that Venezuelan chief Hugo Chavez is an anti-Semitic and anti-American moonbat, Waskow rushes to Chavez' defense. His letter is entitled "Chaver Chavez". (I guess since Clinton's use of the term Chaver, nothing more demeaning to it can be done!) Waskow claims the reports of Hugo making anti-Jewish remarks are "mistaken". He insists Chavez is helping the poor folks in Philadelphia, where Waskow tokes, by providing them with cheaper oil. "Now they are receiving oil at very low prices from the Chavez government," opines the "Rabbi". We are not sure what Waskow had smoked before making THAT claim! While he criticizes Chavez for not being environmentalist enough for Waskow's PETA tastes, he also defends Chavez from attacks by Secretary Rumsfeld, insisting that while Hitler burned people alive in furnaces, Chavez is helping keep people alive by giving them oil to heat their furnaces. Yep, he really writes that! You may recall that Chavez said in a televised Christmas Eve speech that "minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ ... have grabbed all the wealth of the world for themselves." I do not think he was talking about the Incas. The Wall Street Journal's "Americas" columnist, Mary Anastasia O'Grady, charged that his words constituted an "ugly anti-Semitic swipe that was of a piece with an insidious assault over the past several years on the country's Jewish community." Chavez was one of Iraq's friends before the war. The Weekly Standard has run a long piece (www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/903jhsjt.asp) on Chavez' anti-Semitism. He supplied Iraq with goods in violation of the embargo and was seen at least twice on national TV kissing Saddam Hussein. Earlier last year, the Caracas police stormed a Jewish pre-school with a lame excuse of looking for terrorists; they harassed the parents and petrified Jewish children. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre (www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/001373.html), and French journals Liberation and Le Monde have accused Chavez of being an anti-Semite. Chavez is so openly anti-Semitic that even Alexander Cockburn and Counterpunch endorse him. But Waskow seems to adore his Rabbi Hugo (www.spymac.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=193875), indeed seems to confuse him for the Vilna Gaon, not only because of Reb Hugo's anti-Semitism but of course mainly because of his gutter anti-Americanism (www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12431). All of which makes Arthur Waskow the Harry Belafonte of the Jewish community, except that Belafonte may know more about real Judaism than Rabbi Woodstock does. Here is an older posting on this matter: After painful research I have now traced the origins of a bizarre sect of Hassidim. They originate in the Belarussian stedtel named Bialowoodstock. They have become known for short as the Woodstockischer Hassidim. Their movement spread at first to Galicia and Moldavia, where followers would search the forest floors in the Bulkovina in order to find hallucenogenic mushrooms and cannabis. Later the sect moved its headquarters to Philadelphia, with devotees as far off as Sebastopol (California). The Woodstockischers, also called the Mastoolishers, are led by a renowned Rav known as the Woodstock Rebbe Shlita, although before the era of perestroika he was also called Arthur Moscow. His follows are organized into groups called the Havurot of Heaviness. Occasionally, the Woodstock Rebbe holds his own Tisch-In or Be-In. He also specializes in romping through the forest while hugging trees. The Woodstockischer Hassidim are best known for their singing. The following is a typical song. It is of course in Yiddish, but you may be able to grasp the basic message in it if you really concentrate: Und when Der Rebbe Tokes, Und when Der Rebbe Tokes, 2. Excerpt from February 17, 2006 report to Ohio Jewish Communities: BOYCOTTS -- JCPA reported this week that the Association of American University Professors postponed its conference on academic boycotts. JCPA and its member agencies expressed concern over the conference's attendees-nearly half of which were outspoken supporters of an academic boycott of Israel-and the necessity of such a conference when the AAUP has held a long-standing policy against academic boycotts. Funders of the conference urged its postponement when Holocaust-denying material was circulated to conference attendees as background reading. 3. When President Bush announced that U.S. funds would be used to help rebuild a mosque damaged in Iraq this week, one would have expected an immediate firestorm of outrage from the ACLU and other liberal extremists. A "Violation of separation of church and state!" they would have been expected to argue in typical knee-jerk reaction. But, oddly enough, not a peep out of the ACLU, or the other usual suspects on the loony left. How to explain this indifference? After all, Bush's proposal involves an assault on the constitutionally-required separation of church and state, which, although it does not actually exist, is nevertheless revered as holy by liberals. Then I remembered. Liberals pursue church-state arguments only when it concerns Christian symbols and values. And they do so to advance their "Tear America Down" agenda. In other words, its perfectly fine to spend scores of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to rebuild a Mosque in Iraq, but not OK to display a cross or nativity scene in a public park at Christmas, or to delineate the Ten Commandments in a court house or other government building in America. Once again, liberal hypocrisy proves very vexing. One is at a loss to explain how such misguided and harmful thinking is able to survive in a sophisticated, modern society like America. John W. Lillpop
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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MUSLIM PREACHER ON TEMPLE MOUNT: RESTORE WORLDWIDE ISLAMIC RULE
Posted by Mordechai Ben-Menachem, February 26, 2006. |
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This was written by Hillel Fendel and is from Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). Sheikh Ismail Nawahda, preaching to Moslem masses on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Friday, has brought it out into the open: the call to restore the Moslem Khalifate, or, "Genuine Islamic Rule." A plan for the "Return of the Khalifate" was published secretly in 2002 by a group called "The Guiding Helper Foundation." The group explained that it wished to "give direction to the educated Muslim populace in its increasing interest in the establishment of Islam as a practical system of rule." This past Friday, Feb. 24, however, the plan went public. Sheikh Nawahda called publicly for the renewal of the Islamic Khalifate, which would "unite all the Moslems in the world against the infidels." The Khalifate system features a leader, known as a Khalif, who heads worldwide Islam. Assisted by a ten-man council, his decisions are totally binding on all Moslems. According to the Foundation's vision of the Khalifate, significant punishment can only be meted out for 14 crimes, including "accusing a chaste person of fornication," "not performing the formal prayer," and "not fasting during Ramadan." The Foundation recommends working to restore the Moslem dictatorship using a system of small groups around the world. The purpose is so that the "enemies of Islam" who "will definitely try to stop us" will have a "much harder task, if not impossible, if they are faced with a myriad of small groups of differing locations, ethnicities," etc. This method also "ensures that if one group... is found and cut off, other similar groups will remain undetected." Sheikh Nawahda reminded his Temple Mount audience that the first step taken by Muhammed in stabilizing his rule was to form the nucleus of the first Islamic country in the city of Medina. Nawahda also said that the status of Moslems around the world has dropped drastically ever since the collapse of the last Khalifate in 1924, after Turkey became a democratic republic. Nawahda called upon the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority to rise above their personal and party interests, and said that Moslems must return to Islam and join forces in the struggle against the West. He praised the worldwide protests against the anti-Muhammed cartoons, and encouraged the Moslem public to continue such activities. He implied that those who insulted Muhammed are liable for death. The Sheikh designated the Moslem masses as a strong point that can be utilized in the fight against the West. [Ben-Menachem: Okay, and now for the quiz. Anybody recognize the real source of these ideas? If you haven't caught on yet, I'll reveal to you where these Satanic jerks get their ideas. The book is called, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". It's amazing but these imbaciles are actually trying to follow that!] Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@computer.org |
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THE ANTI-POLL: AN UNSCIENTIFIC STUDY
Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, February 26, 2006. |
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Dr. Aaron Fine, the head of Israel's Tatzpit polling agency told Arutz-7 Sunday that 75% of the public refuses to take part in polls, rendering poll results nearly useless (www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98406). There's a fairly well-established tradition in Israel. On election night, the kids get to stay up late and families huddle around their televisions waiting to hear Haim Yavin (or whoever) predictably pronounce the word ma'hapach. In electoral jargon, that would mean an upset. The word is stronger in Hebrew and implies a revolutionary change. The almost routine anticipation of a dramatic electoral turnabout may sound a bit far fetched for some of you, but in Israel, tumult is par for the course. My favorite part of the televised episode is getting to watch all those pundits and pollsters with their sheepish little grins as they try to explain their failure in predicting the correct results. Dr. Mina Zemach from Dahaf does it best. Now, the nation of Israel has no deficiency of smart numbers people. I imagine we have a glut of accountants, statisticians and demographers. At times, it seems that the entire country is caught-up in the spell cast by some obsessive compulsive people who toy day in and day out with figures and percentages. For example, Peace Now is full of such individuals. They spend their days counting the number of houses, structures, people and progress in the Jewish communities outside of their headquarters which is located in the sovereign territory of Gush Shalom (which is located in a section of the Pink City which used to be known as Tel Aviv, until rose-colored glasses and ostrich feathers became fashionable). And then they devise a variety of practical ploys to thwart that growth. But it's a kind of an exercise in masochism (they're into that) and frustration. Because no matter how hard they try, those numbers outside of their fair city keep increasing. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98101 So there must be other factors at play here that transcend the loaded polls, political ploys, and media deception employed by those who are intent on burying Zionism, Judaism and Eretz Yisrael. Let's face it, polling services, their clients, employees and the folks on the receiving end of the phone line are only human (or inhuman), and personal/political agendas are always a component. So to be fair, let's consider that the margin of error in any Israeli poll ranges from a reasonable 4.4 to an outrageous 44 percent. In this way, the pollsters can always blame the results on a misplaced decimal point. But there are other factors at play which should certainly be considered: The Couch Potato Factor: these are the people who say, "yeah, sure I'll answer the pollster on the telephone, but it'll take a crane to lift me off of this recliner and drag me out to vote." The Spook Factor: These are the right-wingers among us who are sure that their phones are tapped and that every call from a telemarketer to a pollster to their sister in-law is no doubt a shabak agent. Rule of thumb: when the phone rings, keep 'em guessing. The Ellen's Husband Factor: A very funny guy (at least that's what he tells me) with a very Israeli sense of humor. He has come up with a variety of voting combinations made to perplex the most astute pollster. My personal favorite is his impersonation of the Meretz activist with 22 children from Mea Shearim (great Yiddish accent!). Come to think of it, we haven't been called at all this year (which must also be factored in, as these pollsters are simply are not calling the right people). Perhaps the most baffling and unpredictable factor for anyone involved in the numbers game is... (thunder or drum roll, please)... The G-d Factor: This factor is so elusive that your average expert is completely unaware of it or, if cognizant of it, may go as far as to deny its relevance. But those in the know, know that this is the ultimate factor and it is also the key as to why scientific polls and demographic studies taken in the Land of Israel are, more often than not, notoriously inaccurate and inapplicable. So, as we're hounded by the weekly figures and pie charts, remember that it's the human factor in us that causes us to put a degree of faith in Arabic and Roman numerical systems. And as the weeks before the vote decrease, and tensions increase, remember that man-made polling projections and our electoral system are as flawed as is man himself. Nevertheless, elections are indeed a vehicle for change and we are duty bound to vote and to try and effect change via a tiny slip of paper. Remember that it's our hopes, prayers and actions which can flood the ballot box with light and miraculously translate into positive results. If that doesn't relieve your anxiety, then remember Mina's sheepish and defeated little grin -- and it's sure to make you laugh. "Pollsters Fill Out the Forms Themselves"
Channel 10 expose: Though political polls play a large role in Israel's public discourse, they're not carried out professionally. In one prominent institute, staffers fill out some forms themselves. Channel Ten "spies" who went to work for some of the polling companies found that in some cases, for fear of being fined for not meeting the quota, the surveyors fill out the forms themselves. In the Dachaf Institute, Israel's largest polling firm, Channel Ten found that supervision over the question-askers was very weak. In one instance, when a major foul-up was detected in a poll, the supervisor merely said, "Our entire poll is messed up, but we of course have a way to overcome it..." At the Shvakim Panorama polling institute, Channel Ten found that it is "easy to get work there," the workers do not always actually make phone calls to find out the public's opinions, and that supervision is lax. "The worker next to me said it's OK to do what I want," one planted Channel Ten staffer said, "and even to fill out the forms myself. The supervisor passes through once an hour to collect the forms." In response, Dachaf said that the claims raised have no basis in evidence and are groundless. A recent Arutz-7 interview with Dr. Aharon Fein, head of the Tatzpit polling firm, revealed other types of critical deficiencies with public surveys. Fein said that the polls reflect only the opinion of those who are willing to cooperate with the pollsters, and that these sometimes number only 25% of the populace. "We feel that most of those who do not respond lean towards the right-wing," he said. "The polls are distorted, and we will see this in the elections." Polls published on Friday show that the Kadima Party continues to lead, with 39-40 Knesset seats, with Labor and Likud to receive fewer than half that amount.
Ellen Horowitz and her family live on the Golan Heights. She is a
painter, columnist and author of The Oslo Years: A Mother's Journal
(http://osloyears.com).
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'TOM AND JERRY' IS A JEWISH CONSPIRACY
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 26, 2006. |
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If you might have been wondering why normal people are a bit nervous about the Iranians acquiring nuclear weapons, now you know. This is from WorldNetDaily (www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48996). Tom and Jerry -- a Jewish makeover? Iranian official says cartoon is conspiracy to improve image of mice, Jews 
Tom and Jerry, the lovable cat and mouse locked in cartoon combat, is a Jewish conspiracy, according to an Iranian official. Prof. Hasan Bolkhari, a cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry, delivered the news last week on Iran's Channel 4 during a broadcast of film seminar where he was lecturing. An excerpt of the video was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1049). "The Jewish Walt Disney Company gained international fame with this cartoon," said Bolkhari. "It is still shown throughout the world. This cartoon maintains its status because of the cute antics of the cat and mouse -- especially the mouse. "Some say that the main reason for making this very appealing cartoon was to erase a certain derogatory term that was prevalent in Europe." According to the professor, "Tom and Jerry" was created to irradicate the association between mice and Jews created in the minds of Europeans by Hitler. "If you study European history, you will see who was the main power in hoarding money and wealth in the 19th century," continued Bolkhari. "In most cases, it is the Jews. Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the anti-Semitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began. ... Some of this is true. We do not deny all of it. "Watch 'Schindler's List.' Every Jew was forced to wear yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' 'Tom and Jerry' was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.' "It should be noted that mice are very cunning ... and dirty." "Tom and Jerry," the creation of Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna, was created in 1939, the year World War II began and while the Holocaust was in full force, for the MGM cartoon studios, not Disney. During the next 18 years, Hanna and Barbera created over 200 cartoons featuring Tom and Jerry, earning the pair seven Academy Awards. Today, "Tom and Jerry" is owned by Turner Entertainment. "If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised," said Bolkhari, "and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat's a--. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever. ... This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits. Unfortunately, we have many such cases in Hollywood shows."
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.
Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il
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TERRORIST ATTACK ON JEWISH TOWN
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 26, 2006. |
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It is long beyond time for Jews to recognize that these attack are acts of terrorism. This is a news item from today's Arutz Sheva - www.IsraelNationalNews.com (www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=99192). It is called "Army Evicts Jews from Givat Ha'Or Shortly Before the Sabbath" (IsraelNN.com) Residents of the Givat Ha'Or outpost near Beit El report that police and army soldiers arrived about 15 minutes before the start of the Sabbath on Friday afternoon to evict them from that location. They were forced out of the area, with at least one resident compelled to walk back to Beit El, since the Sabbath had already begun. When asked to show the order permitting the action, the officers in charge did not, leading residents to believe there was no order. In addition, the residents charge the action led to unnecessary desecration of the Sabbath since security forces videoed the area and confiscated property well after the Sabbath began, in addition to breaking into a car that was in the outpost and confiscating some of its contents. Residents added that the breaking into the vehicle was an illegal act since there was no court order permitting such a move. 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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LALA LAND! WHERE ARE THEIR VOICES?
Posted by Arlene Peck, February 26, 2006. |
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We, who live in the land of Hollywood or rather, "La La Land," seem to do everything a little grander than the norm. Our benefits are filled with dubious celebrities. Most of them have no idea which charity they are allegedly supporting. In reality their publicists arrange for them to show up, quite often just to receive an "honor." This way, they can be assured of having national press coverage of the event, as well as driving away in their fancy limos with a plaque in hand; another trophy to put on the wall for all to see, another enhancement to their self esteem. I can name several who, once the camera is gone, want nothing more to do with the charity they are supposedly representing. They absolutely love whales, the environment, their Jags, nannies, botox and their leftist causes. Some of the Jewish stars whom I have met actually kept their original names. Most of them don't have a clue what the word "Jewish" actually means. They really believe that once the area of Gaza was cleared of a group that we had been brain-washed for years into thinking were interlopers or "settlers" in Gaza, the "Palestinians" would go about printing their own currency and stamps and be on their way to their own peaceful country. Their "friends," Hamas now wants a free market? Maybe it's time to tell them that if they can't grasp the concept of freedom of expression and speech without having heads and hands cut off, they can hardly be ready for the "perks" that come along with democracy. Turkey and Russia are meeting with the Arab terrorists. Don't both of these countries have their hands full with Muslin rebels? I remember that not so long ago Muslims were using Russian school children for target practice. And now, Putin invites them for tea! When is the next infusion of EU, US and Israeli money due to keep the PA government running? Or rather, the supply lines for weapons and terrorism running. We seem to be amazed that the answer to changing the nature of these alligators who call themselves Palestinians isn't to throw them more meat. Frankly, as bad as I see the present leadership in Israel, I am more afraid of the direction we are being led. There appears to be a severe vacuum of leadership in both Israel and the US. I watched George Bush during his press conference say: "These are cold blooded murderers who want to destroy America. You cannot reason with them. You have to destroy them." Then, he approves turning over security control of six major American seaports to an Arab company based out of United Arab Emirates. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Obviously former President Jimmy Carter doesn't as he on record saying how upset he is over the negative response...Did I mention that I am from Georgia and he was the worst governor that we ever had? While the media has been preoccupied with the break-up of Britney Spears and the Cheney buckshot that went astray, this administration has approved a plan for major seaports of the United States, probably one of the most vulnerable targets for terrorism, to be turned over to a state owned company of the United Arab Emirates. That would make them privy to matters of national security concerning the way we protect our ports. And this, folks, is who Israel is supposed to be taking direction from in the Road map to Hell? Yet, this is the same man who, while promoting his "War on Terror," refuses to close our borders to illegal, potentially dangerous aliens who are pouring into the US via Canada and Mexico. He's even welcoming another 25,000 Saudi "students" in the coming year. He discourages any plan to build hybrid cars. Frankly, as bad as I see the present leadership in Israel, I fear for the direction we, in the US, are being led even more. Now, however, the Bush administration has gone on record and rebuffed criticism about the dangers of the 6.8 billion dollar sale that gives his good friends, the Arabs, control over security operations at six major American ports. I feel ever so much better... Or I would feel better if we could be assured that government leadership in the US and Israel recognized the dangers currently confronting the democratic, civilized, free world and were really paying close attention to national security. Our fellow Jews in Hollywood don't understand that throwing more of our tax dollars at the problem is simply not working. I never had a doubt in the world about what is now occurring. A year ago, I wrote that the minute the Jews left Gaza chaos would rein supreme and the Arabs would have an instant base from which to attack Israel. Isn't that exactly what has happened? Unfortunately, the world seems to have taken it in stride. And, those in "the industry" continue to think just giving them a 'hug' will solve everything. I speak to so many groups and here are some of the questions they ask me: "Who in Hollywood is supporting Israel." "Name the stars who have no problem adding to their 'benefit schedule' participation in a rally for Israel"? "Who out there is protesting the Nazi behavior that our fathers witnessed in Nazi Germany." Unfortunately, I can't think of any. And the few that I can, aren't even Jewish. I am furious about the fact that out of a culture of 1.4billion people, I can't find fifty who are vocal in their opposition to the barbaric behavior of their Islamic brothers and sisters and are publicly stating that these fanatics don't represent them. But, what about our own? I am tired of looking at raging scenes in our newspapers and on our television of hundreds of thousands of Islamic killers burning, looting and destroying everything in sight. I am both appalled and delighted that these fanatics, who have no humor in their souls, are killing one another over cartoons! Peace? Not in my lifetime. The Muslims don't want the democracy that we are offering. They live to sing "death to the Jews" all day... every day. No matter how many pieces of land Israel gives away there will never be acceptance of the Jewish state. The Hollywood crowd doesn't get it. I used to think that this sign of hostility was peculiar only to the Middle East, but now I know that a Jewish state is not wanted anywhere, maybe not even by some Jewish Americans. So many of the Hollywood crowd, in their quest to be politically correct, have lost sight of the fact that they are Jewish. Hamas has only one myopic goal and that is the eradication of Israel, one slice at a time. Kill Jews, destroy Israel. This is what they want and militant Islamism demands it. The Saturday people are ho-hum now. The Sunday people are next and the Muslims are burning down churches with glee. This crazed culture of death is speeding up their "final plan" and they are hell-bent on destroying anyone, from any culture and country, that isn't "them." So, I wonder. Who benefits from the public relations bounty gained by the constant concessions of the Israeli people? My goodness, could the undeserving beneficiaries of the "aid" to the Middle East be the very same ones who have over eleven billion dollars in hidden Swiss bank accounts or in Shua Arafat's shopping bag in Paris? Are those the primary beneficiaries cashing the checks from our grandiose giving? Helping the needy and supporting charitable causes is admirable. However, my momma, Queen Mollie, used to tell me, "He who tends everybody else's garden, gets weeds in their own!" Besides, as they like to think in the land of the stars, "Is it tax deductible"? Charity really does begin at home...Besides, it would give the folks here in La La Land an excuse to give a benefit and go home with a plaque. And, maybe President Bush could give one of his Arab Kings another hug and walk into the sunset once again holding hands. Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at: bestredhead@earthlink.net and www.arlenepeck.com |
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SYNAGOGUE DESTROYED
Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, February 25, 2006. |
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Decent people of the world were horrified by the destruction of the gold domed mosque last week, but on the same day, the destruction of an active synagogue -- by a progressive government, supposedly based on civil law -- was hardly even noted. On February 22, 2006, an active mosque, much beloved by its Muslim congregation, was destroyed after a powerful bomb exploded inside it, destroying the gold dome on its roof. This was one of Iraq's most famous religious shrines. Terrorists detonated powerful explosives, destroying most of the building, and prompting thousands of people to flood into streets across the country in protest. (This attack, 60 miles north of Baghdad, caused extensive international outrage.) On February 22, 2006, an active synagogue, much beloved by its Jewish congregation, was destroyed after heavy construction equipment tore off the roof, crushed its concrete walls and drove through its sanctuary. This was the only active synagogue in the country of Tajikistan, a country north of Afghanistan and south of Russia. The synagogue was destroyed so the government can build a grand palace for its president. "If the Jews want to have [rebuild] a synagogue, let them pay for it out of their own funds," said Shamsuddin Nuriddinov, head of the City of Dushanbe, Religious Affairs Department. (This attack, 280 miles north of Kabul, Afghanistan, caused NO international outrage.) According to Google News, 2,930 news articles appear for the mosque destruction, while only six exist on the synagogue destruction -- and those six are really just one brief mention that has been repeated through syndication in American newspapers. In regard to the mosque destruction, statements were issued from leaders around the world. President Bush stated, "I extend my deepest condolences to the people of Iraq for the brutal bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra....The American people pledge to work with the people of Iraq to rebuild and restore the Golden Mosque of Samarra to its former glory." He added: "The United States stands ready to do all in its power to assist the Government of Iraq to identify and bring to justice those responsible for this terrible act." There are some 150 Jews in Tajikistan, mostly elderly Bukharian Jews. When news of the destruction of the Tajikistan synagogue reached the Bukharian community in the United States, the news was met with shock; people whose children were brought up in that synagogue reacted in tears. Members of the Bukharian community in Atlanta, Georgia stated they worry about the Jewish cemeteries that are near the synagogue, what will happen to them? In regard to the synagogue destruction, not one statement was made by any government of any country around the world. The only Jewish organization to speak up on this was the International Sephardic Leadership Council, of which this writer is executive director of. While the media covered some 1,000 Israeli fans of a Tel Aviv basketball team demonstrating on Saturday night against the destruction of the team's historic arena, not one person in the main stream media has come out to address the destruction of the center of Jewish life in Tajikistan. First the government destroyed the mikvah (ritual bath), then the kosher butcher shop, now the entire synagogue. While Iraq is 97% Islamic, Tajikistan comes in at 85% Islamic and growing. And while the Iraqi Muslims claim say the community near the gold domed mosque was there for 1000 years, the Jewish community has been in the area surrounding Tajikistan for 2000 years. And while the gold domed mosque in Iraq was built in 1905 -- a little over 100 years ago -- the synagogue in Tajikistan was built 100 years ago as well. Yet, everyone is quiet about this. Including Jewish organizations -- this must change. The destruction of the Tajikistan synagogue is the most disgraceful act committed by a sovereign state toward its Jewish population since the end of WWII. The Soviet Union and its successor states may have oppressed and harassed their Jewish communities, but even at the height of Stalin's anti-Semitic purges they did not seek to wipe every element of Jewish existence like the Tajikistan government. It is an ominous message for a Jewish community, that while living under a government that is attempting to rebuild its economic, political and social image -- it starts by wiping out the only synagogue in its country. Where is the outrage!? This below is a special statement from Shelomo Alfassa, Executive Director, International Sephardic Leadership Council (http://www.sephardiccouncil.org). The Council is at 45 John St, NYC. "The International Sephardic Leadership Council is based in the heart of the vibrant Near-Eastern Sephardic Community of New York City, a community highly committed to Judaism, made up of 75,000 Syrian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Turkish and North African Jews; one of the largest, strongest, and fastest growing Sephardic communities in the world." (New York, NY) February 22, 2006 -- The International Sephardic Leadership Council is dismayed that the city of Dushanbe in Tajikistan has started to destroy an active and functioning synagogue-the only synagogue in the entire country. The 150 members of the Jewish community, mainly made up of Bukharian Jews, is elderly and poor and cannot afford to build a new synagogue. 
The synagogue was built by the Jewish community a century ago. It was earmarked for demolition under plans for construction of a "Palace of Nations" (the Tajik president's new residence). Between February 7-20, 2006 the city authorities demolished the mikva (ritual bathhouse), classroom and kosher butchery of the synagogue. While the government claims the synagogue technically belongs to the state, Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmanov of Dushanbe told a human rights group, "By rights the synagogue ought to belong to the Jews who paid for its construction about 100 years ago." He reported then that the authorities had offered a plot of land some distance from central Dushanbe, where the community could build a new synagogue. Yet, there was no way the mainly elderly congregation could afford to build a new synagogue. Forum18 News reported Shamsuddin Nuriddinov, head of the Dushanbe Religious Affairs Department indicated the government had no intention of offering financial compensation for the demolition of the synagogue. "Religion is separate from the state here in Tajikistan. If the Jews want to have a synagogue, let them pay for it out of their own funds." Shelomo Alfassa, director of the International Sephardic Leadership Council stated: It is an ominous message for a Jewish community, that while living under a government that is attempting to rebuild its economic, political and social image-it starts by wiping out the only synagogue in its country. The international Jewish community must do everything it can to help the remaining elderly and poverty-stricken Jews there, this includes considering emigration. In past years, the secular led Tajikistan government has been accused of tolerating the presence of training camps for Islamic militants, an accusation which it has strongly denied. A local citizen reported that when a Jewish member of the synagogue filmed the destruction, officials threatened to break his video-camera. Reports have circulated that members of the community indicate that they have been threatened by government officials for raising their voices. Tajikistan, west of China and north of Afghanistan, became independent in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union and has now completed its transition from the civil war that plagued the country from 1992 to 1997. Today, the country is 90% Muslim. Bukharian Jews have lived in Tajikistan for over 1,000 years without experiencing anti-Semitism. They were joined by a small Ashkenazi presence following World War II. In 1995, the Dushanbe synagogue and several Jewish homes were broken
into and ransacked. From this event, fear caused many Jews from
Dushanbe to emigrate. About 10,000 Tajik Jews have fled to Israel
since 1989. In 1992, there was a little-known but successful airlift
operation to bring Jews out of Tajikistan and into Israel. In August
2005 the Israeli Consul to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Anatoliy
Livshits visited the community about potentially emigrating to Israel,
this is something the International Sephardic leadership Council
strongly supports.
Ellen Horowitz and her family live on the Golan Heights. She is a
painter, columnist and author of The Oslo Years: A Mother's Journal
(http://osloyears.com).
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THE TORTURE AND MURDER OF ILAN HALIMI, FRENCH JEW
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, February 25, 2006. |
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The following story by Caroline Glick is not only about a Jew being tortured to death in France by Algerian Muslims which is horrible enough -- but -- its seems that the Jewish leadership didn't even care. That was the more horrible failure. It speaks to the possibility of the re-establishment of the Judenrat of Germany who collaborated with their executioners -- and the rest of Europe who also followed along as it the German Nazis were their masters. This story also speaks about the Left Liberal government in Israel under the Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who, like the Judenrat, has more in common with Hamas than with the Jewish people. I believe in the coming years, after the Left Liberals abandon the Jewish Land, which will quickly be filled with Muslim Arab Terrorists who will rain down missiles on Tel Aviv -- only then will the hunt for the collaborators begin in earnest. The collaborators will be equally as quick to deny their role, adopting new masks, claiming innocence in the pending deaths of so many of their Jewish neighbors, friends -- even their own families. But, I feel certain that those who will be again called survivors will hunt them down and seek vengeance for the loses they have suffered. From the highest government official to the lowest, they will be made to pay for their crimes against the Jewish people. As Caroline Glick points out: The murder and torture of Ilan Halimi was met with silence by Israeli leaders, making them co-conspirators after the fact of Halimi's murder. Apparently, Halimi's murder had some connection to Hamas. French Interior Minister said the Police found propaganda published by the Palestinians Charity Committee or the CBSP -- a front group for Palestinian Terrorists. In August 2003 the U.S. government froze the organization's U.S. bank accounts, accusing it of links with Hamas. The French police refused to take the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnapers seriously, although in phone conversations with Ilan's family, they recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in agony in the background. The French government waited a week before acknowledging the anti-Semitic nature of the crime -- because French Muslims make up at least 10 to 13% of the French population, and comprise a quarter of the population under 25 years old. The Israeli government's failure to recognize the exterminationist anti-Semitism of Ilan's murderers proven by the fact that there were no official Israeli reactions to Ilan's abduction, torture and murder. The French Jewish community considers Halimi's murder the greatest calamity to have befallen it in recent years. Aliya rose 25% last year. Ilan's mother told reporters that her son had planned to make aliya soon. The French press noted the Israeli media have not given the story prominent coverage. The unelected Kadima interim government, like the Israeli media, is doing everything in its power to lull the Israelis into complacency toward the storm of rage in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; the ascension of Hamas to power; and Iran's threats of nuclear annihilation. As a result, Israel's citizens and the media appears inert. Israel's latest Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni claimed Israel's current creed was "Conditional Zionism"...that Israel's international legitimacy is conditional. Unless another Palestinian State is established in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Livni warned, Israel will lose its legitimacy as a Jewish State. As Caroline Glick said: The acting oligarchy including "Livni, Acting PM Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and the rest of the Kadima gang, unlike every other people in the world, the Jewish people does not have an inherent, natural right to exist as a free, sovereign and independent people in its homeland. For Kadima, the Jewish people's right to self-determination in our Land is merely conditional on our enemies acceptance for our right to be here." 
enemies, who shout from every soapbox and prove at every opportunity that their goal is the annihilation of the Jewish people. From 1933-1945, the enemy was Nazi Germany. Today, the enemy is political Islam. Its call for jihad aimed at annihilating the Jews and dominating the world is answered by millions of people throughout the world. Among the lessons of the Holocaust, there is one that is almost never mentioned. That lesson is that it is possible, and indeed fairly easy to exterminate the Jews. The fact that the Holocaust happened proves that it is absolutely possible for the Jewish people to be wiped off the map -- just as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas leader Khaled Mashal promise. The story of Ilan Halimi's murder at the hands of a terrorist gang of French Muslims brings to the surface the various pathologies now converging to make the prospect of annihilating all Jews seem possible to our enemies. First, there are the murderers who took such apparent pleasure and felt such pride in the fact that for 20 days they tortured their Jewish hostage to death. This makes sense. Anti-Semitism in the Muslim dominated suburbs of Paris and other French cities is all-encompassing. As Nidra Poller related in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, "One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang [of kidnappers], who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture." It appears that Ilan Halimi's murderers had some connection to Hamas. Tuesday, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that police found propaganda published by the Palestinian Charity Committee or the CBSP at the home of one of the suspects. The European Jewish Press reported this week that Israel has alleged that the organization is a front group for Palestinian terrorists and that in August 2003 the US government froze the organization's US bank accounts, accusing it of links with Hamas. Halimi's family alleges that throughout the 20 days of Ilan's captivity, the French police refused to take the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers into account. The investigators insisted on viewing his kidnap as a garden variety kidnap-for-ransom criminal case, which they said generally involves no threat to the life of the captive. The police maintained their refusal to investigate the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers in spite of the fact that in their e-mail and telephone communications with Ilan's family, his captors repeatedly referred to his Judaism, and on at least one occasion recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in agony in the background. The family alleges that if the police had been willing to acknowledge that Ilan was abducted because he was Jewish, they would have recognized that his life was in clear and immediate danger and acted with greater urgency. Like the police, the French government waited an entire week after Ilan was found naked, with cuts and burns over 80 percent of his body by a train station in suburban Paris, before acknowledging the anti-Semitic nature of the crime. According to the press reports, the French government was at least partially motivated to suppress the issue of anti-Semitism because it feared inflaming the passions of the French Muslims who make up between 10 to 13 percent of the French population and comprise a quarter of the population under 25 years old. And yet, now that the French government has acknowledged that the crime was motivated by hatred of Jews, it is behaving responsibly in pursuing the murderers and decrying the attack on French Jewry. In addition to the exterminationist anti-Semitism of Ilan's murderers and the unwillingness of the French authorities to acknowledge the anti-Semitic nature of the crime until it was too late, there is one more aspect of the case that bears note. That is Israel's reaction to the atrocity. In short, there has been absolutely no official Israeli reaction to the abduction, torture and murder of a Jew in France by a predominantly Muslim terrorist gang that kidnapped, tortured and murdered him because he was a Jew. No Israeli government minister, official or spokesman has condemned his murder. No Israeli official has demanded that the French authorities investigate why the police refused to take anti-Semitism into account during Ilan's captivity. No Israeli official flew to Paris to participate in Ilan's funeral or any other memorial or demonstration in his memory. The Foreign Ministry's Web site makes no mention of his murder. The Israeli Embassy in Paris -- which has been without an ambassador for the past several months -- only publicly expressed its condolences to the Halimi family on February 23, 10 days after Ilan was found. This, when the French Jewish community considers Halimi's murder to have been the greatest calamity to have befallen it in recent years; when aliya rates rose 25% last year; and when Ilan's mother has told reporters that her son had planned to make aliya soon and was just staying in France to save money to finance his move to Israel. For its part, as Michelle Mazel pointed out in The Jerusalem Post yesterday, the French press has noted that the Israeli media has not given the story prominent coverage. Halimi's murder has not appeared on the front pages of the papers or at the top of the television or radio broadcasts. Although appalling, the absence of an official Israeli outcry against Halimi's murder is not the least surprising. Today, the unelected Kadima interim government, like the Israeli media, is doing everything in its power to lull the Israeli people into complacency towards the storm of war raging around us. Against the daily barrages of Kassam rockets on southern Israel; nervous reports of al-Qaida setting up shop in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; the ascension of Hamas to power in the Palestinian Authority; and Iran's threats of nuclear annihilation, Israel's citizenry, under the spell of Kadima and the media, appears intent on ignoring the dangers and pretending that what happens to Jews in France has nothing to do with us. Israel's societal meekness accords well with Kadima's ideology. Its creed was best expressed by Foreign Minister, Justice Minister and Immigration Minister Tzipi Livni last month at the Herzliya Conference and is best characterized as "Conditional Zionism." In her speech, Livni explained that Israel's international legitimacy is conditional. Unless a Palestinian state is established in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, she warned, Israel will lose its legitimacy as a Jewish state. So for Livni, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and the rest of the Kadima gang, unlike every other people in the world, the Jewish people does not have an inherent, natural right to exist as a free, sovereign and independent people in its homeland. For Kadima, the Jewish people's right to self-determination in our land years is conditional on our enemies' acceptance of our right to be here. Kadima's conditional Zionism finds expression in its policies in Judea and Samaria. There, the gist of the government's actions is that the only people with inherent human rights in Judea and Samaria are the Arabs. Throughout the areas, the government, backed by the post-Zionist courts, prohibits Jews from building on land that Jews own. Today, as Moshe Rosenbaum, the mayor of Beit El explains, even receiving a permit to build an extension on a standing house or additional classrooms in a school is all but impossible. While Olmert and Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra have repeatedly condemned Jews for allegedly cutting down trees owned by Arabs in Judea and Samaria, the government has said nothing and done nothing to stop the wholesale destruction of Jewish orchards and national forests in the areas by Palestinians. Over the past several months, in the vicinity of Gush Etzion alone, thousands of Jewish-owned trees have been chopped down by Arab vandals. Two national forests have been laid to waste. Busy directing their energies and attentions at delegitimizing the Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria, the government has ignored Israel's enemies. And so, as Kassam attacks against Israel multiply by the day and Hamas leaders hold Jew-hating love-fests with Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenaei in Teheran, Olmert assured us Wednesday that Hamas is not a strategic threat to Israel. When the Israeli government itself is claiming Jewish rights are not inherent but rather defined and granted by others, it can surprise no one the government has ignored Halimi's murder. Luckily for both Israel and the Jews around the world, the current leadership is not our only option. We have other leaders, the most prominent among them being Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon. Both of these men understand well that the two most important lessons for the Jews from the Holocaust are that we must never grant anyone else the authority, legitimacy or power to define who we are or what our rights are, and we are all responsible for one another. On Tuesday, Ya'alon, who is currently based at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, came to Jerusalem for the day to speak at a conference on the strategic implications of Hamas's takeover of the Palestinian Authority. There Ya'alon explained what he considers to be the key to Israel's security. Israel, he said, has the military capability to defeat its enemies. But for Israel to be able to take the steps it needs to take to win the war being waged for our destruction, Ya'alon explained that first we need to accept the fact that we have an intrinsic, unconditional right to our land and our sovereignty. Once we understand that our rights our unconditional, we will understand that we have an obligation to wage war against those who work for our destruction. That is, Ya'alon explained that for Israel to survive, we need to return to our unconditional Zionism. Sir Martin Gilbert, perhaps the preeminent British historian of World War II, has said, "The interesting thing about history is that it always repeats itself." As was the case in World War II, today the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world is being targeted for annihilation by an enemy bent on world domination. Ilan Halimi's monstrous murder is just the latest sign of this disturbing reality. Today, as 70 years ago, the Jews are dis-served by poor and weak leaders who refuse to see the dangers. But if we learn from history and we assess our options, we will see that history needn't repeat itself. It is within our power to reverse the course of our all too repetitious past.
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THE BLOOD LIBEL
Posted by Max Yas, February 24, 2006. |
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"This anti-Semitic myth, known as the blood libel, originated 1144 in medieval England, when a Christian boy named William went missing. When his body was found, the monks who examined the corpse claimed that the boy's head had been pierced by a crown of thorns. For hundreds of years thereafter it has been claimed that Jews kill Christian boys and drain their blood for ritual purposes. This libel continued in the Christian world and resulted in many expulsion, pogroms, inquisition and mass murder of Jews, culminating with the Holocaust during World War II. The last trial for this "crime" occurred in 1911 in Kiev, Russia when Mendel Beilis was arrested and put on trial. International pressure forced the Russians to find the accused not guilty and he was released in 1913. But myths persist. That one has been given a new life after 1948, by Muslim radicals. The caricatures about Jews and their religion in Muslim publications make the Danish cartoons look benign! And last year Egyptian TV produced a series of 47 segments, based on a late 19th Century forgery: "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", an antisemitic forgery to show the existence of an international conspiracy by Jews in order to seize power over the entire world. This document was judged to be a forgery by many jurisdictions. Many will remember the incident in Ramallah, PA controlled territory, when two Israelis lost their way several years ago and were lynched by an Arab mob. Their torn bodies were dragged up to a second story and thrown out of a window, whereupon the faithful rushed to dip eager hands in their wounds and licked their bloody fingers. In a recent Palestinian parade commemorating this heroic act, over a thousand kindergarten children marched with their hands dipped in red paint. Teaching hate appears to be a Palestinian priority. Following the standards set by Goebels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, indoctrination of Palestinians cannot start too early. Who can forget the widely publicized photo of a Palestinian 18 month-old baby dressed in a uniform and suicide-bomber belt? Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin Reports, February 14, 2006: A video titled " Hamas Drinks Jew blood" consisting of final messages by suicide-bombers-in-waiting. One example: "My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries." How can Shari'a law be so flexible? The consumption of any part of a pig is forbidden to Muslims. Muslim publications habitually refer to Jews as the sons of monkeys and pigs. Does it not follow that the consumption of blood from the son of a pig is also forbidden? Muslim spiritual leaders can be very nimble when it suits their purpose. The Sunday Telegram reported last week on another example of such supple thinking: "Iran's hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, approving the use of atomic weapons against its enemies. In yet another sign of Teheran's stiffening resolve on the nuclear issue, influential Muslim clerics have for the first time questioned the theocracies' traditional stance that Shari'a law forbade the use of nuclear weapons." What changed their minds? Iran is closer than ever to the "Muslim nuclear bomb." Translation: Traditional moral religious ethics, out. New religious sanction to murder, in. Shalom from Max Max Yas can be contacted by email at maxyas@victoria.tc.ca |
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OLMERT'S PLAN TO ABANDON JEWS OF WEST BANK BASED UPON FAULTY DEMOGRAPHICS
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, February 24, 2006. |
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This was written by Aaron Klein and it appeared in the Jewish Press February 17, 2006. JERUSALEM - If acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party wins next month's elections, members of Israel's Knesset will be asked to determine Israel's "permanent borders" in a vote on West Bank withdrawal, Olmert said. Olmert justified his plan to vacate the West Bank, which borders most of Israel's major cities, by claiming that unless Israel soon separates from the Palestinians, Arabs will outnumber Jews and threaten the country's Jewish character. But recent studies indicate that Olmert is relying on faulty demographic information, and that Jews likely will outnumber Arabs by more than double in 20 years. "The members of the next Knesset, who will convene here in a couple of months, will have a series of historic missions," Olmert told a special session celebrating the Knesset's 57th birthday. "Before our eyes stands a supreme goal of consolidating Israel's status as a Jewish, democratic state. The first mission on the road to achieving this goal will be determining the state of Israel's final borders," said Olmert. Announcing what had long been assumed, Olmert last week laid out his Kadima party's platform of withdrawing from most of the West Bank. He said that under his plan, Israel will maintain select security zones and some of the area's major West Bank Jewish communities, alluding to the evacuation of West Bank towns that fall outside Israel's security fence. Kadima is leading overwhelmingly in polls as Israel's March elections draw near. About 250,000 Jews live in the West Bank. The security fence, still under construction in certain areas, cordons off nearly 95 percent of the territory from Israel's pre-1967 borders. More than half the West Bank's Jewish residents reside on the side of the fence closest to Israel. About 80,000 more Jews live on the other side of the barrier. Olmert said he is seeking a West Bank withdrawal to set "the permanent borders of the state of Israel to ensure a Jewish majority." But a new study presented last month by American researchers is picking up steam in academic circles here. It contends that a West Bank withdrawal based on demography is groundless because Israel's Jewish population will more than double that of Arabs in 20 years. The study, titled "Forecast for Israel and the West Bank 2025," found Palestinians have inflated their population figures by as much as 1.5 million. It also said Jewish birthrates are outstripping Palestinian rates by far, and that Israel's own statistics fail to account for even low levels of Jewish immigration when calculating national demographic trends. Americans Bennet Zimmerman, Roberta Seid and Michael Wise put the current Palestinian-Arab population of the West Bank at 1.4 million and Gaza 1.1 million, for a total of 2.4 million, instead of the 3.8 million reported by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics. Zimmerman's team has shown birthrates among Israeli Orthodox Jews are at their highest levels ever and that general Israeli Jewish fertility over the past five years has risen above top scenarios first considered by Israel's Bureau of Statistics. The study says Israel did not account for a likely continuation of Jewish immigration trends over the next 20 years. The PA information was adopted by such prominent Israeli demographers as the University of Haifa's Arnon Soffer and the Hebrew University's Sergio Della Pergola, who both famously warned that by 2020 Jews will make up between 40 and 46 percent of the population in both Israel and the territories. Under Zimmerman's mid-case scenario, however, Israeli Jews maintain current fertility rates and immigration averages of 20,000 per year or 400,000 over two decades. Israeli Arab fertility rates, meanwhile, fall slowly over a 20-year period. The result is a Jewish majority in Israel in 2025 of 63 percent. According to other likely scenarios contained in the new data, Jews could outnumber Arabs by 71 percent if Jewish fertility rates continue to rise and immigration increases further. Some Israeli critics, a few of whom have been associated with Israel's liberal parties, have slammed Zimmerman's study. Della Pergola, who conducted previous studies in Israel upholding the PA claims, called Zimmerman's findings "groundless," politically slanted and baseless from a research perspective. But Della Pergola has changed his demographic forecasts several times and admitted in debates that he relied in part on PA population numbers. Zimmerman's study has been lauded by American demographers Nicholas Eberstadt and Murray Feshbach, among others. "It is ironic that just as we now find Israelis in the best position ever with regard to population, Olmert announces a plan to run away and give up the West Bank, claiming Israel's Jewish character is threatened," said Zimmerman. [Editor's note: These are from http://www.pademographics.com
Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America. and host the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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PERILOUS E.U. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS; PECULIAR WESTERN REACTION TO
CARTOONS; EXCUSING MUSLIM RIOTING
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 24, 2006. |
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THE APPALLING BUT PRAISED P.A. ELECTION Almost everyone is praising the P.A. election. That election emphasized rivalry over which party would better and less corruptly carry on the armed and diplomatic struggle against Israel. Among the Arabs, prestige depends on how murderous one is. The Arabs exalt murder, and the West praises their election for being orderly? Obviously, our world is confused about ethics. Let us Americans cease craving for foreign approval and UNO sanction. Instead, let us do what we think is right instead of allowing the UNO to demand we do what is wrong, i.e., to be inactive against evil. WHEN ISRAEL RAIDS IRAN I can foresee the next major US betrayal of Israel. Suppose the US facilitates an Israeli raid that destroys the nuclear weapons facilities in Iran. Judging by what happened when Israel did the same with Iraqi nuclear bomb facilities, the world secretly would be relieved but outwardly would condemn Israel as an aggressor. That would be unfair, because Iran has declared war on Israel. Israel should not have to wait to be bombed when Iran develops the nuclear weaponry its fanatics vow to use. The US would declare that since Iran has lost its nuclear weapons, Israel should give up its own. The US does not volunteer to give up its own, for the US sets a different standard for itself. But Israel is responsible with its nuclear capability -- it never bombed. DANGEROUS E.U. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS The E.U. urged European non-Muslim cartoonists not to wound the feelings of Muslims. It did not urge Muslim cartoonists not to wound the feelings of Christians and Jews, as they do routinely. The E.U. is acting out of political correctness and fear of rioting, not out of a sense of decency. If decent, it would not ignore the Muslim cartoons, which, unlike the Danish ones, are false and malicious and therefore meant to offend. Political correctness hampers Europeans from realizing war is being made on them. This is a war for the survival of civilization. It must not be lost. The way to lose is to appease the aggressor, who then would demand more one-sided "understanding," thereby fastening a tighter grip on Europe. The way to win is to fight, to take the offensive. Europe should encourage cartoonists to depict the truth about Islamist aggression, which is based on Islamic principles, without the gratuitous mockery that makes Muslim cartoons genuinely offensive. Frank cartoonists run a great risk from murderous Muslims, of whom there are a significant number. That risk should be alleviated by removing the Muslim masses from their midst. Ancient Rome took in masses of barbarians, who helped overrun it. Why should modern Europe make the same mistake? Not out of a need for laborers. Half are unemployed; the other half could be replaced. PECULIAR WESTERN REACTION TO CARTOONS The controversy about the cartoons is perverted: (1) A Danish newspaper published a dozen cartoons; (2) Muslims made certain allegations about them; (3) Muslims threatened the journalists and non-involved people, and rioted; (4) The West takes up the discussion as of the Muslim characterization of the cartoons; and (5) Although some Westerners express solidarity with the rights of the journalists, most chide the journalists. What is the proper way for the West to deal with the allegations? (a) Condemn, as some journalists did, Muslim governments that instigated riots and Islamic culture for its mob mentality; (b) Condemn as terrorism attacks on non-involved people, such as members of the same nationality or even just the same continent as the journalists; (c) Condemn Muslims who threaten to murder the offending journalists. Murder is not a fitting answer to perceived insult; explanations and libel suit are. Murder is barbaric. Indeed, it validates the cartoons; (d) Publish and discuss the Danish cartoons, so people can see that the accusations against them are false; (e) Expose the false, hate-mongering cartoons published routinely in Arab newspapers and Arab and Iranian broadcasts that call for the murder of Americans and Israelis, Christians and Jews; and (f) Stop kowtowing to what Muslims define as "offensive" -- they define anything not kowtowing as offensive. They don't want Muhammad shown pictorially, but that is their rule, not binding on us -- we do not consider it offensive per se. The most peculiar aspect of the controversy is the Western failure to discuss the cartoons, themselves. It simply accepts the word of the Muslims about them. I attribute this non-intellectual reaction to habits of political correctness. Whenever a non-Jew claims to be insulted, his claim is taken for granted and the other party is penalized or asked to apologize. Unlike ordinary libel, truth is no defense to the politically correct. They don't believe in truth or eternal ethics. They don't let facts stand in the way of preconceptions. The dozen cartoons are not insulting. The most controversial pair is truthful. The pair warns about the terrorism that originated in early Islam. The cartoonists exercised their duty to alert audiences to the war of jihad being waged against them. The politically correct mischaracterize those cartoons as hate mongering. Those cartoons don't express hatred but do identify and define the enemy. If one cannot identify and define the enemy making war on us, we already have become subjugated to the enemy, in part, and the more readily would succumb, on the whole. The West is pretending that there is no global jihad and that Islamic terrorism has no religious underpinning. Terrorism, however, is preached from most mosques and upheld in most Muslim papers and TV stations. The cartoonists should be commended for the risk they took to enlighten and alarm the West. They should be encouraged to be more frank and show how much of a threat to the West the Islamists pose. For that, they need better protection. The best way to protect them, I think, is to remove Muslims from the West, so we can enjoy our freedom and live our own way of life. Removal would preserve Europe and be a major victory. THE REAL DEAL ON ISRAEL Here is a glimpse behind the posturing into how diplomacy really works, not as the Times reports. It is speculative but seems based on sufficient facts to be realistic. Egypt suggested to Hamas that it form a coalition government in which it would hold minor posts but would have front men running the government. As a bargaining posture, Hamas threatened to resume full-scale terrorism against Israel. Sec. Rice told Acting PM Olmert that the US favored a coalition government, during which Abbas would rebuild Fatah's strength and then oust Hamas. Abbas asked the US for six months time in which to do it. But the US doesn't think he has a chance to succeed. Rather, the US expects that with funds transferred from Israel, Hamas would build up its strength and gain the confidence of international donors, without recognizing Israel or disarming. The US did not consult Israel on this. Who thought of this plan, Rice, Pres. Bush, or former Sec. Baker still pulling strings? To put this in perspective, remember that Sec. Rice just cajoled Israel into accepting a Security Council consideration of Iran's nuclear development together with a statement of objective of ridding the Mideast of all weapons of mass-destruction. That would include Israel's. There is some indication that Olmert and Peres were party to that (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/7 from DEBKAfile). Rice also foisted upon Israel the reopening of the Gaza border to a free flow of arms and terrorists. She also continues US policy of demanding that Israel not defend itself much and that it continue to subsidize the P.A. that it really should destroy. Representing the Executive Branch, she is quite the enemy of Israel. There is no sign that Israelis realize this, as their own leaders go along with it. EXCUSING MUSLIM RIOTING OVER THE CARTOONS Haaretz is full of understanding of Muslim insult over the (non-insulting) cartoons. It chides the cartoonists. Its commentators hardly rebuke the masses of manipulated Muslims rioting and murdering innocent people over the cartoons. It depicts the real problem as European intolerance of the nice Muslims. Why, Europeans are considering expelling the Muslims, due to European racism. The Europeans are hypocritical, preaching multiculturalism and then being chauvinist, asserts Haaretz. The hypocrites are in Haaretz, which publishes insulting cartoons of Orthodox Jews (Prof. Steven Plaut, 2/7). European Muslims riot and boast they will take over. It is they who are not multicultural. European multiculturalism let in a Trojan horse. P.S.: The Muslims are racist. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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YOU MEAN THEY LIE?
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 24, 2006. |
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My goodness. Are we to understand that the State controlled education system might actually lie about the real nature of the political system? Why in the world would a Fascist, police State that has routinely uses brutal violence since its inception to suppress opposition to its rule try to fool impressionable youngsters into believing that it is really a liberal democracy? I just can't thing of any reason, can you? This is from today's Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews.com (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=99158) and is called "Not Getting Along: Religious Students, Civics Lessons." Rabbi of Ofrah: "After what these students have been through recently, particularly in Gush Katif and Amona, they cannot take their civics lessons seriously." Rabbi Avi Gisser, of Ofrah, who also serves as the Chairman of the Public-Religious Education Council, spoke with Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine on Thursday. "Everthing that has happened over the past two years, " Rabbi Gisser said, "especially the disengagement, the uprooting and expulsion, and most of all, what happened at Amona -- all of this certainly leaves very heavy scars. The students were very involved in these events, and some of them were uprooted themselves, and when they have to learn about proper government in Israel, they simply are unable to really believe in it." Many of the students, too, were "offered" a first-hand and inside look at the justice and prison systems over the past several months. "I saw real evil," said Yaakov F., 22, while others talked of the judges being "rubber stamps" for the prosecution's positions. Many youths were beaten by police not only at Amona, but also in pre-expulsion street protests. "Look," Rabbi Gisser said, "if the teacher would say to them that they're simply learning science fiction, and they just have to know the facts for their matriculation exams, then OK. But if they want to take it seriously, then they are in a great crisis.... Teachers are reporting that the students are cynical towards the subject matter, don't care about it, and don't show up for classes. This is because the subject is so loaded, and appears to them to be some kind of ideological payment to the government -- when they themselves have been hurt and are still pained by Israel's democracy." "What do you suggest?" asked Arutz-7's Yigal Shok of Rabbi Gisser. "I think that all the government institutions must be made aware of the rotten fruit that has resulted from the events of the past two years. In addition, they must be called to order and made to improve their actions. Regarding the students, we must explain the ideals behind democracy, and that it's the least bad of all the alternatives. However, it must be emphasized that even the best values can be abused, and that when democracy is abused, then for sure the results are what we see. Our guiding principle is to distinguish between the values themselves and they way they are implemented." Rabbi Gisser said that the Public Religious Education Council has long been demanding that the one civics textbook used for the last five years should be changed to reflect the values of the public religious network. "Most ironically," he said, "the Arab schools have been allowed to make changes in certain subjects regarding the Jewish state and minorities' rights, while we have not received such permission, even though civics must be taught in a particular manner in religious schools. We hope that the current crisis will in fact lead to the necessary changes." 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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CARTOONS THE PC CROWD DEFENDS; COLE IN AT YALE; SUMMERS OUT AT HARVARD
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 24, 2006. |
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1. So when Do Western Bleeding Hearts NOT Think that Cartoonists Need to be Repudiated?
By Steven Plaut http://antiprotester.blogspot.com/2006/02/ no-riots-over-anti-semitic-cartoons.html All those people whining about how the West needs to be more sensitive when it comes to cartoons depicting Moslems or Islamic symbols, have never had anything to say about the vicious anti-Semitic cartoons of Australian cartoonist, Michael Leunig. Leunig's cartoons are so anti-Semitic that they were subjects of a practical joke and hoax over the past few days. As you know, Iran is having its own Holocaust denial Cartoon contest, to "avenge" the Danish cartoons that showed the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, and some other offensive images. Perhaps as a prank to show how easily Leunig's own cartoons can pass for Nazi caricatures, an Australian freelance journalist operating under the pen name "The Chaser" sent one of Leunig's images from 2002 to Iran's Hamshahri newspaper, which is holding the cartoon competition on the Holocaust in 'retaliation' for the publication of anti-Muslim images by Denmark's Jyllands-Posten and other European newspapers. Leunig's cartoon, which was accompanied by a fake email claiming that the submission was a "show of solidarity with the Muslim world," was drawn for The Age in May 2002. The first section of the cartoon consists of a Jewish concentration camp inmate gazing up at the Nazi slogan, "Work brings Freedom." The second section is of an Israeli soldier in 2002 confronted with another lie, "War brings Peace. Subtle! You can view it here. Leunig also drew a dumb picture that described the founder of Hamas merely as an "old Palestinian man in a wheelchair." An Australian paper declined to run one of his cartoons that called Australian Prime Minister John Howard a "suckhole". Many people have accused the millionaire cartoonist of being an anti-Semite. Several Australian newspapers have refused to print Leunig's anti-Semitic cartoon, including The Age and its editor Michael Gawenda, and this ignited a roar of protest from the Trotsky-Trash and similar ultra-moonbats. Leunig has also defended Helen Darville (Demidenko), an author caught up in academic fraud but whose most serious atrocity was producing a virulently anti-semitic book called The Hand That Signed The Paper. She blames the Jews for all her problems. Convicted Holocaust denier David Irving himself has nothing but praise for Darville. Ted Lapkin, policy director for the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council, said there was no denying Leunig's cartoons are offensive. "His cartoons have offended the Jewish community -- but contrast the reaction here to the Middle East, where they are rampaging the streets over cartoons." Paul Gardner, chairman of the Jewish human rights group, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, said it was "completely objectionable" for someone to falsely implicate Leunig by entering his cartoon in such a competition. But he described the cartoon as "entirely objectionable," because it made a false analogy between Nazism and the actions of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. 2. Is Juan Cole Moving to Yale? Cole is a pseudo-scholar who teaches at the University of Michigan. He used to be the chief jihadnik at the pro-terror anti-American and anti-Jewish Middle East Studies Association, a propaganda group pretending to be a scholarly association. Cole, who led the lobby to clear Saddam of any ties with terrorism, believes that a group of Jewish "neo-conservatives" largely runs U.S. policy toward the Middle East. His recurrent theory is that a nebulous "pro-Likud. cabal controls the U.S. government from a small number of key positions in the Executive Branch." Jonathan Calt Harris has declared: "He (Cole) is blindly anti-Israel to the point of being an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, an apologist for radical Islam, and someone who despises American public opinion." Cole has also pushed the Israel divestment campaign by campus anti-Semites, supposedly because Arabs are "mistreated" by Israel. Never mind that Arabs in Israel are treated a thousand times better than are Arabs in Arab countries. Cole is notoriously dishonest, and is a close comrade of Justin Raimondo, whom Cole regards as a reliable source. The Yale Herald reveals the imminent threat to Yale students blowing in with the hot air from Michigan. One Yalie expresed her fears: 'Naamah Paley, another sophomore who took his class, pointed out that a professor can profoundly influence and alter students. perceptions of a controversial and complex topic. According to Paley, Cole's lecture on the history of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was given on Rosh Hashanah, when no religious Jewish students were present in class to contest his views. Moreover, Paley said Cole's midterm exam concentrated on the controversial massacres at the Arab village of Deir Yassin and Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon rather than on balanced coverage of Israeli history. For Paley, moreover, the close-minded opinions of a political firebrand like Cole can alienate and stifle students. Earlier this year, Paley met with Cole to discuss her interest in studying abroad in Egypt next year. Yet she said she feared engaging Cole in an argument or even mentioning her Judaism or Zionist beliefs. "I didn\t want him to see me in his eyes as a Jewish student, but as a serious student of Middle East studies who wanted to talk to him about Arabic," she said. We recently revealed that Cole still links his personal web site to that of an unemployed Holocaust Denier and neo-nazi, Kurt Nimmo, whom Cole considers to be "progressive" and "academic", even though Nimmo himself (who writes poems about his own hemorrhoids) was even fired by Counterpunch for his dopey conspiracism and anti-Semitism. I guess Counterpunch now has higher standards than Yale.... 3. Wisse on Harvard's Persecution of Summers: February 23, 2006 Coup d'cole" by Ruth R. Wisse February 23, 2006; Page A17 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The resignation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard turns the spotlight on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), which has consecrated more time and energy to his ouster than to any other project of the past five years. Until now, all blame has been leveled at the president: "Fear and manipulation have been used to govern maliciously," charged one professor, who has since been awarded with a deanship. But now that these cowering professors have successfully unseated their president, scrutiny will quite rightly be leveled at them. What do they gain from their victory, and what does the rest of the university stand to lose? The movement to unseat Mr. Summers remains a mystery to most people outside Harvard. In the early days of his presidency, he challenged several tenured professors to account for the direction of their research and teaching. After some faculty had signed a petition urging divestment from Israel, he warned against the recurrence of anti-Semitism in a new guise. At an academic conference on the under-representation of women in science, he speculated on the implications of the differences between male and female test scores. At convocation ceremonies he congratulated Harvard students who served in the ROTC, which had been banned from the campus since the days of the Vietnam War. Each of these actions offended one faculty interest group or another, and jointly they signaled a bold style of leadership in a direction broadly perceived as "conservative" -- though it was in the service of once-liberal ideals. Since most Americans think it appropriate for a president to thus demonstrate his stewardship and leadership, they could not understand why such actions should have triggered faculty revolt. Even members of the media had trouble understanding what the fuss was about: incredulous, for example, that academics would protest against any expressed opinion. The governing body that appointed Mr. Summers and gave him a mandate for change, the Harvard Corporation, seemed for its part to welcome the energy he brought to the job. Several neglected campus units, such as the Law School and the School of Education, flourished as a result of his interventions. Mr. Summers strongly supported new investments in science and technology, areas where Harvard had been falling behind. Harvard students frankly blossomed under the special attention he paid them. No university president in my experience had ever taken such a warm personal interest in undergraduate education. Not surprisingly, the students return his affection, polling three to one in favor of his staying on. The day he announced his resignation, they were out in force in Harvard Yard, chanting "Five More Years!" The student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, has been outspoken in its criticism of the faculty that demanded the president's ouster. "No Confidence in 'No Confidence'" ran the headline of an editorial demonstrating the spuriousness of the charges being brought against the president, and reminding faculty to stay focused on the educational process that ought to be its main concern. Hence, supporters of the president are right to be dismayed by the corporation's decision to seek or to accept Mr. Summers's resignation. My colleague Alan Dershowitz calls it an "academic coup d'état by ... the die-hard left of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences." A second colleague, Steven Pinker, thinks that the president may have lost the fight himself a year ago when he apologized to antagonists for his political incorrectness instead of holding his intellectual ground. For the moment, the attackers have won the day, asserting their right to dictate to the rest of the university the accommodations they favor. But student response to the ouster suggests another long-term outcome. Although the activists of yesteryear may have found a temporary stronghold in the universities, a new generation of students has had its fill of radicalism. Sobered by the heavy financial burdens most of their families have to bear for their schooling, they want an education solid enough to warrant the investment. Chastened by the fall-out of the sexual revolution and the breakdown of the family, they are wary of human experiments that destabilize society even further. Alert to the war that is being waged against America, they feel responsible for its defense even when they may not agree with the policies of the current administration. If the students I have come to know at Harvard are at all representative, a new moral seriousness prevails on campus, one that has yet to affect the faculty members because it does not yet know how to marshal its powers. As long as FAS went about its business as usual, no one may have noticed its skewed priorities, but its political victory sets its actions and inaction in bolder relief. The same professors who fought so hard to oust their president did not once since the events of 9/11 consider whether they owed any responsibilities to a country at war. FAS continued to ban ROTC from campus on the excuse that the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy discriminates against homosexuals. Many students realize that this is tantamount to letting others do the fighting while advertising their moral superiority. Several years ago, the Undergraduate Council voted to give ROTC its approval. Although the faculty ignored this vote and simply waited for that cohort to graduate, other students will sooner or later stand up for their contemporaries who want to serve their country. "Harvard's greatness has always come from its ability to evolve as the world and its demands change -- to educate and draw forth the energy of each successive generation in new and creative ways." These words by Mr. Summers as he announced his resignation may yet prove true, although he would not be the one to put them into effect. It is inconceivable that the currently entrenched culture of grievance should be allowed to continue to sour the university. Perhaps the corporation ought to have put FAS into receivership before giving up on its president. Since it has given in for the moment, we will have to wait a little longer for this new student generation to teach us courage. Ms. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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MESSRS. RIEGER AND HOENLEIN: HELP US UNDERSTAND WHY YOU AREN'T HELPING THESE JEWS IN NEED
Posted by Buddy Macy, February 24, 2006. |
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Distinguished American Jewish Gentlemen: I had volunteered for my local Jewish Federation for more than 25 years. This past Friday, February 17, 2006, I resigned from the Board of Trustees, and from my position of recording secretary, of the Jewish Federation of Greater Clifton-Passaic (NJ), in protest of the United Jewish Communities' silence regarding the issues described in this email, that is addressed to the President of the UJC and the Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. I welcome your comments, reactions and ideas, and thank you for your interest in helping all Jews in need. My e-mail is being simultaneously published in IsraelLives, a daily, pro-Israel n! ewsletter that can be subscribed to by writing janetlehr@mindspring.com. This email is being sent to more than 9,400 people, many of whom represent Jewish media or charitable organizations based in the U.S. and/or Israel. As one who has practically been weaned on the concept and practice of tzedakah, I am having an extremely difficult time understanding why the leaders of the American Jewish charitable community, whose mantra is, "Helping Jews in need locally, in Israel and around the world," have purposefully avoided helping the Jews expelled from Gaza and northern Samaria, and, have not spoken out against the brutal, inhumane and horrific treatment of the protestors in Amona, by the local police, border police and IDF, that was sanctioned and encouraged by the Israeli Government. Your silence in the face of the tremendous suffering of thousands of brave, extremely devoted citizens of the Jewish State, is more than a little perplexing. Six long months after being physically dragged from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria, most of our expelled brethren have still not received the compensation promised them by their "elected" officials; many of the bread winners of the families are unemployed; a large percentage of the families do not have suitable housing or access to proper medical care; and, hundreds of school age children do not have a stable learning environment. Yet, perhaps more painful than all of the preceding hardships incurred daily by the expelled residents, is the slow but steady breakdown of the support systems contained within their beautiful, former communities...their loss of friends, rabbis, teachers, neighbors, synagogues, schools, work -- through the intentional separation by the Israeli government of communities by scattering members throughout Israel instead of making every effort to keep these extended families together. The suffering they have endured is unimaginable to most of us who are living, at a minimum, in relative safety, stability and comfort. Howard (Rieger), Malcolm (Hoenlein): The Jews who were expelled from their homes need our help, both financially and emotionally. It is vital that we provide financial assistance to our sisters and brothers who are in severe need; and, simultaneously, demonstrate to them, and to the State of Israel, that we care deeply about our fellow Jews. Ironically, if the expelled Jews had been living in any other country in the world, and were forced to permanently leave their homes by an edict of an anti-Semitic local government, the UJC, the Jewish Agency, and many other of the American and Israeli Jewish charities would have immediately come to their aid; millions of dollars would have poured in to help the displaced Jews rebuild their lives; doctors and nurses would have arrived to make sure they were in good health; and, in the irony of ironies, the Government of Israel would have rushed in to bring the victims of anti-Semitism to Israel; and, it would have provided them with housing -- accommodations, no doubt, that would be far superior to those which have been supplied to its own Israeli citizens, its own victims! THEN CAME AMONA The horrors of Amona will be felt for many years...well beyond the length of my days. The systematic, purposeful, carefully choreographed, inhumane, unfeeling and brutal attack of a majority of the protestors, who did not lift a finger against the attacking forces, is beyond my comprehension. Jews were trained (brainwashed, hopefully!) to degrade, brutalize and severely injure their fellow Jews. Let me tell you: If I were one of the passionate, idealistic, brave, dedicated, religious Israeli youths who were treated in that obscene manner, I would have relinquished any vestige of hope or respect for the silent majority of Israelis. Shortly after the destruction of the nine homes in Amona, Acting Prime Minister Olmert and groups such as "Peace" Now, stated that they were against a publi! c inquiry into "alleged" police brutality. Yet, if a foreign government had authored and carried out a systematic, intentional rampage of brutality and degradation against some of its Jewish citizens, in the manner of Amona, Jews in America and Israel (especially, the Israeli Government!) would have raised their voices to the rooftops, decrying the vile anti-Semitic acts. Mr. Rieger and Mr. Hoenlein: I appeal to your compassion, morality and Jewish identity. Please leave me with a shred of hope and respect for the American Jewish charities' establishment. Initiate, immediately, a nationwide special campaign, the funds from which will be spent exclusively to help the expelled Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria. And, speak out, loudly and unequivocally, against the brutal, degrading and inhumane treatment ordered by the Israeli Government against some of its own citizens. Israel 's very soul and spirit are at stake! Most sincerely,
Buddy Macy is a 1979 graduate of Brandeis University. He writes that his "perspective and opinions, incorporating reality, developed much later in life." He is a secular Jew who believes in the freedom of religion. Contact him by email at vegibud@aol.com |
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SKEWED THINKERS ABOUND
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, February 23, 2006. |
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Why do so many so-called sophisticated individuals in Europe and elsewhere refuse to recognize the perils associated with any culture that mistreats its women and allows its children to explode human flesh into thousands of blood-soaked particles? Indeed, why are so many moderates within such a culture reticent to speak out loudly against that sort of barbaric cruelty? Fundamentalists who attempt to justify despicable behavior on religious grounds defile the very faith they presume to represent. Israel is a land where both men and women are treated with dignity. It is absolutely inconceivable that a Jew would encourage a child (or anyone else) to violate the most basic law of existence by committing an inhuman suicidal act. Why won't the so-called sophisticated world reach a consensus and support Israeli culture while condemning those enemies of Israel that disrespect their women and defile the sanctity of their children? Must the so-called sophisticates of modern cultures continue to select convenient issues and berate Israel while minimizing outrage at the despicable behavior and savage acts of Israel's hostile neighbors? Perhaps those who do this have lost their sense of justice and do not recognize the dangers inherent in such skewed thinking. The Church of England, following the lead of Palestinian apologists governing the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., for one recently threatens divesture from corporations dealing with Israel, presumably due to the Jewish State's mistreatment of Arabs perilously about to be lead by a cadre of Hamas terrorists that inspires homicide/suicide martyrdom and intends to compel women to obey a misogynist sharia code. Does such a Christian organization not grasp the significance of indirectly supporting, thus positively reinforcing, a Muslim culture so out of tune with principles that ought to distinguish an emerging century twenty-one? Penalizing perpetrators of true injustice, demonstrated by bizarre sadomasochistic behavior and the suppression of female rights, would surely be appropriate yet skewed thinkers still prefer to engage in their sanctimonious agenda of bashing a moral and productive Israel, unconsciously abetting a devolving segment of our species hence contradicting the very tenets of progressive civilization they profess to represent. If movers and shakers who should know better wallow in a state of muddled misapprehension, pandering to the self-defeating inanity of a delusional politically correct philosophy creating victims rather than demanding responsible action, humanity's road ahead will be treacherous. Indeed, might we infer the more civil populations favorably perceive Israel's point of view, the more Dame Fortune will smile on our currently dysfunctional third stone from its sun? Let it be. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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PROFILE OF AN UNJEWISH LEADER
Posted by Steven Shamrak, February 23, 2006. |
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During his speech to a dovish American group, the Israel Policy Forum, Olmert claimed that Israelis long for peace because "we are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies." It is strange, that acting leader of Jewish country, and I am not talking about legitimacy of his current position, is tired of fighting enemies of the Jewish people. If he unable or unwilling to perform his duty, shouldn't he resign? He ignored the report about thousands of illegal Arab buildings in Jerusalem, but at the same time he is full of energy and determination in leading the brutal expulsion of Jewish patriots from Amona, the Jewish land. In 1996, while serving as mayor, it was alleged that he set up a shell corporation and forged agency to handle illegal contributions to Likud in 1988. It was Olmert who introduced Gilad Sharon to the Greek intermediary in the Greek Island Affair. Could it be the reasons why he became the 'trusted man' of Arial Sharon? Where is his defeatist rhetoric and self-hating attitude coming from? Is his mind-set an accident or symptomatic? Let look at the make up of Olmert family: His wife Aliza is a supporter of the left-wing Meretz party and has taken part in numerous demonstrations organized by Peace Now. His daughter Donna is a self-professed lesbian, who is a member of the Machsom Watch, a group of women who endanger the lives of Israeli soldiers by deliberately interfering with their duties at various checkpoints. The oldest son, a left-wing activist, who had refused to do Army Service and has left Israel. The Youngest son avoided Army service by studying literature in Paris. This is just a brief look at the corrupt, unscrupulous and self-serving the Israel's first family. Can Israel and Jewish Nation afford another betrayal by gutless and self-hating leadership? Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin wrote that Olmert "is a man who has proven that everything is justified in order to attain power... We must remind the public how dangerous it would be to abandon the leadership of the country to his hands." Traitors must be stopped! Jewish traditional values and aspirations need to be rekindle! Food for Thought. "It is all about the Jewish National and religious aspirations, as well as moral, historical and legal rights. Just because our 'friends' (Arabs, Muslim, Christian etc...) continue their traditional anti-Semitism by replacing and camouflaging it by anti-Zionism, it does not mean that Jews must obey the rules imposed on us." "Our apathy, laziness and inaction the cause of the pathetic Jewish leadership we have been enduring! Anyone of us can start act now by organising local active group, encourage family members in Israel to vote for the parties supporting the Jewish National goal." Time to Recognize the Another Enemy Within. Two Israeli Arab parties have merged ahead of Knesset elections, launching their campaign by calling for Islamic rule in Israel and praising the Hamas terror group. "We believe in Islam and in the Caliphate and not in separation between state and religion." chairman of the new Arab party Ibrahim Sarsour said. He said the party would work to increase Arab immigration to the Jewish state. (It is not even about Israel. It is about global domination of Islam!) Hamas Members on Israel's Payroll? Hamas and Fatah activists in Jerusalem enjoy Israeli state benefits. Hundreds of Arabs who live in eastern Jerusalem and are entitled to government unemployment and health subsidies are members of Hamas. Would not stop unless there was new Knesset legislation depriving Arabs with Hamas links of the mandatory rights accorded to Israeli residents. (This would require from Israel's politicians some thinking and action. Last year 50,000 Arabs moved to Israel. Still, nothing is done by gutless and lethargic parasites!) Israel is Financing the Arab Terrorism. Israel may stop sending the Palestinians the $50 million a month in taxes it collects on PA behalf. Furthermore, PA gets back more than three-quarters of the money withheld from the paychecks of Arab Palestinians who work across the border. (Wouldn't it be more honest, if Israel starts providing bullets directly to Hamas, Fatah and others Jew-hating thugs?) Quote of the Week: "Our program is to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine....The Qassam Brigades will continue to increase in numbers, supplies, and weapons... until the liberation is completed." -- The head of Hamas in Gaza, Mahmoud A-Zahar revealed at a meeting with University of Cairo faculty. (He also emphasized that Hamas recognizes Israel's existence as an existing fact, but Hamas would never accept Israel's right to exist.) PA Needs More Money. About $700 million has been pilfered from the PA coffers, PA Attorney General Ahmad al-Moghani said Sunday. "Some of these millions were transferred into personal accounts here and abroad." Several top PA officials have fled the West Bank and Gaza since Hamas' election victory, PA security sources revealed. (West must stop financing PA terrorism and corruption. Let Arab and Muslim countries do it!) List of Terror suspects. The US National Counter terrorism Center claimed a list of up to 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects in a combined data base. The same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of separate individuals is estimated to be more than 200,000. In Katusha Range. Russian-made rocket, which the Arab terrorists have dubbed Aqsa 2 or Aqsa 207, arrived in the Gaza Strip last week through northern Sinai. It extends the range of Arab Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip to a maximum of 16-18 kilometres. Al Aqsa Brigades have furthermore put into service short-range, 8-kilometer Arafat 1 and Arafat 2 rockets. Some 20 are reported to have been fired till now against Israeli locations across the Gaza border. (Since Hamas won election, Fatah assumed more terror pro-active role. When will it be enough? When will we remove them all from the Jewish land?) Comments on Comments: "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror." President Bush said. -- Did they listen, Mr. President! What next? You have been fostering narco-government in Afghanistan and stuck in Iraq. Both countries will collapse as soon as US army withdraw. The stupidity of US foreign policy must be rejected by Israel and not allowed on Jewish land. Honour the Cherry Tomatoes Inventor. The 2006 Israel Prize for Agriculture Research will go to Nahum Keidar, who developed the bite-sized fruit, the cherry tomato, now enjoyed worldwide. (Surprise, the cherry tomato made in Israel too!) It is only Jews. They can Wait. The Netherlands' biggest art dealer before World War II, Jacques Goudstikker, fled the country at the start of the war with his wife and son, losing an estimated 1,300 artworks. The holdings were taken by the Nazis. (Only 58 years after the war, the Dutch government has started considering whether to give the art collections to the descendants of the owner!) The Same Old Game. The PA released all 39 Islamic Jihad terrorists held in its prison in the West Bank city of Jericho last week. Juvenile crime on rise in Israel. Barely a decade ago, Israel was considered a country with a relatively low rate of social deviance and crime among its youth. However, now, after Oslo war and 'peace process', it is a serious problem: murders, rapes, sexual abuse and knife attacks -- all perpetrated by adolescents. The police do not regard recent youth crimes as isolated incidents. Criminologists and educationists also believe that Israeli youth violence is an epidemic that will escalate in the years to come. just two months -- April-May 2005 -- 8,700 new cases of knife attacks, murders and sexual abuse were reported to the police. (Lack of national direction, ideals and pride, immoral and self-disrespectful behaviour of Israel's political elite, policies of appeasement of Jewish enemies -- These are the reasons behind the disintegration of Jewish society in Israel and world wide! It has created the atmosphere of apathy, disunity and is destroying Jewish idealism. The entry of over 100,000 of non-Jews from former Soviet Union during the last 15 years is contributing factor to rise of crime too!) Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement. For the last few years, he has been publishing internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict -- independently, not as a member of any organization or political movement. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@mail2world.com |
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MOHAMMED AND ALLIE
Posted by Naomi Ragen, February 23, 2006. |
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Friends, Well, the cartoon controversy gets better and better. Muslim "rage" has given cartoonists all over the world new inspiration. The subject: sitcom situations for Mohammed. For a laugh and a selection, please go to http://tinyurl.com/7lpv3
Naomi 
Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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HAS JUSTICE BEEN SERVED?
Posted by Dr. Alex Grobman, February 23, 2006. |
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British Holocaust denier David Irving has been sentenced to three years in prison in Austria for denying that the Holocaust occurred. As the author of a number of books on the military history of World War II, Irving is the most historically sophisticated of the deniers, yet he is not a trained professional historian. The trial raises the question whether Irving has recanted and whether jail time is justified for this violation. Fabricating history is a threat to the way all groups pass on their history from one generation to the next. That is why it is so pernicious. The Jews of Europe went to great lengths to ensure that what happened would be not be forgotten, not only for the sake of the Jewish people, but for the world. At his trial, Irving acknowledged that the Nazis had attempted to systematically murder the Jews of Europe, and that there were homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. This is an important admission. At the David Irving/ Deborah Lipstadt trial in London in 2000, Irving asserted that the gas chambers were used to gas "objects and cadavers." After Irving concluded that there were no homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz in 1988, he did not visit the archives or the archeological remnants at Auschwitz to determine if this was true. He could not go, he said, because it was under communist rule. Yet this did not stop others from doing research in Poland during that period. Later Irving argued that Auschwitz authorities would not allow him access to the camp for fear of what he might find. Was his guilty plea to this criminal offense in Austria a ploy to preclude being imprisoned for the maximum of 10 years as the law allowed or did it signal a change in Irving's thinking? According to Ha'aretz, after pronouncing the sentence, Peter Liebetreu, the presiding judge at the trial, said, "The court did not consider the defendant to have genuinely changed his mind. The regret he showed was considered to be mere lip service to the law." Irving's willingness to concede historical errors he once held when confronted by a prosecutor in a courtroom is not new. In the Irving/Lipstadt trial, Justice Charles Grey found that "a striking feature of the case" was that "Irving made, or appeared to make, concessions about major issues," that were different to those he alleged prior to the trial. Previously, he claimed for example, that the mass shooting of Jews in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in the East had not been officially authorized, but were the actions of small groups of criminals, and that Hitler had limited information about the killings. At the trial, Irving agreed that conceivably 1.5 million Jews were systematically killed under orders from Reinhard Heydrich. Robert January van Pelt, a key expert on Auschwitz for the defense, also notes that Irving was forced to change his claim "on the basis of probabilities," that Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were extermination camps. Justice Grey concluded that he was "unable to accept Irving's contention that his falsification of the historical record is the product of innocent error or misinterpretation or incompetence on his part. " It appeared that "for the most part the falsification of the historical record was deliberate and that Irving was motivated by a desire to present events. consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence." Should Irving be incarcerated for this transgression or should his views be seen as an act of free speech? In Austria and German the situation is different than in the U.S. In these countries, Holocaust denial, Nazi symbols, literature and music are banned. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, one of Germany's most esteemed historians, is quoted in Spiegel Magazine as favoring of Irving's incarceration. "The Holocaust," he said "is a matter of the industrially organized mass murder of six million human beings. And to brazenly deny this, in the peculiar manner of the current Iranian government, is unbearable at least in the German public sphere." After the initial success of the (neo-Nazi) NPD "in the late sixties, right-wing radicals began to pose as 'avengers' of a sort," prompting a ruling that one could be prosecuted in Germany for denying the Holocaust. This has been "a gradual process," which did not begin immediately after 1949. Those who fear that this will make Irving a martyr should know that after the trial in London, his followers greeted him as a hero. To the true believers, he will remain their champion. At the end of the London trial, Richard Rampton, the British defense attorney, bemoaned that the victory did not make a difference: "The judgment doesn't bring the dead back, it doesn't bring them back." That was never the point as London reporter James Dalrymple observed. "Historical revisionism," he observed, "has only one subject-the Holocaust. Here "doubt can be planted like seed in the wind, to grow and fester as the screams of history grow fainter with the years." The trial exposed Irving as a falsifier of history. It is imperative that we not allow those who wish to distort our history be given free reign to do so. Our ancestors urged that we "know how to respond." That is our task. Dr. Grobman's most recent book is "Battling for Souls: The Vaad Hatzala Rescue Committee in Post War Europe" [KTAV]. He is also co-author of "Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened?" (University of California Press, 2000) His most recent book is entitled "Zionism=Racism: The New War Against The Jews". |
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CHRISTIANS UNDER THREAT IN GAZA
Posted by Middle East News Line, February 23, 2006. |
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GAZA CITY [MENL] -- The tiny Christian community in the Gaza Strip has come under threat. Palestinians have threatened to blow up a Christian center in Gaza City. The Palestinian Bible Society was accused of missionary activities and given until February 28 to leave the Gaza Strip. "We are under serious threat," a Gaza Christian who did not want to be identified said. "There is nobody here willing to help us." [On Friday, at least two Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. Two other Palestinians were injured in an Israeli air strike meant to stop a Kassam-class missile launch.] This was the latest threat against the 1,500 Christians in the Gaza Strip. In early February, the only church in the Gaza Strip was vandalized and clerics were threatened. Last week, a firebomb was hurled at a church in the West Bank city of Ramallah. PA police have not arrested any suspects. The threats against the foreign-based Palestinian Bible Society were reported amid the furor in the Arab world over anti-Muslim cartoons published in the European press. Christian clerics in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank have condemned the cartoons. The Palestinian Bible Society, part of the United Bible Societies, began operations in the Gaza Strip in 1999. The society, with 11 employees, contains computer rooms, multi-purpose halls and a library. Palestinian anger over the European cartoons was quickly diverted to the Christian center. On February 2, a bomb exploded outside the Bible Society. Nobody was injured. By February 16, the center was warned in an anonymous letter that it would be blown up unless the building was vacated by February 28. Christian sources said the PA advised the center to lock its doors, but has not provided protection. Christian sources said they believe the threats have come from elements in the Fatah Party headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The sources said Fatah has sought to block the Hamas takeover of government by sparking violence and seizing official and other facilities in the Gaza Strip. Contact Israel Resource News Agency (http://Israelbehindthenews.com) by email at media@actcom.co.il |
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ILLEGAL HOME DEMOLITIONS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 23, 2006. |
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Since the issue of Israel's demolition of some Arab homes keeps on cropping up in emails that I get, or articles that I read, I thought I'd send around this essay and article. Pass it on to anyone who is concerned about what is really going on, and why this whole issue is really part of the Arab war against Israel. the reality of Isrraeli home demolitions This is for those (you, your friends or relatives, neighbors, your colleagues, your enemies) who wring their hands and weep, or nearly weep, at the news of Israeli demolition of illegal Arab housing. The Arab anti-Israel PR war of illegal home construction is very well choreographed, and highly successful. One of the best signs of its success is just how many Israelis, Jews all over the world, and many other equally sincere honest humanitarian considerate compassionate people are aghast at the scenes of Israeli bulldozers destroying Arab houses. These good-hearted, right-minded folks do not get it.....the Arab illegal building spree is part of the long-term Arab war against Israel....a war whose goal is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jews. And the anti-Israel agitation and letter writing and demonstrations and NGO condemnation...all aid the Arabs in their genocidal intent. As I have demonstrated in previous emails, the Palestinian Authority, with funding from various Arab countries, has used illegal home construction as a weapon against Israel in the Intifada. Thousands of Arab homes built illegally in and around Jerusalem create faites accomplis (or as we say in the Holy Tongue: Ubdot baShetah = facts on the ground) regarding where Israeli sovereignty ends. This situation is a win-win for the Palestinians and a lose-lose for Israel. If left standing, these houses are nicer homes than Palestinians could build with their own funding, but since they are built with funds from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq (before the last Gulf War), they are a significant up-grade. So Palestinians gain nice homes and Israel has its long-range plan for Jerusalem and environs violated and constrained; and its future territorial integrity compromised. Palestinians win and Israel loses. If demolished, the Palestinian family is compensated by the same Arab sources that funded the construction (so they can go and build another home somewhere else), and the Israeli demolition is reframed by international TV and other media outlets as crimes against the Palestinians (even though the homes are built illegally, and all countries in the Western civilized world have laws of eminent domain and regulations that require demolition in some cases when houses are built without permit). So the Palestinian family gets a new home, the Palestinian propaganda gets more great photo-ops of Israeli bulldozers destroying Palestinian homes, and Israel is demonized. Palestinians win and Israel loses. Palestinians: win win
Now that the Palestinian leadership recognizes that this strategy works (more than 6000 Arab homes built in the Jerusalem area, and only c. 200 demolished, and great anti-Israel PR achieved when the anti-Israel photo-ops are created, and when the media and world at large believe the galactically exaggerated claims of 'thousands left homeless'), they expand the strategy beyond Jerusalem. So illegal Arab building between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem will create Palestinian homes that will be "facts on the ground" when it comes time to negotiate the legal and internationally recognized border between "Palestine" and Israel. But if Israel tries to demolish these illegal constructions, it will get more bad PR and more demonization; even though its actions are perfectly legal in both national and international law; and even though the Arab illegal building actions are a clearly dangerous part of the over-all anti-Israel strategy of the Palestinian leadership. So now, per the article below, the Israeli government is paralyzed with indecision: which loss does Israel suffer? The loss of sovereignty and control of its own land by letting the illegal building continue, or the loss of the PR war to the successful Arab-produced images of the 'horrible, inhuman, brutal, apartheid, racist Israeli denial of the Palestinians' human rights". David ML PS. It is important to recall that per international law, and despite the endless Arab rant about 'illegal occupation", Israel's sovereignty over the West Bank is completely legal, and the Israeli government's ownership of all West Bank land not owned by a specific individual (natural or legal person or legal commune) is the legal and internationally recognized concept of "crown land" or "state land". Therefore, Arab building on West Bank land not owned by some specific individual is subject to the laws of that land's legal owner -- the state of Israel. PPS. It is not well known but the same type of struggle is going on in the Negev, where Israeli Arab Bedouin are systematically carrying out a land-grab war as they illegally expand the areas of their tents and shanties over Israeli state land (grazing has always been allowed, but not permanent or semi-permanent buildings without permits), without permits, and in defiance of stop-orders (see last two paragraphs of article below). And here too Israel is paralyzed because it does not want the bad PR and horrific photo-ops of the Israeli government uprooting Arabs. Even though such uprooting is completely legal and part of the laws and law-enforcement norms of all western countries. And what is even more galling, the inhabitants of these "unrecognized settlements" then sue the Israeli government for not providing them with running water and sewerage and electricity and phone service and a feeder road. A real win-win for the Bedouin: build illegally and unjustifiably claim the land; then pay no taxes because your status as a legal occupant is not legally recognized; and then demand all the services that the government provides to legal settlements and for which taxes pay part of the expense........ .........and if the government balks....well then you have the great PR of "Israel discriminates against its Arab citizens". PPPS. I suspect (just my opinion...I'm an insurance broker....we all know to which part of the human anatomy opinions are likened) that Olmert's sudden get-tough attitude toward the Jews of Hebron squatting illegally in abandoned Arab houses near the Suq may be a function of his sensitivity to the PR value of such an attitude. The world now sees that Israel is a country run by rule of law, and applies that law with equanimity against law-breakers -- Jewish or not. It is not just Arabs against whom laws of eminent domain are applied. Israel uproots Jews too. Olmert hopes my guess) that such action makes Israel look better to the world. This article is called "Govt Silent as Illegal Arab Building Cuts Off Gush Etzion." It is by Ezra HaLevi and appeared in Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com) 19 Jan 2006. It is based upon Erez Tadmor's article in Makor Rishon. As the government declares "war" on unauthorized Jewish communities, Arabs, funded by the Palestinian Authority, are deciding Israel's future borders through unhindered illegal building. An investigative report by Erez Tadmor, of the Hebrew weekly Makor Rishon, exposed the massive unauthorized Arab building projects, which are going on all over Gush Etzion, the 'settlement bloc' just south of Jerusalem that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon repeatedly claimed would remain in Jewish hands. Mr. Sharon insisted that a letter he received from US President George W. Bush bolstered that claim. The Gush Etzion bloc is shown even by left-wing polls to be within the consensus of Israeli willingness to fight to retain. According to the platforms of the Kadima and Labor parties, and even Yossi Beilin's Geneva Initiative, Gush Etzion's future under Israeli sovereignty is assured. At the same time, however, the region, where Jews return to in 1967 after being expelled in 1948, is being surrendered through the government's decision to destroy only unauthorized Jewish building, ignoring 7,380 Arab violations. In 1998, then-Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon was broadcast on Israel Radio exhorting idealistic Jews to, "Move, run, grab more hills, expand the territory. Everything that's grabbed, will be in our hands. Everything we don't grab will be in their hands." Sharon has since destroyed 25 Jewish towns in Gaza and northern Samaria and is now in a coma, while his deputy, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has declared "war" on unauthorized Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. With the Partition Wall about to be constructed in the region, it is acknowledged that the real route of the fence will be drawn by the State's High Court, which has already taken Arab agriculture and construction into consideration over Jewish contiguity in Samaria. The route of the Partition Wall will be the future border of the State of Israel, according to Justice Minister Tzippy Livni. The decisions of the Supreme Court on the fence-route in Ariel Bloc in Samaria resulted in a route that looks very similar to the map of Jewish communities in Gaza prior to their destruction -- a group of isolated enclaves, connected to pre-1967 Israel by narrow corridors, similar to the Kissufim corridor, and just as susceptible to attacks. "Those who have truly internalized the rules of the game are the Palestinian Authority and international bodies," Tadmor wrote, "who are now acting with the intent of isolating Gush Etzion in accordance with the rules established by the Supreme Court." In the weeks leading up to the beginning of the construction of the Partition Wall in Gush Etzion, local Arabs are racing to create facts on the ground. "In the full light of day and with the knowledge of the relevant authorities, intensive works have been underway during the past months to seize control of thousands of [acres] of uncultivated lands between the settlements of western Gush Etzion and the Green Line. The goal is to prevent any possibility of creating territorial contiguity in the direction of Jerusalem and in the direction of Beitar-Illit and Tsur Hadassah. In the last months, the Palestinians have expedited the pace of work undertaken in a number of parallel areas. So far, they've managed to seize control of hundreds of acres of state lands in the southwestern Gush, and one sees a similar picture unfolding in the central Gush and in the lands north of it." According to the report, official vehicles of the Palestinian Authority, manned by paid PA employees, are supervising the work and traveling freely in the areas between Gush Etzion's Jewish towns. The areas are worked day in and day out using heavy equipment such as bulldozers, tractors, dump trucks, and large teams of workers. They are focusing on state lands (land purchased by the JNF prior to the state on behalf of the Jewish people) and on 'survey' lands (lands whose status is unclear due to their lack of registry in the lands authority, much of them state lands as well). New roads are being paved, dirt paths are being widened, land is being indiscriminately plowed, and terraces are being built to seize legal control of the land, all with the financial backing of the PA and international donors under the guise of assisting Palestinian farmers. A similar effort by the PA was halted by Ehud Barak during his term as prime minister, after he and Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh were convinced that the project at that time aimed at driving wedges between the Gush Etzion communities and between the region and the Green Line, rather than to assist the small farmer. The Civil Administration was instructed to prevent any future attempts at seizing land, including the impounding of equipment working the area. In recent months, however, the Civil Administration has not interfered with the illegal building. During these months the Civil Administration called in massive forces to destroy a small house in the Jewish outlying community of Sde Boaz, whose residents witness the illegal Arab construction a stone-throw from their homes daily. The report outlines details of the construction projects that are ongoing: "The PA has seized hundreds of [acres] on every one of the slopes that descend from the settlements of the Gush westwards and northwards. On the slopes that descend westwards from the communities of Elazar and Givat Hachish (Alon Shvut's caravan neighborhood), heavy equipment has been working to clear wide tracts, by hewing the rocky landscape and opening access routes for trucks. At the same time, dozens of laborers are operating in the area continuously with the help of tractors. Tract after tract of terraces are prepared, followed by a stream of trucks that dump their loads of arable soil onto the newly created terraces. "The result, after a few days of work is to transform the area from a virgin and rocky hillside to a terraced landscape awaiting planting. In addition, wells are being dug to facilitate the future agriculture. A similar situation exists on the northern and western slopes of Neve Daniel, where Sde Boaz is located, and on land abutting the city of Beitar Illit, separating it from the rest of Gush Etzion." A large sign has even been erected in the area, displaying the logos of the PA and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). "The UNDP, which is supposed to be a neutral organization that assists Palestinian farmers, is overreaching its mission by lending its authority and resources to aid the PA in its land-grab," reads the report. As for the Civil Administration, 7,380 demolition orders have been issued against illegal Arab building projects in Judea and Samaria that have not been executed due to orders by the government. Orders to dismantle hundreds of other illegal structures in the Negev also have not been carried out. Bedouins in the Negev have built thousands of illegal metal shacks on land that they have taken over during the past two decades. Instead of calling them "illegal" or "unauthorized" the government and state-run media call them "unrecognized villages." A spokesman for the Negev District Police said recently that the Arabs have erected over 35,000 illegal structures in that region. Few of these structures are ever demolished. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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WESTERN NATIONS SHOULD NOT TOLERATE CALLS FOR THE MURDER OF THEIR CITIZENS
Posted by David Holcberg, February 23, 2006. |
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Western nations should not tolerate calls for the murder of their citizens by men like the Pakistani imam and the minister from India who offered bounties for the assassination of Danish cartoonists. We are still paying for doing nothing in response to the 1989 fatwa Iran issued against Salman Rushdie and the translators and publishers of his book, "The Satanic Verses." Seventeen years later, hundreds of Western intellectuals and politicians live in hiding from Islamist threats to their lives and families. To fulfill their responsibility to safeguard our freedom and security, our governments must make sure that the Islamists who threaten individuals for criticizing Islam do not get away with their threats. More fundamentally, our governments must end all state support of Islamic terrorism--including any support or toleration of those who incite violence and murder. David Holcberg is with the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism. |
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POLLARD CHALLENGES WITHHOLDING OF OWN CASE FILE; SENSITIVITY; STOPPING IRAN
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 23, 2006. |
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SHARON'S SCAM Claiming without any basis that the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria would benefit Israel, PM Sharon promised to compensate them. Most of them now are homeless, jobless, and held responsible for continuing payments on the houses destroyed by the government. A few were given some funds and slum-like mini-trailers. The Jewish refugees are depending for survival upon the generosity of ordinary Israelis. Why did US Jewry, which often rushes to aid gentiles, not fill the breach? Ordinary Jews cannot trust the government of Israel or organized US Jewry (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/9). We Jews are bereft of faithful, wise leadership. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? " Palestinian Authority security forces knew in advance that militants in Gaza were planning an attack at the Erez crossing into Israel, defense establishment officials said on Thursday." (IMRA, 2/9.) What does that mean? Did the P.A. know which terrorists were planning the attack, and withhold the information from Israel? Was Abbas party to it? Or was the knowledge too general to act upon? SHIFT IN PERPETRATORS OF TERRORISM Although P.A. terrorism continues under the auspices of the main terrorist organizations, the attacks actually are perpetrated by local, informal networks. Local clans are struggling for power. They seek it via terrorism (IMRA, 2/9). POLLARD PETITIONS SUPREME COURT The US Court of Appeals turned down a petition by Pollard's lawyers. They had been appealing their denial of access to the full court docket on Pollard. They needed to see it, in order to base their plea for clemency. They were told it is classified. However, those lawyers have security clearance. Therefore, the denial was illogical. The Court of Appeals denied the petition as violating separation of powers. It ruled that the Court does lacks jurisdiction over the file. The government and previous courts had agreed that there is no jurisdictional problem. Why should there be? The court docket belongs to the judicial branch, and not the executive branch. Hence, there would be no violation of separation of powers. Therefore, the denial was illogical. Pollard's attorneys are appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court (IMRA, 2/9). Are US courts, like Israel's, using false logic to deny justice? US courts deny substantive hearings on shaky procedural grounds. DEMOGRAPHY The main argument in favor of the abandonment of Gaza and northern Samaria is demographic. The Sharon regime claimed that if Israel retained most of the Territories, the Arabs would outnumber them. Masses of Arabs have been moving out of the Territories. The result is that their population growth is less than that of the Jews in Israel and in the Territories. With the entry of Hamas into governing circles, and investigations of Fatah corruption, many Fatah officials and their families have fled. The Arab birth rate has been declining. Among the factors in this are: "Intensified family planning (e.g. 52% of married women using contraceptives), expanded education system, increase of median wedding age, upsurge of divorce rate, stronger career mentality among women, and a dramatic transformation from a poor rural to a poor urban society." Intensified family planning (e.g. 52% of married women using contraceptives), expanded education system, increase of median wedding age, upsurge of divorce rate, stronger career mentality among women, and a dramatic transformation from a poor rural to a poor urban society. The claim is false. When presented with documentation disproving it, the media refused to publish the refutation. Policy for national security was based on Arab projections! (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/9 with commentary by Yoram Ettinger.) The argument should not have been applied to northern Samaria, which had very few Arabs in it. I think that the argument was not sincere. It was meant just to seem impressive. It was used by biased sources making ridiculous projections. Now we know the argument is wrong. We know that abandonment does not boost Israeli security as the regime also claimed. It boosts the death rate. Will the policy be changed? Why not a policy that accelerates Arab emigration? If Israel had a regime not itself corrupt and corrupted by the P.A., it would publish proof of corruption by Fatah officials. PECULIAR "SENSITIVITY" The EU, BBC, and "NY Times" urge the West to be more "sensitive" to Muslims with banners declaring, "Behead the enemies of Islam!" Let Westerners instead be sensitive to self-preservation by defeating the Islamists (Mark Steyn, NY Sun, 2/13, Op. Ed.). ADDING UP THE FACTS ABOUT RAIDING IRAN The editor of the Jewish Political Chronicle noted: (1) The AIPAC case revealed incidentally that Israeli agents were in Iraq along the border with Iran; (2) The US sold Israel bombs not useful to Israel except for destroying Iran's underground nuclear facilities; (3) Israeli raiders would have to fly over Iraqi air space, which the US controls, and would have to land in Iraq on the way back, to refuel. This is the big picture of Iraq (1/06, Ed.) that critics of US policy missed. U.S. CALLS CORRUPT WARLORDS "REFORMERS" Some Western Arabists have called Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan a younger generation and reformers (or "strongmen."). A reformed PLO official, Abu Toameh considers them crooks and warlords. (I consider them to be terrorists, too.) People ask, "Is America going to pressure Israel for peace"? The media fails to ask, "When are the Arabs going to pressure the Palestinians (fellow Arabs) for peace"? (Israel signed peace agreements with the P.A., but the Arabs violate them.) The US demands that Israel provide corridors to facilitate Arab movement between Gaza and Judea-Samaria. The ostensible assumption is that the two sections are culturally compatible. Actually, they are not. Arab residents of Judea-Samaria laugh at the notion of visiting the lower class Gaza. In 1994, Arafat tried to bring P.A. police from Gaza to Ramallah. "The Gazans were kicked out in five days." (Ira Stoll, NY Sun, 2/13, p.11.) STRANGE REACTION? Gaza has become "the most active terror base in the Arab world." The world does not urge Israel to destroy it, but to appease it (Jewish Political Chronicle, 1/2006, p.6 from Caroline Glick, Jer. Post, 1/06/06) at least as of before the election. ABBAS, SUPPOSED OPPONENT OF TERRORISM Abbas released 39 Islamic Jihad terrorists from prison in Jericho (IMRA, 2/9). Why? WOULDN'T TAKE MUCH TO STOP IRAN Skeptics about the efficacy of raiding Iran's nuclear facilities argue that there are too many buildings to knock them all out. Not all, however, would have to be destroyed, to set Iran back for years. Demolition of several key buildings would disrupt the program. Iran cannot re-purchase much of the material it obtained before embargoes were laid upon them (IMRA, 2/9 from Edward N. Luttwak). This subject has been discussed in a limited way. The occasional articles on it reflect a writer's limited perspective. Better to get several experts together, and thrash it out. PARANOIA VS. MYOPIA People have mocked Pres. Bush's warnings about evil abroad as paranoid. Then Iran's President denied the Holocaust and vowed to initiate a nuclear one (whose clouds drift over other countries). That should sober Bush's critics, but they are not rehabilitating his reputation (Jewish Political Chronicle, 1/2006, p.8 from Joseph Loconte). They pursue partisan politics while disaster threatens. It cripples his initiative. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THE SLEAZE OF ALMERT-SMOLMERT
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 23, 2006. |
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1. Sleaze This is not the first time Daniel Abrams has been involved in Israeli politics. He has close personal ties with Shimon Peres and helps fund the "Peres Center", the pet "think tank" Peres operates to promote his "ideas". Israel's State Comptroller is already investigating a $120,000 contribution from Abrams in 2004 to Shimon Peres' campaign for the Labor Party primaries last November. Abrams is a wealthy American Jewish liberal, who owns and controls the "Slim Fast" product line of diet foods. Years ago I did a spoof of Abrams and his company when he was just about the investor in the world who accepted Shimon Peres' invitation (after the first Oslo Accord) to invest in the Gaza Strip. Abrams agreed to set up a Slim Fast factory there. I did a whole comedy routine based on this. I will save you the Full Monty thereof, but it involved setting up a factory for providing low-cal diet foods to the overeating suicide bombers in Gaza. This way they could trim the fat and avoid getting all that cellulite all over the celluloid of the film crew taking pictures of the carnage after they blow themselves up fort peace. Well, now it turns out that the same Abrams is a bedfellow of Ehud Olmert. Abrams had contributed NIS 193,000 to Olmert's campaign in the Jerusalem mayoral elections. But now new ties have been revealed. All the details are coming out in stages, but Abrams funneled quite a lot of money to Olmert personally in ways that are pretty obviously violations of Israel's campaign finance laws. Now Olmert has been involved in plenty of sleaze in the past. He was investigated for suspicion of taking bribes (www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/04/04/ israel_shuts_corruption_probe_into_olmert?mode=PF). In 1997 an Israeli court found Olmert innocent of charges that he had engaged in financial irregularities in the 1988 election campaign, when Olmert was treasurer of the Likud Party. Olmert claimed his only "mistake" then was that he signed financial reports without double-checking them. Olmert also took funds from Marc Rich, whom you may recall as one of Clinton's weasels, pardoned on Clinton's last day in office http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-02-22-richisrael.htm). Campaign sleaze is not exactly unusual in Likud-Kadima (www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=240635&contrassID= 2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y), and even less so in the Labor Party. (See www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=8593=8593&format=0) The current sleaze involving Olmert and Abrams has to do with Olmert's private home in the expensive Rehavia neighborhood in Jerusalem. Olmert, while a full-time politician and civil servant, mysteriously raised oodles of cash to buy his home. The current scandal involves the fact that Olmert sold his Jerusalem home to Abrams operating through an offshore company for $2.69 million in 2004, but is still living there and paying the new owner rent. Why is this a scandal? Cause the home was evidently sold to Abrams for far more than it was worth and Abrams then leased it back to Olmert for a rent far BELOW what it is worth. Those of you who can put two and two together without using Excel might find this suspicious. Olmert also keeps changing his story about the deal (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/686244.html ). The whole story came out because Haaretz started snooping. Haaretz
is of course politically driven, hoping to boost the showing of Peretz
and the Left in the coming elections, but the sleaze is nevertheless
what one would expect from Olmert. (By the way, Netanyahu's people are
calling him "Smolmert", based on "Smol" which means "Left".
2. Leftist Rules of Debating The following are the basic principles upon which all public debate must be conducted if you wish to be a true progressive and leftist person who cares: 1. Leftists should be free to call everyone else nasty names, because they are so moral, but no one should be permitted to call leftists nasty names. 2. For a leftist to call someone nasty names shows social concern and awareness. For someone to call a leftist a nasty name back is immature and impolite and avoiding the issues. 3. Leftists need never document their claims. 4. Whenever a leftist is presented with documentation of facts that contradict the leftist's theology, the leftist must insist that no facts have been presented at all. 5. No scientific sources that presents facts contradicting leftist theology are admissable. They must be dismisse as being "right-wing". 6. All arguments may be settled by telling a non-leftist that he reminds you of Rush Limbaugh. 7. Never ever take an economics course. 8. Never recognize the fact that every idea of Marx's was debunked over 150 years ago. Never read any social science written since Marx. Never admit that you know that Marx was a racist and anti-Semite. 9. Never visit the library. 10. Never study statistics or public policy analysis. 11. Always say "people of color" so everyone will know you care. 12. Recycle. 13. Whine. 14. Pretend that you do not care about material things, but never sell your VCR or cellular phone or condo to help the underprivileged. 15. Never admit that life ever involves tradeoffs. After all, when there are tradeoffs it is harder to feel righteous. 16. Always support proposals that make real problems of the world worse just as long as advocating them can make you feel caring and righteous. Remember, it is all about YOU! 17. Never admit that anything could be positive about the United States. 18. Always insist that there are few world problems that could not be improved through the destruction of Israel. 19. Always insist that you have no idea what political correctness is or that it exists. 20. Always use the female pronouns half the time or more. That way everyone will know you are egalitarian. 21. Insist that you are more caring and compassionate than anyone else. 22. Remember, you would prefer that poor people in the Third World starve rather than that they should embrace capitalism and live like you do. 23. Other people must always be required to relinquish their material things so that you may feel idealistic and righteous. 24. Your property is sacred; other people's property is to be used for social engineering and doing good. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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BESMIRCHING THE BESMIRCHERS
Posted by Marion D.S. Dreyfus, February 22, 2006. |
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What the nearly global "cartoon riots" reveal is not comic. But apologies are not the answer. In fact, apologizing is diametrically the wrong tack to take in regard to this latest wrinkle in Islam's delinquency to the universe. As analysts Daniel Pipes and Michelle Malkin have noted, it is the essence of maintaining our very lives and independence to assert and defend our correct rights to self-expression. Should we foolishly and outlandishly bend to their triumphalism of droit du religion--only Islam of all isms must be respected and obeyed, evidently; all others may be trampled upon by these disrespectful and violence-worshipping people--we will have succumbed to the ugliness of dhimmitude and the squalor of inevitable decline under their ceaseless and envious bullying. The recapitulation after four months of cartoons only a few of which, by the way, were authentically drawn by cartoonists in response to a request for depiction of the islamist issues relevant to today, of these mostly innocuous depictions, is a ploy of several Middle Eastern autocratic/dictatorial governments involved, predominantly Syria. The vociferous rubbish indulged in by this mind-poisoned scourge--does not a single male Muslim work, ever??? anywhere in the Middle East?--is a potempkin front to rattle our infidel cages. Be assured they are state-sanctioned showcases: See what we can engineer, when we put our minds, matches and feet to it!? Side B: Look at our fireworks, ye mighty, and be afraid, be very afraid. The mass of the rampaging and artificially ramped-up crowd hardly devours its own media, and is moreover largely unacquainted with Danish, let alone Chileno or adjuvant news. The technique of priming the rage of the unhappily underemployed was flogged similarly by the nazi tyrant 65 years ago to distract from economic, sociological and communal woes that bore little resemblance to the proximal 'cause' of the demonstrations, however. No country should apologize. Unless the weasel states apologize to the West for their canker acts of decapitation, name-calling and retail rewriting of history. If these same vile states of insult continue to lambaste and caricature Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism, they must learn that turnabout is just fair play. A major lesson must be extrapolated from one of the placards held aloft in one of these demos: 'To hell with your freedom,' it read. The concept that they willingly lap up their lack of freedom is an ironic statement no government bloviation can obscure. Their message is plainer than mud on a mollusk: We want to be preliterate and pre-modern. We know enough English to tell you our mindset, but we don't have a farthing's-worth of regard for what you hold dear, even if it would look good in our breakfronts for the occasional hudna. Eventually, their Jurassic, ignorant exceptionalism will be penetrated by the futility of defending the dank feudal they have sold their souls to in a bad bid for virgins or rescue. Marion D.S. Dreyfus writes frequently on healthcare, social issues, and particularly the politics and problems of the Middle East. Contact her by email at dreyfusmarion@hotmail.com |
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WEAK ON HAMAS
Posted by Women in Green, February 22, 2006. |
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This article was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post February 20, 2006. At its Sunday morning cabinet meeting did Israel's interim government finally lay out a strategy for contending with the fact that Hamas has taken over the Palestinian Authority? The Israeli and international media reports of the meeting could easily lead a person to think so. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. The interim government's decisions Sunday show that the government has no policy for contending with Hamas. The absence of a policy is a result of the government's lack of a basic understanding of -- or its unwillingness to understand -- the threat the Hamas takeover of the PA poses to Israel. In declaring that the government had decided to stop all direct transfers of funds to the PA, Sunday's headlines indicated that Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his associates have launched a concerted campaign against the Hamas-led PA. But the small print told a different story completely. Over the objections of the IDF, the government is continuing to allow Palestinians to work in Israel. The government also rejected the IDF's recommendation to cut off all links to Gaza and transform the passages from Gaza to Israel into international border crossings. Far from working to cut off international funding of the Palestinians, the Olmert government continues to support international funding of non-governmental and UN organizations that operate in the PA; and apparently does so unconditionally. Finally while Olmert admitted Sunday that the PA has become a "terrorist authority," he and his ministers failed to take any actions -- either diplomatically or militarily -- that legally arise from this designation. OLMERT'S opponents, and specifically Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, were quick to criticize the government's decisions. They argued that in acting in such an ambiguous manner, the government ignored the threat Hamas -- which is supported by Iran and works in concert with Hizbullah and al-Qaida -- poses to Israel's survival. Responding to those critics Olmert defended his government's contradictory decisions by castigating his detractors as "fear-mongers." Olmert further stated: "There is no reason to terrify the State of Israel by claiming that the sky has fallen." Olmert and his colleagues justified their limited steps against Hamas by saying that they were motivated by "humanitarian" considerations. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters that Israel wants to prevent a "humanitarian crisis" in the PA. Were such a crisis to unfold, Livni warned, Israel would be blamed for it. Livni, like Olmert and all other Kadima spokesmen, further maintained that by acting in such a limited manner, the government is safeguarding international support generally, and US support specifically, for Israel's bid to isolate the Hamas-led PA. PERHAPS THE strongest indication that the Olmert interim government has no idea how to craft national strategies or advance Israel's national interest is the fact that the US Congress and the Bush administration are both taking much clearer stands against Hamas than Israel's government. Perversely, far from working to build a strong and unambiguous international consensus against the Hamas-ruled PA, the Olmert government is undermining the efforts of Israel's friends in the US Congress. Its contradictory moves toward the Hamas-led PA serve to undercut Israel's supporters in Washington while strengthening the leftist American Jewish groups now working feverishly to scuttle a concerted US response to the Hamas takeover of the PA. Immediately after the PA election results were announced, US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House of Representative's Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, submitted a bill that updates US policy toward the PA in response to the Hamas takeover. Her bill, which enjoys wide support in both houses of Congress and is backed by AIPAC and other mainstream American Jewish organizations, would end not only all US direct assistance to the PA, but also bar US support for non-governmental organizations and UN agencies operating in the PA areas that have any links whatsoever to terrorism. Furthermore, the Ros-Lehtinen bill designates the PA as a terrorist sanctuary. In line with this designation, the legislation bars PA officials from receiving visas to enter the US; bars the PA from having representative offices in the US; and places travel restrictions on PA and PLO representatives to the UN. Finally, the bill bars US diplomats from having any contact of any kind with members of Palestinian terror groups including Hamas, the Aksa Martyr Brigades, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. AS OPPOSED to other Congressional actions taken against the PA in the past, the proposed legislation does not include a presidential waiver that would allow the administration to ignore the law if the president deemed it necessary for national security reasons. For this reason, the State Department opposes its passage. But even the State Department -- which has distinguished itself for over 20 years mainly for its equivocation regarding Palestinian terrorism -- has minced no words about its view of the Hamas-led PA. Last Friday a State Department spokesman publicly demanded that the PA return $50 million in direct US assistance which was transferred to the PA before the elections. For its part, the Olmert government has made no similar demand for the return of the $50 million in tax revenues that it transferred to the PA after the Hamas electoral victory. As well, on Sunday the US Treasury Department blocked the assets of KindHearts charitable organization. That group, which is based in Toledo, Ohio, was determined to be a terrorist organization because it funds Hamas. According to the Akron, Ohio, Beacon Journal, since its founding in 2002 KindHearts has raised and transferred some $4 million per year to Hamas. As the actions of Congress and the Bush administration show, the US continues to define Hamas as a global terrorist organization, and is abiding by US laws regarding terrorist organizations in its dealings with the Hamas-led PA. In light of this the Olmert government's halting and confused steps against the Hamas-led PA seem all the more ridiculous. THE ONLY constituency in the US that has galvanized around the Israeli government's incoherent response to Hamas's takeover of the PA is the Jewish American Left. American Friends for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism are all actively lobbying Congress to derail the Ros-Lehtinen bill. As reported in The Jewish Week, these organizations are trying to bring about the defeat of the proposed legislation because, in their view, it will make it impossible for the US to reward "incremental movement [by Hamas] toward abandoning its traditional commitment to destroy Israel." One of the excuses the government has given for its refusal to take concerted action against the Hamas-led PA is that it wishes to prevent the PA's "collapse." Yet, in an address last week in Washington, former IDF chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon explained: "We should not fear collapse; the experience of Israel's security operations in recent years shows that Palestinian society will not collapse -- as the word is commonly interpreted -- even under extreme conditions. Municipalities, for example, continued to operate and provide services even at the height of Israel military actions against the PA." Ya'alon further explained, "It must be remembered that the Palestinian people elected Hamas with full awareness of its terrorist nature. It is therefore highly important that the international community send a clear message that terrorism does not pay." Sadly, Ya'alon's clear and rational statements, which enjoy the support of the US government and the American people and are already codified in US law, are undermined by the Israeli government and by a handful of leftist Jewish American organizations. Through its ambiguous and contradictory policies toward the PA since the elections, far from acting to forge an international consensus against the Hamas-led PA, the Olmert government is undercutting US resolve to isolate it. In so doing it is strengthening the positions of Russia, Turkey, the Arab League and France, which advocate embracing Hamas as a legitimate political force. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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HAMAS, THE VIDEO
Posted by Barry Shaw, February 22, 2006. |
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This is the answer to Oscar nominees 'Munich' and 'Paradise Now'. This letter comes from Dr. Irene Lancaster, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester. Dear Friends I would be grateful if you could just take a minute to view this video by Hamas, which fully explains their view of Jews worldwide and their latest plans concerning Israel. Hamas in full colour, speaking for themselves... briefly. http://www.pmw.org.il/asx/PMW_hamas_suicide.asx Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, 25 years ago with his family. He spent eleven years on various kibbutzim, ending up at Mishmar HaSharon, the same kibbutz that served as home to Ehud Barak. He now lives in Netanya, where he runs a real estate office. To receive his "View from Here" columns, contact him at netre@matav.net.il |
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CONSTANTINOPLE'S GHOSTS ... OR THEOCRACY AGAINST OCHLOCRACY
Posted by Alex Maist, February 22, 2006. |
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In 2000, at the very beginning of "intifada", the famous political correspondent Ehud Yari warned, that even a drawn game with Palestinians will be a disaster for Israel. Today there are no doubts: we haven't succeeded in bringing this round of conflict to a drawn game, we've lost it. After five years of a wild outburst of violence two new substances were born from the bloody foam almost simultaneously, changing the essence of the conflict dramatically. Until very recently the confrontation was on the democracy-dictatorship line. Now it has changed to theocracy-ochlocracy conflict (according to Aristotle ochlocracy is government by the masses which can't either reasonably use power or hold on to it). The transformation periods of both Israel and Palestine were long, but they ended practically at the same time. And it's very symbolic. Islamic Palestine was born from boundless corruption, infinite despotism and money-grubbing, disgusting power of gangster bands, clans and local "barons". The Israeli ochlocracy arose from the ruins of democracy -- not a perfect one, but democracy nevertheless. Two factors lead to this tragic phenomenon, which we can't comprehend in full measure. The first one was the emasculating of the inner world of the society, the cynical and unrestrained cult of consumption. The second one was the collapse of all ideologies. The "right" and "left" have disappeared -- the worst enemies couldn't live without each other. The present "right" not only began to implement the Meretz's dream, but did it and continue to do it in the worst possible way. There was certain logic in the ideology of Meretz, although Utopian: the creation of two states existing side by side. Disengagement, of course, corresponds to the aspirations of "starry-eyed", but doesn't comply with their conception of two states. The unilateral withdrawal does not make the Arab world recognize the Jewish state. It retains the "occupation" and legitimizes terror. It also deprives Israel its "trump cards" in the negotiations. The present parties have lost any ideology and meaning they used to have. And finally they have lost their voters. The political system of Israel turned into an impetuous whirl, in which, as it happens in similar cases, not statesmen with principles and steadfast views but popular oracles, who give the crowd what it thirsts for, come to the top of the social pyramid. Only in such atmosphere a one-day party like Kadima, an eclectic formation without ideas, program and already without a leader, could become the leading force in the country. Its main strategy is to indulge the public opinion of the "silent majority". And what is the state of mind of the "silent majority" now? It's tired of shocks and only desires for quietness. The unilateral withdrawal gives such a chance. However, it's the worst scenario of all the possible. It doesn't reveal any long-term perspective. There are practically no examples in history, when a civilized society could hold barbarians on any frontier, having begun to retreat. Kadima is the picture of the triumphant ochlocracy. It is the case of people who have lost their ideology and national values. This resulted in bringing to power conformists and adherents to populist solutions. Hamas gave its people some national-religious idea. It headed for the victory zealously promoting its ideas, absorbing the best things of the "Palestinian street", inviting such famous and respectable people, as professors, teachers, engineers and public figures not involved in corruption. There was no power in Israel, adequate to such enemy. All activity of the national-religious camp leaders only alienated the Israeli masses. Efi Eitam and Arye Eldad behave like generals, who got involved into a skirmish in the firing line, forgetting their army. Instead of working out some strategy and recruiting new supporters, they started brawls in Amona and East Jerusalem. And that was the maximum of their creativity and the same zealots' outlook, which ended in the destruction of the Second Temple and the tragedy of the Jewish people. Ismail Hania would hardly enroll such scholars even at the first-year studies. What were the purposes of Palestinian theocracy and Israeli ochlocracy? Hamas doesn't conceal that it aims at creation of Islamic Palestine "from the river to the sea" and then in the Jordanian territory. And what about Kadima? Does it have any aim at all? To all appearances, its purpose is a banal flight called the bombastic name "disengagement"; an attempt to gain time, hide beyond the fence, live "here and now" not thinking about the future. It may be astonishing, but the goals of the two sides coincide. Hamas needn't even make efforts. Its enemy does all the work instead of it. It's not so difficult to foresee the development of the events if Israel does not revalue the situation. To learn the future the Kadima leaders should conduct a spiritualistic séance and bring to life the Basilevs of Byzantine ghosts. And they would see what the usual end of those who try to appease the aggressive Islam is. Once the most potent and developed East Mediterranean power turned into a typical ochlocracy during the last decades of its existence. It suffered from endless disturbances and civil wars that brought to power the third-rate corrupt temporary leaders. The rich Genoa's assistance was the last hope of the Byzantine Empire. But Genoa couldn't save the doomed Constantinople... Alex Maist is a Jerusalem-based journalist who writes on political and religious themes. Contact him at amaist@lycos.com |
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WOUNDED POLICEMAN MYTH; THE CARTOONS MERIT PRAISE; IF PA PROSPERED?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 22, 2006. |
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SPAIN & TURKEY'S IMAGINARY ROLE Spain and Turkey depicted themselves as historically at the juncture of the Islamic and Western worlds. Now they plan to have the two civilizations cooperate. Their press release appeals for Europe not to publish the cartoons that Muslims find "deeply offensive" (IMRA, 2/6). "Cooperation" means the West concedes, Muslims don't. Most of those cartoons are not offensive at all. The rest are a reasonable reaction to jihad. Why, if the two civilizations are to cooperate, don't the two foreign ministries add in their press release that the Muslims should cease their unreasonably offensive cartoons against Western religions and the US? Why don't they denounce jihad? Spain thinks it can appease Islam. Islam, however, is relentless. The Islamists are leading it into a clash of civilizations. The Islamists have an eye on reconquering Spain. That is part of Islamic ideology. Spain is blithely unaware of that. Deadly naivete! The role of Turkey, as of other supposedly moderate Islamic states, is to lull the defenses of the rest of the world. THE WOUNDED POLICEMAN FROM AMONA An ambulance driver in Jerusalem saw most of the couple of hundred wounded opponents of the government dispossession of the Jews of Amona and most of the half a hundred wounded police. All the civilians had broken bones and wounds in the head and limbs. All the police had minor cuts and bruises. The media supported government propaganda by exaggerating the facial cut of one policeman as "badly wounded." Reporters depicted police as engaged in a battle rather than mostly engaged in brutality. The driver witnessed first hand how the media presents the facts -- lies, half truths, and disinformation. That "badly wounded" cop, walking on his own, threatened to further injure civilian patients in the emergency room (Israel Resources News Agency, 2/6). Israel is not an equal opportunity police state -- it does not pick on the Arabs. Its ruling class hates good Jews. The media missed the key point of the story. The Yesha Council had asked Olmert to give the Amona people two weeks to produce proof of ownership of the land. If not produced, then the Council pledged either to move or demolish the houses. This would avoid bloodshed. Polls, however, showed a significant drop in support for Olmert's Party from his compromise in Hebron. Therefore, he went for blood (IMRA, 2/6). Not only did some police suffer cuts, but many were fatigued from beating unresisting protestors. It gets tiring, throwing people to the ground and swinging those heavy clubs or dragging people over rocky terrain. But punishing people on the spot saves paperwork and resources of the ?justice system.? It also gratifies hate-filled liberals. WHY DOESN'T ISRAEL STOP THE ROCKETS? The IDF knows where the terrorists launch rockets! It could bomb the sites. It doesn't. Why? (Israel Resources News Agency, 2/5.) Is it cowed by the hostile media? HAMAS' CONCLUSION Hamas has a video showing the Israeli abandonment of Gaza, which it calls the path to Haifa. It concludes that warfare produced the Israeli retreat. It considers warfare more important than negotiations, compromises, and promises (IMRA, 2/6). Yes, but Hamas is coming around to using negotiations to augment warfare. Iran uses negotiations to stall resistance to its aggressive plans. This deceives France and Democrats. INFORMAL ABANDONMENT Israeli abandonment of Gaza led to a terrorist advance towards Israel. The Arabs have been bombarding Jewish communities in the Negev. The residents of Carmia have abandoned their Negev kibbutz. Israel Resource News Agency is involved in what it calls, after the type of rocket used by terrorists, ?Kassam tours.? Journalists escort residents of central Israel to the Negev, to show them the damage that awaits them from bombardment due to further abandonment or from an increase in the range of rockets placed nearer to Israel after the prior abandonment (David Bedein of the Agency, 2/7). AMNESTY INTL. ON THE CARTOONS Amnesty Intl. characterized the Danish cartoons as hate-speech to be refrained from, if not proscribed. It was much less clear about the Islamic reaction, exhorting unnamed people to calm the atmosphere of threatening violence (IMRA, 2/7). I do not consider those cartoons to embody hatred, but the main Muslim reaction to it does. Two of the cartoons rebuked Islam, in the person of Muhammad, for the techniques of conducting violent jihad. They are valuable wake-up calls to the West. The rest of the cartoons are innocuous. One wonders whether their Western critics know this. I think Amnesty Intl. behaves like a cartoon character. It divides the West when the West needs unity against jihad. Amnesty Intl. pays the usual lip service to freedom of the press, but calls for restraint in discussions of Islam, and not restraint by Muslim cartoonists who constantly inflame their audiences with blood libel against the US, Israel, and Jews, and whose broadcasters and preachers urge the murder of Christians. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THE HAMAS UNRWA CONNECTION
Posted by David Bedein, February 21, 2006. |
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At a time when the governments of Israel and the US have made a policy decision to cut funds for to pay health, education and social service salaries to the Hamas dominated Palestinian Authority, it has been suggested that Israel and the US simply allocate the funds through UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that administers 59 refugee camps for Palestinian Arab refugees from 1948 and for their descendent. All told. UNRWA services about three million Palestinian Arabs, one third of whom actually live in the camps, with the rest of the UNRWA clientele living contiguous to the camps. However, the Hamas connection to UNRWA is pervasive and deep. Writing about UNRWA during a week that the Israel Defence Forces (The IDF) is engaged in house to house search operations of wanted Hamas terrorists in the UNRWA camp in Balata, near Nablus, the use and the infiltration into UNRWA facilities and UNRWA operations by Hamas and by Hamas-affiliated people who are in the employ of UNRWA is nothing new. At the memorial ceremony for Sheikh Yassin which as held at the UNRWA boys' school in that same Balata refugee camp on April 3, 2004, veiled operatives held mock Kassam rockets; the families of "martyrs" were given gifts and certificates of gratitude. In an earlier incident Hamas convened a conference in a school in the Jabalya refugee camp, in which the school's administration, teachers and hundreds of students participated was reported on the website of the Israeli prime minister. Saheil Alhinadi, representing the UNRWA Teachers Association, praised UNRWA pupils s who carried out suicide attacks against Israel. That Alhinadi was speaking for the teachers should not be surprising, since Hamas-affiliated officials dominate in the teachers' union of UNRWA in Gaza, and control its executive committee. This is particularly worrisome because of the influence on young refugees studying in UNRWA schools. Hamas has influenced the UNRWA schools in yet another way, as well: The Islamic Bloc, which works within the Hamas, and refers to itself as a "Jihad" organization,. dedicated to the "Islamization" of the Palestinian cause and the necessity of liberating all of the land of Palestine, and it has been charged by Hamas with furthering the goal of Hamas within the schools. IDF Colonel (ret.) Yoni Fighel, a former IDF intelligence officer, observed that "As long as UNRWA employees are members of Fatah, Hamas, or PFLP, they are going to pursue the interests of their party within the framework of their job... Who's going to check up on them to see that they don't? UNRWA? They are UNRWA." Meanwhile, Israel's former UN Ambassador, Dr. Dore Gold, visited the UNRWA camp in Jenin in April 2002 and himself witnessed the presence of shahid (martyr) posters on the walls in the homes of UNRWA workers. "It was clear," he says, "that UNRWA workers were doubling as Hamas agents." It should be noted that, for political reasons, adequate vetting of prospective employees in Judea and Samaria is not done by UNRWA, while such vetting of prospective employees for UNRWA does take place in the UNRWA camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. At UNRWA's international conference that was held in Geneva in June, 2004, I asked Peter Hansen, then the UN Commissioner General for UNRWA, how he could account for the fact that Hamas members were on the payroll of UNRWA. Hansen then admitted that "We do not check the religious affiliation of our staff members." A week later, Hansen was interviewed by CBC radio and said that he saw no problem with having Hamas members on his staff. Employee involvement with Hamas should not come as any surprise, since the employees of UNRWA are themselves Palestinian Arab refugees, and the evidence that the refugee population is supportive of and affiliated with Hamas is quite considerable: Indeed, UNRWA has never denied beneficiaries aid or relief because of Hamas (or other terrorist) associations. This is because UNRWA has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the matter. Inevitably, then, funds given to UNRWA recipients ends up paying the salaries of Hamas officials. This week, The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed UNRWA of its great displeasure with the fact that Hamas officials remain on the payroll of UNRWA. In other words, there is no way to support UNRWA without at some level providing aid and assistance to Hamas at the same time. David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. (http://Israelbehindthenews.com) and President, Center for Near East Policy Research. Contact him at media@actcom.co.il or visit www.ibtn.co.il |
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NADIA MATAR INDICTED!
Posted by Women in Green, February 21, 2006. |
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As you may have already heard on the media, NADIA MATAR, Co-chair of Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women In Green) has been indicted by the State of Israel. The charge in the indictment is "Insulting a Public Servant." More than a year ago, Nadia wrote an open letter to Yonatan Bassi who is head of the Disengagement Authority. Is Freedom of Speech, and Discussion not permissible in Israel's Democracy? In preparation for the trial, we call upon Israeli citizens ONLY to add your signatures to Nadia's letter. After many signatures have been gathered, the letter will be resent to Bassi. More than 1600 such citizens have already signed the letter/Petition. Shall we stand by and allow the authorities to muzzle the National Camp, while the "left" in Israel can say or do anything they please? Add your signatures to the Petition now, and protest the hypocritical and discriminatory policies of the State Prosecution. We must raise our voices to the ongoing persecution of Nadia Matar in particular, and the loyalists of the Land of Israel in general. Please sign our Petition by clicking here. Please Forward this Petition to friends, relatives, acquaintances and to other email lists! For donations to cover legal expenses, please send your donations to Women In Green, P.O.B. 7352, Jerusalem, 91072, Israel, or go to our website and donate in a safe and secure manner by credit card. Ruth Matar and Anita Finkelstein
Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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REASSURING
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 21, 2006. |
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All this is rally a bit reassuring. I had serious doubt as to Olmert (pronounced all-merde) basic intelligence and ability to actually do anything more complicated than throw mud from the gutter. It seems that he at least has the brains necessary to be a mid level crook. But then again, maybe he just has a few good lawyers. These are from Arutz Sheva. "State Comptroller Investigating Acting Prime Minister Olmert For Corruption,"
(IsraelNN.com) State Comptroller, Judge Micha Lindenstrauss, will look into suspicions that Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took part in an illegal real estate deal worth millions of dollars. The details of the affair, which was first published by investigative journalist Yoav Yitzchak's News First Class, allege that Olmert "lent his hand to grave crimes that were committed, including stealing money from creditors, among them the Income Tax authorities, Bank Leumi, players on the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team such as Ronen Harazi, and others." The State Comptroller's office says Lindenstrauss has asked Olmert to submit relevant documents in order to the allegations to be examined. Olmert Linked to Pre-Liquidation Scam
Ehud Olmert and corruption: Investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak reports that Olmert, using fictitious arbitration, enabled the dishonest extraction of 5 million shekels from a failing soccer team. Yitzchak, reporting on the Hebrew investigative news-site NFC he edits, reveals that Olmert "lent his hand to grave crimes that were committed, including stealing money from creditors, among them the Income Tax authorities, Bank Leumi, players on the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team such as Ronen Harazi, and others." Yitzchak writes that the above information is known to "some elements, but they have hesitated to take legal measures against Olmert. In addition, some media outlets that have received this information chose to remain silent." Olmert's role as arbitrator in the Beitar Jerusalem matter in the year 2000 is well-known, Yitzchak writes, but the scoop lies in the fact that the arbitration was fictitious, and in the revelation of Olmert's role in this fiction. Yitzchak acknowledges that the case is "complex" and requires further investigation. "The decision to open such an investigation is in the hands of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz," Yitzchak writes today, "and in light of Olmert's role as Acting Prime Minister, Mazuz will have to consider the issue with sensitivity but with all due haste." The essential accusation is that Olmert participated in a procedure that allowed a creditor and a debtor to cooperate on the payment of a debt, part of which may not even have been genuine, at the expense of other creditors. The story began in 1999, when the Beitar soccer team, encountering financial difficulties, sold off its properties in the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Jerusalem in order to pay off its creditors. The property was sold for 27 million shekels. However, Moshe Dadash, the man who essentially ran the team for many years, soon withdrew 5.2 million shekels of the money into his own account. Dadash later claimed that running the team voluntarily had cost him much money over the years, for which he was never reimbursed. He provided no receipts, however. He also claimed a prior debt of $180,000 that had swollen to $540,000. Olmert, the Mayor of Jerusalem at the time, was asked to be the arbitrator of an agreement between Dadash and the team. The sides arrived for one meeting, at which Olmert asked them to go outside and come up with a compromise. The agreement they quickly came up with was that the money already taken by Dadash would suffice to cover the alleged debts. Olmert signed, and the matter was considered closed. However, Yitzchak accuses, Olmert never asked to see a 'power of attorney' empowering any of the participants to represent the company in this matter. In addition, the same lawyer represented both Dadash and the team. Finally, Yitzchak maintains, a lawyer involved in the liquidation of Beitar confirmed to him that the arbitration was merely carried out to legitimize a shady deal and to retroactively authorize the taking of money that could have been used to pay off other creditors. The lawyer, Ami Fulman, said that the sides chose to come to Olmert and not to a judge or another arbitrator, because they knew that Olmert would agree to be a fictitious arbitrator. Olmert has close personal ties with Dadash, Yitzchak alleges. "Olmert never said a word," Yitzchak writes, "and cooperated with the sides." On Jan. 1 of this year, Beitar Jerusalem Ltd., specified as a company in the process of being liquidated, sued for the return of the money taken by Dadash. Olmert was contacted by NFC on Friday for his response. He said only that the issue has been publicized before, and has even been looked into by the State Comptroller and the Associations Registrar. Yitzchak says, however, that the only aspect of this case that was investigated was Dadash's receipt of money -- after which he was in fact ordered by the Registrar to return it. Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin, who was chairman of the Beitar Association at the time -- but not when the legal entanglings began - said today, "I knew of no spin or that someone was planning to have the money go elsewhere... If the facts are true, they are grave." "Olmert can claim that he knew nothing of what was going on," Yitzchak writes, "but in addition to the fact that this would be a groundless claim, can he be considered fit to serve in a senior public position or to run the affairs of the State of Israel?" 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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PRETENSE GUIDES FOREIGN POLICY; MUSLIMS DENY JIHAD; JIHADI PLAN FOR WORLD SUPREMACY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 21, 2006. |
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SPARE THE TAX OR SPOIL THE CHILD Hamas boasts of having alternatives to Western sources of financing. It's probably anticipating a subvention from terrorist states afloat on our petrodollars. Pres. Bush just submitted a proposed budget that calls for alternative fuels but still fails to reduce fuel consumption by requiring higher gasoline mileage, more efficient air conditioning in buildings, and more energy-efficient building in general. In any case, the West should take Hamas up on the invitation. Let the West cease subsidizing the P.A.. Let Arab taxpayers waste their money on the P.A.. PRETENDING PUTIN IS REASONABLE Foreign Min. Livni of Israel advised Russian Pres. Putin against inviting Hamas to Russia. She said Russia would be on a slippery slope of accommodating evil. Does Livni think Israel is not on a slippery slope, when it agrees to continue the subsidy of the P.A., supposedly only until Hamas takes over? Oslo was the slope that the slippery State Dept. has kept Israel on, with false and unredeemed promises, until it distorted Pres. Bush's Road Map into a steeper slope. Somebody should advise her that Putin long has slid far down, himself. He is trying to reconstitute the USSR. He imagines that his country -- in which the Christians are dying out, because pollution, AIDS, and low birth rates are tipping the balance towards the Muslims -- will regain great power status. He plays the old game of working against the West. He should be uniting with the West and disassociating his Russians from the Muslims. But he doesn't, and she should not pretend otherwise. Israel cannot survive by imagining itself in a world of make-believe without enemies plotting its destruction. The difficulty is in recognizing that one's ostensible friends are not benign and one's ideologies may have failed. Thomas Friedman stumbled on that in his plea for the US to try to get Russia, China, and India to pressure Iran to stand down, and meanwhile we should conserve fuel so Iran isn't flush with a war chest. He is right. But how does the US overcome its false comfort of supposedly being the sole super-power? Then, how does the US convince those other world powers that the danger to them of nuclear winter supersedes oil and other trade rivalry and Russian and Chinese ambitions for global preeminence? Arrogance, carelessness, and sometimes profligacy seem to come with a rise in prominence. Countries find it easier to gear up ideologically for another round of the last war, than to detect the next and more serious enemy. There is opportunity here for Pres. Bush to manifest greatness. The Democrats, who call him stupid, are unaware of the problem. Their constant carping is sucking him into appeasement mode. Mr. Friedman exemplifies this. He persists in blind antagonism towards the Jewish state, which the US needs as an ally against jihad and whose downfall would bolster jihad. QUOTE OF THE DAY At Davos, "At a session on Islamic terrorism and the efforts by Islamic societies to 'eradicate extremists,' half a dozen Islamic leaders expressed repeated denials, equivocations, and rationalizations. There was no such thing as 'Islamic terrorism,' they insisted, and to the extent that people perceived such a thing, it was the fault of the Western media, which continually stereotypes and demeans those who identify themselves as Muslims, while ignoring the extremists and terrorists who are Christian or Jewish." (Diane Ravitch, NY Sun, 2/7, Op. Ed..) Like the Communists and Nazis, the totalitarian Muslims pretend to be innocent victims of those whom they victimize. There is no Jewish terrorist movement, though Israel is a police state of a sort. There are a few non-Muslim terrorist groups -- the IRA, Basque separatists, Tamils, eco-terrorists, and a few Latin Maoists. They are a nuisance and should be dealt with. They do not threaten other countries or world war. The Muslims do, and are in such a war. Although they are the aggressors, they plead for sympathy by pretending that the Western media is picking on them. Reality is more complicated. The Islamists pick on the West. The Western media reacts variedly. Some side with certain Islamists. Some treat them with respect. They assume that Western wrongdoing induces Islamist hatred and violence, rather than, as is the case, Muslim and Arab culture induces it. Others in the West sound the alarm. Few Western journalists falsely stereotype Muslims; some individuals do. Since Islam is a predatory religion,what the West does is in reaction to it. Islam endorses deception in advancement of the faith. The conferees were lying. They self-servingly redefined terrorism as only what non-Muslims do, until Islamist terrorists struck in Muslim countries so much it couldn't be ignored any longer. THE JIHADISTS HAVE A PLAN There is a "... plan by Global Jihadists of Islam to plant outposts in every nation around the world. Once there they start the process of feeding as a parasite on their hosts until they achieve critical mass. Then begins the more serious task of subverting their hosts until they first have disproportionate influence and then total control. The West has yet to come to grips on what amounts to a cultural pandemic. Artful denial is the mark of Eurabia as Muslims commandeer their streets." (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/5.) The Islamists have been quoted all over as looking forward to uniting conquered states under a single caliphate. The West should pay attention to the fate they have in store for it. Unless the West takes active steps to oppose the Muslims, the Muslims, whose population increases, will take over. ISRAELI RESOLVE SHORT LIVED Acting PM Olmert declared that he would not subsidize the P.A., now that Hamas has won the election there. Within a couple of days, he declared that he would subsidize it, since Hamas did not take over yet (Prof. Steven Plaut, 2/5). He was rationalizing, just as does the rest of the West. He and they are contemptuous of us, because we let them get away with such transparent excuses. Israel constantly retreats from a firm stand. P.A. REACTION TO ISRAELI REACTION After weeks of ignoring the rockets fired into Israel from the P.A., Israeli forces received permission to resume targeted assassination of terrorist commanders. A P.A. leader complained to Europe about this "Israeli escalation" while the P.A. is "committed to a truce" (IMRA, 2/5). The Arabs don't honor truces. It isn't an escalation, but an overdue though limited reaction to P.A. escalation. Arab talk of a truce is as attempt to get Israel to hold back while the Arabs do not hold back. TERRORIST CAPTURED IN ISRAEL A Hamas terrorist was captured in Israel, before he could complete his mission of kidnapping. He has passed from Gaza into the Sinai and from Sinai into Israel. Had Sharon not abandoned Gaza, he would not have gotten out of Gaza (IMRA, 2/5). HOW FATAH & HAMAS WILL SHARE POWER Hamas does not want to rule alone. The P.A. Arabs shun civil war. They may form a coalition government between Hamas and Fatah, each retaining its militia. Fatah would be the emissaries to the West, so the West would have an excuse for continuing to underwrite the P.A.. Hamas officials would not agree to anything that smacks of compromise with the infidels. It would retain what it considers its purity of arms. Since none of the terrorist groups would disarm, war, disorder and poverty may continue. Hamas is not likely to reform the P.A.. It believes in the pre-modern world, as did the Taliban. The P.A. is on a "path for self-destruction." (IMRA, 2/5 from Efraim Inbar.) Let it self-destruct! Stop prattling about a "two-state solution." Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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JUST ON WHOSE SIDE ARE THE "ISRAELI" ARABS ANYWAY?
Posted by Dr. Steve Carol, February 21, 2006. |
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On Feb. 15, 2006 two "Israeli" Arab political parties announced a merger. The United Arab List and the Ta'al Party formed a joint list for the forthcoming Israeli elections. New party chairman Ibrahim Sarsour stated that "We believe in Islam and in the Caliphate and not in separation between state and religion." He denounced the "Israelization" of the "Israeli" Arabs calling for Arab and Islamic rule over the Arab areas of Israel. Specifically Sarsour said the party would work to increase Arab immigration to the Jewish state and increase relations between Arabs with Israeli citizenship and the Palestinian Authority. His comments included praise for Hamas, and its recent election victory in the Gaza Strip as well as a denunciation of the United States and its government. Hamas now runs the Palestinian Authority. Sarsour called upon the Palestinian government of Hamas to lead the Arabs of both Israel and Palestine to "progress and achievements, not catastrophes," an allusion to the Nakbah -- the catastrophe, as the Arabs of the region call it, that befell them when Israel was re-established in 1948. The world knows what Hamas seeks to achieve, just by referring to the Hamas Covenant. Hamas wants the elimination of the State of Israel, and the removal of all Jews from the region by one means or another, no matter what borders may be established in the future. While many in the world urge Hamas to voice a change in its charter, any such announcement would be as worthless as those uttered by Yasir Arafat and the PLO in the past. Arafat on several occasion claimed that the PLO charter had been revised or abrogated, and factually never did it. Indeed Hamas leaders are meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, to tone down the rhetoric of their charter in order to keep Western funds streaming into the Palestinian Authority without actual changes to their desired end goal of the destruction of Israel. This demonstrates that "Israeli" Muslim Arabs consider themselves Arabs first, "Palestinians" second, and "Israeli" citizens last. They seek continually to use the freedom and democracy in Israel to undermine that very state. This has been a growing trend since the Six Day War of 1967 and since the recognition of the PLO by the world in 1974. Additionally the so-called Oslo "peace process" of 1993 accelerated it. A more open change in loyalty began to emerge in 2000 when Israeli Arabs rioted in favor of the start of "Al Aqsa (the second) intifada." Many "Israeli" Arabs are active in working with the Palestinian Authority in addition to various terrorist organizations. For example, two Israeli Arab dentists were arrested for spying for Hamas since the early 1990s, last October. These were middle class Arabs who grew up in Israel and benefited from the Israeli law to be able to travel abroad for their "studies," which included espionage, and terrorist training. In the Negev Hamas has already made inroads among the Bedouin, where they make up one-third of the population of that largely rural desert region. Many Israeli Arabs are in agreement with the Arab long standing demand, that once Israel retreats to the 1949 armistice lines -- towards which they are now headed due to the policy of unilateral retreat and surrender -- Israel must allow the "democratic" process to take place. A referendum would be demanded that would allow the Israeli Arabs to secede, population and land area, from Israel and join the new "Palestinian" state. This in turn means returning Israel to the 1947 UN partition lines, which is an indefensible position. The Arab population of Israel has never shared the ideology and national ambitions of the Jewish State. They do not wish to integrate with, nor assimilate into the Israeli population. This is the same problem now confronting many nations in Europe vis-à-vis their own Muslim populations. Further unilateral Israeli concessions will greatly embolden the Arabs, both within Israel and outside of it, and their demands will continue to escalate. The democratic process will be subverted and used to destroy the Jewish State. Those Arabs who do not want to be part of Israel, or "Israelized" as they put it, should move to Arab controlled areas of the Middle East. There will be, no doubt, cries from the Israeli left and their world-wide supporters that Israel is trying to make the Jewish state "Arab-rein." These same leftists have overlooked the fact that they already have been accomplices of the continual 125-year Arab war to make the entire Middle East "judenrein." In light of the positions taken by "Israeli" Arabs of late, it is time for Israel to wake up and face the harsh realities of the situation. Dr. Steve Carol is Prof. of History (retired), Senior Fellow Center for Advanced Middle East Studies (www.cames.ws) and Official Historian, Middle East Radio Forum, (www.middleeastradioforum.org), in Scottsdale, Arizona. |
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MERETZ'S VERSION OF "THE PRODUCERS"
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 21, 2006. |
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1. As Israel's election approaches, the most entertaining part of life in Israel is watching the Meretz version of "The Producers". Let me explain. As you recall, "The Producers" was a highly successful and hilarious movie and Broadway show. (It is even now on the stage in translation to Hebrew in Tel Aviv.) It is based on the story of some theater producers who need to produce a terrible flop to extract themseles from financial difficulties, but a commercial success will ruin them. The semi-Marxist Meretz Party seems to be operating under the same modus operandi. It has designed its campaign and election slogans to guarantee that no one, not even the most devoted self-hating Israeli lemming, will vote for it. I wonder if a Gush Katif settler has hacked their web site and campaign computer? Since you will think that this is another of my spoofs, I direct you to this web page, http://meretz.org.il/elections/mod.php, where you can see the ads for yourself. The campaign began with billboards proclaiming that "Meretz is the Party of Arab Lovers", followed by "Meretz is the Party of Lovers of Homosexuals and Bleeding Hearts". But the cherry on the pie is the new one, which you can see on the above site, also at the entrance to Haifa on a huge billboard: A photo of Yossi Beilin's head with a banner proclaiming "I do not have an Arab Mother." The slogan is based on an old urban legend whispered about Isreal that Beilin supposedly had an Arab Mother. (Incorrect as it turns out.) It could explain a lot of his political behavior. The billboards will not only disgust a lot of Jews but no doubt enrage a lot of Arab voters, who are traditionally a significant part of the Meretz contingent. The only thing now missing would be a new ad, with Beilin in tights, dancing and prancing to the tune of "Springtime with Hitler in Germany", singing "Springtime with Hamas in Oslo". 2. Haaretz' Der Sturmer Headline Just when you think Haaretz could not possibly become any worse, along it comes to surprise us. Haaretz is the Israeli Far Leftist daily whose notion of journalistic plualism resembles that of Pravda back in the days of Brezhnev. It is little more than a Palestinian newspaper printed in Hebrew. The headline in Haaretz this morning is "The Candidate for the Army's Chief Rabbi: 'The Sabbath is More Important than the Life of Gentiles.'" At least that is the Hebrew headline. It is tuned down a bit in its English version, which you can see at www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=rabbi&itemNo=685158 The article tries to represent the person being considered for the army's chief rabbi slot (in charge of things like kosher food in the military and religious issues that come up) as a foaming racist and primitive bigot. The paper even notes that the rabbi's own children were opposed to the Gush Katif withdrawal. Oh the humanity! But reading the article fails to produce a single statement by the Rabbi that is consistent with the headline. So what gives? Well, it seems the Rabbi once discussed what should be done if the army captured a wounded terrorist on the sabbath. He discussed the religious considerations for whether one should violate the sabbath to save the life of a murderer/terrorist. Not exactly the same thing as saying that the Rabbi considers the sabbath more important than the life of gentiles, huh? The Rabbi actually reaches the conclusion that the sabbath MAY be violated to save the terrorist, although adds that this could be for purposes of allowing intelligence to interrogate him or to avoid fueling loathing of Jews. I personally think it would be obligatory to execute the terrorist, sabbath or not, but I am not exactly a rabbinic authority. Haaretz has a long history of Der-Sturmer-like caricatures and obscene representations of religious Jews and the paper for the thinking Israel is not at all troubled that nazis and anti-Semites all over the globe will latch on to its lying headline about an Israeli Rabbi from this morning. To read about past Haaretz anti-Semitic caricatures, see http://www.freeman.org/m_online/oct98/winston2.htm or http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/1998/sept/win4.htm To get a better feel for what Haaretz is, consider last week's weekend magazine supplement in the paper for the thinking Israeli. The cover story was about a Haaretz writer who took a course in getting women into bed, featuring such advice as How to Screw a Lot of Women without being Nice to Them. It is accompanied by photos of sluts and bimbos. This was accompanied by an article by Post-Zionist Tom Segev in which he tells about how the BBC investigated whether the Israeli media or the Palestinians are better at reporting on the Middle East conflict (guess who Segev thinks does a better job). He expresses his anguish that the Hamas is still regarded by the BBC as a terrorist group. Then Haaretz runs its weekly feature by Gideon Levy, a person who has openly called for Israel to be destroyed and writes in Counterpunch. Levy each Friday runs a sob story about some Palestinian who was wounded, crippled, or otherwise is having a sad life. In most cases the po' Palestinian was shot or wounded as a result of Israelis returning fire after terrorists attack them, but Levy never mentions that. Levy has yet to express his anguish at the killing and maiming of any Jews. This week's Levy-Palestinian lost two legs from a shell Israel firedback at terrorists. This is followed by a piece about how a Far-Leftist anti-Zionist actor and playwriter in Israel (Yehoshua Sobel) is "in love with Amir Peretz". No, not in the Brokeback Mountain sense. Then there is an article on a brother and sister where the brother is about to have a sex change operation and the two are shown in a spread where they are naked and one can examine the bris of the brother about to become a sister in allits detail. Really. Haaretz weekend magazine also usually has a set of recipes for preparing shrimp, ham, or similar items. I mean, you would think they would leave out the ham recipes if only to avoid offending their Moslem readers. 3. "Time to Indict some More Holocaust Deniers," by Autonomist Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006 at 1:51 AM Jail them! Well, David Irving is going to prison. He was convicted in Austria of being a Holocaust Denier, which is a crime in Austria. All very well, but why is ONLY David Irving going to prison? Why is not DePaul "University's" Norman Finkelstein going to Austrian prison, or DePaul's President Dennis Holtschneider for the crime of employing Finkelstein and defending his "scholarship"? The Anti-Defamation League has declared him to be a Holocaust denier. How about Northwestern University's Arthur Butz? How about Jeff Rense, who runs the Holocaust Denial web site Rense.com, and his assorted nazi columnists? How about the University of Ottawa's Michel Chossudovsky? And then there is the unemployed skinhead and Holocaust Denier, Kurt Nimmo, or the potty poet from New Mexico, as we affectionately like to refer to him. Nimmo's reaction to the conviction of Irving on his little personal web site "Now that the "Notorious Holocaust Denier," as the New York Times characterized David Irving, has pleaded guilty and faces three years in an Austrian prison for the crime of deviating from the official, Zionist-sanctioned and imposed history of the Second World War, we can expect triumphant ballyhoos from the Zionists, a screaming and obnoxious declaration of victory for the small outlaw nation of Israel and its endless blackmailing of millions of people who had nothing to do with Auschwitz and its discredited gas chambers. "Mr. Irving's trial came during a period of intense debate in Europe over freedom of expression, after European newspapers printed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that set off deadly protests worldwide," notes the New York Times. In other words, straying from the Holocaust orthodoxy is a punishable crime while sacking the Prophet Muhammad is freedom of expression.' Nimmo, best known for his poems about his own hemorrhoids, used to be a regular columnist for Counterpunch until Alexander Cockburn fired his poetic posterior for his being a conspiracy nut. Nimmo likes to whine to his few readers how unfair it is to call him a nazi or Holocaust Denier. We figure the above citation sets the record straight. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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WHEN FEAR COWS THE MEDIA
Posted by Jeff Jacoby, February 21, 2006. |
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is Boston's leading ''alternative" newspaper, the kind of brash, pull-no-punches weekly that might have been expected to print without hesitation the Mohammed cartoons that Islamists have been using to incite rage and riots across the Muslim world. Its willingness to push the envelope was memorably demonstrated in 2002, when it broke with most media to publish a grisly photograph of Daniel Pearl's severed head, and supplied a link on its website to the sickening video of the Wall Street Journal reporter's beheading. (The Phoenix was widely criticized, though not by me. I defended its actions in a column that concluded: "This is no time to be covering our eyes.") But the Phoenix isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and on February 10, in a brutally candid editorial, it explained why. ''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from ... bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do. ... Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and ... could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history." The vast majority of US media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings, but to my knowledge only the Phoenix has been honest enough to admit that it is capitulating to fear. Many of the others have published high-minded editorials and columns about the importance of ''restraint" and ''sensitivity" and not giving ''offense" to Muslims. Several have claimed they wouldn't print the Danish cartoons for the same reason they wouldn't print overtly racist or anti-Semitic material. The managing editor for news of The Oregonian, for example, told her paper's ombudsman that not running the images is like avoiding the N-word -- readers don't need to see a racial slur spelled out to understand its impact. Yet a Nexis search turns up at least 14 occasions since 1999 when The Oregonian has published the N-word unfiltered. So apparently there *are* times when it is appropriate to run material that some may find offensive. Rationalizations notwithstanding, the refusal of the US media to show the images at the heart of one of the most urgent stories of the day is not about restraint and good taste. It's about fear. Editors and publishers are afraid the thugs will target them as they targeted Danny Pearl and Theo van Gogh ; afraid the mob will firebomb their newsrooms as it has firebombed Danish embassies. ''We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible," an imam in Gaza preaches. ''Whoever insults a prophet, kill him," reads the sign carried by a demonstrator in London. Those are not figures of speech but deadly threats, and American newspapers and networks are intimidated. Not everyone has succumbed. The Weekly Standard reproduced the 12 cartoons, and some have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Sun, and even Spare Change News, a Boston biweekly sold by homeless people. But there has been nothing like the defiance shown in Europe, where some two dozen publications in 13 countries have run the cartoons, insisting that they will not allow thugs to decide what a free press can publish. Journalists can be incredibly brave, but when it comes to covering the Arab and Muslim world, too many news organizations have knuckled under to threats. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, a veteran foreign correspondent, admitted long ago that ''physical intimidation" by the PLO led reporters to skew their coverage of important stories or to ignore them ''out of fear." Similarly, CNN's former news executive, Jordan Eason, acknowledged after the fall of Saddam Hussein that his network had long sanitized its news from Iraq, since reporting the unvarnished truth ''would have jeopardized the lives of ... our Baghdad staff." Like the Nazis in the 1930s and the Soviet communists in the Cold War, the Islamofascists are emboldened by appeasement and submissiveness. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages and more books burned. You betray ideals that generations of Americans have died to defend. And worse than that: You betray as well the dissidents and reformers within the Islamic world, the Muslim Sakharovs and Sharanskys and Havels who yearn for the free, tolerant, and democratic culture that we in the West take for granted. What they want to see from America is not appeasement and apologies and a dread of giving offense. They want to see us face down the fanatics, be unintimidated by bullies. They want to know that in the global struggle against Islamist extremism, we won't let them down. Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for the Boston Globe. Contact him at jacoby@globe.com This article appeared February 19, 2006 at www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/ 2006/02/10/when_fear_cow_the_media. The original article contains live links to additional material. |
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ORGANIZED ISLAM REARS ITS UGLY HEAD
Posted by IsrAlert, February 20, 2006. |
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This was written by Randy Taylor and comes from Northeast Intelligence Network http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=97 18 February 2006: Looking for the center of Islamic evil, organized civil unrest, terrorism planning and financing? Wondering where Global Islamic Terrorism was conceived, discussed, planned and then implemented into a global movement? Wonder where al Qaeda came from? Look no further than Ali Khamene, the Valy-e-Faghih or Supreme Spiritual Leader in Iran as of this minute and his predecessor and mentor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The first steps in establishing a central Islamic state and a central Islamic leader started when these people overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. That is when the center of operations for global Islamic terrorism was established and had an official home. The current Supreme Leader, Khamene is the highest ranking official in Iran and is in charge of all three branches of the Iranian government which are the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branch much like the three branches in the US government. But the similarities stop there. This is the area that the main stream media doesn't touch on at all in their coverage of Iran and Iran's defiance towards the rest of the world regarding the nuclear issues. The focus lately has been on the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his radical statements regarding Israel, the Holocaust, Europe and America. This Iranian president isn't assigned the same capacity as the President of the United States and shouldn't be viewed as even having close to the same type power or authority as our President. The president of Iran still answers to the Supreme Leader and the Supreme Council which consists of Islamic "Intellectuals", if there is such a thing. I personally have insisted for years that Osama Bin Laden, al Zawahiri and al Qaeda are the tools of Iran. The conception of al Qaeda was dreamed up by the Supreme Council in Iran and although Osama Bin Laden may not have been their first choice, ultimately Bin Laden was the one that grew al Qaeda from a concept into an actual working model with the help and funding of the Iranian government primarily the intelligence services. Iran most likely has their fingerprints all over 9/11 and I think that in due time, there will be evidence released to the American public that will support the theory of Iran being the actual backers of al Qaeda who ultimately launched the attack against New York in 2001. After the war in Afghanistan against the Russians, Bin Laden wanted to focus his attention on the west which he knew ultimately to be the ultimate enemy to the growth of radical Islam. He approached his mentor Abdullah Assam with his ideas of taking the war to the west and Assam preferred to go back to Palestine and wage war against Israel with Yassar Arafat. This didn't fit into Osama Bin Laden's plans nor did it fit into Iran's plans as they have always considered Israel to be much less of a threat to Islam than the US, which is correct. So Assam was taken out in 1989 by either Bin Laden or Iranian intelligence agents as being for the "greater good" of the movement. Iran couldn't risk having two very powerful, charismatic people like Osama Bin Laden and Abdullah Assam disagreeing with each other or changing focus from the "Grand Plan" that Iran had devised for the growth of Islam and the destruction of anyone who presented a threat to the spread of Islam throughout the world. Iran isn't interested in winning a war with the west since they know this isn't possible. But they do want to start and wage a war against all non-Muslims simply because they believe it is their destiny to do so. The Iranian intellectuals honestly believe that they are following the will of Allah and their destiny is to bring about the last great conflict of the human race. But they have to do it in such a fashion that there is no return from it once started. That all mankind suffers. Let's look at some interesting events here recently. Iran backs away from the rest of the world in regard to their nuclear development. Iran's president, the "official" mouthpiece and puppet of the Iranian government speaks out openly about the annihilation of Israel as a country and flatly tells the rest of the world that Iran will do as it chooses as far as developing nuclear technology. The world cringes at the prospect of Iran having or developing nuclear technology since they are known to be a radical Islamic terrorist state. Suddenly, out of the blue there are worldwide protests and riots over a cartoon of the "prophet" Mohammed that was actually published last year. The entire world turns their focus to the riots, the civil unrest and Iran hopes that the world sees that Muslims are unified and willing to fight over a religious issue. Big surprise huh? No, it is another measured attempt by Iran to openly neither engage nor disengage with the west in a war, but instead to buy more time so that they can arm themselves better for the conflict they are themselves planning with the rest of the free world. It is a cat and mouse game with the planet as the game board. Iran cannot afford for Israel or the United States to attack them and their nuclear facilities right now, as it would not destroy their plans for a worldwide conflict, but would delay those plans possibly for decades or even centuries as they would have to go back to 1979 and start all over again with the overthrow of another Islamic country and they would have to attempt to regain lost ground at that point. If I were asked to gamble on the location of the future "Caliphate", my vote is Iran. It is my theory that when we finally come to a confrontation with Iran and most likely Syria, we obviously would defeat them in an all out battle through conventional means and they are well aware of this and have always known this. But we cannot overlook the other greatest and most effective part of the equation which is al Qaeda and the networks that have been carefully installed all over the world primarily in the countries of their enemies such as the United States, the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and most of the rest of the world. We should have learned here recently that no one is immune to the threat of Islam, including peaceful small countries like Denmark. It is the internal attacks that will yield the greatest losses to our countries and our way of life. Typically when we, the US decide we are going to take military action we will send in small contingent forces to recon and set up within the country we are going to act against. That is at the most several months ahead of time. These Islamic fundamentalists started planting their people in our countries over thirty years ago. We are on the second and third generations of al Qaeda cells in our country now in 2006. Everyone acts like al Qaeda suddenly sprouted up on September 11th, 2001 when in fact they have been here for decades and have only multiplied since 2001. When we take military action against Iran which is unavoidable at some point, we will see the true fruits of al Qaeda and Islam's labors for the last decades. We will get hit so hard internally here in the USA, it will be difficult to function properly as a super power overseas because of the fear, destruction and turmoil here on our own soil. We will be hit with every conceivable act of domestic terrorism that we can imagine. All of our worst nightmares will be reality. The powers of Islam have studied the United States for many, many years and they know that when confronted, we will retaliate and be unified as we have been in every conflict thrust upon us. But just as we did after 9/11 and just as we did after the invasion and liberation of Iraq, we soon turn to fighting and arguing amongst ourselves. This is where we will suffer the most. Islam is banking on us imploding at that point as a super-power. They are banking on the Congress and Senate, the people and the weak ones among us seeking appeasement from our attackers. But the Barbara Boxer's of the world do not understand that there will be no escape, no surrender, no quarter. These weak, spineless politicians that want to appease every little whim of Islam today are the true enemies of the American people and a detriment to our very way of life. The ones that are crying about the NSA listening in on overseas communications and forever pointing fingers at the administration for our efforts in Iraq are the ones that will either surrender our way of life to a Taliban type government or cause the implosion and destruction of the American way of life to where we cannot survive. We are at a crossroads right now in the world and in the human race. The enemy has shown their face and their intentions, yet we still are worried about offending them. Islam has moved itself into the most controversial subject today in American society through multiple venues. It was planned this way and we are playing right into the hands of the designers of this ridiculous notion of Islam. When the next great conflict happens, there will be no neutral countries in the fray. If we wish to postpone a conflict that may determine the very existence of mankind, we should disarm Iran immediately. We cannot change what will happen in the end times, but if we choose to do so, we can postpone it and generations from now they will have to deal with it again, as it isn't going to go away forever. Question is, do we confront it now, or wait until Iran is in a much better position with nuclear weapons. Our position in the middle east geographically is probably at an optimum right now as to access to needed airspace and we have the capability of moving troops where needed as needed using Iraq and Afghanistan as the staging ground. No matter what, in my humble opinion, Iran has smaller nukes now, is building larger, longer range weapons and eventually they will unleash them. Question isn't an "if" question, it is a "when" question. I wrote this article to get people to sit down and think. Think about reality. Think about who the enemy is and what their intentions are. These are questions that I have my own answers to, largely based on religious beliefs, much like our enemy. I want you to answer your own questions now. Think about your future, your children's future, the future of your grandchildren. I don't have the answers. You do. Stay safe. |
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EX-IDF OFFICER ALLEGES POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST GIRLS AT AMONA
Posted by Marlene Young, February 20, 2006. |
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This was written by Nadav Shragia, Haaretz Correspondent and is archived at www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/685119.html A retired Israel Defense Forces colonel who was present at the evacuation of nine structures in the West Bank outpost of Amona submitted a complaint Monday alleging police brutality against protesters who clashed with security forces. Colonel (res.) Moti Yogev petitioned the Justice Ministry's Police Investigations Department for an inquiry into claims that Border Policemen, without provocation, struck young girls who asked to exit the vicinity where the clashes were taking place. In his petition, Yogev writes that close to 11 A.M. on the day of the incident, an entire Border Police unit descended on a group of girls who, along with their teacher, were pinned against the wall, "begging [the officers] to allow them to leave the riot area." "The officers began shoving them and hitting them for no reason," Yogev writes. Yogev recalled how he approached an officer believed to be the commander of a police unit and requested that the security forces cease striking the girls and allow them to leave the scene. "Three Border Policemen, among them Eyal Peri, pushed me and struck me with clubs in my stomach," Yogev wrote. "I fell as I was struggling to breathe, but the policemen kept pushing me and rolling me on the floor again and again. When I managed to get up, they pushed me against, and then I hurt my knee." "Today I walk around on crutches with an injured knee that will require extensive rehabilitation," he wrote. Yogev said that he witnessed "horses trampling over people lying underneath their horseshoes", a police commander who ordered his officers to catch young protesters who were loitering peacefully and to "just hit them." Yogev also recounts how police officers entered a building where girls had locked arms. One of the girls told an officer: "My brother, don't hit me. I'm your sister." Yogev said the officer "answered her in a Russian accent: 'Shut up you Jewish bitch' and brutally struck her." Yogev, a former commander of special forces unit Sayeret Shaked and a deputy commander of Sayeret Matkal, submitted the complaint through attorneys Amikam Hadar and Hedva Shapira. The petition is the latest in a series of petitions to PID alleging excessive use of force at Amona. On Monday, a human rights groups representing the Yesha council of settlements revealed that three policemen who were at Amona volunteered information about the day's events, including the claim that police received unequivocal instructions to "crack open heads." Contact Marlene Young at marleneyoung1@yahoo.com |
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HAMAS GOV'T WILL NOT BRING PEACE TO MIDDLE EAST
Posted by Unity Coalition for Israel, February 20, 2006. |
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CLICK HERE to send this message to the United States and Israeli Leadership. You may change the wording as you see fit. Your message will be sent to 1). U.S. Congressional leaders with copies to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, 2). Knesset leaders, and 3). Israeli Mayors. The battle takes place at the frontline -- in Israel where terrorism continues to thrive each day
There is so much at stake. We cannot appease terrorists and reward them with the land of Israel and expect peace. Terrorism, this disease, this cancer of hatred, must not be allowed to fester and grow. We cannot abandon Israel and then just wait for the battle to move to American soil -- to allow it to expand exponentially, resulting in much greater bloodshed and loss. Today we must battle terrorism at the frontline in Israel -- by saying NO to a Palestinian State governed by Hamas. As recently as February 9th, Khaled Mashaal reiterated that "no matter what, Hamas will not agree to the demand to acknowledge Israel." Hamas agrees on one thing and one thing only -- the total destruction of Israel, the spread of Radical Islam and worldwide domination. We must decisively respond to this threat at the source -- in Israel. Otherwise, all of the tax dollars spent for the war in Iraq will have been spent in vain. Hard working Americans deserve to have their tax dollars spent wisely -- they deserve to continue to have a great nation with freedom, opportunity and justice for all. The article below is called "Terror's Missing Link" and was written by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen. It appeared in www.FrontPageMagazine.com February 13, 2006. Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed-and How to Stop It, Director of American Center for Democracy and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. Alyssa A. Lappen is a Fellow at the American Center for Democracy. President George W. Bush's most recent reminder that the U.S. needs to fight the worldwide terrorism of the Islamists, ignored a major target and victim of this terrorism -- Israel. In a February 9 speech at the National Guard Memorial Building, in Washington DC, the President noted many of the countries that have been the victims of Islamist terrorist attacks. As he had done repeatedly several times before, he mentioned: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Spain and England. Conspicuously absent from the list is Israel. Yet, Israel was the first target of the Islamist terrorism, decades before this war started. Moreover, Israel remains at the center of the Islamist Jihad. The Israeli government official statistics put the number of deaths resulting from attacks by Palestinian terror groups at 1,084 since September 29, 2000, alone. The number of injured since then is 7,633 Israelis. And this is not all; thousands of Israeli casualties also suffered Palestinian terrorist attacks since the first Intifada in 1987. Yet, Israel's plight seems to escape the President's attention when he reminds Americans of the international atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists. Israel is not only fighting this war on terrorism along with the U.S., it has been fighting the same war for decades. The Islamists opened their first front in Israel decades ago. But because they successfully misrepresented themselves as the "under dog," they obtained from the West the leeway and the encouragement to expand their reach. Indeed, the terrorists themselves have for years advertised that the war against Israel and the war on America are one and the same. In January 2001, the terrorist chieftains of Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, met at a conference in Beirut, Lebanon. The communiqué they issued said: "Destroy Israel ... Boycott America." It also called for "Jihad in all its forms and resistance" against Israel and urged a boycott of American goods, since "American products are exactly like the Israeli products." This was neither the first nor the last time such statements, supported by HAMAS and other Palestinian terror groups, were made. Yet, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, remarked after her February 8 meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, "The Palestinian people have been through an election. They voted for change, but I don't think they voted to change their aspirations for a peaceful life." Considering the fact that the Palestinian majority elected HAMAS, a terrorist organization whose culture is death and who calls to annihilate Israel, take over Spain and impose global Shiite rule, clearly, the Palestinian understanding of "peaceful life" differs sharply from that of Secretary Rice. Foreign Minister Livni stated the fact that, "Hamas is a terrorist organization." She went on to state what should be obvious to the U.S. Administration, that if Hamas forms the Palestinian Authority's next government "this entity, this authority, this state, is going to transf[orm] into a terror state." However, judging by the Secretary's remarks, the U.S. Administration is in desperate need of a good Otorhinolaryngologist, since it is clearly deaf. HAMAS leaders repeatedly assert that they will not recognize Israel. Most recently, on February 9, Khaled Mashaal, reiterated that "no matter what, HAMAS will not agree to the demand to acknowledge Israel." It doesn't have to. HAMAS will receive the financial aid it needs from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Nevertheless, Mashaal called upon the U.S. and Europe to continue their economic support for the PA, while also vowing that "HAMAS will not trade its principles for money Mashaal welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement in Madrid, that "Russia is maintaining contacts with the Hamas organization and intends in the near future to invite the leadership of this organization to Moscow." Mashaal commended Putin "for Russia's brave position," saying that "it will bring some balance" into international relations. Russia's stand, according to the HAMAS leader, will help to decrease America's influence at a time when the U.S. faces intractable international difficulties. Could these difficulties be underpinning Secretary Rice's' insistence on sticking to the scripted "two-state-solution," even when HAMAS so clearly remains committed to its Islamist terrorist agenda? While Secretary Rice states that HAMAS should recognize Israel first, HAMAS sources claim, "There are signals arriving from the U.S. government that it does not reject the possibility of cooperating with a Hamas-led government." If the U.S. is serious about winning the war on terrorism, dismantling HAMAS should be a priority. Legitimizing an Islamist terrorist entity would not assist in the U.S. war against terrorism, Moreover, it would weaken the U.S. standing and international influence in the world, fulfilling Mashaal wishes. The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" |
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AFSI CHIZUK MISSION TO ISRAEL -- MAY 21-30, 2006
Posted by AFSI, February 20, 2006. |
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Please join Americans for a Safe Israel on our next Chizuk Mission as Jerusalem enters its 40th year of re-unification. May 26, 2006 will be a day of great significance and AFSI will be there. In addition to celebrating Yom Yerushalayim-Jerusalem Day- AFSI will re-visit the refugees from the scattered communities of the former Gush Katif, as well as the residents of the threatened communities of Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem. Members of Knesset Aryeh Eldad and Effie Eitam, who were seriously injured at Amona, will be among those invited to speak to the group. Leaders of grass roots movements resisting any further expulsions will address the group as well. TRAVEL INFORMATION The AFSI Chizuk mission will be departing from the New York area on Sunday, May 21, returning on May 30. The entire cost, including round-trip airfare on El-Al, land accommodations, guides, bullet-proof bus, and most meals, is $2200, not including airport taxes, single supplement fees, and personal changes in the group's air itinerary. Non-members are charged an additional $100. (Membership in AFSI is only $50, so we urge interested parties to join the organization, thus saving $50 and receiving all the benefits of membership.) A $200 deposit is necessary to ensure your space. Please send it to the AFSI office, or call 212-828-2424 or 1-800-235-3658 to use the VISA or Mastercard charge. Helen Freedman and Bruce Rudolph will once again be the tour planners, in coordination with Barry Freedman at the AFSI office. Rabbi Bruce will be handling the travel plans. Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website: www.afsi.org. Helen Freedman is Executive Director. |
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LEGALITY OF ISRAEL'S JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN JERUSALEM, JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Posted by David Bedein, February 20, 2006. |
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A report will be presented tomorrow to the media by "Bitselem", which claims that Israel's policies of settling Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, in areas that came under Israel's control after the 1967 war, are patently "illegal and in violation of international law." While it would seem somewhat unnecessary to defend the right of a Jew to build a home in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem or in the hills of Judea, it is still necessary to explicate the legality of settling Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Israel is not an occupier in any part of Jerusalem, which is its capital city. Israel lost the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1948 war and regained control of all of Jerusalem after repulsing an attacked by the Arab legion in Jerusalem in 1967. Israel is not an occupier in Judea-Samaria. "Occupation" can only occur when one sovereign state usurps the land of another sovereign state. However, when Israel acquired control of Judea-Samaria in 1967, in the course of fighting a defensive war, there was no state to whom this area belonged. It was in the hands of Jordan, but Jordan was simply an occupier of that area, whose presence in Judea and Samaria was recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan and was unclaimed Mandate land, to which Israel had substantial claim. During the period of the British Mandate for Palestine, Britain was charged with "secur(ing) the establishment of the Jewish national home" and "encourag(ing) close settlement by Jews on the land", under the terms of the San Remo Treaty, which was ratified by the League of Nations, with allowance for Jewish settlement in all of Palestine, west of the Jordan River, which includes, of course, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. This was set in international law and it has never been superseded. When the United Nations replaced the League of Nations, it assumed obligations of the League. The 1947 partition resolution for Palestine , passed by the United Nations General Assembly on November 29th, 1947, did not supersede the Mandate. The General Assembly makes only recommendations, which have no standing in international law. Judea-Samaria and the eastern part of Jerusalem are often alluded to as "Arab" in nature. This is only because the Jordanians forbid Jews from living there from 1948 until 1967, after having banished all Jews from areas where they had lived for centuries. There was no significant international protest about the exclusion of Jews from traditionally Jewish areas of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. There are calls today for Israel to move back to the 1967 lines, as if this line represents the "real" borders of Israel. However, what came to be known as the "Green Line" was never a border. It was an armistice line, established at the end of the 1948-49 war. It was never intended to be a border; and the expectation at the time was that in short order Israel would negotiate with her Arab neighbors in order to set final borders. Those negotiations still have not taken place. On 22 November 1967, the UN Security Council indeed adopted Resolution 242, which called for "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" as well as "termination of all claims or states of belligerency" and recognition that "every State in the area" has the "right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." Resolution 242 never called for withdrawal from ALL territories occupied in the Six Day War -- any withdrawal was to be contingent on negotiations that would secure a state of peace for Israel. As far back as the late 1800s, individual Jews had begun purchasing land in Palestine, in anticipation of the establishment of a Jewish state. The Jewish National Fund began to do the same starting in 1901. (Before the end of WWI, this took place within the Ottoman Empire, it continued during the Mandate period and the British worked to establish a land registry.) Subsequent to the 1967 war, when Israel acquired control of Judea-Samaria, this Jewish-owned land came into Israeli hands. Thus, there is some portion of Judea-Samaria that is simply owned by Jews, legally and outright. Some of these Jewish communities rest on such land -- for example, in the area of Gush Etzion, which predates the establishment of Israel. When Israel assumed control over all of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in 1967, she became the custodian of that part of the land not owned outright by anyone. This is according to international law, which gives Israel the right to build on this land for purposes of security. The Israeli Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria do not represent a "cause" of Palestinian Arab intransigence or violence, nor are they or the stumbling block to peace. After all: The Palestinian Liberation Organization was founded in 1964, when Judea-Samaria was not under the control of Israel. What the PLO wanted to "liberate" was Israel within the 1967 lined. At that time, the PLO charter specifically stated that it had NO CLAIM on the lands controlled by Jordan and Egypt, that is, on Judea-Samaria and Gaza. It never changed that charter and the claim that land until Israel had control of it. To this day, the PLO -- and even more so now, Hamas -- sees any city in any part of Israel as constituting an "illegal settlement" -- this includes Israel within the Green Line. The presence of Israel in any part of the land whatsoever is seen as illegitimate. Just view www.palestineremembered.com David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. (http://Israelbehindthenews.com) and President, Center for Near East Policy Research. Contact him at media@actcom.co.il or visit www.ibtn.co.il |
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REPORT FROM INSIDE THE PALESTINIAN CONFERENCE AT GEORGETOWN U.
Posted by Stand With Us, February 20, 2006. |
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Roz Rothstein, national director of StandWithUs, attended the Conference, which occurred on February 18, 2006 and posted this report. She is available for interviews. Please contact: Jennifer at 310/245-4109 or 310/739-2682 Thank you. This report was written by StandWithUs Campus professionals. During the next few days you may read several reports written about this conference, because we saw pro-Israel colleagues in attendance. We saw campus professionals from the David Project and American Jewish Congress there, among many others. Special thanks to staff from American Jewish Congress for contributing information to this report. PLEASE READ AND DISTRIBUTE THIS REPORT. We are still here in Washington D.C., having just attended the much anticipated Palestinian conference where approximately 200 students and community activists gathered to learn how to promote "divest from Israel" campaigns, how to work with the media and church groups, and how to frame campaigns that demonize Israel. We cannot help but wonder why the people under the PSM umbrella did not gather to teach or learn how to improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians by building hospitals and schools or how to build peace-directed coalitions by promoting dialogue with pro-Israel, pro-peace advocates around the world. Nor did anyone address the tragic outcome of the recent Palestinian elections, or whether HAMAS will change its charter and work towards peace in the region. Instead, the sole purpose of this conference was to create campaigns that would hope to label Israel as a "pariah" state. Many of the campaigns involved deception, and the agendas were the same as those in prior years, ignoring the fact that so much has changed in the Middle East during the last year in the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. This conference simply ignored that so much has changed on the ground. Non-violence was not high on their agenda. Opening panelist Philip Farah told the audience that Mahatma Ghandi had once said that "If the choice were between violence and submission, we would choose violence a thousand times." And there was an acceptance of the art of deception throughout the conference. For example, opening panelists advised the audience to "inoculate" themselves against the charge of anti-Semitism by working with "Jews and Israelis." The message was that when you have Jews on your team, you obviously cannot be accused of being anti-Jew. Holding the conference on the Sabbath did not seem to trouble the two ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta rabbis who showed up and stayed all day so they could attend this conference. Neturei Karta and Hamas coincidentally have the same agenda-- they just come to it from different angles. Both want the the "dismantlement of the State of Israel." The two rabbis were well known and greeted warmly by many of the conference leaders, speakers and participants. This is because many of the more radical Muslim groups on campuses invite Neturei Karta to speak to their student body about their vision of the end of the state of Israel. Sadly, we found tee shirts, buttons and pins on sale at this conference that promoted the same extremist goals as Neturei Karta and HAMAS. As you can see from the photos included in this report, we found pins that depicted a fist clasping a machine gun, machine guns alone, and maps of Israel with the Territories all painted green with "Palestine" written on the entire map. The extremist message of the various maps was obviously Palestine INSTEAD of Israel, not NEXT to Israel. Simply put, this is what is meant by the term "Free Palestine." Look at the pin showing a terrorist with a suicide belt holding two machine guns and a tag line that reads: "Revolution til victory." And in case there remained any doubt, one could purchase tee shirts in a variety of colors with the words: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." This refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The only land they are talking about would be Israel. Granted, not all the vendors selling these messages in the form of pins or shirts represented the PSM conference organizers. The ones shown in this report were found at a table organized by the New Jersey (Palestine) Solidarity Movement. But we are certain that the PSM organizers would not have allowed the KKK to sell its paraphernalia at their conference because it would clearly have tainted the reputation of the PSM. Why, then, would they allow Charlotte Kates and the New Jersey Solidarity group to sell its radically violent materials that reflect the goal of eliminating Israel? You might remember Charlotte as the organizer of the controversial Rutgers conference two years ago. She was upset when her conference was moved off campus by Rutgers University. Maybe Rutgers administration saw Charlotte's pins. All the sessions that we attended had a single end goal: demonize Israel to your local church, your campus, and your communities in order to convince them that they should push divestment from companies that do business in Israel. Create hatred for the Jewish state by linking it to images of Nazis and to South Africa's apartheid system so that there is absolutely no question about Israel's guilt for everything that has ever gone wrong with the Palestinian people. Participants were taught how to frame divestment, how to work with the media, how to manipulate church communities, etc, all for the purpose of creating a grassroots movement that will lead to Israel being seen as a pariah state. There were no references to the painful steps that Israel has taken by moving Jews from Gaza in order to make way for a Palestinian State. There was no reference to the Hamas victory unless it was brought up in questioning. There was never a hint of the attacks that led Israel to decide to build a security fence. Everything was presented out of context, as though Israel is deliberately erecting walls and checkpoints in order to harass the Palestinian people. Some incredible examples of the training we witnessed that teach deception, follow: Maher Bitar and Nadeem Muaddi told people how to infiltrate churches in order to gain support for an anti-Israel agenda. They emphasized "targeting" small churches that don't have their own political agendas already. "Be patient about bringing up the divestment issue with your new Christian friends", Mauddi advised. To win the congregants' trust, he encouraged activists to deceive their new prospective friends by "looking and acting Christian." "Dress conservatively," he said. No kyffias, sandals or jeans. Instead, "men should wear button-down shirts, sports coats or khakis." He went on to say that women should wear mid-length skirts with colored pantyhose. He told them to be well-groomed and to speak nicely, avoiding curse words and slang. "Mind your manners." he said. "If someone sneezes, say 'God Bless you.' And always come bearing gifts, especially something from the Holy Land like holy water or rosary beads." He further advised the activists to get involved in the church community. "Don't look down on the church ladies' clubs -- join them." All the participants regarded the Presbyterian vote (that has been considering divestment) as an exciting victory. They gave credit to Sabeel, the Palestinian Christian group that has worked hard to demonize Israel and promote divestment in North and South American mainline churches. The people in all these sessions seemed to welcome the advice about how to deceive and manipulate the churches so they could spread the virus of hatred through well meaning religious communities.. In another session, University of Wisconsin philosophy graduate student Mohammed Abed told participants that the two-state paradigm would never give Palestinians their full right to "cultural self-determination." In order to flourish, he said, the Palestinians need access to the ENTIRETY of their homeland, not just the West Bank and Gaza. Abed was giving a clear message to eliminate Israel. Other sessions focused on training college students how to work more effectively with the media and how to plan and implement divestment campaigns. Students were encouraged to monitor and become involved with the school paper and to make news dramatic enough so journalists would report the stories. The goal, of course, is to get the Palestinian message out -- which is implicitly translated by the speakers at the PSM conference as the demonization of Israel. Students were also told to build coalitions in order to bring a multi-cultural face to their (anti-Israel) efforts. Even though this might mean that groups will have to listen to people with other agendas, that's part of the way to build a larger group that will ultimately promote divestment or other anti-Israel agendas on campus. The fact that this conference was about how to demonize Israel and how to make people want to punish Israel through divestment is deeply disturbing. Not just because it is wrapped around negative goals and the ultimate demise of one state, but also because the end goals centered on the necessity of deceiving people. There was no mention of suicide bombing unless it was brought up in questions, and the answers always referred to Israel's responsibility for any acts of Palestinian terrorism and equated Israel's methods of self defense with terrorist attacks. The irony is that now, particularly on capital hill, Arab groups will begin working hard and fast to spin HAMAS, to push for the continuation of US funding for the Palestinians because after all, (they argue) its the Palestinian people that will be hurt by the US divesting from the newly elected Palestinian leadership. They will site examples like Iraq, how babies and ordinary people were hurt by divesting dollars from Iraq. And these same people will work endlessly to promote hatred and divestment from Israel, completely unconcerned about the effect on the ordinary Israeli citizen. Israel is not perfect, and we all know that Israelis of all faiths and their supporters regularly debate policy. But the extremism represented at this conference does not lend itself to a discussion about how a Palestinian and a Jewish State can live peacefully side-by-side. Maybe one day there will be conferences held by people who don't promote lies, hatred or divesting from one side in a conflict, but instead encourage honest dialogue and sincere reflection that will lead to stable peace in the region. More on this report to come. |
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RIPOSTE TO "RAGING GRANNIES INCENSES BY WAR"
Posted by Marion D.S. Dreyfus, February 20, 2006. |
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Age doesn't necessarily confer correctness of cause --or wisdom Achieving the age of grandparenthood does not, contrary to some writers and editorialists -- "Raging Grannies incensed by war," 13 February, by Erika Slife, in Florida's Sun-Sentinel -- confer wisdom. Yes, age does confer years. It connotes a softening, sometimes, of one's former calcified rebellions. Merely attaining a weight of decades emphatically has nothing to say about judgment, though TV sit-coms, dramaturgs and journalists seem to equate immediate mental acuity to such demographics, unless doddery humor is the target. Nor is it particularly enlightening to have to wade through comfortable assumption-land in regard to females' being of a certain age and thus recipients of some magical consequent superiority. When was the last (or first) time men in their 70s or 80s were cited using a cutesy appellation, Gramps, as in "Grampas leave their rockers to foment over school lunches" or some such? Was Harry Whittington, at 78, gleefully headlined "Grandpa takes birdshot and hits the dirt." with the recent regrettable Dick Cheney hunting accident? Never, that's when. The nomenclature and verbiage for men having attained a decade or two over the age of average voters does not come off as adorable or jolly to the average reader. No one sizes them up by their offspring count. One might never learn that older men have any grandkids at all. And that is how it should be. For both sexes. Yet in daily papers, surveys and op-eds, older women are often dubbed "grannies" (whether they have grandkids, for that matter, or not). And for their part, respectful grandchildren -- the usually male descriptive historians of the issue of the moment, script or movie sequel -- assign an unearned merit badge of false homage to political positions taken by these PC-approved 'persons of years.' Though few would have cavils against any group, mature or not, fighting to restrain over-development (although what constitutes too much? A developer would have one definition, a firebrand environmentalist, another) and ecological degradation, it is not clear that any organization called Grannies has any corner on moral rectitude when it comes to military engagement, what we abbreviate as war. Who indeed likes war? Even the Bush Administration, amidst waging battle against a foe that is frustratingly amorphous, frighteningly amoral yet enormously tenacious, does not "like" war. It does what it must; what centuries of conscience and decency and birthright have determined as necessary in the teeth of overwhelming barbarity and threat. Simplistic objections to being in such a conflict, however, do little to clarify for the public the issues at hand. In the past, though ostriches would object, both world wars were undertaken as a last-ditch effort that was unarguably successful at vanquishing the then-foe, fascism and nazism on the unstoppable rise. The battles that followed, in Korea, Viet Nam, the long Cold War, and loci from ethnic fastnesses in Eastern Europe to sorry dumps like Mogadishu, owe their impetus to festering disarray and wounds inflicted that could not be medicated by the diffident slow oxygen of diplomacy's hiss. Grannies vocalizing against the deadly toe-to-toe now in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Iraq, will not stop the juggernaut of ferocious Wahhabism that threatens to annihilate the Western model of life we have been waking up to for several hundred years on this side of the Atlantic. The gauntlet has been thrown down repeatedly by those who think us dim-witted, cowardly and afraid. To retract our response will be read as a fatal failure of nerve that will do the historical obvious: Invite further, and deeper, incursions and attacks. The people implacably improvise-bombing the transport vehicles of Baghdad and Fallujah, decapitating "peace" workers and independent contractors, kidnapping and slaughtering Christian girls whose only sin lay in being too geographically close to the deadly intolerant sword of the religion of peace -- these sanguinary engines of hate-filled DNA will not celebrate the bombastic earnest of feisty oldsters by laying aside their weapons and laser-guided destructive devices. A trivial cartoon can ignite their myriad militancy. A foam-flecked sermon can bring out millions to burn down our civilizing influences. The heavily Syrian- and Iranian-funded ragtags will not forget their sworn screeds of imposing dire shari'a law on our entire polity. Nor would such raging killers exempt such grannies, or their progeny for that matter, from their schedule of killing the kuffar, infidel, despite their naive championing of a cessation of effort. At the risk of tautology: No one here favors war. But the race to national extirpation via intolerance, using weaponry too ghastly to focus on for long, is decidedly on. We no longer have a choice in the matter. As the President says: We must win. Unless, of course, losing to such implacable thugs and its unthinkable consequences is an option. Even for grannies, closer perhaps to the dreamless who cares? of eternity than the rest of us, it is not. And cute, as in condescension and patronizing nomenclature, has nothing to say about that. Celebrating the unavailable Column B of stepping away from defending our way of life and the future of our actual lives is a dereliction of duty no less important because, for some unstated PC reason, it is considered indelicate to expressly state. Perhaps such interest groups as the Grannies could stick to their knitting, protesting environmental ills that can be alleviated by placarding or impacting their elected representatives. Lethal, egregious, committed fanaticism won't stop to applaud and chuckle. Marion D.S. Dreyfus writes frequently on healthcare, social issues, and particularly the politics and problems of the Middle East. Contact her by email at dreyfusmarion@hotmail.com |
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THE IDF'S CONFUSION
Posted by Women in Green, February 20, 2006. |
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This was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post, February 16, 2006. Since Israel withdrew its citizens and military forces from the Gaza Strip last summer, a great deal has been written about the consequences of the destruction of the Jewish communities there for the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Much has also been said of the rising threats to Israel's security in the South as a result of the retreat from Gaza. There is a third aspect of the Israeli retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria that to date has not garnered any significant public attention. That issue is the impact of the operation on the Israel Defense Forces. Given that the IDF is the national organization charged with ensuring Israel's survival, anything that happens to the IDF has direct consequences for Israel's national security. And so it is worth considering what, if any, impact the operation has had on the IDF. Disturbingly, the military's organizational behavior since the withdrawal from Gaza, as manifested in operations on the ground and in statements by senior commanders, indicates that the withdrawal of IDF forces from Gaza has harmed the IDF's self-assessment and its understanding of its mission. This troubling situation is most clearly evident in Southern Command. That command devoted itself last year almost entirely to the non-military task of preparing and carrying out the uprooting of the Jewish communities from Gaza. Now it is contending with the new threats that have emerged along Israel's long border with Egypt and in the Gaza Strip since it completed that mission. As the daily Kassam rocket and mortar strikes on Ashkelon, Sderot and the rest of the Israeli communities bordering Gaza have shown, since the withdrawal, Southern Command has failed in its mission to provide security to southern Israel. Last Thursday afternoon, OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant briefed military reporters in Tel Aviv. The day before the briefing, Ashkelon's industrial area -- home to some of Israel's most vital national infrastructures -- was struck by Kassam rockets. That attack on the industrial area was launched from Gaza right after the IDF declared the successful conclusion of "Operation Lightning Strike." That operation was supposed to prevent the shooting of Kassam rockets on southern Israel. As well, last Thursday morning, soldiers from the Givati Brigade killed two terrorists who attacked them with rifle fire from the Erez crossing where Gazan workers enter Israel. Addressing reporters, Galant declared that on the one hand, "Israeli bloodshed will not be met with silence." On the other hand, he said, "I can't say that we have a perfect response for the Kassam rockets, but our operations are effective. The Palestinians think twice before they shoot." Galant brushed off the fact that the Palestinians are lobbing rockets and mortars at Israel on a daily basis in spite of the IDF's "effective" responses, by saying: "You have to look at the glass as half full. It could be better, it could be worse." Finally, one week after the Palestinians voted Hamas into office, the commander who holds direct responsibility for the security of southern Israel said: "With our departure from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians were given the chance to choose a new path. Instead of fighting, I hope that they will choose the path of hope and of fighting terror." What Galant's statements make clear is that in its post-withdrawal operations against Palestinian attacks, the IDF is simply ignoring its duty to secure the country. Galant's basic message last Thursday was that rather than do its job or admit that in the absence of ground forces in Gaza it cannot do its job, the IDF excuses its failure to protect the country with hollow and pathetic political slogans. Most depressingly, the IDF does this with the full expectation that the Israeli public will not notice the fact that our army is unable or unwilling to uphold its basic obligation to the nation. In an interview Wednesday with the Ynet Web site, a high-ranking officer in Central Command said that over the past year the IDF had prevented 10 Palestinian shooting attacks on Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood. He also revealed that Palestinians in the Bethlehem district possess mortars. The officer seemed to be using his interview as a way to beg the government and his commanders not to take away his forces' freedom of activity in the Bethlehem district. In his words, "There is a threat of gunfire attacks on Gilo, but we have an effective answer to that threat as long as we retain the freedom to act and collect intelligence in Bethlehem. Today we have freedom of action in the city, but there are mortars moving around in Bethlehem. There are attempts to transfer know-how, attempts to transfer missiles. We also see attempts to connect the area to northern Samaria and Gaza, and by that I mean in terms of weaponry, know-how and personnel." Yet, in seeming disregard to this rising terror threat, the officer said the IDF's major activities in 2006 in the Bethlehem-Gush Etzion area would center around two issues: the construction of the security fence against the backdrop of both Arab and Jewish opposition to the project; and contending with the Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority. It was difficult not to despair after reading that officer's interview. There are mortars at the gates of Jerusalem and the IDF has made guarding a fence its first priority for 2006. It seemed apparent from his remarks that this commander himself is aware of the absurdity of the IDF's operational priorities. It is not the army's job to guard fences. The army's duty is to secure the state and its citizens. Against the emerging mortar and rocket threat to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv from Hamas-ruled Judea and Samaria -- a threat that this officer claims finds its origins in the territories the IDF vacated last summer -- what this officer most fears is that he will be ordered to retreat. The officer's conflation of Israeli and Palestinian opponents of the security fence around Gush Etzion echoes the statements made by OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh after the violent clashes between police and civilians at Amona two weeks ago. There Naveh drew parallels between the Jewish protesters and Palestinian terrorists who fight IDF forces in Palestinian cities. Both officers' statements expose a deep confusion about the role of the IDF. Last week, a US Army commander, who observed the events in Amona from afar, shared with me his deep concern for the future of the IDF. In his words, "The Israeli army will not be able to survive as an effective fighting force if it continues to place itself in the middle of the mainstream political debate in Israel. It cannot survive if it allows itself to confuse the Israeli public with Israel's enemies." At the same time as they confuse the government's political opposition with Israel's enemies, IDF commanders also actively deny the threat Israel's enemies constitute for the country. On Tuesday, in his first appearance before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, incoming OC Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said Hamas was now trying to decide whether it would form a moderate or radical government. He added that the key question was whether Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas would restrain Hamas by forming a dictatorial government, or whether he would attempt to reach agreements with Hamas as had been his wont until now. In so relating to the Hamas takeover of the PA, Yadlin echoed statements by other IDF commanders and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz regarding the possibility of separating the Hamas government from Palestinian society. By framing Israel's strategic predicament in this fashion, IDF commanders are making it all but impossible for the public to recognize the fact that it is not just terrorist organizations that are waging this war against the country. Palestinian society as a whole is warring against Israel. That was the message of the Palestinian elections, which brought Hamas to power. And so the question of what sort of government Hamas will form and what Abbas's relationship to that government will be is strategically irrelevant. Perhaps the most remarkable recent example of the confusion that has plagued the IDF since the withdrawal from Gaza was the joint press conference Mofaz held with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz on Monday. The two heads of Israel's defense establishment announced that they were cutting the length of compulsory military service for male IDF conscripts from 36 months to 28-32 months. It should be recalled that in August 2000, as IDF chief of General Staff, Mofaz gave the same announcement at a press conference with then prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak. The next month the Palestinians launched their terror war. Given the precedent, the beginning of the next big round of the Palestinian terror war may be set to begin next month. The fact that the Palestinian war is a societal war that threatens the existence of Israel was given disturbing expression on Wednesday when the heads of the Israeli Arab political parties announced in a press conference that that they were unifying their Knesset lists in an alliance against the "Zionist political parties." Ibrahim Sarsour, the head of the Islamic Movement's southern branch, who now heads the unified list, declared unabashedly that the Israeli Arab public supports the Palestinian and global jihad forces working to destroy Israel and take over the Western world. In his words: "The entire Arab public, but especially the Muslim public, is in the crosshairs. It is the target of a global attack. As the Islamic Movement, we wish to see the establishment of the Islamic caliphate without borders, and this is what scares the West." Sarsour applauded the Palestinians for electing Hamas, saying: "The Palestinian people did not choose the Hamas movement in order to add another tragedy to the tragedies it has already undergone, but in order to reap achievements." The threats Israel faces, as a frontline state in the global jihad are exacerbated with every retreat and statement of defeatism by Israeli political leaders and military commanders. To surmount these threats, Israel needs an army that is capable of contending with the reality of war that characterizes our times. Over the past year and a half, the government has forced the IDF to occupy itself with missions that are unrelated or counterproductive to its core duty of defending the country and its citizens. The removal of its forces from Gaza last summer has made the IDF's duty to secure southern Israel impossible to fulfill. But rather than admit that the limitations the government has placed on its operations have made it impossible for the military to defend the country, IDF commanders take sides in political disputes and make excuses for their failures. There can be little doubt that the withdrawal from Gaza had a terrible impact on the IDF. It can only be hoped that the General Staff will pull itself together and face reality before the next round of war begins so that it can adequately prepare our soldiers and our society for the challenges that await us. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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IS GEORGETOWN U INDEPENDENT?; CHIEF LESSON OF HAMAS VICTORY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 20, 2006. |
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STATE DEPT. ON THE CARTOONS The State Dept. called the cartoons "unacceptable." The Temporary Intl. Presence in Hebron, consisting largely of Scandinavians, withdrew from Hebron under assault by a Muslim Arab mob. TIPH was formed to observe and report on tensions in Hebron between Muslims and Jews (NY Sun, 2/9. p.1 & 6). Note the Muslim prejudice in attacking TIPH observers merely because they come from the same area as the cartoonists. The TIPH observers did not draw the cartoons. Ironically, TIPH has taken the side of Arab mobs rampaging against Jews, and tried to block IDF action against terrorists. Are the Scandinavians realizing that they and the Jews have a common enemy in Islam, one that blames whole countries for grievances against a few individuals, or which tries to get its way by general extortion? Why "unacceptable"? What does the State Dept. find incorrect about them -- their point is that Muslims justify terrorism as sanctioned by their religion. Most Muslims concur or acquiesce to that. How can they object when targets of terrorism criticize that religious sanction? The State Dept. would deny anyone a serious discussion of the effects of Islam upon non-believers. Are Muslim cartoons against Judaism acceptable? The cartoonists may have done the West a service. They initiated a chain of events that show how prejudiced and violent Muslims are, not fit for Western society. True, some Muslim states may have orchestrated protests. Even so, the ability to rouse the Muslim rabble into violent mobs demonstrates their vicious character. ISRAELIS DE-POLARIZE Secular socialists and religious settlers held a meeting in Hebron to express solidarity with the Hebron Jews (religious) whom the government is expelling from Jewish-owned property that the Arabs previously had confiscated. The meeting was most unusual, in convening two groups thought mutually antagonistic but who here jointly upheld the ethos of Zionist settlement in the homeland. Unfortunately, the event drew no reports from the major media (Judith Lash Balint, IMRA, 2/4). Why was it ignored? WHAT KIND OF A UNIVERSITY IS GEORGETOWN The President of Georgetown U. recently rejected a Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) call to divest from Israel, but the university agreed to host PSM's conference. The prior conferences exhorted to hatred against Israel, although the university code forbids campus events that promote hatred. PSM also promotes a boycott of Israel, which contravenes federal law. Georgetown recently accepted a huge gift from a Saudi prince. Is Georgetown U. beholden to hostile foreign interests? (ZOA in IMRA, 2/4.) CHIEF LESSON OF HAMAS VICTORY The US promotes P.A. statehood. Statehood would facilitate Hamas assaults on Israeli survival. The Hamas victory in the P.A. proves the futility of the "two-state solution." Since Hamas is being promoted by Iran, the P.A. also poses a danger to the US. The Quartet nevertheless is continuing to subsidize the P.A.. Rice also is demanding that Israel continue subsiding it. Bush said that he would deal with Hamas, if it renounced violence, the way Fatah did. But Fatah's renunciation was duplicitous. It remained violent. Does this mean Bush would accept Hamas lying about it? (Yes, he would call that the powerful influence of democracy.) Bush has retreated on bringing democracy and peace to the Mideast. He now accepts elections, though such elections Islamicize rather than democratize. Israel pretends, despite Hamas' clear statement of hostile intent against Israel, that it can trade land and statehood for peace. Acting PM Olmert has taken up Hamas' cause against Israel, by launching a to dispossess the Jewish residents of Judea-Samaria. This armed struggle diverts attention from his failure to defend Israel from the P.A.. Israeli cities cannot be secure unless Israel controls the P.A. cities (IMRA, 2/4 from Caroline Glick). She means that otherwise, the P.A. bombards the Israeli cities. A RADICAL MOSQUE IN BRITAIN Britain just convicted Abu Hamza of several crimes of terrorism, including inciting to murder. The sentences were concurrent, so he is eligible for parole in a couple of years. Police found in his mosque chemical weapons protection suits, firearms and other weapons, false passports, and equipment used in terrorist training camps in England. The Islamist propaganda machine depicted his trial as a show trial and himself as a martyr (Daniel Johnson, NY Sun, 2/9, Op. Ed.). Islamists always defend the guilty. It's war! FREE SPEECH IN ISRAEL Jewish leftists and terrorists may endorse terrorism and antisemitism. That is their right of free speech. Other Jews may not criticize Oslo without risking arrest for "incitement." They may not attend a protest against government uprooting of Jews from Judea-Samaria without risking having their skulls cracked by government police. For that there is no freedom of assembly. Thus MK Bishara, who committed such treasonous illegalities as going to Syria to praise Hizbullah, which attacks Israel, was cleared by the Chief Justice as merely performing his Knesset duties. It is a new definition of Knesset duties. The Attorney-General recommended prosecuting for racism the Rabbi of Safed, who complained about Jewish women being held captive in Arab villages (which is true) and who complained, after an Arab student cooperated with terrorism in Safed, that perhaps Arab students should not be admitted (Prof. Steven Plaut, 2/4). W. EUROPE STILL DOESN'T GET IT Iran constantly is threatening to resume its nuclear program and annihilate Israel, and denies the Holocaust. It is building missiles to reach Europe. Nevertheless, European governments think they can dissuade that fanatical state from completing its development of nuclear weapons. France, Britain, and Germany eschew the use of force. The question is not whether to use force against Iran, but when. It's not that Europeans are shortsighted, but that their leaders are. A large majority in France approves of military action. 51% of Austrians do. In Britain and Germany, 49% and 46% do, which is more than the number disapproving. Half the Europeans know about Iran's inflammatory statements. When will their governments realize what most of their people do, and give the US a green light and help it? (NY Sun, 2/9, Ed..) Having suffered from the wrongful use of force, Europe won't exercise the rightful use of force. Having come to feel guilty over imposing upon the Third World, Europe allows the Third World to impose on it. Europe suffers the inertia of an ideology that, once set in motion, tends to stay in motion. IRONY IN DENMARK It is a sad irony that this small country of 5.2 million -- which has welcomed over 200,000 Muslim immigrants -- should become a flashpoint for intolerant Islam. The tolerant become the victims of the intolerant. Denmark needs to be bolstered by Western solidarity against the anti-Western jihad. Unfortunately, "Many American newspapers and some television networks have declined to publish the 'offending' cartoons, thereby playing into the hands of the rioters." Actually, the dozen cartoons about Muhammad mostly were not anti-Muslim or anti-Muhammad. The two most prominent ones could be seen as such, though they were true to life. The others were neutral or positive. Some did not portray Muhammad (John P. Avlon, Cal Thomas, and Hillel Halkin, NY Sun, 2/7, Op. Ed.). Ironic. The Muslims are not being rational about this. Their leaders don't want to be. They resent having been eclipsed by the West for several centuries, after having had a superior civilization. "The people of the East are waiting for an avenger, not a savior." "Furthermore, radicalism is being actively bankrolled, and its message disseminated by advancing technology. Today, with chat rooms and text messaging, mobs can be coordinated and incited to riot after watching inflammatory images on Saudi-owned satellite channels." (Nibras Kazimi, NY Sun, 2/8, Op. Ed..) When will people, Muslims and Westerners, realize they are being manipulated, and stop being so credulous? Those who manipulate them harm them more than the ostensible enemy. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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ISLAM'S MARCH AGAINST THE WEST
Posted by Gary S., February 20, 2006. |
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This was excerpted from a speech given by Brigitte Gabriel at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC,, February 18, 2006. It can be viewed at www.intelligencesummit.org/speakers/BrigitteGabriel.php Brigitte Gabriel is an expert on the Middle East conflict and lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She's the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television and the founder of American Congress for Truth.com. Brigitte Gabriel is the author of a forthcoming book on the same subject to be published by St. Martin's Press later in 2006. We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The west has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah. I was ten years old when my home exploded around me burying me under the rebel drinking my blood to survive as the perpetrators shouted Allah Akbar. My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. I learned at 10 years old the meaning of the word "infidel." I had a crash course in survival not in girl scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of thirteen I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night waiting to be slaughtered and by the age of 20 I had buried most of my friends who were killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London, we were Arab Christians living in Lebanon. As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12th 2001 asking themselves "Why do they hate us?" The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World? If America and the west were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to even ask the question. Simply put, they hate me and you because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word, "infidels." Under the banner of Islam "la, ilaha illa allah, muhammad rasoulu allah," there is no God but Allah, Muhammad is his prophet, they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews out of Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then and for their indifference and shortsightedness infidels worldwide are paying the price now. Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection, it earns disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Apathy is the weapon by which the west is committing suicide. Political correctness is the shackles around our ankles by which Islamists are leading us to our demise. America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy. Islam. You hear about Wahabbi and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims are wonderful moderates. I hope the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence from around the world in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed from burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, or to warnings to be prepared for the real holocaust, has given you a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. The news pictures and video of these events represents a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source. Authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared "Intifada" on the West. America and the west can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body and if they don't take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world. This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering human basic instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors, and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature, life in society is ever capable of giving them. The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamists' deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran Hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam. America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must "engage" our terrorist enemies, that we must "address their grievances". Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are. Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever it raised its ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization. If we don't wake up and challenge our Muslims community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don't believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our shortsighted delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America's learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect. Contact Gary S. by email at ahavat@telkomsa.net |
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O HAPPY DAY!
Posted by Eugene Narrett, February 19, 2006. |
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Some of us keep looking at the photo of the dais at the United Nations on November 29th when they unveiled that map of "Palestine" in all the area west of the Jordan where Israel used to be. There was the "Palestinian" flag. There was his excellence, that distinguished humanitarian, Kofi Anan. There was yet another example of one of the many things that make that organization of dictators, drug dealers and slave traders stink in the face of heaven, and in our faces too, we Americans who have paid so much for it, and not just with money. And we have surrendered so much valuable real estate to the vilify Israel-and-America crowd. The gang that for decades has done so much to legitimize the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel which literally has become the writing on its wall... So let us propose a plan that removes a giant negative and replaces it with numerous positive, lovely, and constructive intiatiatives: ladies & gentlemen, the re-cycling of the UN. 1) Some of you can picture all those lovely town houses on Fifth Avenue facing the Park, and in the east fifties and sixties. Those lovely and very, very expensive town houses now occupied by "diplomats" with immunity from most American laws, living off American taxpayers and stealing urgently needed revenues from the City and State of New York. How's about we expel ALL these diplomats (they like expulsions, right!! Expelling Jews made even Ariel Sharon their hero, -- for one day); we will expel ALL those diplomats, escort them to the piers or JFK and see them off with prejudice. Hit the road, Jaques and Jillio, get lost. The UN is done on these shores... Now those lovely dwellings wil be filled with Americans paying taxes and using services in good old New York while the globocrats take their arrogance where it will be appreciated: Brussels, maybe, or Teheran, just in time for a date with destiny... 2) The UN and its plaza are evacuated. Engineers place contact charges on all the lower levels & on every supporting beam. Implosion time! Every single crumb of this rubble will be disinfected and recylcled. Let's ship it down to N'awrleans and build that dear suffering city a beautiful, state-of-the-art breakwater. That's called bringing good from evil. 3) The beautiful and cleaned up open space now available to the people of New York and all Americans will be landscaped with grass, flowering trees, perennial flowers, fountains, lawns for kids to run; a boat basin with low cost sailing down to the harbor for sightseeing, a splendid enhancement of life in the city. The tall ships will visit once per year. We'll add an annex of the Museum of the city of NY and include a diorama of several victories from the American Revolution. The air will be sweet, the views lovely, the space graciously welcome. The joyous sounds of young and old will be heard where once entitled gangsters ranted and condemned American and worked to destroy the Jewish people. O HAPPY DAY! Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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HOW MANY ISLAMIC "EXTREMISTS" SEEK TO DESTROY THE UNITED STATES,
ISRAEL AND OTHER WESTERN DEMOCRACIES?
Posted by Dr. Steve Carol, February 19, 2006. |
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The recent rioting, burnings and murders throughout the Muslim world in reaction to 12 cartoons plus three additional more inflammatory pictures inserted by Muslim clerics themselves, have shocked the world. The numbers of participants in these acts of hatred and violence are staggering -- 40,000 rioted in Karachi, 70,000 in Peshawar, two cities in Pakistan, while tens of thousands with government encouragement and approval went on their destructive spree in Damascus, Syria, and Benghazi, Libya. The Muslim world would have us believe that there is only a tiny minority of Muslim extremists including their supporters -- maybe only 5 or 10 percent. The following are a list of percentages that may be Islamic extremists that believe in the literal teachin gs of the Koran and as such are a threat to us: (The total world Muslim population is estimated at between 1.3 and 1.5 billion.)
These are sobering numbers. Let us not forget that every "victory" by the Islamofascists, be it from American and European newspapers concern over printing the actual cartoons for fear of reprisals, to the killing of American and European hostages,and the unilateral Israeli retreat from Gaza. This is hailed throughout the Arab/Muslim world as "proof" that terrorism pays. The greater their achievements, the more followers will stream to their Islamofascist cause. Think of the following: How many Nazis and other fascists there were in Europe in early 1924, after Hitler's failed Munich Beer Hall putsch? How many in 1933 when Hitler came to power? How many Europe-wide in the summer of 1941 at the high tide mark of Nazism/Fascism? And then how many in June 1945 after the defeat of Germany. We had to battle them, and we almost waited too long. We prevailed at a steep price in men and material. We did not kill all of them. We did not have to kill all of them. The "followers" no longer followed for we had defeated the core of their ideology. Similarly we have to defeat the core of the Islamofascist movement and plant the seed of change -- change by them, from within --- which will take time -- years, decades or longer. There is no other course since appeasement, which only incurs more terrorism, has not worked. Retreat to "Fortress America " wasn't realistic in 1941. It is even less so, dangerously foolhardy, today. Every victory against the true Western democracies will bring the Islamofascists millions more "volunteers." Continued acquiescence and appeasement by the West will only make a postponed confrontation all the more costly for us in the future. No matter what the percentage of Islamofascists, they are a mortal threat to the Western democracies. Dr. Steve Carol is Prof. of History (retired), Senior Fellow Center for Advanced Middle East Studies (www.cames.ws) and Official Historian, Middle East Radio Forum, (www.middleeastradioforum.org), in Scottsdale, Arizona. |
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THE SCAPEGOAT APPETIZER
Posted by Women in Green, February 19, 2006. |
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This was written by Sarah Honig and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post, February 2006. Doha-based Egyptian-born Yusuf al-Qaradawi is one of Islam's most popular and influential clerics. His al-Jazeera program, Shari'a and Life, made him a household preacher in the Arabic-speaking world. A self-proclaimed moderate, he only condones suicide-bombings against Israelis (of all ages and genders, maintaining that there are no innocent non-combatants among them). Indeed, many of his conservative co-religionists have condemned him in fiery oratory for being too soft on the West. Nevertheless, like fellow Muslim scholars, Qaradawi is outraged by what he perceives as European hypocrisy in the Danish cartoons brouhaha. He acknowledges that "the Danes say they can ridicule Jesus and his mother, but can they ridicule Jews?" he demands, "Nobody even has the right to question the number of Holocaust victims." Qaradawi's acid test for true liberality is Holocaust denial. Whoever doesn't sanction erasing the memory of slaughtered Jews cannot claim the credentials of impartiality and unprejudiced intellectual integrity. It'd be tempting to dismiss this as fanatical in-house Muslim rhetoric, were there not very fertile receptors for Qaradawi's rationale in -- of all places -- embattled Europe, which ostensibly these days upholds the intrinsic values of tolerant pluralistic civilization. Yet precisely those who now find themselves attacked by militant Islam -- the very ones from whom Jews might belatedly expect greater understanding, if not actual empathy -- succumb to Qaradawi's logic whereby true neutrality hinges on espousing the crudest of anti-Jewish dialectics (though the compulsion to rewrite Holocaust history or draw propagandistic analogies thereto belie claims that this is merely justifiable criticism of Israeli policies). The notion that Arab/Muslim grievances (as numerous as Arabs'/Muslims' failed attempts to aggressively get their way) must be redressed or balanced by Jew-bashing has become near axiomatic in cosmopolitan European discourse. Examples abound. As the Danish cartoons furor inflamed Muslim passions worldwide, BBC HARDtalk presenter Stephen Sackur grilled Flemming Rose -- the since-suspended culture editor of Jyllands-Posten which printed the controversial cartoons -- to discover whether he's limitlessly broadminded, or whether his publication policy isn't as libertarian as professed. "Would you portray a rabbi as a Nazi after Israelis killed Palestinians?" Sackur pressed. Valiant Rose immediately rose to the challenge: "Last December we printed a cartoon depicting Sharon killing Palestinian children." The fact that Sharon never ordered the slaying of Palestinian kids appeared entirely beside the point. The fact that the only tots deliberately targeted are Jewish (Qaradawi, revered by Hamas, permitted suicide-bombers to blow up Israeli youngsters) was even further from attention. EUROPEAN SATIRISTS never take up the cause of underaged Jewish terror victims. Even Jews in baby strollers somehow have it coming and deserve no bon-ton compassion. Slandering Jews as sinister, hook-nosed Hitlerite practitioners of infanticide, a la medieval blood libels, is their hallmark of enlightened objectivity. Rose courageously resisted submission to taboos Muslims sought to impose on his culture. The very notion that the whole world must abide by Muslim prohibitions is patently a form of theocratic imperialism. It assumes that there's only one overriding truth and all else is heresy. It's as if Muslims would one day order all Western women to wear the hijab or risk violence for offending Muslim sensibilities. But the fact that even Rose assumed he evinces evenhandedness by slandering Jews should send chills down our spines. For Sackur, however, Rose's self-vindication was insufficient. He wouldn't let go the rabbi-as-Nazi imagery. Sackur's seeming premise was that any alleged injustice to Muslims must be corrected via injustice to Jewish scapegoats. By this yardstick, Iran's Holocaust-lampooning caricature competition (which Rose considered featuring) and obviously its nuclear ambitions are proper tit-for-tat. Sackur could claim his Nazi/rabbi correlation was mere provocative illustration to expose Rose's bias. Yet he dragged Jews into an extraneous issue. Sackur made (and repeatedly emphasized) a symptomatic and superfluous suggestive association, intimating to impressionable audiences that it's unfair if Jews too aren't denigrated. Sackur doesn't anyway deserve the benefit of our doubt. During his two-year stint as the BBC's Mideast correspondent, he was consistently tendentious. "Thirty years after Israel's military conquest," pontificated Sackur on June 5, 1997, characterizing Israel's self-defense as land-grabbing adventurism, "we returned with Muhammad Burkan to the Jerusalem house he owned before 1967. Now a Jewish family lives there?" Sackur failed to mention -- or perhaps didn't bother to check - that Burkan never owned said property and lost all appeals to Israel's exceedingly accommodating and solicitous courts. In 2002 Sackur took on America's Jewish lobby, painting it as a dark force that holds the hapless White House captive in its inextricable grip -- shades of Protocols -- vintage conspiracy libels. Sackur's predecessor at HARDtalk, Tim Sebastian, lately chairs another BBC offering, The Doha Debates, spotlighting the Arab media. The day Sackur harped on Nazi-rabbis, Sebastian's panelists argued vehemently about who's culpable for lack of adequate international animosity towards Israel and awareness of "Zionist crimes." The failure of articulate and analytical Arab journalists to wonder whether they aren't abetting calumny and aren't themselves fed a load of lies didn't move a muscle on Sebastian's otherwise expressive face. Nearby, enjoying the same Qatari city's hospitality, Qaradawi must be having a wry last laugh as his "beat-the-Jew" motif resonates from oil-rich Doha's explicitness to oil-dependent Europe's subtext. The sacrifice he demands of another Jewish scapegoat is just an appetizer. He wants more. Islam, he declares, "is poised to take over the world. The harbinger of Islamic triumph will be the conquest of Rumia" - a.k.a. Rome. "Islam will return to Europe as the victorious conqueror, after having been twice ousted from it." Remember: Qaradawi is a relative moderate. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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FINDING OCCASIONS TO RIOT
Posted by Deena Drosh, February 19, 2006. |
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Jews enjoy occasions for getting together and hanging loose like everyone else. So let me list some excellent situations that can serve as the occasion for a riotous time. 1. Sears Roback had a happy TV ad about a one-day sale JUST on Saturday. Here I've been waiting for months to buy a new dishwashing machine and now I can't. It's infuriating and insulting. Now I'll have to get along with a temperamental machine that is too honest for its own good -- the dishes come out with the same amount of dirt they had going in. Or I'll have to buy another one on a weekday and that will be costly. I've been discriminated against! So let's go partying, folks, in front of their store! 2. I just got a kosher alert. Seems there's a sneaky snacks company that has a kosher certificate for their chips, but not for their nuts-pretzel mix. So what did the insensitive dastards do? They packaged them together. First, it's wasteful -- we have to throw out the other package. Or even worse, chas v'halila some one will assume they are both kosher and serve them to innocent children! I don't know whether to sue them on my own, or make it a class action suit. Maybe I'll just threaten to sue them. If that doesn't scare them the first time, it will the next. 3. Now everyone knows that when there's just a K on the box, it isn't from one of the known certification groups like O-U or Kof-K. It's from a private rabbi. So you'd think the company would take some care to make sure the rabbi they use is trustworthy. After all, we aren't always in a position to check out the information. Take the time I ran out of jam in the middle of a baking session. I ran to the grocery and they were all out of the jam I needed, except for some new brand that just had a K on it. What was I to do? There was no good solution. Make something other that what I'd promised -- and disappoint the kids? Use the jam and hope for the best? Drive to the next grocery in the middle of rush hour? It was maddening, and I'm sure it took years off my life. I ended up driving, got sideswiped by a SUV driven by a dwarf lady who was busy yelling at her son, needed a new body part for the car and never got back to the baking, resulting in some very disappointed kids. And all this happened because I couldn't rely on the people who produce our jam. We must demand more consideration from companies that purport to be putting out acceptably kosher products. Rioting isn't practical -- I don't know enough people in the area who would go stand in front of their manufacturing plant. Maybe I'll go burn some carts in front of the grocery so they will know how irate I am. Come join me. Getting exercised is good exercise. 4. Yesterday, my kid came back from school with a D in gym -- he was hiding out in the locker room reading another one of his crazy sci-fi books. A D! A First. This isn't what we meant when we said he should come in first. He didn't deserve a D. He was just desperate and frustrated. He was too busy to practice these high swing and jump thingamagigs. Then they said he had to do it or take gym class another whole semester! So naturally, he revolted. It's all the school's fault -- seems they'd rather have a dummy with big muscles, some biceritops tyrannosaurus, than a mathematician for the space age. We've got to show them the error of their ways. I suggest we get together and set the gym on fire. What say? 5. The local county council has absolutely no consideration. We live on a quiet street, but if I want take the kids to the park on the Sabbath, I need to cross this wide avenue and there's always cars going by. To make them stop, I'd have to push a button. Now, that's impossible. I've written the council twice, politely asking that they make the traffic light automatic. And they keep telling me it doesn't affect enough people. So enough already, enough Mrs Nice Girly. My gloves are off. I am going to have Shmueli's birthday party in front of the new council building and have a new and exciting game for the kiddies -- a genuine rock and roll session. First prize will go to the tyke who hit the most windows. Second prize to the kid who can throw the biggest rock. Candy and cake and prizes for all. I must remember to ask the parents for the correct spelling of their names. After all, it won't be fun unless the TV and newspaper people are invited. 6. I finally found the lemon-raspberry sauce I've been looking for -- who has time to make it. And it turns out it is not kosher. The manufacturers tell you this in the text describing what sounds like a wonderful sauce. That's insulting. It's deliberate discrimination. They use simple ingredients. All they have to do is get one of the certification groups to check it out. And they don't care enough to do that. I am going to get all my friends to write letters. That won't work? I know that. They'll just ignore it. But not when we show up in front of the distributer with dozens of carts filled with these letters (and maybe the last few weeks of the junk mail that fills my mailbox). I can't decide whether the signs our spontaneous group will carry should be lemon-colored or in raspberry. Decisions! decisions! decisions! 7. My street is quiet, except of course after 3 in the afternoon, when crazy teenagers see how fast they can zoom up the street. I have asked and asked and asked for the county to install a camera to stop this racing before some kid on his bike is killed. But no, they haven't. They say they don't have the money, there isn't enough traffic, no one else has asked -- you know, all the lazy excuses. They just plain don't care about us. So I am going to change their minds. We pay our taxes just like anyone else. I'm going to buy my neighbors' kids bows and arrows and teach them to aim at tires. That will fix the problem in no time. Nobody is going to mess with us. 8. I noticed when I went to the school about Shmueli's D in gym that several children were wearing large crosses. I am thinking that this might be a violation of the separation of church and state. It's true that Shmueli wears a magan david, but after all, where would the western moral structure be without the Torah? I'm still deciding what to do? Maybe I can get them to erase the D in return for not complaining about the crosses. You think this is unethical? Unethical in the service of ethical is never unethical. So there. So you see, friends and neighbors and coreligionists, it's simple to turn almost any minor aggravation into a major cause for having a riot of a time. Have fun. |
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OLMERT'S WAR AGAINST THE SETTLERS
Posted by Shaul and Aviva Ceder, February 19, 2006. |
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This is called "Olmert's War against the settlers" and is by Fern Sidman. It was recently reported that Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert directed Israeli forces to use extreme violence against Jewish protestors during last week's televised evacuation and demolition of Jewish homes in Amona. According to WorldNetDaily.com a top official in Olmert's Kadima party divulged this information. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, routinely serves as an Olmert advisor on international issues, has charged that Olmert ordered the violence as a tactic to win votes from leftist Israelis by demonstrating that he is capable of withdrawing Jews from Judea and Samaria. "The extreme television images last week of settlers being brutalized was what Olmert needed. He knows he lost the right-wing voters to Likud and the nationalist parties. He has the center voters. Now he is trying to attract votes from Israelis on the left who strongly oppose the settlements," the unnamed official said. MK Benny Elon said, "Olmert is not a military man. He doesn't have a strong defense background like Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who everyone knows can get tough. So Olmert's public relations people told him he needs to act macho against the settlers ahead of the elections to prove to them he can push through what the extreme leftists want, a West Bank evacuation." It was also recently reported that the Yassamniks and Israeli police sexually abused young Jewish settler girls. According to direct testimony, the girls said the police called them prostitutes, threatened to rape them and touched their private parts. Older women as well have said that police groped their bodies. "Police officers rubbed up against us and touched our chest and intimate body parts. They used dirty words while doing it. One policeman said: 'Come, I'll screw you'... We felt like we were being raped." (The testimony of a girl in Amona) It is clear that Mr. Olmert was responsible for the approval of this heinous brutality and humiliation of the settlers. It is clear that in order to ensure a political victory for himself, he is willing to destroy the entire settler movement. He has referred to the settlers as the "Jewish Hamas". He is willing to use the blood of Jewish children in order to capture votes. The actions of the Olmert government are an egregious usurption of the basic civil rights of the settlers. It is not surprising that Olmert has refused to open up an investigation into the police brutality in Amona. If all the facts were to surface it would clearly indict him of government sponsored violence of against a segment of the population. It is also clear that many agree with Olmert's policy of making further territorial concessions to the Arab enemy. It is also clear that the Olmert government possesses self-destructive predilections. Case in point is the recent government decision to hand over $55 million in excise tax revenues to the PA, which will be controlled by Hamas. Olmert's vitriolic rhetoric and actions against the settler movement is going to escalate. His vituperative should be a clarion call for Jews to wake up and voice their outrage and indignation at this latest attack on righteous Jews. The demonstration in Jerusalem in which over 100,000 people attended, testifies to the strength of the settler movement. There must be many, many more demonstrations of this kind. We must put relentless pressure on the Olmert government to proceed with this investigation into the police brutality at Amona. We must demand that! those responsible for this despicable abuse be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This must include government officials as well, Mr. Olmert notwithstanding. We must encourage our Jewish youth to learn to defend themselves against this Nazi style police violence, for surely such incidents of this kind are bound to happen again. We must display our support and succor to those who refuse to acquiesce to the totalitarian rule of the Israeli government. Mr. Olmert has drawn up the battle lines. It is a battle between good and evil, between the holy and the profane. May the G-d of Israel protect us, shield us and strengthen us for the protracted battles that lie ahead. Contact Shaul and Aviva Ceder at ceder@netvision.net.il |
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THE DANES PROTEST
Posted by Max Yas, February 18, 2006. |
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One by one the Western democracies caved in. Abandoned by their European "friends" the Danes value their freedom above their long - term need for oil. FROM A.P. 17/02/06, Peshawar, Pakistan: A Pakistani cleric announced a US$1-million for killing a cartoonist who drew the Prophet Muhammad. Denmark announced the temporary closed its embassy in Pakistan. In Bengazi, Lybia: A demonstration against caricatures left the Italian consulate on fire and at least nine people dead, an Italian diplomat said. This article is called "The Danes protest" and is from the Brussels Journal. Send your comments to the Editor -- at http://www.brusselsjournal.com Shalom from Max The capitulation by America and Europe over the Danish cartoons has provoked a remarkable protest by one of the journalists on Jyllands-Posten, Per Nyholm, a translation of which appears on the Brussels Journal website. How many times lately have we not heard people of power, the opinion makers and others say that of course we have freedom of speech, BUT. They have said it, all of them, from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, to our own Bendt Bendtsen [a Danish Politician]. Once we had to be sensitive to the easily hurt feelings of the Nazis, then came the Communists, now it is the Islamists. The reason I say "Islamists" is that I do not for a moment believe all the world's Muslims are spitting on us. I think we are dealing with thugs, fools and misled people. Those are the ones we have to deal with, and then the chickenlivered politicians. The cartoons are no longer something Jyllands-Posten can control. They have already been manipulated and misrepresented to the point that few know what is going on and fewer know how to stop it. This affair is artificially being kept buoyant in a sea of lies, suppressions of the truth, misconceptions, lunacy and hypocrisy, for which this newspaper bears no blame. The only thing Jyllands-Posten did was provide a pin-prick which has made a boil of nastiness erupt. This would have happened sooner or later. That it happened more than four months after the publication of the cartoons, raises a question of its own. Are we dealing with random events or with a staged clash of civilizations? One might hope for the former yet be prepared to expect the latter. That is why I say: freedom of speech is freedom of speech is freedom of speech. There is no but. Initially I was doubtful of the timeliness of publishing the cartoons. Later events have convinced me that it was both just and useful to do so. That they are consistent with Danish law and Danish custom seem to me less important than this: that we now know that remote, primitive countries deem themselves justified in telling us what to do. Unfortunately we must also note that governments close to us are agreeing with them in the name of expedience. It was right and just for this newspaper to launch an offensive for freedom of speech, and useful, as we have now acquired new knowledge. Welcome to a brave new world where even our Prime Minister-- in spite of his laudable firmness--must gaze out upon a scorched political landscape. True, his friend in Washington, George Bush, has uttered the customary condemnation of the torching of our embassies, but his State Department alludes to us as being the guilty ones in this case. The suggestion that Danish troops might contribute to democratization is buried under the charred remains of our diplomatic representations in Beirut and Damascus. Perhaps it is time we started mopping up this mess. Perhaps Editor-in-Chief Carsten Juste ought to remove his apology which has gone stale sitting so long on the front page of our internet edition and which does not seem to interest the madmen. Perhaps our government ought to announce to Mona Omar Attia, the strange Ambassador of Egypt, that she is persona non grata. Perhaps the ambassadors that have been called home to fictitious consultations in the Middle East should be told that they may spare themselves the cost of the return ticket. Insofar as possible, the Lying Imams probably ought to be expelled. And then we ought to make an effort to support those Muslims who in a difficult situation have proven themselves to be true citizens. We, for our part, have no wish to be a burden to the Arab governments. We will happily withdraw our soldiers, policemen and diplomats. If they think our money smells, we will retract our aid. Our trade must make do as well as it can. We promise to not bear a grudge and, in time, we will be glad to return, but we are through with the hypocrisy. We have better things to do than being spat upon at our own expense. Cut down our activities in the Middle East. The world holds plenty of other opportunities. Max Yas can be contacted by email at maxyas@victoria.tc.ca |
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OLEG CARTOON: ANTI-JEWISH CARTOONS OK
Posted by Women in Green, February 18, 2006. |
Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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LE PEN AND MOSLEMS AGAINST JEWS, ISRAEL, AMERICA
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 17, 2006. |
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Tough times ahead for the Jews of France. Le Pen openly hates Jews. All too many Moslems openly hate Jews. So Le Pen and those Moslems hate Jews and are therefore natural allies against Jews, Israel and America. Note especially paragraph 4: "The Islamicization of France is largely a fait accompli". Who's next? This article is from the February 17, 2006 Edition and is entitled "France's Le Pen To Strike a Deal With Muslims." It is by Michel Gurfinkiel -- Special to the New York Sun -- and is archived at http://www.nysun.com/article/27822. It looks like a political oxymoron, but Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front is poised to strike an alliance with France's large immigrant Muslim community. A generation after France's right-wing party began its surge with a tough anti-immigration campaign tinged with both racism and anti-Semitism, three factors are coming into play that could spell a strategic realignment. These factors, which are still little grasped outside political circles in France but will have an enormous impact, include:
Mr. Le Pen's inner circle seems to have entertained such a strategy for quite a time. Back in 1999, Samuel Marechal, one of Mr. Le Pen's sons-in-law, stated that France was becoming "a multiethnic and multireligious society," and that "Islam was now France's second religion." This was greeted by an outcry among the Front's rank and file and Mr. Marechal had to step down from various positions. Still, he remained one of Mr. Le Pen's closest advisors. More recently, Jean-Claude Martinez, a National Front member of the European Parliament and Mr. Le Pen's "strategic adviser," has reiterated Mr. Marechal's challenge in a book issued under the improbable title "To all French citizens who may have voted for Le Pen if only once in their life." He argued that the National Front must adjust to globalization, forget about some of its founding myths, like "Joan of Arc fighting an alien invasion," and welcome immigrant blacks and Arabs into the national fold. He even expressed enthusiasm for black and Arab rap, as long as it is sung in French rather than English. This time there was no talk of disciplinary measures against the heretic. Various sources are now reporting that Mr. Martinez is supported by Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie's eldest daughter and heir apparent. During the 2005 riots, when even communist and socialist mayors were asking for police and even army deployment in the French urban communities, the National Front refrained from any active anti-immigrant or anti-Islamic campaigning. Over the last weeks, in the wake of the crisis over the Danish cartoons, the National Front has sided with Muslims in their claim that "religious sensibilities must be respected." "We have nothing against Islam as a religion," the National Front Federation of the Var county, in Southern France, stated earlier this month. Political analysts wonder how far the experiment can go. The real issue, many analysts say, is a schism within the French far right on who is the chief enemy. The National Front has always been a coalition of two very distinct political families: Neofascists, like Mr. Le Pen himself, and traditional, Christian right-wingers. Neofascists think Jews and Americans are the chief enemy, rather than Arabs and Muslims. In a way, they even tend to celebrate Arabs and Muslims as fellow fascists. As for Christian right-wingers, they see Arabs and Muslims as the chief enemy. For years, Mr. Le Pen has been pretending he is a Christian right-winger rather than a Neofascist and that resistance to Muslim immigration is his major concern. Now he has emerged on the side of the Neofascist branch and is ready to drop the anti-Muslim issue. The Christian right-wingers -- who may have provided more than 50% of the party activists and more than 50% of the voters -- are horrified, feel betrayed and have started deserting en masse. Many are turning to Philippe de Villiers, France's chief Eurosceptic, who is quickly reorganizing his own party, Mouvement Pour la France or MPF, into a nativist, Christian-minded, anti-Muslim group. According to the newspaper Liberation, the global National Front membership has dropped from 40,000 in the late 1990s to 20,000 in 2002 and to 12,000 in 2005. According to CSA, a polling institute, support for Mr. Le Pen among prospective voters has dropped to 9% in February from 11% in December and 12% in September. During the same period, MPF's support more than doubled to 7%. What remains to be seen is whether Le Pen will actually compensate the Christian right-wingers' hemorrhage with a substantial influx of Muslim supporters. Islamic leaders in France are advising their followers to act as "democratic and responsible citizens," i.e., to register as prospective voters and to enter as full-fledged activists into all major political parties, either right of left. Indeed, a reconstructed, Muslim-friendly National Front stands a good chance to win many of them. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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WHY DOES TOM FRIEDMAN LEGITIMIZE HAMAS?
posted by David Meir-Levi, February 17, 2006. |
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Tom Friedman's "Let Hamas Sink or Swim on its Own" (NY Times, 2.17.06) raises an interesting question. What is to be gained by legitimizing an apartheid, racist, genocidal religious party whose sole defining paradigm is terrorism, whose short term plan is the destruction of a sovereign state and whose long term plan is "Islam uber Alles"? (and if you think this is an unfair characterization, read their "Covenant"). Putin has much to gain from his decision to recognize Hamas and sell them weapons. This latest knife in America's back is of a piece with his promise to intervene if the USA makes moves against Iran in the UN. He gets enhanced status in the "hate America" world for snubbing America, gains greater influence in the Moslem world, paves the way for more lucrative multi-billion dollar deals like the ones he had in Iraq before Gulf War 2. And, maybe, if he is nice to Hamas, other Moslem terrorists will not savage innocent Russian civilians the way they did in Moscow and Beslan last year. France has pretty much the same to gain by support for Putin's stand. And, maybe the banlieux will be lest restive. Hugo Chavez is already host to some ten thousand Arab terrorists in the mountains bordering Colombia, and he has welcomed Iran's influence and money into Venezuela. No surprise, then that he recognizes Hamas and welcomes them into the family of nations. That cements his ties with Iran and casts him as another brave little guy who has the pluck to stand up and punch Uncle Sam in the eye. And Cuba follows suit... no surprise there. I wonder when Bolivia will pipe up with some pro-Hamas prose. The EU is a bit more circumspect, but completely candid in its warning to the USA: "Withholding money will lead to chaos... unemployed police will roam the streets behaving like armed gunmen". (so maybe better to give money to the armed gunmen before they start roaming?) "For us, it's going to be very difficult to sit by and not to do anything if the Palestinian people seem to be suffering from a blockade (Odd. That's what they do regarding every other country experiencing violence and oppression -- why is "Palestine" so special?). "Europeans don't want chaos in the Palestinian territories (and what has there been until now?)." (NY Times 2/17/06 "U.S. Digs In on Withholding Aid to Hamas Government", By Steven Weisman). Oil rich Moslem states share Hamas' short and long term plans. King Abdullah 2 of Jordan offered Hamas an official office in Amman, so they will have an alternative base of operations in Jordan, with direct access to the West Bank. This is no surprise when you consider that 75% of his country is Palestinian as is 60% of his Jordan Legion officer corps. Meanwhile, Hamas sponsors daily terror attacks against Israel, promises to kidnap Israelis to exchange for Hamas prisoners, declares a 3rd Intifada, links up with el-Qaeda bases in Sinai, imports el-Qeada cells to Gaza, re-enforces its long-standing links with Hezbollah, imports longer-range katyushas and anti-aircraft missiles; and every major Hamas leader re-iterates the Hamas credo summarized in their website video with the message: "We will not leave you alone until we quench ourselves with your blood and we will quench the thirst of our children with your blood. We will not rest until you leave the lands of the Muslims... By the life of Allah, we will destroy you. We will blow you up. We will take our revenge on you. We will purify our land of you, pigs, who have defiled our land. By the life of Allah, we will take our vengeance. We are carrying out this operation as harsh revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs (traditional Moslem epithet for Jews)." So it is easy to see what all of these countries and leaders gain by their legitimization of Hamas. But, what does Tom Friedman have to gain? David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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DETACHED FROM REALITY
Posted by Steven Shamrak, February 17, 2006. |
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Extracts from Netanyahu interview to Army Radio. "Olmert is detached from reality," Netanyahu told Army Radio today. "He did not see that his policy of free withdrawals led to the Hamas victory, and he did not foresee the firing of Kassams at Ashkelon, and he does not see the Hamas state that has arisen atop of Gush Dan [the greater Tel Aviv-Netanya area]." "...We have just undergone a veritable earthquake, with the rise of a fundamentalist-Islamic terrorist organization to power, giving it the ability to create another Iran right on our border -- and we just pass over it as if it were nothing." "Olmert reveals inexperience in his attempts to deal with a complex reality that can be dealt with. He allowed Hamas to vote in Jerusalem, gave it money, brought the partition wall closer to central Israel, and now, after the horses have run away, he wants to close the barn doors that he left open." (I just hope that Netanyahu in touch with the reality now and has learned from his mistakes. He was the one who gave up Hebron and perpetuated the Oslo war!) Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement. For the last few years, he has been publishing internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict -- independently, not as a member of any organization or political movement. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@mail2world.com |
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"SENSITIVITY TO RELIGION"; PRESSING ISRAEL TO DENUCLEARIZE; MUSLIM INDIGNATION
Posted by Richard Shulman, February 14, 2006. |
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"SENSITIVITY" TO RELIGION Western leaders defend freedom of press but urge press "sensitivity" to the feelings of Muslims. Western "artists" decorate the icons of Christianity and Judaism with animal waste products. Western leaders do not urge artists to be sensitive to the feelings of Christians and Jews; the media calls such artists brave. Why the double standard? Is it because Christians and Jews don't threaten to murder people, but Muslims do? (Or is it because Western leaders don't care about Christians and Jews but appease Muslims?) How brave are artists whom become enriched by the controversy and not penalized? The Danish newspaper that published the cartoons wanted to shake Danes out of their self-censorship about Islam. The Muslims are encroaching on Western self-rule by demanding multicultural "sensitivity" only for themselves. They have gotten Westerners to withdraw ads, TV shows, the English flag from prisons, etc.. We cannot tolerate having our societies become places in which we have to fear being murdered if we speak our minds (Mark Steyn, NY Sun, 2/6, Op. Ed.). We have allowed Muslims and their preachers into our society, and they have been imposing upon us their values antithetical to ours. They complain of oppression in France, but they are oppressing the French. The answer is to cast them out. It is an unusual answer, but the problem they create is an unusual one. The answers we have developed for previous problems do not apply to this one. We are not "nice" people for admitting Muslims into the West, when they strive to destroy its freedom. THE DECLINE OF THE ISRAELI ARMY Will Israeli youngsters, especially the religious ones who develop the best records in the Army, continue to volunteer? They saw the Army politicalized like the police and acting like thugs against their own people. They beat unarmed people mercilessly (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/3). SECURITY COUNCIL ON THE P.A. ELECTION Speaking for the Security Council, US Ambassador Bolton congratulated the P.A. for a fair election and Abbas for pledging to a "two-state solution via Road Map. It encouraged the incoming regime to help the people realize their aspiration for peace and statehood, and donor governments to help maintain fiscal stability (IMRA, 2/4). This is my first disappointment in Bolton. His statement was pretense. What good is a fair electoral contest between two terrorist groups" Abbas violates the Map and doesn't want two states but one, an Arab one. The Arabs don't want peace. Statehood would help them prosecute war, and fiscal stability would help them continue it. THE NEW STRUGGLE TO DE-NUCLEARIZE ISRAEL Egypt got the Intl. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to equate Israeli possession of nuclear weapons and missiles with Iran's acquisition of them. The IAEA head suggested one cannot allow some countries nuclear weapons and tell others they may not have them. Pres. Bush bolstered that point by suggesting that the US would defend Israel, if it gave up its nuclear option. Bush's expansiveness is not a treaty, and Israel never asked the US to defend it. Israel doesn't want to depend upon a protector, can't rely upon one, and would not be a valuable ally if it became a dependant. Iran is not just Israel's problem, as Iran's longer-range bombs and bombast make clear. Yes, one can tell rogue states such as Iran, which threaten to initiate war as soon as they get nuclear weapons, that they may not have them. One also may have confidence that Israel is responsible about any stockpile. Now Iran is likely to denounce steps against its nuclear facilities that didn't yet produce a bomb unless steps are taken first against Israel, for supposedly already having bombs (David Twersky, NY Sun, 2/6, Op. Ed.). Sec. Rice arranged this Security Council concession to the Arabs at Israel's expense without even consulting Israel. When is Israel going to argue back against the US for betrayal? Interesting, isn't it, that Pres. Bush (without authorization) promises the US would protect Israel in the same maneuver that the US betrays Israel! The US is backing down from opposition to jihad in various policies. The government of Israel is unaware of its own danger, lack of policy, and lack of a program to make that policy known and approved (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/4). The Arabs have larger conventional forces than Israel and larger forces of non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Given their unremitting wars on Israel, Israel needs nuclear weaponry as a deterrent. ISRAEL STOPS RETALIATING AGAINST ROCKETS "The government wants to prevent any escalation in the Palestinian arena, particularly before the Israeli elections," a military source said. "So, unless, there are serious injuries, we just don't respond to the Kassams." The Arabs have been firing rockets every night (IMRA, 2/4). One may interpret this policy as a combination of politics -- a pretense that there is no war or security problem -- with appeasement of the US, which usually objects to Israeli self-defense, though sometimes Pres. Bush states that self-defense is understandable. Nevertheless, he objects to the various alternative means used by Israel Not only does Pres. Bush betray Israel by pressing it not to defend itself, but so does the government of Israel by not defending itself. MUSLIM INDIGNATION The Organization of the Islamic Conference condemned the anti-Muhammad cartoonists for "using the freedom of expression as a pretext to defame religions" and expressed "concern at rising hatred against Islam and Muslims..." (Hassan M. Fatttah, NY Times, 2/9, A1.) "Defame" usually means slander. Slander is false. The Muslims have yet to show anything false in the cartoons. Why don't Muslims use Western freedom of expression to defend their reputation, instead of feeding that ill repute by attacking innocent people all over the world and striving, with some success, to reduce Western freedom of expression? Yes, there is rising alarm about Islam. Does the Organization know why? The alarm is spreading over Islam's jihad against the world. The cartoons were a reaction both to that jihad and to the chilling effect it has on freedom of the press. Some publishers fired editors who reprinted the cartoons so as to inform readers what the controversy is over. The pictures should be accompanied by some explanation, so readers can judge whether the cartoons are libelous. KING OF JORDAN WEIGHS IN King Abdullah upheld freedom of the press (that Jordan lacks), and condemned the Danish cartoonists for insulting his ancestor, Muhammad. He also said, '' We behold with horror and disgust the recent targeting of Christian churches in Iraq, breaking with a 1400 year tradition of Christian-Muslim friendship and mutual acceptance amongst the Arabs of the Levant.'' He declared that extremists distort Islam, which rejects hatred and violence (IMRA, 2/4). His disgust with the attacks on Iraqi Christians would seem more sincere if he also expressed disgust with Western Palestinian attacks on Christians and if he didn't pretend there was a tradition of Christian Muslim friendship and mutual acceptance. Guess he forgot about consigning Christians and other non-believers to second-class citizenship and persecuting them. UNNECESSARILY SURPRISED OVER HAMAS VICTORY Since Oslo began, the P.A. has been inciting its people against Israel, without eliciting much international protest over that violation of Oslo. "Elections in a society which promotes hatred and outrageous values will simply elect leaders who espouse these values." (Morton A. Klein, Pres. of ZOA, NY Sun, 2/6, letter.) The PLO radicalized its people, who then did not find it radical enough. Same was happening in S. Arabia. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THREE ITEMS TO SHARE WITH YOU
Posted by Arnold Roth, February 17, 2006. |
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Dear friends, This is one of those relatively rare occasions when I send out an unsolicited letter. This one is intended for friends and acquaintances who have expressed some interest in the work of Keren Malki or in my viewpoint or in those of my wife, Frimet -- but who have not signed up (yet) for the Friends of Keren Malki mailing list. If you care to pass it along to your friends and contacts, that will be very much appreciated. I dislike spam at least as much as the next person. That's why I generally refrain from broadcasting emails. My feeling is that anyone interested in knowing what I have to say on the subjects that interest me (mainly -- terrorism; the case for Israel; European funding of Palestinian corruption and terror; the work of the Malki Foundation) can sign up for the Friends of Keren Malki email list. That way, I know I don't need to apologize for sharing my viewpoint with them, since whoever does not want to be exposed to it can then unsubscribe from that list at any time. Still, every so often -- about once each year -- I do what I am doing now. I send out an email to people whose paths I have crossed recently or who have shared their own emailed views with me, solicited or otherwise. The point of this particular email is to share a couple of specific issues with you, and to ask you to consider signing up today to the Friends of Keren Malki email list. Issue #1: Europe and Palestinian corruption and terror With Hamas 'legitimized' by January's Palestinian elections, the EU public service and its ministerial masters are deeply into acrobatic mode. How do you keep pretending you believe they're terrorists while hiding your own decade-long involvement as financier of those acts of terror? The Funding for Peace Coalition, a very fine organization, has a website that's always worth visiting -- http://www.eufunding.org/. This week they published fresh revelations showing how Brussels covered up its decade-long and ongoing program of funding Palestinian terror. I found the details at http://www.eufunding.org/Realpolitik/Nielson4.html especially interesting. Basically, much of the European tax-payer cash that didn't go into funding terror ended up in the pockets of the PA's kleptocratic leadership clique. Heads are now rolling in Gaza, for the information of those who are not paying attention. So it's instructive to see how much is known, and was known all along, about eurocorruption and its Israeli victims. Fair disclosure for those not aware: my fifteen year-old daughter's murder in August 2001 generated significant personal income for several named Palestinian individuals so I have more than a passing interest in material of this kind. Issue #2: The things that terror victims have in common with each other, no matter where they live I spent most of this past week in, and getting to and from, Spain. The third international congress of terror victims, a very impressive and dignified event, took place in Valencia on Monday and Tuesday. I attended the first two congresses (Madrid in 2004, Bogota in 2005). But this week's event was the first on in which I took part as an official invited guest with my expenses covered by the organizers. (When the group of four Israeli terror victims, of which I was one, let the organizers of the first congress in Madrid know we were coming, we were given clear and explicit advice not to come -- that we were essentially persona non grata. A lot has happened since then -- in Spain and in general.) In Valencia, I spoke from the podium on the shameful failure by the United Nations over a decade to come up with a convention condemning terror. It's a story with details that few people know. If I say so myself, the presentation was interesting and informative. It's now posted at http://www.kerenmalki.org/Valencia_Conference_Feb06.htm along with some photographs of the congress and a link to the slides that illustrated my speech. I hope you will take a few moments to click and read. There are some important and practical consequences to the matters I raised there. In fact, it now appears there may be some effective political action arising from my speech and the chain reaction it set off. If you sign up to the Friends of Keren Malki email list, I promise to update you on the next steps. Issue #3: Keren Malki's work helps people in ways that are efficient, effective and equitable The murder of our daughter left my wife and children and me searching for a way to go on, and to memorialize a beautiful life that had been snuffed out by brutal and hateful people. (The challenges are more complex than you might guess. Consider, for example, that there are people sitting in the Palestinian parliament as from tomorrow - Saturday -- who were themselves, personally, involved as accessories to Malki's murder.) We created a foundation -- The Malki Foundation - which gives Israeli families from every religious and social background support for them to provide quality home-care for their seriously disabled child. We have reached hundreds of such families. And we are growing rapidly. The way we have set it up is uncommonly efficient and effective. Mostly it involves Frimet and me sitting at our computers or at the kitchen table or on the phone. We are greatly helped by a dedicated group of volunteers. I don't know a more effective way to spend philanthropic money, which is way I have no moral difficulty in turning to you and to everyone I meet and asking for your support. We have grown to a substantial size on the basis of donations small and large from people who understand the need to respond to terror and hatred with actions like those of Keren Malki. I am inviting you to please join us by donating and giving us your support. And finally, a reminder again to please sign on as a subscriber to
the Friends of Keren Malki email list -- click here.
Good wishes,
Contact the Foundation at malkifoundation@gmail.com |
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PREPARING FOR THE NEXT POGROM
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 17, 2006. |
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This article was written by Aaron Klein for today's World Net Daily (www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48870). JERUSALEM -- Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has directed Israeli forces to evacuate within days a small Jewish enclave alongside the biblical city of Hebron in the West Bank and to use all force necessary during the evictions, security officials told WorldNetDaily. The order follows Olmert's announcement this week his administration will seek to withdraw from most of the West Bank, which borders major Israeli cities and the country's international airport. Olmert's directions fueled speculation by critics the Israeli official is carrying out isolated evictions of settlers as a tactic to win leftist votes ahead of next month's elections. "Olmert knows he will not have the right wing votes. He already has the center. Now he has to flex his muscles against the settlers before the elections to show leftists and extreme leftists he can carry out the Kadima platform of an Israeli withdrawal," charged Israeli nationalist lawmaker Benny Elon. Israeli Defense Force officials said they have been ordered to demolish Chazon David, a small Jewish section outside Hebron consisting of a synagogue and a few mobile homes. Jews have lived in nearby Hebron -- home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, believed to be the resting place of biblical patriarchs and matriarchs -- almost continuously for over 2,500 years. It is considered the oldest Jewish community in the world. Hebron spokesman David Wilder told WND, "Olmert needs these evictions. He needs to show he has the strength of [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, that he can stand up to the so-called settlers and carry out a withdrawal." Wilder pointed out while Olmert is enforcing the removal of a small Jewish outpost, over 3,000 illegal Arab settlements in the area remain intact. The IDF sources told WND they have been cleared to use "all necessary force" to remove Chazon David residents. Olmert sparked fury here last month when he ordered the IDF to use force against protesters during the demolition of nine homes in the West Bank community of Amona. More than 1,500 soldiers and police officers were called up to destroy the homes after the court system ruled they were constructed without a permit. Aside from the homes, the rest of the Amona community was allowed to remain standing. During the demolitions, horse-mounted police, water cannons and specially trained riot officers faced off against hundreds of protesters who massed in Amona in hopes of halting the efforts. Israeli television broadcast live footage of demonstrators, including women and children, being dragged and beaten by soldiers. Teenagers with bloody noses and head wounds were seen being removed from the scene. Police were videotaped using batons and gas canisters to clear the area of demonstrators. More than 300 protesters were treated in makeshift first aid tents. At least 70 were evacuated to Jerusalem hospitals with moderate-to-serious injuries. Three Israeli nationalist lawmakers, including Elon, were wounded in the clashes. As WND reported, over 100,000 Israelis protested in Jerusalem earlier this month to demand a commission of inquiry into the violence at Amona. Olmert at first refused to establish an investigative committee, but last week he relented. Olmert this week told the Knesset if his Kadima Party wins next month's elections, Parliament members will be asked to vote on whether to "change Israel's borders" by withdrawing from most of the West Bank, including strategic areas military strategists say are needed to defend Israel from a ground invasion. According to most polls, Kadima is poised to win overwhelmingly. Olmert justified his plan to vacate the West Bank, which is within rocket firing range of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, by claiming Arabs will soon outnumber Jews and threaten the country's Jewish character. But recent studies indicate Olmert is relying on faulty demographic information and that Jews likely will outnumber Arabs by more than double in 20 years. One study, titled "Forecast for Israel and the West Bank 2025," found Palestinians have inflated their population figures by as much as 1.5 million. It also said Jewish birthrates are on the rise while Palestinian rates are falling, and that Israel's own statistics fail to account for even low levels of Jewish immigration when calculating national demographic trends. Americans Bennet Zimmerman, Roberta Seid and Michael Wise put the current Palestinin-Arab population of the West Bank at 1.4 million and Gaza 1.1 million, for a total of 2.4 million, instead of the 3.8 million reported by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics. They found faults in the methods used by the Palestinian Authority to determine its population, including counting the 230,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem twice and retroactively raising growth and birth rates while the rates actually have been declining. The allegedly inflated PA population numbers have been accepted by Israel and were used in formulating future demographic statistics, including those reportedly used by Olmert in formulating a West Bank withdrawal. "It is ironic that just as we now find Israel is in the best position ever with regard to population, Olmert announces a plan to run away and give up the West Bank, claiming Israel's Jewish character is threatened," said Zimmerman. The West Bank is considered landlocked territory not officially recognized as part of any country. Israel calls the land "disputed," while the United Nations says the West Bank is "occupied" by Israel. The Jewish state maintains overall control of most of the area while the Palestinian Authority has jurisdiction in about 40 percent. The territory remained under Jordanian rule from 1948 until Israel captured it in 1967 after Jordan's King Hussein ignored Israeli pleas for his country to stay out of the Six Day War. Most countries rejected Jordan's initial claim on the area, which it formally renounced in 1988. Terrorist groups have warned if Israel withdraws, they will launch rockets from the West Bank into Israeli cities. Many villages in the West Bank, which Israelis commonly refer to as the "biblical heartland," are mentioned throughout the Torah. The book of Genesis says Abraham entered Israel at Shechem (Nablus) and received God's promise of land for his offspring. He later was buried in Hebron. The nearby town of Beit El, anciently called Bethel meaning "house of God," is where Scripture says the patriarch Jacob slept on a stone pillow and dreamed of angels ascending and descending a stairway to heaven. In that dream, God spoke directly to Jacob and reaffirmed the promise of territory. And in Exodus, the holy tabernacle rested in Shiloh, believed to be the first area the ancient Israelites settled after fleeing Egypt. 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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THESE EUROPEAN JEWS ARE FOR MASS MURDER OF JEWS
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 17, 2006. |
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Yesterday something extraordinary happened in Israel. The Israeli authorities refused to let three vicious anti-Semites enter Israel. This of course is unusual and entirely out of character for Israel, which ordinarily welcomes foreign anti-Semites and then sends them to the West Bank where they can vandalize Israel's security fence and violently attack soldiers and police. So what made Israel behave with sudden uncharacteristic survivalist dignity yesterday? Well, first of all, the three were so obviously anti-Semites that Israel's far-leftist daily Haaretz referred to them as "peace activists". The three were from the fanatically anti-Israel "European Jews for a Just Peace". The "just peace" they have in mind is where all the Israeli Jews have been shipped out in cattle cars to nice work camps. See http://www.ejjp.org/. EJJP claims to represent 18 different leftist anti-Jewish groups of European Jews, but we suspect all 18 groups have the same 8 members. There are only 8 people listed here as members http://www.ejjp.org/main.asp?pagid=8 and several have clearly non-Jewish names. The terror leader of this group is one Dror Feiler. You probably remember Feiler as the Swedish ex-Israeli "sculptor" who created a "work of art" celebrating the mass murderer suicide bomber woman who murdered 23 people in a Haifa restaurant, including members of three generations of a single family. One child lost his parents and was left alive, blinded. The bomber beloved by Feiler intentionally stood next to a baby carriage when she set the bomb off to make sure the baby was blown to bits. The bomber was a West Bank lawyer, not a starving refugee. Feiler's "art show" compared her to Snow White in her purity. Feiler was raised a red diaper baby by his communist mother Pnina Feiler, then moved to Sweden. When the Israeli Ambassador to Sweden saw the atrocity that Feiler had created to celebrate the mass murderer, he vandalized it. Israel's Lefties then had a conniption at this "destruction of art". Feiler became the overnight hero for the Sormfront organization of Nazis and Holocaust Deniers: http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?mode=hybrid&t=110784 When he is not busy celebrating genocide and mass murder of Jews, Feiler serves as "chairman" of the "European Jews for a Just Peace". Yesterday three of the group's members were busted when they arrived at Tel Aviv airport. They were supposed to hook up with Palestinian terrorists and Israeli leftist thugs and help attack Israeli police protecting Israel's security fence near the village of Bil'in. After busting them, Feiler himself gave a press briefing in which he said, "There is no other country on earth that behaves like this!" He is of course correct. In any other country, overseas trouble-makers coming in to assist genocidal terrorists would be taken out back and shot, or at least shipped off to Gitmo. Feiler's campaign for genocidal terrorism was earlier discussed by us here: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=5654 We reprint some earlier observations about him: 'Ah, the Israeli left! Every days brings us new wonders from it, new manifestations of anti-Semitism and treason. 'Among the Israeli or ex-Israeli leftist anti-Semites trekking the globe is one Mapplethropian ''artist'' named Dror Feiler. Feiler hates Israel with a passion and supports Jihad and Palestinian terrorism. He lives in Stockholm with his Swedish wife whence he spreads his views, including on the Internet. He also claims to be a musician who makes ''music and noise'' and my guess is more of the latter than the former. (http://www.furious.com/perfect/drorfeiler.html ) 'Among Feiler's recent ''artistic'' creations is a work celebrating the terrorist woman who blew herself up inside the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, murdering 23 people, some of them Arabs, many of the children. Feiler seems to think this woman is a great hero, so he drew a portrait of her floating happily in a pool of Jewish blood. The work is entitled Snow White and the Madness of Truth (http://www.makingdifferences.com/site/calendar.php?id=20 ). It was displayed in Sweden in a museum, the Historiska Museet, together with a poem that included the following phrases: 'She was also a woman as white as snow, as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony. like a weed in her heart until she had no peace day and night Hanadi Jaradat was a 29-year-old lawyer Weeping bitterly, she added: "If our nation cannot realize its dream and the goals of the victims, and live in freedom and dignity, then let the whole world be erased "Run away, then, you poor child. and the red looked beautiful upon the white.'' 'It was all part of the preparations for some sort of Swedish conference on ''genocide,'' which by all expectations will end up endorsing Arab plans to conduct genocide against Jews. 'The art was on display in Stockholm when the Israeli Ambassador decided to respond to it in a manner almost unseen by Israeli officials since the start of Oslo appeasement. He responded to it as a Jew and a Zionist; after asking nicely that it be taken down, he vandalized the obscenity. Curiously, the Ambassador is an appointee of Labor Party dove Ehud Barak, who was on Israeli TV soon afterwards cheering on the Ambassador for this rare act of Israeli self-pride and courage. Surprisingly, Barak's party and Meretz have NOT suggest that Feiler be granted the Israel Prize. 'Feiler runs a PLO front group called Jews for Israeli Palestinian Peace (JIPF). He also serves as head of European Jews for a Just Peace, which might or might not have other members besides himself. The artist has filed a complaint with the Swedish police against the Ambassador for the vandalizing, and it set off a diplomat confrontation between Sweden and Israel. I personally think the Ambassador should say he was just engaging in theater and so his actions should be protected artistic expression. '''This was not a piece of art,'' the ambassador told Sweden's SR radio news station. ''It was a monstrosity. For me it was intolerable and an insult to the families of the victims,'' he said. ''As ambassador [of] Israel I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality.'' 'Feiler describes himself as the ''eye-bleeding ultimate composer of intifadic and eruptive lung-outs.'' It turns out his parents were both communist party members in Israel and he was raised on a kibbutz. 'What is most interesting about this is how readily much of the Israeli Left has been to denounce the ambassador for defending Jewish dignity and to defend the anti-Semitic artist and his absolute right to produce such obscenity. The far leftist daily Haaretz ran an editorial, several op-eds and lots of letters to the editor denouncing the ambassador as a bully and vandal and defending the piece of ''art.'' They were joined by many others on the Israeli Left. Suddenly ''artistic'' expression is absolutely protected. Except the theater by the Ambassador is not. 'Some in the academic Left are also chiming in. Here is a letter written by Prof. Amiram Goldblum, one of the founders and long-time leaders in Peace Now, circulated this week on the web: '''The Stockholm Bully'' The aggressive response of Mazel to what seems to be an idiotic artistic expression, will remain in public memory as another display of Israeli violence, deriving from 35 years of occupation. That is also the source of the governmental response, praising the bully rather than recalling him and replacing him ASAP. Israel has enough rednecks in the academy, no need to have them as diplomats. 'Amiram Goldblum, Ph.D. Cell
'Now it is interesting to place this sudden absolutism of the Left regarding artistic expression in context. This is the very same Israeli Left that insists that any poster that shows politicians the Left likes in unflattering manner, such as Yossi Beilin or Yossi Sarid wearing an Arab kafiya, should be grounds for prosecution for ''incitement.'' This is the same Left that cheered uncontrollably when Tatiana Suskin, the poor young woman who had made a poster of the Prophet Mohammed as a pig, was sentenced to a long prison term. These are leftists who want pornography suppressed because it dishonors women. This is the same Israeli Left that has campaigned to tear down and bulldoze a memorial stone marker for Baruch Goldstein, who shot up the Mosque in Hebron. And this is the Left that argues that T-shirts that read "Where there are no Arabs there is no Terrorism" should be jailed for "racism" and "incitement". 'In other words, by defending this nazi obscenity in Sweden, the Left is showing how openly anti-Semitic and anti-democratic it is. Here is some more on the Jewish anti-Semites in Europe:
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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PALESTINE'S UNITED TERROR FRONT
Posted by David Bedein, February 17, 2006. |
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The Fatah movement, which controls the Palestinian Authority security agencies, has said it is ready to join Hamas in the war against Israel. Former Civil Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan, regarded as Fatah's chief in the Gaza Strip, earlier said the movement would not join Hamas in any government coalition. But Dahlan said Fatah was now ready to fight alongside Hamas against Israel on Egypt's Nile Channel on January 29th and that he hoped Hamas would succeed in joining forces with Fatah in a protracted war against Israel. Dahlan also said Hamas would also run military facilities: "Certainly we will join forces in facing Israel, and Hamas announced that it will join its forces, will lead a struggle against Israel and also will run bases," Dahlan said. "I hope Hamas will succeed in those three things." So far, Hamas and Fatah have also been threatening each other. On Febuary 1st, insurgents detonated a bomb in front of the house of a major commander of Dahlan's former organization, the Preventive Security Apparatus (PSA). Seeking to prevent Fatah retaliation, Hamas leaders denied any connection to the attack on former PSA director Col. Suleiman Abu Mutlaq. The PSA, however, blamed Hamas for the bombing. Mutlaq was Fatah's candidate who ran and lost for the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in the KhanYunis region. Hamas blamed Fatah rivals of Abu Mutlaq for the bombing which damaged his house. Despite Dahlan's dismissal, Hamas has not given up on Fatah participation in the next Palestinian Authority (PA) government. Hamas leaders told the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat newspaper on February 4th that Egypt, Syria, and some Gulf Cooperation Council states have prepared a plan for Fatah participation in any Hamas-led government. The newspaper said that under the plan, Hamas would agree to reduce the powers of the prime minister and the cabinet. The changes would limit the prime minister's role in foreign affairs and security, while strengthening PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Under the plan, Fatah would be given several key ministries. This would include the Interior Ministry and National Security office. Hamas has not formally responded to the Arab plan. Egypt has urged Hamas to include several Fatah figures in the next government. A-Sharq Al Awsat, as well as Al Quds, all Palestinian Authority newspapers, reported that PLC member Ziyad Abu Amr would be offered the job of foreign minister. Salam Fayyad would be allowed to keep his post of finance minister. Meanwhile, Hamas has declared that all Palestinian agreements with Israel have been annulled. Ahmed Bahr, a leader of the Hamas movement, told Al Quds on Feb. 1st that all agreements with Israel were annulled. Bahr said Hamas did not win the elections in the Palestinian Legislative Council on the basis of the 1993 Oslo agreements that established the Palestinian Authority. "There is a tremendous difference in this matter," Bahr said. "We would never enter the elections on the basis of the Oslo agreements. We entered the 2006 elections in accordance with a Palestinian-Palestinian agreement in Cairo in March 2005." "We have never said and we'll never say that we will conduct negotiations with Israel," Bahr said to the PA run Al Kuds on Feb. 5th, 2006. This should mean the Oslo Accords are dead. But nobody in the West says this. Bahr also said Hamas was not committed to any of the Oslo agreements that stipulated peaceful dialogue and cooperation with Israel. He said Hamas and Fatah, led by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, were committed to the same aim: "the end of the Israeli occupation." "It is true that our brother Mahmoud Abbas and our brothers in the PA say that they want to end the occupation through negotiations," Bahr said. "And we say you have negotiated more than 10 years and have not ended the occupation." He referred, of course, to Israel not negotiating itself out of existence, not just the West Bank and Gaza. Bahr said the "resistance drove out the occupation from the Gaza Strip. I stress that I have not entered the elections on the Oslo agreements. I stress that we entered the Palestinian elections in the interest of the Palestinians." The Hamas leaders said the purpose of the Oslo agreements was to ensure Palestinian recognition of Israel. Bahr said Oslo was designed for the Palestinian concession of a large percentage of its land (Israel within secure borders) as well as the annulment of the PLO covenant. "Oslo has already brought us disaster and helped settlements, raised the level of corruption to alarming proportions and increased Israeli attacks," Bahr said. Bahr said Hamas would unite the PA security forces and ensure that they serve the Palestinian people. He denied the assertion by another PLO leader, Khaled Masha'al, that Hamas would convert the PA forces into a Hamas army. The position enumerated by Bahr appeared to be in the solid mainstream of the movement Mahmoud Zahar, head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, told Hizbullah's Al Manar television on January 25th, and that his movement would continue to attack and refuse to recognize Israel and replace the Jewish state with a Muslim entity. "We will not give up the resistance in the sense of Jihad," Zahar said. "Palestine means Palestine in its entirety -- from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, from Ras Al Naqura to Rafah. We cannot give up a single inch of it." Zahar envisioned a Palestinian educational system that would instruct children to killJews. He said the Culture Ministry would idolize suicide bombers. "Our Culture Ministry will teach them how the martyr is turned into prose, literature, and poetry, and how a woman, who used to cook and do the laundry, becomes one of the heroes of Palestine," Zahar said. Hamas has been presenting positions to Arab and Islamic leaders and on February 7th, Masha'al led a Hamas delegation to Cairo to meet Egyptian leaders. The delegation was sent to visit the Gulf Arab states and would seek audiences in the European Union as well. The delegation consisted of Hamas parliamentarians Said Sayam and Mohammed Shama. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Hamas would appeal for support for the Palestinian people. He also said Hamas has been in touch governments in the EU and the United States. Stay tuned for more in the War on Terror as the "peace process" continues. David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. (http://Israelbehindthenews.com) and President, Center for Near East Policy Research. Contact him at media@actcom.co.il or visit www.ibtn.co.il This article appeared in Front Page Magazine (http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21254) February 13, 2006. |
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POLICE RAID ITAMAR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, February 16, 2006. |
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How much shame can Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's sociopathic police thugs heap upon a nation where Police and Army were once the most admired people in the nation. Now, these warped thugs roam the Jewish nation like cruel storm-troopers, where even 6 year old children can become victims of their pathology. But, it all comes from the door of Olmert who wants to be seen as a "strong man", instead of the wimp who bites his nails and was always in the back of the line. This was written by Hillel Fendel. Education Ministry officials will convene to discuss recent complaints of police behavior in Jewish Shomron schools -- such as 20 Yassamniks causing panic in an elementary school this past Sunday. Some 20 special-unit Yassam policemen and another 10 regular policemen descended upon an elementary school in Itamar, in the Shomron, on Sunday. They threatened children by loudspeaker, caused children to cry, entered a classroom and took pictures, and kept students closed up in their classrooms for a half-hour -- because of a rock allegedly thrown at a police jeep earlier in the day. The principal of the school, Rabbi Nitzan Yamin, described to Arutz-7 the chain of events: "A police jeep drove down a road here in Itamar, which has elementary school classes on one side and a yeshiva high school on the other. I asked what they were doing, and they said that someone with a black shirt had thrown a rock at them. We agreed that I would go and check and return in a few minutes. They didn't wait for me, however; they left -- and came back ten minutes later with four jeeps and another van, with a total of about 20 Yassamniks and 10 other policemen. "They started running up and down and into the classrooms and in between the rooms and into the school yard, scaring all the children and yelling at them. They also went into the 7th grade and took pictures of the children. There were kids 6 and 7 years old, crying and scared. Some kids started to run away, and the police yelled over a megaphone that they would break their heads. None of them were wearing name tags... "They came here to scare the children, and they succeeded. I told all the children to return to their classes, and told the children to lock their doors. I told the police I would make sure that everyone stayed in their rooms -- but the police remained there for a full half-hour to make sure that no one left. Then they finally left themselves." Rabbi Yamin also said that MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) had mentioned it in his Knesset speech yesterday. "Ze'ev was speaking about the Constitution, and asked rhetorically whether a constitution could stop such breaches of civil rights as were in Itamar the other day, and he described it in a sentence or two." At Arutz-7's request for comment on the issue, police spokesman Shlomo Sagi issued the following statement: "Rocks were thrown at a jeep, and the police ran after boys who ran towards a school. The commander arrived and talked with the principal, and after a discussion it was decided that the principal would try to find the boy who threw the rocks. Rock-throwing is a crime that allows the police to enter yards, and therefore the police work was appropriate for this incident." Sagi said he had "no information regarding photographing or other complaints, and that aggrieved parties are free to complain to the Department for Complaints Against Policemen." Emanuel Winston saw more than a hundred youths severely beaten, many with multiple head wounds, as police went on a rampage. Mounted police charged peaceful demonstrators and clubbed them, too (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/1). Law and order or fascism? |
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INSIGHT INTO SUICIDE KILLERS
Posted by Avodah 15, February 17, 2006. |
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This appeared on the Counterterrorism blog (http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/ 2005/07/interview_with_.html) July 27, 2005. Suicide bombers and the UN On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the 7/7 London attacks. One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas. Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film. Many thanks to Dean Draznin and Arlyn Riskind for helping to arrange this special interview. What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film? I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up. Why is this film especially important? People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem-showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has became their only certitude. What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know? I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution. What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings? It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy. You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power? Not death as an end, but death as a door open to the after life. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They therefore experience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword. Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology. Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see good and evil the same way that we do. If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the after life in Paradise. Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction? Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do. Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way? All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their life time, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists. Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers. Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honour, which is mainly connected to their women's behaviour. What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings? Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations through different networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel). Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision? There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide. Why are so many suicide bombers young men? As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheeds are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam. Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman? What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation? The UN is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communists countries. Their hands are tied. The UN has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the UN leaves a door open by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the UN is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the UN has maintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to "return" into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to settle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions. Four-hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S. taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film "Hostages of Hatred"). You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean. Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind. In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it. How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general? Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Nazism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people. Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers? Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East? Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam is expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is muc h more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S. Sadly, this is only the beginning. Contact Avodah 17 by email at avodah15@aol.com |
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PALESTINIAN TERRORIST LEADERS PROMISE THAT A THIRD INTIFADA IS ON ITS WAY
Posted by ZOA, February 16, 2006. |
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New York -- A detailed report in World Net Daily, which interviewed senior commanders from various Palestinian terrorist groups, indicates that these groups are planning a third intifada of heightened and continuous terrorist attacks against Israel, consisting of suicide bombings, rocket attacks against Jewish communities and "a few new surprises in our arsenal" (World Net Daily, February 14). Statements from senior terrorist figures:
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "These revealing statements from leaders of different Palestinian terrorist groups show that Israel's security and deterrent posture have been badly weakened by the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria last year and the current feebleness of Israel's response to the increase in rocket and other attacks, including suicide bombings. When Israel does not react seriously to continuous terrorist attacks -- which increased from 48 in October to 277 in December, according to the Head of Shin Bet (Israel's Security Agency), Yuval Diskin -- and takes only occasional action to disrupt the terrorist infrastructure and target terrorists, the terrorists grow bolder, have time to regroup and plan for the next terror offensive against Israeli civilians. All this conveys the message to the Palestinian terrorists that terrorism pays well. It is clear from their statements and plans that this is the lesson they have drawn from Israel's recent actions. "It is clear that Israel must use every legitimate means at it is disposal to fight the terrorists and defeat them. Serious, sustained counter-terrorist operations reduce terrorism by hampering the terrorists' ability to plan future strikes and causes the Palestinians to pay a price that makes terrorism less popular. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, stated last year that 'The army can reduce terror to very close to zero ... In contrast to the theory that the army cannot eliminate terrorism, I believe the army can reduce terrorism to the very lowest level ... There are examples worldwide where the army did beat terror. In Malaysia, for instance, at the time of the British [half a century ago and more recently in Ireland]. They exterminated terrorism' (Jerusalem Post, October 7, 2005). We strongly urge the Israeli government to heed the advice of the Chief of Staff, especially now that the Palestinian terrorist groups are clearly preparing for an intensified terrorist campaign." The Zionist Organization of America (www.zoa.org), founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver. |
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"HOMOPHOBIA," DEMOGRAPHIC DECLINE, ISLAMIC IMMIGRATION AND THE EUROPEAN DEATH WISH
Posted by Don Feder, February 16, 2006. |
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Instead of death by the slow poison of modernism, the Europeans might consider mass suicide. Either way, the outcome will be the same. Europe today is pathological. Healthy societies exalt the family. Sick societies celebrate perversion -- and seek to ban healthy aversion to the same, in the name of equality. Healthy societies have a clear understanding of who they are and how they arrived where they are. They both acknowledge and honor their religious roots. Sick societies are militantly secular. They engage in historical revisionism, pretending that faith played no part in their development. Healthy societies have children. Sick societies are marked by below-replacement birthrates. (They refuse to reproduce themselves.) Having rejected faith, family and future, they lack an incentive for procreation. The foregoing is crucial for understanding the resolution "Homophobia in Europe," which was overwhelmingly enacted by the parliament of the European Union last month. The resolve defines "homophobia" as "an irrational fear and aversion of homosexuality and of lesbian, gay and bisexual and transgender people based on prejudice, similar to racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism." The measure's sponsors cited no evidence that those who engage in anal intercourse (and other forms of sodomy), or mutilate themselves in an attempt to change their gender, are the equivalent of blacks, Jews and immigrants -- other than their assertion of same. The EU demanded that its member states combat this vile bigotry by implementing programs guaranteeing that the sick and unnatural receive parity of treatment with the healthy and normal. Member nations were told to "ensure that same-sex partners enjoy the same respect, dignity and protection as the rest of society" -- which would appear to be a mandate for so-called gay marriage. Are homosexuals being sent to death camps? Are they forced to wear distinctive insignia for identification? Are there signs refusing them admittance to restaurants, hotels and theaters? Are they herded into ghettos? Do newspapers run employment ads that stipulate "gays need not apply"? As examples of rampant homophobia approaching the barbarism of pogroms and genocide, proponents of the measure (which passed by a vote of 468 to 149, with 41 abstentions) cited the following: 1) Latvia has a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. 2) When he was mayor of Warsaw, Polish President Lech Kaczynski blocked a gay pride parade and 3) Poland's prime minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, once described homosexuality as a "contamination" of society. I refuse to listen to another Polish joke. The Poles must be the brightest people in Europe. The EU's anti-homophobia crusade is less about protecting gays from physical abuse than persecuting dissenters from the reigning sexual orthodoxy. In November, Pastor Ake Green was acquitted of hate speech by Sweden's high court. Pastor's Green's crime? Preaching a sermon on the Bible's view of homosexuality. The reaction of Swedish homosexual activists? We need tougher laws against hate speech. To understand the priorities of Europe's political class, compare the homophobia resolution to the EU's non-response to the lethal wave of anti-Semitism which has swept the continent in the past five years, including assaults, bombings, shootings and the desecration of synagogues and cemeteries (all courtesy of Europe's newest citizens, from the Land of the Rising Prophet). In general, the Europeans have adopted a counter-Biblical worldview. The same Bible that says of the Jewish people "I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you," also calls homosexuality "an abomination." It's no coincidence that central to the new Europe -- a rough beast slouching toward Brussels -- is a refusal to acknowledge the continent's origins. The proposed constitution for the European Union (a document of over 70,000 words) contains not a single reference to Christianity. Thus more than a millennium of European history is effectively erased. Editing the past for political ends didn't stop with Stalin. In his book "The Cube And The Cathedral," Catholic scholar George Weigel notes that for the Brussels bureaucracy, denial of Europe's Christian heritage is motivated by more than embarrassment over the past. "In the minds of many Europeans, Christianity was not simply a non-factor in the development of contemporary European public life," Weigel writes, "Christianity was (and is) an obstacle to the evolution of a Europe at peace, a Europe that champions human rights (including "gay rights") a Europe that governs itself democratically." Its anti-homophobia campaign is just the latest example of Europe's rejection of Judeo-Christian morality. In the Bible, procreation isn't optional. The first commandment is to "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." Having lost their faith and embraced an ethic of radical autonomy, Europeans stopped going to church, stopped taking the Bible seriously, stopped believing in the future and stopped having children. The continent is in a demographic tailspin. Population replacement -- maintaining current population -- requires a fertility rate of 2.1 (the number of children the average woman has in her lifetime). Italy's fertility rate is 1.24, the Czech republic's is 1.18 and Spain's is 1.15. Throughout Europe, only Muslim Albania has a replacement-level fertility rate. Over the next half century, this will lead to 70 million fewer Europeans. (Thus boosting humanity's combined IQ?) If current trends continue, Europe's population is expected to fall from 728 million today to 658 million by mid-point in this century. Instead of encouraging women to have more children, Europe's politicians are intent on encouraging equality between families that rock the cradle and couples in relationships that primarily produce death by spreading frequently fatal diseases. Now, let's see, what's the average life-time fertility of gay men and lesbians? Having abandoned Christianity, Europe is trading the cross for the crescent. The Europe of the future could include a Grand Mufti of Canterbury and mosques towering above the churches of Paris. Europe is augmenting its shrinking workforce with recruits from North Africa and the Middle East. What used to be called Christendom has thrown open its portals to adherents of the religion of peace. (The gates of Vienna, which held fast in 1683, have fallen to an immigration jihad.) Western Europe has gone from a Muslim population of 250,000, 50 years ago, to 20 million today. With 5-6 million Muslims, 10% of the French population follows the Koran (not exactly a multiculturalist manual). There are 3 million Muslims in Germany, 2 million in Britain, a million each in Italy and the Netherlands, and half-a-million each in Spain and Austria. There are few nominal Muslims (sadly). Most are quite serious about Islam (even sadder). European Muslims have large families -- subsidized by the very generous welfare benefits of states in which they reside. I saw this in Brussels last year; where streets of the city center were crowded with women in head scarves pushing strollers with two and three toddlers. The coming cataclysm can be glimpsed in rioting last November, in Clichy-sous-Bois and other Parisian suburbs, where second and third-generation never-to-be-assimilated immigrants fire-bombed cars, attacked churches and synagogues and battled police. The Europeans have chosen a very distinctive form of suicide. Call it Islamicide. Homophobia? Wait till the continent is governed by Islamic law. The book Europe's intelligentsia has rejected holds the key. In it, God says to Israel: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live." The Europeans have made their choice. They've made it in their embrace of homosexuality, in their unconscious decision not to have descendants and in opening the floodgates to immigration from the Muslim world. In 50 to 100 years, the Europe of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo, the Europe of Rembrandt and Bach, the Europe of Churchill and Karol Wojtyla will exist only in textbooks and museums. Or, perhaps the remnants of Christian Europe will be subjected to the fate of Afghanistan's Buddhist statues, demolished by the Taliban regime. Don Feder was an opinion writer for the Boston Herald and a syndicated columnist. He is currently a political/media consultant. This article appeared on GrassTopsUSA.com |
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PARISIAN JEW KIDNAPPED, TORTURED FOR WEEKS AND THEN MURDERED BY MUSLIM GANG
Posted by Naomi Ragen, February 16, 2006. |
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Friends,
My friend and colleague, journalist Nidra Poller, brings to our attention something you won't hear in the media. A French gang is targeting Jewish men, and recently kidnapped and brutally tortured and murdered a 23 year-old Jewish man named Ilan in Paris. His mutilated body was found by the railroad tracks. Once again French authorities are belittling the racist nature of this crime, even though evidence points to those involved being North African and three of the four known previous attempted kidnappings targeted Jewish men. Below, how the crime is being reported, followed by Nidra's analysis of the facts. DOSSIER: a 23 year-old Jewish man was enticed, trapped, held for 3 1/2 weeks, tortured to death in the banlieue of Paris. This is a faithful translation of a newspaper article:
"Ilan, 23 years old, fell victim to an organized gang, enticed by a customer in a cell phone shop in Paris. Left for dead by his torturers, who had handcuffed and gagged him, he died on his way to the hospital." "The discovery Monday afternoon of the naked body of Ilan, 23 years-old, near the railroad tracks at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne) is the tragic epilogue of a long police stake out. The victim had been tortured, 80% of his body was covered with bruises, deep cuts, and burns from an inflammable fluid. The young man, handcuffed and gagged, left for dead by his torturers, died on his way to the hospital. "For three weeks the Parisian criminal brigade, with the help of a hundred detectives, had been tracking a mysterious organized gang of kidnappers who entice their victims with pretty young ladies. The investigation, which began when the young man was kidnapped on January 20, was conducted with utter discretion. For the officers of the Quai des Orfèvres, the macabre discovery marks a failure. "On 17 January, a young woman in her twenties came into the cell phone shop on Boulevard Voltaire in the 11th arrondissement of Paris where Ilan worked as a salesman. She engaged him in conversation and they exchanged cell phone numbers. They made a date for the evening of the 20th, near Sceaux (Hauts de Seine). That is the last time Ilan was heard from. "In the following days the kidnappers contacted Ilan's father, and a friend of Ilan by e-mail three times. They sent photos of the hostage, his mouth and eyes taped shut, holding a newspaper to certify the date. Police investigators worked through the Net and found the originating electronic addresses, but the messages had been sent from cybercafés in Paris and the banlieue. The cybercafés were placed under surveillance for weeks by the Anti-gang Brigade and the Repression of banditism Brigade... in vain. Technical searches traced back through different servers to electronic mailboxes in the Congo and Ivory Coast... "We are lost in conjectures." "On other occasions a mysterious correspondent with a North African or African accent phoned and sent text messages to Ilan's father demanding a ransom. "But," explained the public prosecutor Jean Claude Marin, "the kidnappers were totally inconsistent." "The ransom demand went from 430,000 euros to 100,000 euros. 'They changed the pickup point at the last minute. They had us running around in circles,' admits a policeman. "One day it was Place du Châtelet, the next day Brussels, then in some other country via Western Union. At first we thought they were toying with us like the blackmailers of the AZF terrorist group... "The 'Crim' discovered that the gang wasn't on its first try. In mid-January, using the same method of enticement this time with a European type blond young woman, they had contacted another cell phone salesman in a shop on boulevard Voltaire. But he didn't fall into the trap. Early in December in Créteil (Val de Marne) a brunette who said she was a singer approached a young man who was a record producer. There too they traded phone numbers. But the young man's father was suspicious, so he went to the trysting place. He was surprised by three strangers who hit him, handcuffed him, and led him into an underground parking lot. But his assailants were scared away by witnesses. "François Jaspart, chief of the Parisian PJ explained yesterday: "For now, we are trying to find out exactly how many people the gang has hit on, and we'll try to find an eventual connection," According to our information, the men who were accosted frequented a luxurious striptease joint in the 8th arrondissement [this is apparently a false information]. "We are lost in conjectures," admitted Jean-Claude Marin, adding that the last contact with the hostage takers dated to last Thursday. A phone number for witnesses (01 45 44 31 82) has been set up since yesterday. The kidnappers, who are now being sought for 'kidnapping, sequestration in organized gang, acts of torture and barbarism,' risk life imprisonment." Similar articles were published in Libáration and Le Monde, though for some reason Le Monde incorrectly claimed the victim was 30 years old. You have to read Guysen Israel News, and listen to Jewish radio to discover that the young man was, as his name suggests, Jewish. And it seems that most of the other attempted kidnappings were made against Jewish men in the same age range. Ariel Goldman, head of the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (a service of the CRIF) was interviewed on Jewish radio this evening. says he heard about the kidnapping just after it happened, by chance, because of personal connections to someone who knew the family. But he didn't follow the story, and found out yesterday from the newspapers how it turned out. Still he reassures listeners: Everything suggests that the motive was criminal. There is no reason to think that he was kidnapped because he was Jewish, and tortured to death because he was Jewish. He adds: Now we are waiting for the results of the investigation. But the interviewer says that they have had many phone calls to the station about this incident. Including a call from a colleague who informed them that three of the four known previous attempted kidnappings targeted Jewish men. Goldman says that the Jewish community should not panic. News has filtered that one person -- perhaps a material witness--is in police custody today, and is being questioned about the affair. No more information is available. Comments: This gang has been operating since December. Reliable sources suggest they have been operating against Jewish targets. If the police, the media, and the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive had informed the public about previous attempts to kidnap young men, most likely Jewish young men and, on at least one other occasion, a Jewish man working in a cell phone store, perhaps Ilan would have been wary of the seductive young lady who made a date to meet him in the banlieue. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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FEMALE SOLDIER PUNISHED FOR TALKING WITH YESHA GIRLS; ISRAEL
FREES HAMAS TERRORIST; TREAT ME LIKE AN ARAB
Posted by Lee Caplan, February 16, 2006. |
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Female Soldier Punished for Talking With Yesha Girls
A female IDF soldier has been disciplined for talking with a group of girls who criticized soldiers. The incident in question occurred as they rode together on a civilian bus towards Beit El. The soldier was talking with a group of girls who were returning from last week's demonstration in Jerusalem protesting the vicious manner in which the Amona outpost had been evacuated. Voice of Israel correspondent Carmela Menashe reported that the soldier said the girls asked her if she was not ashamed to wear an IDF uniform. The soldier said she did not argue with the girls, but rather engaged them in conversation. The soldier was warned by another IDF woman, an officer, not to talk to the girls. The soldier carried on, however. She told the officer that there was no rule against talking with residents of Yesha and that she was in favor of doing so. "They are human beings just as we are,? "he told the officer. "They are not enemies who have turned against the Jewish people." The officer filed a formal complaint against the soldier, who was tried by the Binyamin Brigade commander and confined to the base. The IDF told Menashe that the soldier acted against orders forbidding "confrontational conversations" with residents of Yesha. Israel Freed Hamas Terrorist
(IsraelNN.com) Justice Minister Tzipi Livni has agreed to the release of a Hamas terrorist from an Israeli prison, permitting him to assume his new post, a member of the newly-elected Hamas-led Palestine Legislative Council (PLC). Ahmed Al-Hajri is the new Shechem district representative to the PLC and Israel has decided to permit him to leave prison and assume his new post. Israeli Researcher: Red Grapefruit Lowers Cholesterol
(IsraelNN.com) According to Dr. Shela Gorinstein of Hebrew University, one red grapefruit a day will keep the cholesterol away and help prevent heart disease. A new study published in the March issue of Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry by a research team led by Gorinstein found that red grapefruit in particular was more effective than white although it is not yet clear as to why. "It is likely that antioxidants in the grapefruits are responsible for their health benefits," said Gorinstein. Red grapefruit has more antioxidants that the white variety. "But it's also possible that red grapefruit may contain unknown chemicals that are responsible for the observed triglyceride-lowering effect," she said. The research team included Professor Abraham Caspi, head of the Institute of Cardiology at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot as well as scientists from Singapore and Poland who carried out lab work for the project. One cup of fresh grapefruit is approximately equal to a half cup of juice. Both are beneficial. Since grapefruit sometimes interacts with certain medications, researchers emphasize that people should consult with their doctor before eating the fruit or drinking the juice. Prof. Inbar: "If Israel Gives in to Hamas, World Will Follow"
A leading political scientist says that Israel is continuing past mistakes, paving the way for future hatred and murder by talking with terrorists -- even if only on a local level. Prof. Ephraim Inbar, the head of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, spoke on Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine on the topic the Israeli government's approach to Hamas: "The world is looking at us, and if it sees us beginning to find ways to approve of Hamas, even partially, it will be happy to join in the fun. We have to ensure that the wall of opposition to Hamas stays firm; so far, the countries who are willing to talk with Hamas, such as Russia and Venezuela -- and France is also showing some signs of coming towards Hamas -- are doing this only in order to flex their muscles against the United States..." Turkey, as well, hosted Hamas leaders this morning. Foreign Minister Tzippy Livny said she knew of the meeting in advance, and informed her Turkish counterpart that Israel insists that no recognition be shown to Hamas until it abandons its goal of destroying Israel. Turkish officials said they agreed to meet with Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal and other Hamas representatives in order to "inform [them] of what the international community expects from them." In addition, Jordan announced that it would invite Hamas leaders for a visit next week -- the first time they will be allowed into the kingdom since they were banished in 1999. Prof. Inbar said that Israel is once again repeating a grave mistake that led in the past to catastrophic results: "It should be known that Israel is already talking with Hamas, on the municipal level, with various mayors from the Hamas organization. The mayors are working for their municipal needs, but in the final analysis, they are building in their cities a strong educational infrastructure for the continued fight against Israel. They are building Moslem schools which teach that shahidim [martyrs] who kill Jews are to be admired and emulated. Mayors, too, play a major role in building the terrrorist infastrucure. It must be made very clear that what we did in the past [in talking with them] is total nonsense and must be stopped." "We must understand once and for all," Prof. Inbar continued, "that all money that reaches the PA frees up its other resources to help terrorism and the families of terrorists. There is no such thing as pure humanitarian aid. In addition, there is no reason to give humanitarian help to those who chose Hamas as their government; it is appropriate for them to suffer..." Asked if Israel is not bound by its agreements with the Palestinian Authority, Inbar said, "Of course not. They violated their commitments not to act with violence against Israel, and so I don't see any ethical basis for a claim that we are bound to these agreements." He warned against engaging in dialogue with Hamas: "To say that they have to abandon terrorism [is not enough]; this is exactly what we said about the PLO and Fatah 12 years ago, but yet they continued with terrorism throughout... We need not act like an ostrich, but we should rather tell the world exactly where we stand, and tell them the real truth that they might not like to hear -- such as, 'There is no solution.' People don't like to hear bad news, but the PA is bad news." "The world has become accustomed to seeing the Palestinians as a suffering nation," the professor said, "but it forgets that this is situation is of their own choice." Secular Kibbutz Conference Shows Solidarity With Hevron's Jews
Tzafrir Ronen of the Nahalal movement convened a conference recently in Hevron to show support of the secular Kibbutz and Moshav movement for the Jewish community of Hevron. Ronen's group is calling for unified national support for Jewish rights to settle anywhere in the Land of Israel. Ronen claims that the pioneers of Hevron are no different from the pioneers who founded the Kibbutz movement. Tzafrir Ronen was raised on the ideals of the Labor party and the secular Kibbutz movement, having served as senior campaign advisor for Yitzchak Rabin in the 1992 elections and as a founding member of a Kibbutz at the site of the ancient Jewish village of Gilgal in the Jordan Valley. Ronen says that in the wake of the Oslo Accords, he has gradually come to believe that the Labor party has turned against the very ideals that it was founded on. "It takes time for a person who grows up in the Labor party to understand that today, Labor is an anti-Zionist party," says Ronen. Ronen expressed strong criticisms of the current state of affairs in the Israeli government. "I am a third-generation Israeli. Israel has always been a parliamentary democracy; today Israel is looking more like a South American regime," Ronen told Israel National Radio's Yishai Fleisher and Alex Traiman. Ronen explained that the Sharon government was elected in 2003 based on a firm anti-Disengagement platform, with Sharon emphatically stating that the fate of Netzarim (an isolated Jewish town in Gaza) would be the same as the fate of Tel Aviv. He said that Sharon was mandated by the people of Israel to fulfill those campaign promises, but he changed his position, and essentially stole those votes in order to pursue the Disengagement Plan. In addition, Tzafrir feels, Sharon ignored the results of an internal Likud party referendum that opposed the disengagement, a referendum that he called for and promised to abide by. "Arik Sharon stole mandates, resulting in the destruction of democracy, and the media supported him," Ronen stated, adding, "Sharon fired two of his ministers, Elon and Lieberman, without a vote and without a reason. If one can fire a minister every other day, in order to get a majority vote, then what kind of regime is that?" Ronen hopes that Israelis will take advantage of the upcoming elections to make their voices heard and right the wrongs perpetrated by the Sharon administration: "Olmert's party is made up of stolen votes from the Likud mandate. In Israel, we vote for the party, not the person; that's the system. Olmert should not be the acting prime minister. The acting prime minister should have been selected from the party from which Sharon was selected, which is the Likud." Ronen claims that Attorney General Menachem Mezuz's decision not to categorize Sharon as "permanently incapacitated" was made in order to prevent the appointment of an acting prime minister from within the Likud party, as the law dictates. "There is no free media in Israel. The media are slaves to politics. Ask all the academia, professors and experts -- Why is there no overall news coverage of Hevron? The NRG Maariv website published a reported conflict between our group and left wing activists while we were in Hevron, but in reality nothing happened. The news media are a bunch of liars," explained Ronen. According to Ronen now is the time to unite as a nation in support of Jewish rights to live and develop the Land of Israel: "Left and right are very old-fashioned terms. I belong to the Kibbutz movement; I established Kibbutz Gilgal in the Jordan valley. Either we feel that this country belongs to us because the 'Land of Israel' belongs to the 'People of Israel,' or it does not. Either you belong to this country or you don't." "For two thousand years we waited for a chance to come back to Zion. What is Zion? Not Tel Aviv and Givat Olga [in central Israel]; it is Bethlehem and Hevron, where we started out. A nation that is willing to give up the land of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Rachel to our enemies is a nation that will stop being a nation. I am not talking about borders; I am talking about giving up the dream," Ronen stated. New Hunger Strike, Gush Katif Refugee Speaks
Hunger Strike Against Disengagements, Gush Katif Refugee Speaks 'Concerned Citizen' Eli Joseph and others are fasting to promote a National Referendum ahead of any further plans to withdraw from additional Jewish communities. Also, Gush Katif pioneer-turned-refugee Anita Tucker reviews the continued plight of expelled residents who have yet to receive the compensation accorded to them by Israeli law. Also on Yishai and Alex: Cleaning Up Our Capital and Holding Politicians Accountable Sharona Reuben of Hovevei Zion Hanekiyah and Alexander Chester of Nikayon Zion are collaborating to engage olim and Israelis to cleanup various communities in Jerusalem. Also, Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick warns Israeli voters against voting for corrupt acting PM Ehud Olmert. Treat Me Like an Arab
The world has gone completely mad. Right has become wrong, good is bad, and the whole world is just inside-out and upside-down. I am not sure when it happened, but Arab terrorists are really seen as the good guys today. Well, I also want to be acknowledged as a "good guy". Please, treat me like an Arab. Russia's premier, Vladimir Putin, has invited the Hamas terror group to Russia for legitimization and talks of cooperation. According to Putin and other warped politicians, the Hamas was voted in democratically; thus, they are legitimate and are to be recognized (and treated) as any legitimate government. Adolf Hitler was voted into office by the German people in democratic elections as well. Should America have given the Nazis, 'masters of the Aryan race', legitimacy? For Putin to officially invite Hamas to Russia is a slap in the face to all the children, parents and teachers, 334 of them, who were brutally murdered in a school in Beslan. Add to that the deaths of Russians who were killed in a Moscow theater in October of 2002. After three terrifying and torturous days, all of the Muslim terrorists were killed, but so were 130 of the 700 hostages. Using democracy as an excuse to recognize and honor an evil entity is cover for whatever diabolical motives Russian leader Putin may have. A word about democracy. In the case of the so-called Palestinian Authority, it just proves the Muslim Arab's cultural depravity and inhuman value system that they have democratically voted in the Hamas terror organization. Hamas literally swept the elections in the Palestinian Authority and the world says it is okay to have these criminals rule. Political leaders have accepted this fact and only mouth that the Hamas needs to go to language school to learn how to talk like a diplomat. It's not nice to say you want to wipe out a UN member state and that you will continue to use suicide bombings to murder its citizens. In our world today, actions don't matter so much as the packaging, and the masks the Hamas wears in the streets isn't nearly as nice as the suit and ties in the photographs of Fatah. One would think that the liberals of the West who say they believe in freedom and equal opportunity would fight the intolerant Arab Muslim culture war, but the opposite has happened. Whereas the masks the terrorists wear cover their nose and mouths, the West's liberals have donned the same mask, but they wear it over their eyes. They don't want to see the truth or their own hypocrisy. US President George Bush is guilty as well. He called on all governments to stop the violence surrounding the cartoon publications. Seems strange to lump all governments of the world together with Muslim rioters and inciting imams. President Bush has done some good things, though, like denouncing terrorism and trying to fight terrorists all across the globe. Yet, he stops the war on terror when it comes to Israel. Here, Bush is pushing his Road Map on the Jewish people, to create a terror state that would sit right in the middle of our Biblical homeland. Anyone familiar with the Bible can show you that the lands the world wants to take from Israel are the same lands that were given by G-d as an inheritance to the 12 tribes of Israel. The world wants to give terrorists another country to rule. The Islamic Bullies are winning. They threaten to murder, and they do murder -- in Israel, America, Spain, Russia, France, England (shall I go on?). They kidnap, behead, torture, maim, and abuse their enemies, let alone their own citizens. They don't govern their own people in a decent manner, keeping them in the 15th century. Heard of any respected universities in the Arab world? I haven't. But Western liberals will fight for the rights of this oppressive culture. The Israeli government, thinking we are dependent on the West, has caved in and has accepted the idea that we are weak and cannot keep our land. Government leaders are determined to follow world opinion and amputate Israeli land to help create a terror state. Anyone with any idealism, patriotism or a different opinion in Israel will be bulldozed over. Recently, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's administration called our children, and other lovers of the Land of Israel, "the Jewish Hamas". I was at first highly insulted to be compared to terrorists, but something happened to make me consider this in a different light. Soon after hearing our youth called "the Jewish Hamas", my brother-in-law was in a discussion with a secular left-winger. Speaking about the brutal beatings the police delivered to the protestors in Amona, the secular man said, "You just wait. You haven't seen anything yet. We will treat you like we treat the Hamas." When I heard about this dialogue, I immediately quipped back: I want to be treated like the Hamas! I want the world and the Israeli government to give us lovers of the land of Israel a state of our own (if the Israeli government chooses to abandon it) like they want to give the Hamas. I want to be able to protest the government like the Arabs do and not be punished for it. I want to be able to sit or stand or parade peacefully, and not be trampled by a horse or beaten on my skull with batons. Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com |
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THE BATTLE LINES HAVE BEEN DRAWN
Posted by Moshe Kempinski, February 16, 2006. |
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For decades the religious Zionist community has seen themselves as the bridge between Secular Zionism and Torah Judaism. That model and concept has been shattered in the last couple of months. The very notion that a bridge was necessary between those two ideas was inherently false. It implied there was an ideal of Zionism that espoused the values of a self governing Jewish state on the one hand that needed to be bridged with the eternal ideal of God's revealed message, Torah, on the other. The truth is that these two are inseparable. Zionism has no raison d'etre and lacks the power to sustain itself without torah. Torah faith on the other hand is inexorcably linked with the process of Divine redemption and its ultimate fulfillment is expressed within a self governing Jewish entity. After the last several months it has become cleat that Religious Zionism cannot see itself any more as the Bridge but must focus on its ultimate goal of being the Destination. The tragic expulsion of Jews in the summer that was followed by the viciously violent destruction at Amona has completely changed other concepts as well. It has always been the accepted understanding that the struggle for the heart and soul of the people living in Zion rages between the Israeli Left and the Israeli Right. In the last ten years the Israeli Left has been losing moral and political support in this country. Their visions have proven to be fleeting and their parties are dwindling in numbers. In fact the only reason that their ideology still receives the attention it receives is because the Judiciary system and the media in Israel are still in the hands of the old Left. The Disengagement/expulsion was not a function of ideology or principle. It was a result of the new politically correct stance of "non-ideology". In this battle for the land of Israel, those faithful to the vision inherent in this land are not facing off against the left anymore. The battle lines have been drawn against a large amorphous non-ideological mass of people who just want to be led in strength. They don't care where they are being led to or by what is the motivation that guides their leaders. They just want to see "something happening". A large portion of this country is simply tired. They are tired of eternal visions. They are weary of the large picture. They have lost the ability to navigate the long road. The fact that the Islamic world has moved into the phase of the "hidden Mahdi" with all its cataclysmic implications has made it even more overwhelming for the common Israeli. All streams of Islam believe in a divine savior, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, Muslims believe that the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace. Most Muslims believe that the struggle in Israel and that in Iraq signal the awaited final victory of Islam. Facing this ocean of hatred that has become Islam is much too overwhelming for most Israelis. It is far easier for this majority of Israelis to attack any group of Jews that stand for an ideology that may in that stand, stir this raging ocean of hatred. Using arguments that relate to the eternity or destiny of the Jewish people simply evokes insecurity and fear amongst this general non ideology mass of people. The insecurity and the fear comes from a deep insecurity amongst many of these people. They simply do not consider themselves worthy of contemplating such lofty ideals as Destiny or Eternity. The high number of parliamentary seats being predicted by the polls for Olmert's Kadima party does not come in spite of the fact that Kadimah has not outlined their party platform, it actually is a result of it. We are watching a nation undergoing a type of collective psychological breakdown. It is this precarious and delicate state of self that cause the majority of them to reach out for authority figures and strength. For them the belief in the army and in the police is all they have left. For many of them who have lost their faithful belief in their Heavenly Father will look to any Sharon type to be their father figure. We need to walk very carefully in this psychological mire. On the one hand we need to do everything possible to stand against the evil and brutality of those criminals in uniform who were ordered " to open the heads of those girls and boys" at Amona. Evil cannot be ignored and the perpetrators and those that sent them must be found and punished. Yet we must be careful not to destroy and attack the last anchors the non-ideological majority of this country still believes in. Just as we were correctly incensed at how the political left hijacked the concepts of "peace" for their own political agenda we must resist allowing the concepts of "Statehood" and the "Jewish homeland" from being hijacked by the self serving campaign manipulators of Olmert's Kadima party. We have no common ground for discourse with those who decide to or perpetrate violence against brothers and sisters. Yet the rest of this country are waiting to hear strength and vision within the context of what we share, using a language they will understand. Rather than disconnecting from the anchors that give this floundering people a sense of security, we need to give them the eyes to see those anchors in a much more elevated light. This state was born in miracles. Its military victories continue to defy human logic. Every fruit and flower is a testament to the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.The State of Israel is a vessel that is ready to be filled with holy purpose. We cannot allow it to be abandoned to the self serving interests of small minded politicians. We cannot curse the darkness as HaRav Kook was wont to say, we need to add light. Contact Moshe Kempinski by email at komem8@netvision.net.il or go to his website http://www.shorashim.com |
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ARAB KNESSET MERGER CALLS FOR ISLAMIC RULE, PRAISES HAMAS
Posted by Mordechai Ben-Menachem, February 16, 2006. |
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This was written by Ezra HaLevi and it appeared in today's Arutz-Sheva
(www.IsraelNN.com)
Two Israeli Arab parties have merged ahead of Knesset elections, launching their campaign by calling for Islamic rule in Israel and praising the Hamas terror group. "Rule on earth, at least in Arab and Muslim land, should be by the Caliph [Islamic ruler and heir to Muhammad's authority --ed.]," chairman of the new merger between the United Arab List and the Ta'al Party Ibrahim Sarsour said Wednesday. "We believe in Islam and in the Caliphate and not in separation between state and religion." [The word Sarsour in Hebrew means pimp (or literally, "a shepherd of whores). -- MBM] Sarsour made the statement during a joint press conference with Arab MK Ahmed Tibi to announce the joint list's platform and party list. The chairman took the opportunity to blame Zionists and the US government for a clash of civilizations being forced upon the Muslim world. "There is a hidden hand that acts in a bid to bring the world to a clash of civilizations," Sarsour said, referring to the cartoons of Islam's founder published recently in European newspapers. "I speak of that gang in the White House that tries to force one society's culture on another's. This is a part of a campaign against Islam, a campaign aimed at enlisting support in the West for military action against Iran." Sarsour praised the Hamas terror group, which he said would lead the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority to "progress and achievements, not catastrophes [the Arabic word for catastrophe Nakba is how the Muslim world refers to the Arab defeat in the 1948 War of Independence -- ed]." The Arab politician said the overarching goal of the new merger of Arab parties is to prevent the "Israelization" and "Zionization" that Arabs of Israel have had to combat. Specifically, Sarsour said the party would work to increase Arab immigration to the Jewish state and increase relations between Arabs with Israeli citizenship and the PA. MK Ahmed Tibi said that the sentiments outlined by Sarsour represent the wishes of Israeli Arabs and said he did not think he was running against other Arab parties, but against "Zionist parties attempting to win Arab votes." Fellow MK Taleb A-Sana promised that the party would support bills such as those that brought about the withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria and budgets that benefit the Arab public. He did not rule out sitting in a coalition government. A-Sana, together with Balad Party MK Azmi Bishara, were questioned earlier this week by Israel's Police International Serious Crimes Unit in Petah Tikva regarding their recent trips to enemy states such as Syria and Lebanon, which were taken without receiving permission from the Interior Ministry. While in Syria, A-Sana met with Baath Party officials and members of the Syrian parliament. MK Tibi was investigated for similar infractions last June. Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@computer.org |
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ROGUE INTL LAW THREATENS US; ISRAEL BETRAYS POLLARD; ISRAEL REACTS TO HAMAS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 16, 2006. |
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ROGUE INTL LAW THREATENS THE U.S. Great jurists codified international law, to guide relations among sovereign countries. Equally great thinkers drafted the US constitution for representative self-government. The Constitution was designed to respect local and individual autonomy. It held primacy in the US over international law and compacts. The Constitution limited jurisdiction of the "law of nations," designed against piracy and for shipping and the safety of foreign nationals. Any application of international law would depend on Congress defining it and punishment for violations of it. The Constitution limited the application of treaties to their ratification by the President and by a 2/3 majority of the Senate. The States and the Federal government are immune from suits by foreign countries and their citizens. Congress, however, legislates what amounts to treaties. That American concept of sovereignty is under attack. "Progressives" are striving for an international order to take priority over sovereignty. The attackers are "primarily Western elites, including especially nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like Amnesty Intl., officials of the UN and other international organizations, lawyers, judges, and professors in international law, multinational corporations (not so "progressive"), and ideologically compatible officials and bureaucrats operating within nation-states..." The UNO Charter recognizes NGOs, of which there now are hundreds. Some NGOs are pro-Communist, pro-terrorist, or just plain anti-American. They have been distorting the notion of international law into an international human rights law superseding national law. They, not democratically elected representatives of individual countries, define international human rights law. They are anti-nationalist. They also are anti-military. They blame war, such as WWII, for the suffering in their wake, rather than the evil totalitarians who had to be defeated to end the suffering. They imagine that military action is not legitimate without UNO sanction. Thus the incompetent (and evil) UNO would determine the fate of free societies. The "progressive trans-nationalists" condemn Israel's passive defense measures, such as the security fence, which initially reduces terrorist attacks. (Let them condemn terrorism!) These "progressives" denounce the US as cruel or bigoted for: having capital punishment and defending itself militarily; differentiating somewhat between citizens and aliens and promoting their assimilation rather than multiculturalism; not being fully subject to hate-speech laws and ethnic quotas; and insufficient statism. They denounce the US as a human rights violator. Human Rights Watch urges African countries to demand reparations for slavery in the US but not for African and Islamic enslavement of Africans. They also insist there is a "right" to "an adequate standard of living." They demanded that the UN Human Rights Commission act against US "racism." They perceive of international jihad not as war but as a series of crimes for courts, including international courts. They consider the US military operations as human rights violations. They file claims against US officials in these courts, sometimes for torture. (There may be something to their complaints, but they don't complain against serious torturers.) They claim to be empowered by the law of nations and the law of treaties. The US started caving in. A 1980 federal appeals court stretched an old law to grant damages to the heirs of Paraguayans murdered by Paraguayans in Paraguay. What did that have to do with the US? The court claimed that the law of nations banned torture, but the US was not party to any torture treaties. One of the judges commented that now the law applies to conduct no matter how unrelated to the US, if the judges find that it violated "definable, universal, and obligatory norms." Indeed, the courts then did find a "universally recognized norm" prohibiting arbitrary arrest and detention, civil grounds for private civil action against genocide. That may seem decent enough, but in principle a private citizen can direct our sovereign government to treat its citizens as he and foreigners want. Ironically, many of the foreign states pressing the US violate constantly. More problems arise from interpretation of treaties, once formerly simple and clear and between a few parties, but now complex, unclear, and multilateral. The US endorses a treaty on what it seems to mean, but others then interpret it differently. The US signed a treaty that requires signatories not to violate a treaty until it decides not to ratify what the President signed. Thus, now, contrary to the Constitution, the President can commit the US, until Congress rejects the treaty. These agreements are full of "socialist, big government, pro-illegal immigration, anti-assimilationist, anti-capital punishment, and global village ideas, some unconstitutional. NGOs claim that certain concepts have become customary, so that countries not adhering to them or rejecting them, face international condemnation. With all the diplomacy, politics, wars, court rulings, decrees, tribunals, and interpretations, these customs are far from definitive. Condemnation, however, may be unhesitating. The US did not accept a 1977 protocol to extend POW privileges to terrorists and to hamper military action against terrorists that use civilian areas as a shield. Many others do accept it. They now claim it binds the US. They call US treatment of terrorist detainees a war crime. What a boon to terrorism! The NGOs refer to the "international community." But it is not a community. The NGOs hope that international tribunals will replace national courts. They want the tribunals under the aegis of the UN High Commission for Human Rights. The Commission has a majority of inhuman members, such as Libya, Syria, Sudan, etc.. They would supervise conventions against racial discrimination, discrimination against women (that the Arabs special in), rights of the child, rights of migrant workers, etc.. US troops may be tried for war crimes in Spain, and US officials may be tried in Germany. The Supreme Court, itself, invited alien enemy terrorists to sue their US captors in the middle of war (Andrew C. McCarthy, 2/2006, p.41). Will we stand up for OUR rights? BLAIR'S DEAL BACKFIRES ON HIM British PM Blair made a deal with the Muslim bloc. He sponsored the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill in return for their votes. When he also supported the liberation and independence of Iraq, they deserted him. His own followers left him over his continued support for the Bill. Most of the country opposed the Bill, though his power almost sufficed to pass it. The Bill was packaged as preventing expressions of hatred against religions, but it really aimed at serious criticism of Islam. Blair was selling freedom of speech and imposing favoritism for Islam. People worried that they might not be allowed to object to, say, Muslim mistreatment of minorities and of women. It would be another case of Muslims getting others to censor themselves (Daniel Johnson, NY Sun, 2/2, Op. Ed.) as they tried in Canada. One does not have confidence that such a law would have been enforced against Muslims, though they are notorious for hatred of other religions and preach defamation of them. ISRAEL BETRAYS POLLARD The Supreme Court of Israel eschews Jewish morality and proved it by rationalizing against Prisoner of Zion status for Jonathan Pollard. The governing elite of Israel act like Medieval Jews afraid to displease the gentiles. That is why Israel did almost nothing to free Soviet Jewry. That struggle was waged largely by US Jewry. "... the idiots loathe the wise person the craven contemns the brave the base-spirited hates the daring. Jonathan Pollard constitutes a threat to them his personality is so great that they find themselves spiritually incapable of honoring him. The stooped people who can see only the spittle covered floor under their feet can't look far enough in order to see their decisions blown away by the tempests of history." "The goal of his (Pollard's) liberation is not only the problem of a single captive Jew; it poses a fundamental question for the State of Israel, will it endure as the state of the Jews?" (IMRA, 2/2.) ARAB JUSTIFICATION FOR ILLEGAL ARAB HOUSING The Arab head of The Jewish-Arab Center for Peace in Sakhnin, Israel, defended illegal Arab housing there. He said that the residents' families have been living there for 3,500 years, and needed room for expansion. Dr. Aaron Lerner agrees that Sakhnin is an ancient city. It is mentioned in the Mishna. Two rabbis from the 3rd century are buried there (IMRA, 2/2). The Arabs conquered the Jewish country hundreds of years later. There is no excuse for illegal Arab building. Let the Arabs buy land and apply for building permits, just as the Jews do! ISRAEL'S REACTION TO HAMAS Israel is saving money in its war on terrorism. Formerly the IDF shelled empty fields in reaction to rockets landing in Israel. Now it spares the shells. Instead it fires off empty threats (IMRA, 2/2). Hundreds of threats have been issued. "... how has Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to fight that Hamas Nazi state and defend Israel? ... by declaring war on Jewish settlers in the West Bank...!"(Prof. Steven Plaut, 2/2.) REACTION TO POLICE RAMPAGE The Israeli government has been cracking down on the few soldiers of both courage and conscience who refused to engage in the free-for-all against their countrymen who protest over the planned destruction of the Amona houses. The government is training the entire Army to be vicious like the special police selected to be so. Some patriotic Israelis have become disillusioned with what was supposed to be a Jewish state. Police often said nothing to protestors sitting quietly on the street or in the doomed houses, and did not attempt to arrest them, but laced into them with horses and clubs. Police kept bashing wounded people. (They wounded more than have the Arabs.) Fortunately, most of the victims were young enough to regain consciousness, sometimes needing resuscitation by medics to do so. Those who eventually are arrested (Jewish civilians, not brutal police or riotous Arabs) undergo further tribulation. They, mostly idealistic, non-violent resistors, are treated with restrictions as if dangerous, subjected to the presence of violent dangerous criminals, and denied the necessary articles for practicing their faith. One woman saw the horde of hardened police as beyond reason and drugged with the power to destroy. She sees no point in the Jewish people possessing a state when this is what they do with it. Someone remarked that the Israeli police are not Cossacks (Arutz-7, 2/2). I think that is exactly what they have become like. There are other stories of unusual viciousness by police, who encourage each other to strike hard, but I don't reiterate ones I think would be harder to prove. ARAB CULTURE: BLAME SOMEONE ELSE The Saudi Ambassador to the US was asked on CNN about the Arabs' double standard, in objecting to cartoons about Muhammad, while Arab cartoons depict Jews as both drinking blood and being Nazis. He replied that the latter cartoons are due to the Arab-Israel conflict (NY Sun, 2/6, p.4). That's an excuse for the Arabs? Then why not for Denmark, due to the Islam-Christianity conflict? At least some of the cartoons about Muhammad were true to his life. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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WHAT WILL EUROPE REALLY DO?
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, February 16, 2006. |
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Europeans offer Muslim Jihadists a quit claim deed to the Land. So where will everyone emigrate to? The French will probably go to Canada; the English to Australia; those in the Netherlands might go to rural America. As for the Israelis, having caved in to Leftist plans to abandon the Jewish Land given to the Jews by G-d, perhaps there is room in the Congo or Siberia. This was written by Victor Davis Hanson and appeared on www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_14_06_VDH.html February 15, 2006. Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. Nothing is quite as surreal as the Islamic world's fury at the liberal and innocuous Danes. How could anyone wish to burn their embassies and kill their citizens, when they have always offered all the politically correct, multicultural platitudes and welcomed in any and all from the Middle East? Now the furor over the cartoons, coming on the heels of the bombings in Madrid and London, the French rioting, the murders in Holland, and the failed European negotiations with the Iranian theocracy have shaken Europe to its foundations. If the most liberal and tolerant states in Europe such as Holland and Denmark have the most problems with Islamic radicals, then what does that say about the continent as a whole? Why were not the calculating jihadists singling out a more unapologetic Catholic Poland that has larger contingents in Iraq and is far prouder of its Christian roots? Do the Europeans sense that the more open, free-wheeling and non-judgmental the culture, the more it is hated by the jihadists? If Europe as a whole is more pro-Palestinian than the United States, disapproved of Iraq, and yet is still hated as much, is magnanimity at last exposed as appeasement -- earning only contempt from an emboldened enemy? Don't look, however, for any overt expression of alarm. It is too much to ask of the European Union for now to go on the record supporting the right of Danish free expression or to demand an embargo of Iran as it approaches nuclear autonomy. Instead, expect the European reaction to be far more subtle: the same old public utopian rhetoric, but in the shadows a newfound desire to galvanize against the threat of Islamic fascism. Here is what we can probably anticipate. First will come a radical departure from past immigration practices. Islam will be praised; the Middle East assured that Europe is tolerant -- but very few newcomers from across the Mediterranean let in. There will be continued public furor over the American efforts in Iraq, but far greater secret efforts to coordinate with the United States -- in everything from isolating the Assad regime in Syria to rethinking missile defense. For the past three years the post-colonial Europeans have wished the Americans to learn their imperial lessons by failing in Iraq. Yet it may well be that many in private will now wish us to succeed, if only in the hopes that such Middle East democracies will be less likely in the future to turn loose their mobs to burn European embassies and threaten their citizens. We won't see much public condemnation of Hamas, but more likely quiet efforts to pull the plug slowly on subsidies for such terrorists. The Europeans praised Arafat, then learned that he was singularly corrupt. Nothing disturbs a European more than to be swindled and damned as immoral in the process. Subsidies to Jew-hating Hamas terrorists only ensure both. Europe will still talk about bringing Turkey into the fold of the West, but de facto is horrified at the thought that millions of a religion that empowers so many to go berserk over a few cartoons might soon comprise the most populous nation of Europe. I doubt any European diplomat will invest any political capital at all in restarting in earnest Turkish/European Union talks. We can also look forward to more bizarre pronouncements such as Jacques Chirac's warning about the French nuclear deterrent. In point of fact, Europe has no real defenses against a 9/11-like attack. They know it. So do the terrorists. Crash an airliner into the dome of St. Peter's or knock down the Eiffel Tower tomorrow: Europe has no mechanism to hunt down the perpetrators in the Hindu Kush, the Bekka Valley, or the wilds of Iran -- much less, like the United States, to hold a rogue regime responsible. Frustrated by its lack of military resources, but cognizant of the classical need to warn an enemy that more is to be lost than won from starting a war, France is reduced to bluster about nuclear weapons -- threats that probably are either not believed or welcomed by the jihadists. In lieu of a credible military, Europe will send more tiny contingents to Afghanistan, remind the world that Britain and France are nuclear, and somehow hurry up to construct a conventional deterrent where there is now none at all. Finally, the Europeans who despised the unilateral and preemptory George Bush will start to grate at his new multilateral side even more. Be careful what you wish for, especially when an American leader may now not necessarily be such an easy target of caricature -- or may not always do the dirty work of fighting jihadists from Pakistan to the Sunni Triangle. Instead, by letting the Europeans take the lead with the Iranian negotiations, and keeping nearly silent about the cartoon hysteria, the United States essentially has told the Europeans, "Here is the sort of restrained sober and judicious global diplomacy that you so welcome." Because of slated troop withdrawals from European bases, and a new American weariness with the old anti-Americanism, some Europeans are beginning to recoil at the idea that they might well be on their own -- and in a war against fanatical enemies that they have appeased and without rational friends that they have estranged. In response, we may see less of the anti-American rhetoric and a return to the Cold War slogans of a "strong Atlantic Alliance" and "an essential Nato," as nuclear jihadists replace the fear of 300 Soviet divisions. So now Europe is being thrust right into the middle of the so-called war against Islamic fascism. Once threatened, it will either react with a newly acquired Churchillian maturity to protect its civilization, or cave, in hopes that even more Chamberlain-type appeasement will satisfy the Islamists. It should be a fascinating spring ahead. |
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A GREAT MISUNDERSTANDING ABOUT THE HAMAS VICTORY
Posted by Mordechai Ben-Menachem, February 16, 2006. |
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This is an excerpt from "A Great Misunderstanding About the Hamas
Victory" (http://www.nysun.com/article/27575) by Fiamma Nirenstein. It
appeared in the New York Sun February 14, 2006.
I went to the West Bank to report on and interview Palestinian Arabs before, during, and after the elections. In the market of Hebron, a pretty woman, Raeda, 22, with a veil down to her eyebrows, told me she prefers Hamas because it's a religious party that will reestablish Islamic rule on all the land occupied by the Jews. With a lovely smile she also told me that she wouldn't mind if her son becomes a martyr. A group of children told me, almost singing, that: "Religion says that there is no peace with the infidels." Where did they learn that? At school. What do they think about martyrs? All of them want to be one. It's a pathetic joke to try to launder the Hamas victory as if the Palestinian Arabs simply wanted to vote against PA corruption. From what I saw and heard, it was an Islamist and violent vote, with deep cultural roots in the Palestinian education system and in the messages of the Palestinian Arab leadership during the intifada. The reality is that secularism has declined since the 1970s. No statement renouncing violence or terror or acknowledging Israel's right to exist can cancel out the religious and violence-oriented education of the past decade that culminated in the election. (New York Sun) Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@computer.org |
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ISRAEL'S POLISH CORRIDOR
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 16, 2006. |
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1. Buried in the Israeli election news is the fact that Israeli voters have just lost their only possibility to vote against the Olso "peace process" and against the pursuit of peace through appeasement and self-abasement. The last holdout, the only party not promoting Peace through Auto-Annihilation, had been the Ichud Leumi party, itself a coalition of several smaller factions. The National Religious Party (NRP) or MAFDAL was giving rhetorical lip service to opposing Oslo, but no one believed it was really opposed. After all, the NRP had sat in Israeli government coalitions of the Labor Party and the Likud that implemented Oslo appeasements without batting an eyelash. One wag suggested that when Israel's government decided to move Israel back to its 1949 borders, the only concern of the NRP will be that the withdrawal not take place on the Sabbath. As a coalition partner, the NRP never had any problem abandoning its nominal opposition to Oslo in exchange for some budgets for its yeshivas and schools. Well, a few days ago, the Ichud Leumi decided to merge with the NRP to run as a single list. This means that any voter casting a vote for this party out of conviction that Oslo must be stopped and reversed stands a distinct chance of seeing his own vote perverted and cashed in for some wampum for NRP yeshivas. And what does he do if he wants to make sure that the vote he casts is really a vote that will be used to stop Oslo? Well, I suppose he can always try going to 2010 in a time machine. Israelis still have plenty of pro-Oslo options. Every Jewish party
besides the NRP-Ichud openly endorses more Oslo appeasement. The Arab
fascist parties all want Israel destroyed, and one of them (Tibi's
Raam-Taal Party) came out this week for the imposition of Islamic
Shaaria law on everyone in Israel. Oh, you Tikkun readers have two
choices: The "Green Leaf" party whose entire platform is legalizing
hashish, and Meretz, which also wants to legalize hashish. The Green
Leafers are going to the Supreme Court this week to demand that
organizers of a straw poll being taken in a Tel Aviv high school
include their party in the poll. I personally find that just one toke
over the line.
2. Speaking of Cartoons! by Steven Plaut In the hullabaloo over the cartoon pogroms, one strange angle is being overlooked. It is not just the primitive fundamentalists and Islamofascists who want to criminalize any cartoon that is disrespectful of Islam, it is also the policy of the Israeli government. For the record, let me emphasize that I believe that civilized people should not mock the religious beliefs or sacred symbols of other people. It is simple manners and respect. Having noted this, let me also emphasize that freedom of speech must not be applied selectively to protect the vulgarity of the politically correct while persecuting others. Allow me to remind you of the incarceration of poor Tatiana Suskin. A few years ago a young and not particularly bright immigrant to Israel from the old Soviet Empire named Tatiana Suskin made leaflets with the offensive image of Mohammed as a pig. She may have been a fanatic, a naif, and perhaps even a bit dangerous. She used poor taste and was vulgar and crude. Yet her poster of the Prophet Mohammed as a pig would be protected (if tasteless) speech in any true democracy in the world. In America it would have gotten a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. But not in Israel. In Israel, Suskin's behavior is a crime for which one does real jail time in hard-core prison, for a period of two years; more than many drug smugglers and rapists get. The Israeli establishment argued that Suskin's actions offended Moslems. Well, Moslem anti-Semitic speech and actions offend the Jews, or at least all Jews who are not self-hating leftists. Which is worse, a disrespectful cartoon of Mohammed -- or openly endorsing terrorist atrocities, as do so many Israeli Arab politicians and Jewish academic "Post-Zionists"? At the time of the conviction of Suskin, I ran the following spoof on the web and in Middle East Quarterly. The most interesting part of this story is that afterwards I got several "hurrahs" in letters from Moslem militants who thought that Salman Rushdie had really been arrested! News Flash!! 3. A fundamental plank in the Oslo "peace process" is to provide the Hamas mini-Reich with a "safe corridor" that links the Gaza Strip with the West Bank. Israel would be prohibited from stopping the movement of weapons, explosives, and terrorists along this "safe corridor". The Americans and the EU have been pressuring Israel to allow the operations of the "safe corridor" to begin operations immediately. Now that there is no Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip, there are also no obstacles to the massive import of state-of-the-art advanced weapons into the Gaza Strip via Egypt. These likely include shoulder missiles. No more Kassams for the Hamas, those pieces of junk held together by chewing gum and glue! The Palestinian terrorist army now has 21st century high-tech weapons. And the "safe corridor" will ensure that these also reach the West Bank. Shoulder missiles that can knock down civilian planes will reach Palestinians in positions over which planes fly when landing at and taking off from Ben Gurion airport. What I find most amazing is that the Israeli political establishment has learned absolutely nothing from previous cases of implementation of "safe corridors" in history! Israel's will not be the first! The most famous, or rather infamous, must be the "Polish Corridor" that Hitler demanded in 1939. As you recall, after World War I, when Poland was reconstituted, Danzig remained a "free city" and parts of East Prussia remained under German rule. After Hitler took power as the Rais in Germany, ethnic Germans in Danzig formed a nazi party and took control of the city. Following his success in cowing the West, winning all his demands at Munich, and then in destroying Czechoslovakia, Hitler's next agenda was a "Safe Corridor" between Germany proper and Danzig/East Prussia. Hitler was sure the West would again acquiesce and appease. Poland dug in its heals and refused the demand for a "safe corridor". Poland understood that the "safe corridor" was little more than a tactic to divide Poland's territory and make it more vulnerable for a German invasion. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. After Poland's defeat, Danzig and the Polish Corridor, as well as much other territory in western Poland, were annexed to Germany. After World War II, the entire German population of East Prussia and Danzig were expelled by Poland. In recent years we have been hearing cries from the Israeli Left that the coming "Palestinian state" must be provided with territorial "continuity". The only problem is that one look at the map shows that, if the Palestinian state has territorial continuity, then the Jewish state cannot have territorial continuity. And this in fact is the point of the demand for a "safe corridor". The "safe corridor" would simply be the first step towards armed aggression against Israel and territorial dismembering. The Polish government of 1939 understood that the "Polish Corridor" would amount to the first step towards self-annihilation and refused German demands. The Israeli political establishment has far less backbone and common sense. Oh, by the way, we are hearing arguments about how Abu Mazen of the PLO will stay on as "Palestinian President" while the Hamas only controls the "'parliament" and so will keep the Hamas restrained. Will, speaking of historic precedents, this strongly resembles similar predictions when Hitler took power and Paul von Hindenberg was Reich President. Von Hindenberg will keep Hitler restrained, was the accepted wisdom and media spin. Within a year von Hindenberg was dead and Hitler had seized all presidential powers. 4. Cockburn's Jihadette is Outed Alison Weir is a little bimbette who runs a Bash-Israel web site and frequently turns out screeds for the anti-Semitic web magazine Counterpunch. (The stable of columnists for the web site is sometimes called the 'Cockburn Cockroaches'). As Lee Kaplan reported in an article for FrontPageMag.com., Weir "once called a massacre of 60 yeshiva students in Hebron in 1929 by Arabs an 'Arab uprising. against Jewish oppression' even before Israel existed." Now Edward Olshaker has done an expose on the little jihadette here (http://www.jewishpress.com/page.do/8461/Hate_Uncensored.html). He writes: One such journalistic propagandist is Alison Weir of Sausalito, a freelance reporter and executive director of the anti-Israel organization If Americans Knew. Shortly after the terrorist bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub in 2005 that killed five Israelis and wounded more than 50, Weir sent out an e-mail press release expressing support for the massacre. (Even Palestinian leader/veteran terrorist Mahmoud Abbas, who alternately condemns and praises terrorism, condemned this particular attack, which occurred during a "truce.") It was not the first time Weir gave a big thumbs-up to a mass slaughter of innocent Jews. While we recommend Olshaker's whole article, we were particularly pleased to see him tip his hat to your humble curmudgeon: Weir's article also recommends the journalism of Counterpunch editor Alexander Cockburn, who, as Haifa University Professor (and frequent Jewish Press contributor) Steven Plaut has reported, "openly gave credence to reports that Jews spread anthrax in the U.S. and that Israel was part of a conspiracy to topple the World Trade Center. Cockburn insists Jews conspire to control the media." (Not surprisingly, shortly after a 2003 Iranian military parade displayed medium-range ballistic missiles bearing banners that said "Death to Israel" and "Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth," Cockburn.s publication ran an article entitled "The Case for a Nuclear Iran.") 5. WHAT free speech?
6. Interesting New web Site is attacking "Rabbi" Saperstein, the
head of the leftist Reform synagogue swat team "Religious Action
Center":
7. Why is this not surprising? (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395420880&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) While riots over the cartoon depiction of Muhammad continue to rage worldwide and controversy surrounds an Iranian newspaper's decision to hold a Holocaust cartoon competition, an Israeli cartoonist has come up with his own ironic -- some say misguided -- response. And it's attracting a wide audience. Amitai Sandy, 29, a Tel Aviv graphic artist, has launched the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest, a challenge, led by Jews, to find the best cartoons, caricatures and short comic strips that demonize the Jewish people. Winners will be published as editorials in Haaretz and used as official emblem of the Department of Political Science at Ben Gurion University. 8. If Jewish blood contains alcohol, can a Hamas member drink it? http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48844 9. Well, Omri Sharon, Ariel's son, is going to prison for campaign finance sleaze, and the Attorney General says he will similarly seek jail time for Likud backbencher Naomi Blumenthal. All of which shows that the Israeli dual justice system, under which one set of jurisprudence operates for the Left and the other for everyone else, is still in effect. Were Omri Sharon and Blumenthal involved in campaign sleaze? No doubt. [Blumenthal's transgression was to provide free hotel rooms to party Central Committee members voting in the party primaries. Big deal.] But nothing either did compares with the gross filth of the campaigns of Amram Mitzna and Ehud Barak, whose sleaze was oceans larger. Neither of THOSE nor their senior cronies have been indicted! Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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THE POLITICAL ARENA
Posted by Herb and Miki Sunshine, February 16, 2006. |
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This was written by David Katz and appeared in the February 15th 2006 edition of HaModia's Israel News (P.A5). It is with regard to the brutality at Amona. When Nobel Prize laureate Professor Yisrael Aumann, a lifelong religious Zionist, announces that the ideology of the chassidei Satmar -- which negates all ties with the state and all that it represents, including its institutions -- may have been right after all, this should be a red light for Israel's decision makers. Even more shocking was a statement made by ... a representative of the national religious camp: "We want civil war. From the 'salt of the earth' they have turned us into the dregs of society. They took away our homes without minimal consideration. They are competing to see who can show us greater contempt. They beat us and humiliate us. If need be, next time where will be guns on the roof, and they won't be there for decoration...; we'll use them. The way things look there is no other choice." This statement ... came from a moderate, self possessed man in his sixties who lives in the center of the country. And no, he didn't say it in a moment of anger. He explained that it is the result of continuous burning rage at the grave injustices being perpetrated against one sector of the public which is no longer willing to take it. "They thought that after Gush Katif we had raised a white flag and we would fold in the face of any new madness of any leader who wants to build support on our backs," he said. "They thought that we had lost our fighting spirit The answer is No with a capital N." On Amona, he said, "Believe me, I could understand it if those cruel policemen had received orders to behave like wounded animals and indiscriminately hit the bachurim in the event that they would be attacked by stones; a stone can kill. But Olmert will not agree to investigate what happened and even rejected the president's call to launch an inquiry. The truncheons and the hands that held them were the only language spoken there. Even those who had been hiding in the houses, and who did not so much as throw a pail of water, were treated to brutal beatings. So I say, if they want war, let it be war, to the death. We too can lift the banner of rebellion." It is important to remember that this is not a spokesman who wants to make political gain on the eve of the elections; nor is it bluster spoken by the head of Yesha Council at some demonstration or other. It is the bitter feeling of a large segment of Israeli society that calls itself the moderate right.? Contact Herb and Miki Sunshine at sunshine.h@012.net.il |
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THE STORY BEHIND THE PICTURE
Posted by Barry Shaw, February 15, 2006. |
It is this church organization that has voted a boycott against companies dealing with Israel. Dr. Williams was prominent in adopting this motion. Now, against a rising wave of criticism, including from other leading Anglican clerics, Dr. Williams is expressing remorse for this anti-Israel decision. Part of his double-talk statement included this
Now more about the picture. This picture was taken just minutes after yet another Palestinian suicide bomber had detonated his explosive belt outside the main shopping mall in Netanya killing several innocent Israelis and injuring many more. The news of this murderous attack was given to Dr. Williams as he was on his way to pay a courtesy call on Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. Rather than cancel his meeting at such a delicate time, Dr. Williams continued and paid his respects to Arafat. He was gifted with a special medal, presented to him in the name of the Palestinian people. This is what you receive when you buy the lies of a terror regime that declare to their people their aim to kill Jews and destroy the Jewish state, yet spin you a different tale. It is the actions of influential leaders, such as Dr. Williams, that helped perpetuate the corrupt and criminal Arafat regime and prevented a peaceful solution to the Middle East crisis. His words and actions helped prop up a regime that refused to honour every agreement and commitment while Arafat promoted Islamic terrorism against the Jewish people. This blind 'political correctness' that propped up corruption, criminality, and terror, despite Israeli protests and evidence, has resulted in the election of a Hamas leadership. Following the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the dismantlement of West Bank settlements, and the rise to power of an Islamic terror organization, the Anglican Church as chosen such a delicate time to adopt an anti-Israel agenda. Can we now expect to see Dr. Williams pay homage to the Hamas leaders, under the guise that they are the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people that they so actively support? Perhaps they will also award him with medals while Israelis die.
Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, 25 years ago with
his family. He spent eleven years on various kibbutzim, ending up at
Mishmar HaSharon, the same kibbutz that served as home to Ehud Barak.
He now lives in Netanya, where he runs a real estate office. To
receive his "View from Here" columns, contact him at
netre@matav.net.il
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US AND ISRAEL SAID TO BE TALKING OF HAMAS OUSTER
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, February 15, 2006. |
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The New York Times of February 14, 2006 had two important front page articles. ONE WAS ENTITLED: "U.S. and Israelis are said to talk of Hamas Ouster". (1) It was my take that this exposé was either a leak by Leftists in Ehud Olmert's 'Kadima' Party or from Arabists in the State Department. The article by Steven Erlanger goes on (supposedly) to expose plans by Israel and the U.S. to financially starve Hamas so in 6 months or perhaps a year, new elections would be called and Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) would be restored to power with his Fatah Party to replace the radical Hamas. Clearly, whoever leaked the supposed plans, did so as a spoiler. It's well known that Olmert's Kadima Party is not only loaded with Leftists but, the kind of Leftists who had operating connections with the Palestinians in both Fatah and Hamas. The journalist who wrote this story, Steven Erlanger, stated "The officials and diplomats who said this approach was being discussed at the highest levels of the State Department and the Israeli Government, spoke on conditions of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publically on the issue. Stated another way, these officials and diplomats deliberately leaked these discussions to the New York Times reporter, knowing they were not supposed to. Moreover, they had to know they were playing the role of spoiler. The question to ask: Was Olmert in on the planned disclosure or does he have zero control over the gaggle of Party Jumpers now called Kadima? Puzzle on that for awhile.... THE NEXT STORY: "Egypt Leader Moves To Delay Local Elections" On the same front page New York Times, February 14th, we see a column entitled "Egypt Leader Moves To Delay Local Elections" by Michael Slackman. (2) Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak moves to postpone for two years local elections that were scheduled for April, turning away from a promise made during his recent Presidential race to promote "Democratic" practices, Egyptian analysts and political leaders said Monday. The article speaks about irritation of the American Administration over Mubarak's attempts to hold onto his rule and control. More importantly, it also speaks of the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood which made significant gains in the recent Parliamentary elections. (Note! Apparently, Mubarak got the message when Hamas won handily as a the most radical Muslim Terrorist group in the areas called Palestinian Authority.) The newly introduced U.S. concept of introducing Democracy through elections in the Middle East is not ending in Western Democracy. Middle Eastern Democracy means the strongest rules the weakest by force and wins the elections because of the extremes to which they push their force. Mubarak could read the writing on the wall which said that, in a democratic election, the Muslim Brotherhood, like Hamas could take control over the Egyptian Government. That could also happen through assassination as the Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat because he dared to negotiate a Peace Treaty at Camp David with the Jewish State of Israel. Hosni Mubarak took over as president. Then in 10 years Mubarak declared the Camp David Treaty null and void like the 7th Century Hudabaiya Treaty (that Mohammed negotiated with the Quarish (various spellings) Tribe of Jews in Mecca. However, when Mohammed had gained greater military strength, he came back in about 2 years, massacred all the men in the tribe and sold the women and children into slavery. Let's get to the heart of the matter. I have been prognosticating a take-over by the Islamists in Egypt for a long time as follows: After Jimmy Carter enabled the Ayatollah Khomeini to return from exile in France and take over Iran from the Shah, America lost her Gulf State 'Policeman' and all the best high tech military technology America had 'sold' the Shah. The U.S. switched their bets to Egypt and armed them with the $60 plus Billion in free American tax-payers dollars to be supplied -- free -- the best American armaments, aircraft, missiles (even SAM missiles), tanks, artillery, creating an Egypt that is the military colossus of the Middle East. The State Department's goal was to use Egypt to occupy Saudi Arabia should Iraq -- Iran -- Syria move separately or together in a coalition to take over the Saudi oil fields (and the other Gulf Oil States). The State Department's view was short-sighted because A. Egypt could never be trusted as a loyal representative of U.S. interests and B. There was always a high possibility that Egypt, through a Muslim coup d'etat could go Islamic -- as did Iran. In the meantime, Israel was to be recruited as a player to agree to the expansion of Egypt's military power without real opposition. That began in earnest under first Menachem Begin, then Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres and continued on through succeeding Prime Ministers. I remember someone said the same thing happened to both Peres and Bibi Netanyahu (very much opposites politically). "After he (Peres and then Bibi) came out of his first U.S. security briefing, he was pale and shaken." I don't know why. It has to do with some threat hanging over Israel that may be more dangerous than anything we might imagine. The lessons are only to: Be Prepared and Act from Strength. Our Muslim enemies hold weakness, appeasement and negotiation for "peace" in contempt. From that they know they can move against us and ask for more -- and more -- and more. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood was expanding its power base in Egypt while linking up with Yassir Arafat's Palestinian Terrorists, followed by Abu Mazen, Hamas, Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Islamic Jihad, Hezb'Allah and now especially Al Qaeda....All are committed to being an extension mechanism of Iran, Syria and Saddam (during his time of power). Now, Iraq contains the dangerous volatile so-called "insurgents" or Mujahadeen (Warriors for Islam) who kill Americans, Allies and Iraqi civilians. There is little doubt that Mubarak will go, one way or another, and the Muslim Brotherhood will become the Dominant Power. They will sit poised on top of a $60 plus Billion dollar arms stockpile. They will, no doubt, in time occupy Saudi Arabia and their oil kingdom as planned by the State Department -- except they will not be obligated to take care of U.S. interests. The only problem is that they will be as friendly as is Iran and/or Syria to America (who they call "The Great Satan") and the Jewish State of Israel ("The Little Satan"). The Gulf States, like Kuwait, will then fall like the proverbial dominoes, unless America wants to use troops on the ground to fight Egypt, Iran, Syria before they make their move -- separately or collectively. The one friendly, dependable and militarily strong power in the region (Israel) has been steadily downgraded and truncated by the U.S. Presidential Administrations and the State Department policy in deference to Arab interests. When the U.S. will really need Israel, she may not be there or won't be strong enough -- having had her military power substantially reduced -- thanks to U.S. State Department policy. That includes removing Israel's Nuclear Deterrence. The NYT article is prescient in terms of alerting the Bush Administration to its flawed policy of introducing democratic voting into the Middle East, which merely puts the more ruthless Jihadists into power and further weakens America's only reliable ally, Israel. Sometimes the New York Times does us all a favor in spite of itself. ### 1. "U.S. and Israelis are said to talk of Hamas Ouster: Cut-off of Aid & Taxes -- Effort to Force New Vote If Group Refuses to Alter Its Current Stances" by Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 2/14/06 2. "Egypt Pushes 2-Year Delay in Local Vote" by Michael Slackman Emanuel Winston saw more than a hundred youths severely beaten, many with multiple head wounds, as police went on a rampage. Mounted police charged peaceful demonstrators and clubbed them, too (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/1). Law and order or fascism? |
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IRAN: DECISIVE ACTION NEEDED NOW
Posted by Rachel Neuwirth, February 15, 2006. |
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High Noon with Holy Terror?
Diplomatic efforts by America and the West have thus far failed to dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The clock of military danger is ticking faster than the clock of a diplomatic solution. Our American leaders have failed to reveal the full extent of the danger that will soon confront us all. To assure that Iran's WMD are disarmed in time may ultimately require a major military intervention by America. For many, the prospect of another military campaign seems too daunting, especially in light of our difficulties in Iraq. In 1962 the Kennedy administration discovered Soviet missiles being installed in Cuba. We believed those missiles had nuclear warheads. President Kennedy promptly addressed the American people to explain the gravity of the situation and the need to directly confront the threat without delay. We learned later that America and the Soviets were eyeball to eyeball with nuclear weapons and the Soviets blinked first. Kennedy argued that in the nuclear age we could not allow the enemy to strike first and he was willing to risk war, if need be, to force the removal of the Cuban missiles. After WWII we lamented that in the 1930's Hitler's threat was underestimated. He was allowed to rearm Germany in violation of the disarmament treaties after the German defeat in WWI. Germany foiled the arms inspections program of that day, and the West even traded with, and appeased, Nazi Germany while ignoring the growing danger. Stopping Hitler in the 1930's would have had a price but the West's failing to do so assured WWII which cost fifty million lives. The world was lucky in WWII because the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 mobilized American opinion and brought a united America into the war with full force. We had a few precious months to mobilize and back up England, which was fighting Germany virtually alone. We have already been warned that today America could be facing a nuclear Pearl Harbor on our homeland with dire consequences and with no time to mobilize. In Iran we also face an enemy with an ideology that sees a major war as anticipated fulfillment of a religious destiny. Such an enemy cannot be deterred by the prospects of massive casualties. Iran, in fact, has already so stated. The Iranian regime, observing American weakness and lack of resolve, becomes emboldened and all the more provocative. We seem too eager for a deal to bribe the Iranians. We seem helpless in the face of widespread national humiliation by more and more countries. We may not realize just how much our superpower image has faded in the world but our adversaries are watching closely. In the 1930's Hitler was emboldened by western weakness. Have we forgotten that lesson? For a superpower to appear irresolute in the face of Iranian provocations is to invite trouble. We remain overly focused on the cost of a pre-emptive war against Iran while insufficiently focused on the dire consequences of doing too little, too late. President Bush has failed to tell Americans, in plain talk, just how vulnerable America is to a WMD attack and the dire consequences that would follow. Our borders remain wide open and vulnerable to penetration by sleeper cells with nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons. Iran has also been working on an electromagnetic pulse weapon (EMP). A nuclear bomb detonated about 200 miles overhead would emit an electromagnetic energy pulse over a huge area that would burn out civilian electronic circuits below. America's vital communications would be blinded and our economy would be paralyzed (go here). Iran's existing missiles could be mounted on commercial cargo ships and moved two hundred miles off both of our shores in international waters. The missiles and the nuclear warheads need not be long range, nor accurate nor highly sophisticated, to do the job. Al-Qaeda is reported to have a fifteen-ship navy, which could be used for such a mission. In conjunction with such an EMP attack, terrorist sleeper cells could be activated inside the U.S. to attack population centers with any combination of their WMD. Such a combined attack would greatly multiply the damage by spreading panic and confusion. These scenarios have already been conceived of and warned about. We must assume that Iran and Al Qaeda are capable of planning and executing such a diabolical attack. It is necessary to comprehend the full extent of the danger we face in order to justify launching another pre-emptive war and bearing its costs. We have been told of the difficulties of trying to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. They are dispersed, buried deep underground in hardened sites and heavily defended. We can also anticipate a strong reaction from Syria, which has a military alliance with Iran, and from the Muslim world. Having waited too long, we now face a formidable adversary that had time to prepare. To make the best of a bad situation we might consider the following as an example of a possible approach that would play out in stages. We must also act quickly to replace our image of weakness with one of resolute determination to take down Iran's entire nuclear program, both civilian and military. 1. The President addresses America and the world. He cites the failed negotiations and the extreme danger in allowing Iran to go nuclear and proliferate WMD to Al-Qaeda, Hezbolla, Hamas, etc. Having exhausted all diplomatic options, America is now free to act unilaterally in its national interest and will do so. He declares that he will not shift our responsibility to Israel. He reminds us of President Kennedy's warning that in the nuclear age we cannot afford to allow the other side to attack first. This address will inform Americans, mobilize public opinion, raise our morale and lower enemy morale. 2. Within hours of the President's speech we detonate a nuclear weapon, without warning, high above Iran, beyond EMP range, to be widely seen in the Middle East and lighting up the night sky. We issue an ultimatum to the Iranian leadership: Dismantle your nuclear program now or face the consequences. The President orders emergency civil defense preparations including stringent fuel saving. We go on a partial war footing. Friend and foe alike must know we mean business. To European complaints about expected hikes in oil prices they should be told their long appeasement of Iran has helped cause this crisis. The Iranian people must be told that we will try to avoid civilian casualties and anything they can do now to topple their regime will receive support from us. 3. When Iran refuses to capitulate we employ successive EMP attacks to progressively disable their national infrastructure causing internal disorganization and chaos. We warn Iranian civilians to immediately evacuate certain places, which sit atop underground military installations. Any Iranian military response will be met by crushing retaliation. 4. Concerning their deep underground nuclear facilities; we should bomb all entrances to entomb both facilities and technical personnel. We avoid a bloody and costly ground war and take down the regime with an air war. The regime may still retain power but its nuclear threat will be neutralized and the regime will now have immense internal problems in caring for its 70 million people. Any attempt by them to reconstitute their military would be promptly attacked. Any country that attempts to aid them such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt would receive the same treatment. 5. Along with Muslim rage would also come shock and then despair at the dashing of their hopes to finally conquer America and the West. It is futile to negotiate with enemies who are intractable in their determination to destroy the West. WWII showed that total defeat of an intractable enemy might be the only option left. Perhaps this limited exercise of force will cause our enemies to back off, at least for a long time to come, because our new tactics can now inflict severe punishment on them at low cost to ourselves. This will NOT become another Iraq. And Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia will now have to think twice about continuing to support the insurgency in Iraq. 6. We can expect oil prices to rise and remain high causing widespread economic hardship in oil-consuming countries including America, Europe, and China. This will require major adjustments in energy use to compensate. This will be a painful lesson but still much better than allowing "kooks with nukes" to kill millions. This scenario is only an example of a possible approach. Hopefully, we have military planners who can come up with even better options. The nagging question is whether America as a nation still retains the will to do what is necessary to assure national security. Rachel Neuwirth is a freelance writer who resides in the Los Angeles area. Please, visit Rachel's web-site http://www.MiddleEastSolutions.com. Rachel receives e-mail at rachterry@sbcglobal.net. |
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MOHAMMED AND ALLIE
Posted by Naomi Ragen, February 15, 2006. |
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Well, the cartoon controversy gets better and better. Muslim "rage" has given cartoonists all over the world new inspiration. The subject:sitcom situations for Mohammed. For a laugh and a selection, please go to http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1898359 |
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FORMER JEWISH TOWN IN GAZA SERVING TERRORISM; ISRAEL'S MEDIA
PROBLEMS; EPITHETS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 15, 2006. |
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ISRAELI PROFESSORS INCREASINGLY ANTISEMITIC An Israeli professor from Tel Aviv U. theorizes that Judaism's exclusiveness is responsible for antisemitism. He admires Haman, the one whom the Biblical Book of Esther describes as having attempted genocide against the Jews. Haman wasn't bigoted, the professors claims, he just didn't like their particularism. Other Israelis professors come up with equally nonsensical anti-Israel and anti-Jewish notions (Prof. Steven Plaut, 2/1). Disliking Jews for being a separate people is bigotry. I think the Jewish neurosis has gone crazy, like children who run around wild and end up without self-control and just scream. COUNTERPART TO ISRAELI DEMOLITION OF JEWS' HOUSES "At a conference that took place on January 7, 2002, at the Jerusalem Center for Women, Hatem Abed El-Khader Eid, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council representing the Jerusalem district, proudly announced that, during the last four years, Palestinians have erected 6,000 homes without building permits, out of which only 198 were demolished... According to a report in the newspaper Ha'tsofeh, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the PA are among the sources of funding for the wave of illegal construction in Jerusalem." (IMRA, 2/1.) The Arabs boast of flouting the law in a campaign to wrest the capital from Israel, and Acting PM Olmert boasts of upholding the law by demolishing a handful of Jews' houses that probably are legal. Since they've been demonized, it's making him popular. FORMER JEWISH TOWN IN GAZA SERVING TERRORISM Soon after Sharon expelled the news from N'vei Dekalim in Gaza, Al Aksa U. renovated buildings left standing. New ones classrooms and student clubs have been constructed at the site. The Fatah students' organization dominates that university. Many of its students join its military wing. Throughout the intifada, riots have taken place on and off at the campus, and many students have taken an active part in terror attacks, including bombings. Other former Jewish towns are to be the site of housing for the families of suicide bombers, wounded terrorists and former prisoners. "Arab refugees living in the Gaza Strip will not receive housing there, however, in order that their plight continue to be used for PA public relations campaigns." (Arutz-7, 2/1.) Why do the Arabs build there, instead of on the extensive vacant land in the Strip? Partly because Israel and at the World Bank's request, left buildings there for its enemies. Partly, I think, to humiliate Israel. Thus the Sharon abandonment and the World Bank further serve terrorism. Note the convergence of education with terrorism. Italy had been subsidizing P.A. education as a humanitarian measure. The education of terrorists is not humanitarian, especially not their course in the sciences needed for making bombs. ISRAEL'S MEDIA PROBLEM Israel's reputation internationally has been ruined by slanted reporting on the Arab-Israel conflict. Most people know nothing about it but biased reports. Same goes for reporters. Hillel Halkin made both the usual criticism of journalism and more original criticism. Reporters are shallow, rushed, and dependent upon handouts. Israel treats them dryly bureaucratically, and tendentiously. The Arabs treat them competently, warmly and with energetically expressed prejudice by local people. Reporters who defy their Arab handlers may get cut off from news in the P.A., so they kowtow and acquire prejudice. Sympathetic to, or afraid of, the Arabs, journalists do not expose Arab lies as frauds. These include blood libels such as accusations of an Israeli atrocity at Jenin and the murder of Muhammad al-Dura. Other issues they miss the significance of, such as the arms Arafat brought in by ship, while posing as a peace partner. A major problem identified by Halkin is post-modernism. Journalists are not aware of, and don't care about facts and historical rights. They let the major Arab claim to the land seem as good as, or better than, the major Jewish claim to the land. The Zionist narrative is too complex and subtle to win support from shallow people. Halkin concludes that Israel must strive harder to make the truth heard and must start to make its case known (Commentary, 2/2006, p.54). He missed two other major problems: (1) He referred entirely to foreign media, but a major problem is from Israeli media; and (2) Israel cannot make a good case when it is in a post-Zionist state of confusion. The major Israeli media vary from Left to Far Left. The have become increasingly anti-Zionist, to the point of sympathizing with the Arab enemy and demeaning Jewish patriots capable of making a good case for Israel. The ruling circle in Israel is so appeasement-minded that it thinks it is making peace even as the Arabs make war. Israel fails to make vigorous arguments against the Arab case. In its readiness to cede Jewish national territory to a belligerent enemy that refuses to cede any territory, it calls into question the legitimacy of the Jews' claim to any territory. The foreign media often quote the Israeli media on anti-Zionist passages and false accusations of mistreatment of Arabs. Halkin may damn the foreign media for hostility towards Israel, but it states it merely is repeating what the Israeli media "admits." BRING U.S. TROOPS HOME FROM IRAQ? So urges N.Y. State Senator Bruno. He claims the Iraqi war is over. Even if it were, other terrorist-spreading states remain. Then transfer them to Iran or Syria, not to the US. EPITHETS & EUPHEMISMS IN NEWS REPORTS "Under the American-backed 'road map' peace plan, Israel has pledged to remove about two dozen outposts. Settlers and their extremist reinforcements vowed to fight that." Their houses in Amona are situated on privately owned Arab land (Josef Federman, NY Sun, 2/2, p.6 from Associated Press. Facts below from Israel Resource News Agency). State Dept. labeling of the road map a "peace plan" does not make it a peace plan. The label is a euphemism for the traditionally anti-Zionist State Dept. scheme to deprive Israel of the Territories. The map's provisions are stacked against Israel, as is the composition of the Quartet that was to administer it -- State Dept., UN, EU, and Russia. If the Quartet were sincere, it would urge Israel to demolish the thousands of illegal Arab buildings. It does not. The Quartet does not press for the Arabs to meet their anti-terrorism and peace commitments under map and Oslo. Why should only Israel comply? The Hamas election victors plainly state they favor war on Israel. That renders the plan void. Again, why should Israel comply? The plan was devised high-handedly. The Quartet ignores Israel's reservations to the plan. Let Israel declare the plan voided! The only reasons that the government of Israel is proceeding against those outposts is that the Acting PM thinks it is popular to do so and appeases the US and the Arabs. It is not in Israel's interest. If he were sincere, he would be consistent about it and demolish the thousands of illegal Arab houses. If he were sincere, he would have let the Jews move their houses in Amona onto other land, as they offered to do, and would have given them time to prove they had bought the land and their development is legal, else they would demolish the houses, themselves. He wanted blood and glory, their blood and his glory. The news item states as fact the contested theory that the land does not belong to the settlers. As for the allies of the settlers being "extremists," this is name-calling. The case can be made that the government is extremist. It bashes the heads of protestors, peaceful or not, and even after they have surrendered or are helpless, and it has agents provocateurs committing violence to give police an excuse (really an excuse to arrest, not to beat wantonly). Most of the police victims were people pulled out of cars or sitting and not resisting. This usually is called fascism, but A.P. calls the settlers extremist. The extremist Israeli regime destroys its own people's houses in undue haste and for sordid political reasons. This is part of its drive to give the core of its people's homeland to an active enemy, a form of treason so extreme that no other nationality would be guilty of. Why the Jewish nation? The story is misleading and slanted. A newspaper cannot rely upon the Associated Press. Dr. Aaron Lerner reports that police are reviewing videos of the incident to identify civilians who were violent. The police would not say whether they were reviewing videos to identify police who were gratuitously violent (IMRA, 2/2). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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IT MUST BE DIRTY TRICKS
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 15, 2006. |
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In earlier postings -- "More Dirty Tricks" and "Scene One, Take Two" -- I mentioned that it wasn't clear to me if the arson attack was more dirty tricks or a change in the rules. Well the prompt statement of the ultra anti--Jewish Peace Now pretty much proves that it has to be dirty tricks. You may ask how can I be so sure? The same system of logic that proves to Peace Now that this had to be those terrible "settlers" also proves that Peace Now is working in coordination with the SHABBAK. Ergo dirty tricks. Logical it all is. This is called "Peace Now Blames Settlers for Arson Attack Against Police Vehicle" and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews.com (www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98558). (IsraelNN.com) Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer released a statement blaming "settlers" for an arson attack against the vehicle of the deputy commander of the Shai District, as was reported earlier. The commander was the highest ranking police officer at the scene of the violent evacuation of Jewish protestors in Amona two weeks ago. Police have released statements that there may be a link between Amona and the arson attack last night in Shoham. Oppenheimer, who heads the far-left organization, blames right-wing lawmakers and "settler" leaders for the arson attack, telling the media their ongoing incitement has led to the law-breaking activity and if not stopped, will lead to physical injury. Of the hundreds wounded during the action by special unit police in full riot gear, approximately 150 were wounded badly enough that they were taken to hospitals. y |
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SPEAK UP FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH: SIGN PETITION FOR NADIA MATAR
Posted by Herb and Miki Sunshine, February 15, 2006. |
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The State of Israel, led by its unelected Kadima government, has indicted Nadia Matar, co-chair of Women in Green, for insulting a public servant, Yonatan Bassi, head of the "Disengagement authority." More than a year ago, Nadia sent him an e-mail message alluding to him as a 'kapo.' In preparation for the trial, we call on you (Israeli citizens only) to add your signatures to Nadia's letter. After many signatures are gathered, the letter will be resent to Bassi. To sign the letter, please click here. Shall we stand by and allow the authorities muzzle the national camp, while the Leftists in Israel can say or do anything they please? Add your signatures now, and protest the hypocritical and discriminatory policies of the prosecution. We must raise our voices against the ongoing legal persecution of Nadia Matar in particular and the loyalists of the Land of Israel in general. At the moment the petition is in Hebrew -- -- the translation of the
letter into English will be put up please G-d very soon.
Help us gather many signatures on behalf of freedom of speech.
Please forward this petition to friends
and other email lists.
To sign the letter, please click
here.
With love of Israel, Ruth Matar, co-chair Women in Green
For donations to cover legal expenses
Thank you! |
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FRIENDS OF HAMAS
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 15, 2006. |
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The Wall Street Journal understands what the Israeli media do not: This is from February 15, 2006; Page A16 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113996666679574165.html The government of Hugo Chavez will receive representatives of Hamas "with pleasure" should they visit Venezuela on a forthcoming tour of South America. Vladimir Putin has announced he will host a meeting with the Palestinian terrorist group/political party next month in Moscow. "We have never considered Hamas a terrorist organization," says the Russian president. The ostensible reason Russia and Venezuela give for meeting with Hamas is its victory in last month's legislative elections, which gave it a majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament. We agree that the results of those elections must be "respected," in the narrow sense that they reflect the outcome of a lawful democratic process. But just because something is respected does not make it respectable: Recall the diplomatic quarantine the European Union slapped on Austria in 2000 when elections there put the proto-fascist Freedom Party in government. For Hamas the invitations are excellent news and a ticket to international legitimacy. Venezuela may be far from the Middle East, but Mr. Chavez maintains close ties with Iran, a patron of Hamas, and his influence in the "non-aligned" world has been growing. Russia is a partner in the so-called quartet of parties involved in Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. Already, Spain and France have endorsed Mr. Putin's invitation to Hamas, and both governments are reported to be working to have Hamas removed from the European list of terrorist organizations, according to Arab and Israeli sources. Expect other countries to follow suit in this tacit legitimization of Hamas, thereby "isolating" the Bush Administration, which refuses to deal with the group. Which brings us to yesterday's reports that the U.S. and Israel are trying to "destabilize" Hamas by squeezing the Palestinian Authority for funds -- which was played as front-page news. Neither President Bush nor acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have made any secret of their intention to isolate Hamas and deprive the Palestinian Authority of funds once Hamas assumes the reins of government. Nor is there any shame in doing so: Donors have the right to impose conditions on their beneficiaries, and so far Hamas has rejected international calls that it disarm, forswear terrorism and accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state. As Hamas leader Khalid Mish'al wrote in Britain's Guardian immediately after the election, "We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state. ... We shall not seek friendships at the expense of our legitimate rights." Palestinians need to understand that the exercise of self-government carries consequences. For too long, the international community has failed to extract a price for the Palestinian recourse to terror. That failure has not brought peace, but far worse it has produced the "Palestine" we have now: destitute, savage against both Israelis and moderate Arabs, and, so far, incapable of managing its internal affairs peacefully and competently. By refusing to render Hamas respectable, the U.S. and Israel aren't punishing the Palestinians. They're educating them. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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MY TRIAL FOR SEDITION BEGINS NEXT MONTH
Posted by Salah Choudhury, February 15, 2006. |
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Despite repeated petitions and appeals from my friends, brothers and sisters around the world, as well international organizations, the false sedition charge continues to hang on my head. Punishment under the sedition code is death penalty or 30 years imprisonment. I was told by my lawyers that the trial of this case will begin early next month. I repeatedly told the Bangladesh Government to drop this charge, which they actually brought against me for criticizing the rise of Islamist Radicals as well supporting relations with Jews and Israel. But, they said, it would not be possible to drop the charge, as their alliance partners (which are Islamist extremists) would become unhappy! Imagine the world that I am living in. Now, I think, it is time to put pressure on Bangladesh Government. Weekly Blitz will publish two page Special Supplement titled 'Tale of a false sedition charge'. I would appeal to you all kindly to send articles titled 'Drop the false charge' or 'Don't execute Shoaib' or any other titled you may consider suitable (minimum words 100) and please send it to ediblitz@yahoo.com for publication in the Supplement. Also, please write to Bangladesh Ambassador in Washington and Dr. Condoleezza Rice expressing your kind concerns. You may also kindly write to Mr. Kofi Annan. Regards
The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, and editor of "Weekly Blitz". He was imprisioned at the airport in Bangledash on his way to a writer's conference in Israel and held in prison for 17 months. To read his article on his experiences, click here. He continues to espouse inter-faith dialogue. Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com |
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WITH HUMUS IN CHARGE, NOTHING CAN SAVE THIS MEAL
Posted by Boris Zubry, February 14, 2006. |
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So, the militant and the corrupted Humus have won, and the less militant but still more corrupted Falafel is out. What a mess. What's cooking now? Is this a cooking revolution of the insane or it's a cuckoo revolution of the Middle East? The level of tension, anger and frustration is high, sparks are flying and the big fire is not too far away. How do you put together a balanced meal when ingredients are all wrong and too harsh for a gentle taste? We can't chew it not even mentioning of swallowing it. That could be enough for a full-scale civil war where the green and the yellow would fight each other until one of the colors fades away, and maybe permanently. Is that good news? It very well could be but for whom? The less militant and the more militant, the less corrupted and the more corrupted may accomplish much by fighting it out and shedding some bad blood. Their blood. That blood could feed the young shoots of peace letting them flourish and multiply. The whole world agrees by now that green and all kinds of the greenish semitones there have to go. Enough is enough. Even the permanently lost Islam cannot tolerate it much longer. The decent Muslims are paying for the extreme misleading. Maybe this blood shedding among the faithful is Allah's will? Who can tell but Allah and Mohamed, his messenger? Inshallah! Allah Akbar! Now, what about the rest of the balanced meal accord? Gefelte Fish may not see it that way until it proven true and fly off the handle commencing fast swimming upstream and, I may add, rightly so. Gefelte Fish for ages has been a big fish in this muddy pond and shall remain so. Gefelte Fish is there to stay. That's the proven point. Steak and Potatoes may not be able to save the fragile accord of the balanced meal this time and hold the Gefelte Fish back. What about the Frogs, the Sauerkraut, the Spaghetti and the Sushi boys? Maybe the Rice and Beans can balance the Humus out? What do you think the Big Ugly Red Bear, with a delicious ham, of the east would say? Frankly, I don't think anything could save this meal with Humus in charge or even being in consideration. No matter what we say and what we do, it would not cut it at all. Even Falafel with all its problems of being somewhat fattening and often overcooked or undercooked, and not very appealing in looks and sounds, had more possibilities and even some hopes. The worst, the most corrupted and the ugliest dude-Falafel just recently died (Baruch Hashem!) from a questionable disease and we rejoiced in anticipation for a better one. And, a better one (we hope) came along. Well, anyone could be better then the old creepy one with a questionable disease, and this new one had a possibility. The whole world banked on him. He could have been a good one, given a chance. A good cook, even just a fair one, could make a lot of things right, if he tried hard enough, but who would try it now? Who would cook now? Allah and Mohamed, his messenger? Too many bad (even if some of them are promising) cooks in the same kitchen spell a major disaster. Do we need one more? And there of all places? Do we need more sparks and fire in this tiny, fragile, old fashion kitchen? Thank you but not now. It may not survive the excitement. But, some liberals and all kinds of "freedom supporters" say that, regardless of results, it was a democratic election and we all have to respect it. Do we? Was it? Democratic... Where? There? In the land of the bloodiest and the most corrupted dictators of all shapes, sizes and colors? Are you sure? Impossible. This is the land where corruption comes before anything else. Democracy is not in the wind and it's not in Muslim's genes. Even the turmoiling mob there is orchestrated and managed by someone else often wearing a turban of white or the black color and the funny clothes. Money always comes from their brothers Muslims and not, pretending to be our brothers, as well. Guns and explosives come in a steady stream from the Big Ugly Red Bear, with the delicious ham, who likes to divide and conquer making a lot of money in the process. Big Ugly Red Bear, with the delicious ham, would sell its mother for a bottle of vodka while eating the own ham. What is so democratic about it, if you carry an AK-47 given to you by the Big Ugly Red Bear, with the delicious ham, almost for free, not counting promises made by both sides? That would be a scary democracy of a bigger gun or the democracy of an unruly mob. Another words, if you have a bigger or more guns, you enjoy a bigger or more democracy. Did it come out right? Yes, it did? Lovely. That's all we need. Is this the democracy we are talking about? Is this the democracy worth dying for? Thanks god, we live in a Republic and the charging mob is not in charge. We enjoy the majority rule with the minority free to present and defend its point of view. Often the minority arguments win and we change the majority ruling. That's the foundation of the republican system in action. We may recall times when the small, skinny, nothing to look at, Sauerkraut grew up a mustache and started goose-stepping all over the world stepping on all kinds of toes. Many did not like it and openly revolted against it but the Sauerkraut and the Sausages did not care much and stepped on more toes. That was very painful for all and left very deep burning marks on individuals and the whole cultures, including the Sauerkraut and Sausages themselves, for generations to come. Hundred of millions of perfectly balanced snacks and completed meals: regular, local, ethnic, international, Kosher, Halal, vegetarian and so many others, delicious and sometimes not so much, were permanently destroyed, burning, going up in smoke and perishing forever in eternity. The overindulgence with the Sauerkraut and some of the Sausages did it but, nevertheless, the Sauerkraut and the Sausages claimed to be democratically elected and just following orders. Was that the same type of a democratic election we are dealing with now? It may very well be. The strictest and the spiciest Chelou Kabab was not too long ago elected to rule the Middle Eastern cuisine that for thousands of years was the subject of the cultural admiration. Then, the radical Halal revolution stripped it off all flavors, allowing only Koran to be used for the recipes in life and no other cookbooks. It was the violent one with shots being fired, people being killed and the foreign hostages being taken. All international rules of the coexistence were violated at once. In one night this culture of respect went from the center of civilization to the bottom of the pit. It took generations upon generations for this civilization to clime up to the considerable top and almost no time to fall down and even lower then it was when generations started to clime up. It went down to the bottom of the pit, the pit that was dug out to collect the dirtiest refuse of the society. Did Allah and Mohamed, his messenger, will it? Do they deserve it? To be on the bottom of the dirtiest pit? We may never know but the Muslim leaders believe so. Inshallah! Allah Akbar! Halal revolution was criminally insane back then and even more now. Its appetite grew much faster then its brain and common sense. The culture suffered, taste suffered and integrity suffered even more. The whole world, including much of Halal, was in shock and the condition is increasing. Now this Chelou Kabab perversion of Halal wants to nuke all meals claiming that this is its sovereign right. This capability for nukes were conveniently manufactured by the Big Ugly Red Bear, with the delicious ham, who is not blamed for that at the moment but the moment shall change condemning all the guilty. The Big Ugly Red Bear, with the delicious ham, maybe guiltier than all Halals together. This overdone Chelou Kabab -- Halal thing intentionally excludes the other cuisines from being present at the common table of friendship and brotherhood and even refuses the Gefelte Fish the right to exist. The skinny parody of Chelou Kabab wants the Gefelte Fish dead. This Chelou Kabab stated it openly and this thing also was democratically elected. How did that happen? Democratic elections have brought us to the verge of war already, time and time again. We still try to negotiate but are we getting anywhere? Should we just stop wasting our time and clean the kitchen using, if necessary, the harshest chemicals? Think. That could be the answer. This is a new Saddam in the making. We let these elections do before whatever they wanted to do and the whole world paid for it in full. Maybe we should get the poisonous snakes while they are still young? Maybe we should burn the "Satan verses" and the "Satan seed" before they burn us? But, no, we do not see it that way yet. We did not have enough. Give us more. It takes more than attacks on way of life, our cities, deadly explosions in hotels where we rest, kidnapping and execution of our citizens, burning of our flags and destruction of our properties, and the open insults to make us see it that way. The Frog country was half destroyed by the Islamic violence instigated by nothing, by the violators themselves. But the Frogs got blamed for everything. Government is not responsible for you learning at school and getting an education and a profession. Government is not responsible for your desire to get a job and getting one. All government is responsible for is providing you with a fighting chance. You are suppose to make the best out of it. You are suppose to find your own place under the sun. We all do. Don't blame anyone for your failures. Blame only yourself and find the way out within yourself. It is not what the people did for us but it's what we did for the people. All this rioting justified by "injustice" could be easily described by: "if I do not have what you have, you should not have it either." But the proper, the democratic way is different: "if I want something you have, I want a chance to work harder and earn it, as well". That is understandable and just. This is the way of our life and this is what the democratic society is all about. A number of quite funny cartoons published in a newspaper created a wave of violence of Koranic proportions. People are killed, the property of the innocents is destroyed and the whole world is insulted. We try to talk it over forcing the media not to publish it again. Whom are you trying to talk it over with? Allah and Mohamed, his messenger? Try to bring Bible or the Torah to Saudi Arabia and see what happens. Well, you would not see what happens because you would be executed by decapitation in front of a Mosque as soon as humanly (!) possible. Would you call it a peaceful discussion of the matter? Democracy works only in this way: if you respect what we respect, we will respect what you respect. Why don't we face that? Ever since Islam was invented, we've been struggling with it? Not with people and not with cultures but Islam itself. Islam maybe the last religion but it does not come from God. It comes from the Devil pretending to be God and represents all we stand against. Only in Islam are democracy, human rights, culture, education and freedom denied while slavery, oppression and unjustified bloodshed are promoted. False prophecies made by false prophets are put above the human's interests and the harshest punishments assure that the followers follow. People were given the choice and they failed to choose right. They chose the Satanic Verses. Even now we do not fight one militant Islamic group or another. We fight the whole Islam, the Evil religion that created the evil international culture, and that is what we have to destroy. All Muslims are in it one way or another. One cannot separate the individual Muslims from the Evil deeds they commit in the name of God. All true Muslims would follow the word of the Imam and, if they don't, they are not true Muslims and should not belong to that group. Islam, as any aggressive religious sect, demands a complete obedience and does not allow the freedom of choice. There is no "Reform Islam". We keep asking Muslims for an explanation hoping to find an escape from the prejudice but the answer is still the same. "You, the American Imperialists and the Jewish Zionists and the rest of the world bribed by the Jews, are guilty of not understanding us, innocent Muslims, of repressing us, of not respecting us, of not giving us all we want and when we want it, and we are poor oppressed people have the right to defend ourselves using all means available to us". Where does that come from? But that's what we keep hearing while bending over backwards taking all of that. Is not it time to stop bending over, smell the roses and let force talk? Force is more understandable by them and bullets make better points. Why do we keep answering their violence with smiles, politeness and excuses for something we never did? I know, I know -- turn the other chick. We do not have any more chicks left to turn. We are fresh out of them. The Moors and the Turkish Empire made a very deep dent in the chick supply. The Mufti of Jerusalem and his boys enlarged that dent to Koranic proportions. The Arab world and the Palestinians with constant wars, political plots, bloodthirsty dictators and plain terror made it all soaked in blood. Well, unfortunately for the Muslim leaders, most of this blood was the Muslim blood and Paradise is running out of virgins. So, is their goal is to terrorize us with their own blood? I think this is the time to open our eyes and to face the truth. Let's acknowledge the real enemy -- Islam -- and hit it as hard as only possible. After that we can talk and let them find excuses and explanation for what they did and did not do. Is there anything wrong with the democratic process, as we know it, if radical groups can get elected promoting aggression, racism, fascism, communism, hard-line religion and all other types of discrimination based on sex, belief and misleading superstition? Should we curb democracy somewhat but still call it democracy? Is it wrong or is it right? Oh, we do it already. We did outlaw all radicals at our table. We just do not let any party promoting anti-democratic ideas create a party. We started it not too long ago but it works for us. We separated religion and government but not far enough. We still have more work to do but there is a good start. We call it the Constitution-based Federal Republic with strong democratic traditions or the Republican System of Government. Will we ever get a balanced meal that would satisfy all different tastes and appetites? Boris Zubry is a mechanical engineer. He was born in the Soviet Union and now lives in the United State. Mr. Zubry is also author of "Chess Master," a political thriller; "Miles of Experience," a collection of short stories and "Arrogance of Truth," a collection of satiric short stories and poetry. Contact him by email at boriszubry@comcast.net or at his website, http://www.boriszubry.us |
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YOU CAN'T COMPROMISE BETWEEN WINNING AND LOSING
Posted by Ken Heller, February 14, 2006. |
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This was written by Gary Cooperberg. Gary Cooperberg will be on a speaking tour in the states between March 19 and 30th. He is interested in spending that Shabbat in a Jewish community which will give him opportunities to speak about Israel and aliyah. You may contact him by email: gary@projectshofar.org. When the rug is pulled out from under you and you fall helplessly to the ground, you wonder if you can get up or should even try. Fear is a strong motivating factor in our behavior. Our enemies instill fear by indiscriminately murdering Jewish civilians. And our own government instills fear by brutally beating demonstrators. Fear is an ancient tool used to control behavior. It usually works. Yet, even a tame rabbit has a limit to succumbing to fear. If cornered, with no chance to escape, he will fight back. The Jewish citizens of the Jewish State have faced fear all of their lives. We have lived in a constant state of war ever since the establishment of the state. The alleged peace treaties we have with some of our neighbors is only a result of their failure to destroy us and their fear that we cannot be destroyed by war. No Arab entity has truly accepted Israel as a legitimate country. The treaties are merely a tool to prevent us from attacking them while allowing them to develop more sophisticated methods of gradually destroying the Jewish State. Even Shimon Peres publicly told the people of Jordan that the true reason for peace is the suspicion that Israel has nuclear weapons. We have tried to make peace with our enemies in so many ways, including voluntarily yielding land to them, over the years. The fact that all of our efforts have consistently failed has not dampened our determination to keep trying. Our present acting prime minister has come to a conclusion which has long been espoused by our leftist self-haters in this country. The only way to have peace with our Arab neighbors is to separate from them. If one were honest he would see in such a statement a recognition that peace with our Arab neighbors is simply not an option. Arab immigrants to Israel from foreign Arab countries never wanted to live in peace with a Jewish State. They sought to destroy her. When their attempts clearly failed they were prepared to leave. Rather than encouraging them to do so our myopic leaders insisted that they remain and promised them equal citizenship in our tiny state. Never mind that Arabs never wanted to be equal to the Jew whom he considers inferior to him. The Arab knows how to accept defeat. Our leaders, on the other hand, do not know how to accept victory! Every miraculous victory achieved in battle was needlessly undone at the "peace" table. Our enemies are not stupid. They can see that although we are victorious in battle, we do not have the courage to accept our victories. With such a people it is only a matter of patience until they eventually defeat themselves. Menachem Begin once rhetorically posed a question to reporters. He asked, "What are we to negotiate, the terms of our self destruction"? At that moment he clearly saw the absurdity of peace agreements which demanded that tiny Israel give up land to the Arabs who possess nearly all of the land in the region! Yet, absurd as it may be, this is exactly the stance of our nation's leaders. The only difference between alleged right and left is the pace of our self destruction. And, what is worse, we are arbitrarily negotiating with ourselves to the favor of our enemies! Our leaders are cowards who are afraid to honestly face the reality which clearly threatens us. Indeed, we do need to separate from our enemies. Yet the way they choose to separate is to flee from them. Sometimes running away is the only option. Yet when you run from an enemy even if you are stronger than him, you only encourage him to chase you. This is the present policy of the Jewish government. The more difficult but only sensible way to separate from our enemies is to drive them away by force. No Israeli leadership has the courage to even consider this option. A fact which has destined us to needless terror. Many consider the idea of forcibly removing our enemies as tantamount to racism. Yet they fail to understand a very basic difference. The reason for removing our enemies is not because they are Arabs. Rather it is because they have clearly shown us that they seek our destruction and will never back down from that goal. One simply cannot live with such an enemy. To voluntarily surrender to them, as we have already begun to do, only encourages them to believe that we can be destroyed and thus inspires yet more terror. For us to welcome elections of a foreign entity on Jewish soil is already a surrender of our sovereignty. Dare we assume that such a surrender will encourage our enemies to make peace with an Israel of any size? When Netanyahu surrendered eighty percent of Hebron to Arafat, he failed to give Arafat all of the Arabs living in our remaining twenty percent. Yet not one Jew can live on Arafat's side. When Sharon expelled all the Jews from Gaza (why was this not considered racism?), were he serious about separation from our enemies, he should have expelled all of our Arabs to Gaza. Olmert wants to throw Jews out of most of Judea and Samaria, yet I have heard no plans to throw Arabs out of what is left of Israel. He wants to build the PLO or Hamas a new country on Jewish soil. To do so he accepts as axiomatic the need to remove all Jews from the terrorist country and to keep future human bombs inside what is left of Israel. This is clearly cowardice and insanity. We are simply strengthening our enemies and weakening ourselves. It is a suicidal plan and a monumental blunder for which we will suffer dearly. The bottom line is that our enemies do not want a Jewish State of any size in the Middle East. If our leaders are afraid that we cannot stand up to our enemies because they are too overwhelming, then the only intelligent thing to do would be to just pick up and leave altogether. If they are not willing to do this, then the only option left is to fight for what belongs to us... even against the overwhelming odds. You cannot do both. Ken Heller is a pro-Israel activist and a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans For A Safe Israel. He can be reached at kayjayphilly@yahoo.com |
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TO (ACTING) PM OLMERT ON THE AMONA POGROM
Posted by Pastor Jim Vineyard, February 14, 2006. |
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Dear Mr. (Acting) Prime Minister: It is with a sad heart that I send you Christian-Zionist greetings from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where I've had the privilege of pastoring for 29 years. Last evening I returned from Long Beach, California. Night before last I had a two hour meeting with Rabbi Nachum Shifren. This morning I watched the scandalous, lamentable, shameless video of the Amona tragedy. With all due respect, Sir, the intolerable, out of line brutalizing of "settlers" appears to now be the "chic fashion trend", which will play well in Tel-Aviv and the Arab villages of the Galilee, whose votes you are after in the upcoming election. Will, Sir, the Kadima election slogan ring "Be nice to Arabs; be tough on Jews". ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, etc., gave credit for Mr. Bush's election in 2000 and re-election in 2004 to the 40 million Evangelical Christians in America. Our Church happens to be one of almost 8,000 Independent Baptist Church which aligns itself (loosely) in an Organization, entitled "Yedidim of Israel". These churches received news about last summer's disengagement and were all appalled. Watching teenagers being whipped, frothed and pounded with women and children being dragged and beaten; seeing the bloody noses, bleeding head wound are disgraceful, reprehensible, odious pictures this morning. Some of my older brothers fought in the Second World War to keep from happening what this almost 66 year old (veteran himself) watched happening disgustingly, offensively, outrageously the other day with your "crack open the heads" policy towards the so-called "settlers". Had they witnessed your "atrocities", they would have "turned over in graves" (sic). It would appear that the Olmert Government's position is "The Settlers are worse than being Hamasniks". Watching Women, children, and Knesset members (Eitam, Elon, and Eldad -- all of whom I know) horsewhipped, smacked, and whacked up side the head; seeing folks trampled by horses; seeing Hebrews being dragged, and beaten with bloody batons -- all, so very much reminds me of the "outpost of tyranny's home-grown terrorism" Americans observed in September 1963 under Birmingham, (called Bombingham then), Alabama's Commissioner of Public Safety Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor. With all due respect, Sir, Bull's name went down in Infamy. The scenes from Amona are very typical of the scenes for which he was the architect! Your Amona scenes so reflect Bull's insistence in creating a show which demonstrated to the American Public and International Community that he was not afraid to confront Black Residents of Birmingham. Your have, Sir, turned a case of nine homes in a remote Israeli community into a war against the West Bank. Seeing the 20 year old treated in a barbaric, savage, hellish, Tartarian, Hunnish, Vandalic manner, winding up with a broken elbow and three broken ribs in that "unexpected ferocity" undoubtedly proves the allegation that the police had gotten orders to "crack open the heads". The DVD which I watched this morning showing your brutal, pitiless, merciless, heartless, unkind, inhumane, cold, callous, insensitive manhandling of Hebrews by Hebrews reminds me of the bloodbath between David and Abner, the violence between the Hasmoneans and the Hellenizers, or the Zealots and their opponents during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. The DVD shows Ehud Olmert as the 2006 Rehoboam flogging with whips and scorpions, but the weapons being billy clubs, horses and fierceness. We Christian-Zionist wonder aloud if it might not be the beginning of the end of Israel's democracy! Running over MK Effie Eitam with a horse resulting in a head-injury requiring hospitalization is simply, to put it mildly, Sir, unparalleled. The DVD's brutality has no connection with law enforcement, as I see it, Sir. The DVD shows the policemen starting to use their billy clubs immediately, hitting everyone regardless of who they were, or what they were doing -- including Eldad, Eitam and Elon. In a place where MKs are beaten, democracy no longer exists! Yourself, Sir, and your Yassamniks' heinous brutality and humiliation of the "settlers", whom you folks call "Jewish Hamas" is a vituperative issuing forth a clarion call for Hebrews world-wide, and their Yedidim (True Christians) to wake up and voice their outrage and indignation as this latest pogrom-attack on Righteous Hebrews! Please be advised Mr. Prime Minister, although I may be a voice crying in the wilderness, I'm going to show the DVD to my congregation, make it available to the some 8,000 Other Independent Baptist Congregations in America, and see how many of the Methodist, Presbyterians & Nazarenes I can get to watch and publicize it also. How long, Sir, do you think it will be until some Hebrew young person reads of the 1946 Fede story of the British Major Hill's boarding of the ship with British soldiers armed with automatic rifles, offering the ultimatum, "leave the Fede immediately, or my men will drag your people off." As the story goes, Arazi stepped forward and explained to the British Major that he too, had a statement to make: "the moment a British soldier laid a hand on a refuge (heading to Eretz Israel), the ship would be blown up. He would kill everyone on board before he allowed his people to be returned to the camps." Across the deck, Arazi pointed to broad-shouldered Carmi with a lit match in his hand standing by a pyramid of fuel barrels. Arazi said, "It will take only one match." Carmi raised the match higher so the British officer could see it. Silence and suspense reigned. The British Major looked at Carmi, then back at Arazi. Then, he ordered his men off the boat. How long do you think it will before some young Jewish Patriot says, "Man, this is the way to stop Olmert and His Yassamniks!" He'll get a 55 gallon drum of gasoline and let your Yassamniks approach his stone hut, and the TV folks will have a Jewish -Yassamnik fireball to show to the world. Many, many years ago I worked directly for a Hebrew. He worked for a man named Dwight Eisenhower. He was the smartest man I've ever known. I've always said that the Hebrew people are very gutsy. Its just a matter or time until some gutsy Young Man puts a stop to your deportation of Jews. Prime Minister, I know for a fact that Sec. State Powell rammed the Road Map down Mr. Sharon's throat in the spring of 2003. If I were you, I would tell Mr. Bush to take his Road Map plan and go to... Yesterday, in an eyeball to eyeball conversation with former black Republican Congressman J.C. Watts, he asked, "Pastor, what's the answer for peace in the Middle East." In so many words, Sir, I told him that the Sons and Daughters of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and King David would never have peace with the sons and daughters of the "wild-a_ _" Ishmael, Esau, Arafat and Abu Mazen. If I were a Hebrew in Israel, I would not let the American President endanger the safety of Israel. What the Amona Pogrom did (we teach Arabic here at Oklahoma Baptist College ) was only embolden the "so-called" Palestinians. Israel best be watching their "SIX". To put it mildly, and kindly, Sir, your Amona Pogrom got out of hand. There are a great number of Christian-Zionists in America who are appalled at this Amona Pogrom!!!!!! A Humble Yedid and Chaver of the Hebrews,
Contact Pastor Vineyard by email at wnbc@sbcglobal.net |
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PLEASE SIGN PETITION TO DESTROY IRANIAN REACTORS
Posted by Danny Simkin, February 14, 2006. |
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While you are reading this, the Iranian reactor produces enriched bomb-grade uranium. Terrorists can deliver that bomb to your city, and it can kill you and your children. Yet the government does nothing. Do we demand violence? Not in any common sense. Similarly, police use force to arrest criminals in order to stop violence. But Iran is not a criminal? Wrong. Iran has proven malicious intent. Iran, under the current regime, conducted many terrorist bombings in the West, and sponsors deadly terrorists. Iranian leaders repeatedly called for fight against the United States and annihilation of Israel. Perhaps Iran needs nuclear weapons for self-defense? No. Iran already bullies the Middle East with its huge conventional army. No country threatens Iran. No country threatens Great Britain, as well, yet it is nuclear power; why refuse Iran the same right? Superpowers did not use nuclear weapons because of the Mutual Assured Destruction. Iranian government, however, does not fear reciprocity. It does not value its people; Iran marched its teenage soldiers to clear the minefields. Iranian government, unlike the British, needs neither popular consensus, nor overwhelming reason to use nuclear weapons. Why would Iran risk using nuclear weapons? Because religious fanatics value their mad ideas above lives. Iran need not even use the bomb, but only threaten to deliver it to terrorists or sell to rogue states -- and obtain any concessions from the West. Any. Cannot the United Nations control Iranian nuclear weapons? No, neither the UN, nor other international agencies can control nuclear stocks. Nobody will know how much fissile material Iran produced, how many bombs it has, and where it hides them. Isn't Iran a sovereign state, and its borders inviolable? No more than a criminal storing dynamite in his apartment can claim the right of privacy. Since the eighth-century jihad and the Ottoman army at the gates of Vienna, the West has never been exposed to such threat. Iran's several nuclear bombs can inflict more damage on America than the World War II. Never before the Islamic fundamentalists who hate the West and dream of attacking it had military might of apocalyptic dimensions. Are you crazy to doubt they will use the bomb? We call on the United States government: Do not hesitate. Protect your people. Protect your allies. Destroy the Iranian reactor! Please sign the petition. Click here. Contact Danny Simkin at Danny_Simkin@mail.ru |
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APPEASEMENT REDUX
Posted by Barry Rubin, February 14, 2006. |
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W e have come full circle. Here is how the last great historical era began, the one we seem to be starting over afresh.
It's January 30, 1933, and here's what the Cleveland Press reports from Washington under the headline, "U.S. Unruffled by Hitler Rise": "High authorities here regard with complacence Adolph Hitler's rise to power in Germany....They [express] faith that Hitler would act with moderation_.Experts based this belief on past events showing that so-called 'radical' groups usually moderated, once in power." The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin stated that Hitler seemed extreme in the past but, "Lately, however, there have been indications of moderation." Perhaps you had to be nice to them to bring about this moderation, as advocates of appeasement proposed. There were good arguments for that case. Germany was strong and it was better not to provoke it; perhaps it was better to have as a friend. Germany could be a profitable trading partner; economic embargos didn't work any way. Could the democratic countries really preach to Germany given their own sins of imperialism and injustice? Wasn't confrontation worth avoiding at any price, especially faced with the horrors of war? And what about Germany's genuine grievances as victim of mistreatment by Britain, France and America? Was it really proper to interfere in Germany's internal affairs (this was the U.S. government's position) or to try to impose the values of other countries on it? Six years later, in 1939, after allying with Nazi Germany, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov explained that "fascism as a matter of taste." And, of course, there was always the final resort: the Germans weren't against "us" but merely against the Jews, who were thus the ones pushing conflict with Germany for their own interests. Sound familiar? Just substitute Iran, Hizballah, Hamas, radical Islamists, Iraqi insurgents or Syria. All of these groups are aligned, while the West flaunts its divisions and doubts. But, of course, a lot happened back in the 1930s to drive away that kind of thinking for more than a half-century. Democratic countries found it impossible to appease Germany, even by feeding one of them--Czechoslovakia--to it. They had to fight a desperate war, coming closer to defeat than we like to recall. Then, after a brief period of renewed wishful thinking in dealing with Joseph Stalin's USSR starting in 1945, these lessons were reinforced. The Cold War was America's fault, many of the best intellectual minds explained. Stalin had limited defensive and legitimate demands. Yet, again, radical forces would not let the democratic world betray itself. They kept pushing and showing their true nature until it had to respond, like it or not. Finally, it was understood that concessions and apologies only made the aggressors more confident of their own strength and the decadent weakness of democratic foes. It seems, however, that this whole cycle of experience has been forgotten by all too many people and even whole countries. Thus, Russia and France base their indecently quick and unconditional invitations to Hamas leaders to be official guests on the assertion that they can persuade the organization to moderate. First, they do not consider it to be a terrorist group (apparently terrorism, like fascism, is a matter of taste). Second, it is coming to power due to an election (as did Communists and fascists). And third, only appeasement--excuse me, I meant, "constructive engagement"--will work. Or in Soviet President Vladimir Putin's words "We are deeply convinced that burning bridges is the easiest, but not a very promising activity," The Washington Post explained it all to us. Hamas, it said, "Probably...will seek to implement its moderate campaign platform, which promised an uncorrupted and effective government while working out a modus vivendi with Israel." Excessive pressure on the new regime, it warned, "would likely only strengthen the Islamists or trigger a resumption of terrorism." In other words, aspirants to genocide never lie and if you don't bother them they won't kill you. The Economist spoke in similar terms in a February 2 editorial: "Having to keep voters sweet may instead force [Hamas] to pay less heed to its ideology of destroying Israel and more to the Palestinians' real needs and achievable goals." John Negroponte, director of U.S. intelligence, agreed, telling the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that same day that the Hamas victory did not necessarily mean an end for hopes of a negotiate peace agreement. "Hamas must now contend with Palestinian public opinion that over the years has supported the two-state solution." If this is the assessment of U.S. intelligence analysts something is seriously wrong. But this notion does reflect a New York Times editorial saying Hamas will be "compelled" to become moderate by its need to deliver material improvements to the Palestinians, leaving us only to explain how the PLO managed to ignore such alleged pressures for 40 years or why Hamas--which has risen so effectively through terrorism, inciting hatred and demanding total victory--will now reverse itself. Unfortunately, Hamas does not share this standpoint. It can burn all the bridges it wants and suffer little or no consequences, at least, not from the appeasers. Much of the same pattern applied to the PLO, Usama bin Ladin, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and Islamist Iran in the recent past. Yet what faith can one put in the courage of a European Union which endlessly preaches unity then totally abandons one of its members, Denmark, when it is subjected to assault on the basis of cartoons published in a newspaper which supposedly enjoys free speech? After the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on America, many called them a Pearl Harbor-like wake-up call to Western unity and democratic struggle against totalitarian, anti-freedom forces. Yet there are probably more people--at least among respected Western elites--who think the problem is Islamophobia, America, and Israel rather than radical Islamism, terrorism, and Iran. What year is it any way? 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, August 2006). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. |
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LET SHARON DIE IN PEACE AND DIGNITY (BUT THEY WON'T)
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, February 14, 2006. |
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From the days after Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke January 4th, the unguarded word came out through police channels that he had died. Then, that statement was quickly withdrawn and a medical fog settled over his true condition. He has been, seemingly, kept alive by the available machines while Acting PM Ehud Olmert and the Bush Administration made plans. Clearly, it was imperative to keep Sharon in the picture as power was transferred to Olmert. Above all, the equally moribund Road Map must also be put on 'life support', particularly since the Hamas victory. It seems imperative to the Bush Administration that Olmert and the Kadima Party take control of the Israeli government to continue the illegal evacuation of Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, Jordan Valley and all those areas of Jerusalem controlled by King Hussein for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. It was equally imperative to squeeze as much as possible out of the comatose Sharon. This meant not declaring him dead which required strict control of the hospital staff, including the surgeons, internists, hospital administrative staff and head of the hospital Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, who has been the only spokesman available to the media. There is every indication that, with the cooperation of Sharon's sons, there will be a planned time to pull the plug and announce his death formally. Clearly, it is important for Omri, Sharon's older son, who just received his sentencing after pleading guilty to funding violations on behalf of his father's primary campaign six years ago, attempts to conceal sources of those funds and perjury. [Note the full statement following this article which just came in as I wrote this.] Omri Sharon is sentenced to 9 months in prison, 9 months suspended and NIS300,000 ($64,000). Tel Aviv Magistrate Court President Beckenstein deferred sentence for six months due to Sharon's severe health crisis. (1) This six month delay will probably put Olmert into position as the new Prime Minister to limit or pardon Omri sometime after the elections. Timing is everything in being able to plan for the announcement of Sharon's death. This includes a grand funeral with all the pomp and ceremony possible. The new PM Ehud Olmert would, of course, act as ringmaster center stage, giving him all the media attention beneficial to his role as new Prime Minister. Also center stage will be the invited personages able to pre-clear their calendars, knowing the precise time the plug would be pulled and the announcement of Sharon's death proclaimed. Although Sharon was not religious, nevertheless, it is customary within Jewish law to bury a person in one day after his death. To further boost Olmert's prestige just before elections, he needs the event and all the famous people congratulating Olmert. We should see President and Mrs. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, several American Congressmen and Jewish leaders, as well as former U.S. presidents such as Bill Clinton and Senator Hilary (running for her next election), the Carters -- and don't be surprised to see Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) as an eye-witness to assure Hamas that Sharon is really dead. There will, no doubt, be celebrations by the Muslims in Syria, Iran, Egypt and, of course, among the Muslim Arab Palestinians. The Media will be there by the hundreds. It will, indeed, be a well-planned three ring circus. But, all will vector in on Ehud Olmert so as to give him the boost and added edge in his coming elections. Therefore, we can only guess at the planned timing which optimally will be one or two weeks before the March 28th elections. However, given that Sharon's body has already gone into a state of necrosis (where tissue dies and gangrene sets in as indicated by the removal of two feet of his large intestine Saturday February 11th) (2) they may be forced into an earlier announcement. It is really shameful and ugly but, that is what happens to leaders who are used well beyond their last breath when politics are concerned. From the DEBKAfile, February 14, 2006 Prime minister Ariel Sharon's son Omri Sharon is sentenced to 9 months in prison, 9 months suspended and NIS300,000 ($64,000) He will serve jail time for funding violations on behalf of his
father's primary campaign six years ago, attempts to conceal sources
of those funds and perjury. In consideration of the prime minister's
grave health crisis, Tel Aviv Magistrate Court President Beckenstein
deferred sentence for six months. Defending counsel will appeal the
severity of the sentence. The judge said the charges against Omri
Sharon are serious and stressed the urgent need to drain the national
political swamp of corrupt practices. The accused earlier gave up his
seat in the Knesset, quit politics and admitted the charges against
him.
Emanuel Winston saw more than a hundred youths severely beaten, many
with multiple head wounds, as police went on a rampage. Mounted police
charged peaceful demonstrators and clubbed them, too (Winston Mid East
Analysis, 2/1). Law and order or fascism?
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PERU'S "JEWS OF THE JUNGLE" RECEIVE RABBI
Posted by Michael Freund, February 14, 2006. |
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This appeared today in Arutz 7 (www.Israel National News.com). It is archived at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98479 The emerging Jewish community of Tarapoto, located in the heart of the Peruvian jungle region, now has its first rabbi thanks to the Shavei Israel organization. 
"Assimilation and intermarriage took a heavy toll on the Moroccan Jews who chose to remain in the area," noted Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund. "Now, however, their children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren have begun to return to their Jewish roots." Known as the City of Palms, Tarapoto is located adjacent to the Andes Mountains, over 600 kilometers north of Lima, Peru's capital. Many of the town's Jewish descendants still bear distinctly Jewish names, such as Ben-Zaken, Ben-Shimon and Cohen. The community is well-organized, and its members include doctors, lawyers, architects and academics who work at the local university. They gather for regular Sabbath and holiday prayers. The Cohen family 
The Cohen Family
Last year, while on a visit to Peru, Freund met with the leaders and members of the Tarapoto community, who asked him to consider sending them a rabbi who could teach them more about their Jewish heritage. Freund took up the challenge, and a Spanish-speaking rabbi arrived in Tarapoto last week, where he will begin conducting classes, services and other educational and outreach activities. "It is remarkable that even in the remotest corners of the Peruvian jungle, the pintele Yid (Yiddish for the spark of Jewishness) inside every Jew continues to live on," Freund said. "No matter how far a Jewish soul may have wandered, the fact is that it will eventually find its way back home to its Land and its people." For more information, contact: office@shavei.org. |
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AMERICANS FAVOR ISRAEL
Posted by Hillel Fendel, February 14, 2006. |
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A Gallup poll shows that Americans are very pessimistic about Middle East peace, more sympathetic to Israel, and less favorable to the PA. Sympathy towards Israel increases with news-awareness. The annual Gallup Poll on World Affairs was conducted on a random sampling of 1,002 adults on Feb. 6-9, some two weeks after the Hamas terrorist organization won power in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Some findings: A plurality of Americans -- 44% -- believe the United States should conduct diplomatic relations with the PA only if Hamas recognizes Israel. Half that number believe the United States should deal with the PA regardless of its stance toward Israel, and one-quarter of Americans say the United States should not conduct any relations with the PA at all. Ignorance on the Middle East conflict does not work to Israel's advantage, according to Gallup. Americans who say they follow news about world affairs "very closely" are more likely to sympathize with the Israelis (66%) than Americans who follow foreign news only somewhat closely (59%) or who do not follow it closely (52%). Americans are much less favorable to financial assistance to the PA than they are towards a diplomatic relationship. A majority, 57%, oppose giving any financial aid to the Palestinian Authority while Hamas is in power, while 30% would give aid if the PA recognizes Israel. Just 5% favor giving aid even if the PA does not recognize Israel. Gallup also asked whether American sympathies lie more with the Israelis or with the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority. The numbers this year: 59% are with Israel, and only 15% with the PA. These figures represent one of the most lopsided margins in favor of the Israelis ever recorded by Gallup. When not compared with each other, Israel received a "favorable" rating from 68% of Americans, and the PA received the same from 11%. Last year at this time, Israel received 69% approval, and the PA -- 27%. This year's readings are the most negative Gallup has found since it began asking about the Palestinian Authority in 2000, while last year's were the most positive. The poll found that Republicans (77%) are significantly more likely to sympathize with the Israelis than are Democrats (50%) or independents (50%). By a 2-1 margin, Americans now say there will never come a time when Israel and the Arab nations will live in peace. The 65% to 32% split compares with a roughly 50-50 split last year. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Israel National News. This article appeared today in Arutz-Sheva -- www.IsraelNationalNews.html. |
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TU B'SHVAT HERE AND THERE
Posted by Judy Lash Balint, February 14, 2006. |
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Hours later, the scent of citrus is still on my hands. I know Tu B'shvat isn't much of a holiday outside Israel, but here, the New Year for Trees is an opportunity to physically connect with the land and it's bounty. In honor of Tu B'Shvat, my son and I picked tangerines for the Table to Table organization at a citrus grove just outside Ashkelon. Citrus is just about the easiest fruit to pick--no bending down; everything is at eye level; no prickly thorns and there's a gratifying thunk every time one of the heavy, juice-laden fruit fills up the bag. It's been years since I last picked fruit as a kibbutz volunteer and I'd forgotten the intoxicating combination of the scent of acres of oranges, grapefruit and tangerines combined with the exhilaration of working outside on the land far away from the noise of the city. Combine that with the satisfaction of helping out a dynamic organization committed to "food rescue" and the day is just about perfect. 
Picking fruit for the Table to Table organization in orchards near
Ashkelon. All the fruit picked by volunteers is immediately
transported to food banks and soup kitchens nearby.
Table To Table is just three years old and was started by a South African immigrant concerned that good food was going to waste while thousands of Israelis rely on food banks and soup kitchens. He started collecting unused food from catered simchas, but in a few short years the effort has grown to incorporate Project Leket that matches volunteers like us with farmers whose end-of-harvest produce would just rot; a trucking program that uses refrigerated trucks to pick up food from army bases, corporate cafeterias, factories, farms and packing houses and delivers it to social service organizations, as well as the original Night Rescue initiative that still collects food from wedding halls and other simcha venues. Today, at the Pri Or orchards outside Ashkelon, it's two guys from Mercaz Hesed in nearby Sderot, a town under constant Kassam rocket attack, who drive in their truck to load and deliver the freshly picked produce to the needy. After picking, we're too close to Nitzanim, one of Israel's best beaches, to pass it by. The beautiful beach just beyond the sand dune national park is absolutely deserted. Just down the road, we pay a visit to the new Jewish refugee camp of Nitzan--"home" to more than 350 families kicked out of their homes in Gush Katif. The area has expanded since I was last there a few weeks ago--but the aimless kids with sad faces still roam the streets, and the complete lack of normalcy--no work, no shops, no schools--is still apparent. On the way back to Jerusalem a brief stop in Abu Ghosh, an Israeli Arab village on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, allows me to indulge my craving for a real cup of Turkish coffee. Just 15 minutes later we're driving through Meah Shearim on the way home. Tu B'Shvat isn't exactly a huge holiday for either of these communities, but the sheer variety of scenery and people we encounter in a few short hours is quite stunning. Last night, a few of us gathered for a traditional Tu B'shvat seder in a friend's home in Kochav Yakov, just north of Jerusalem. All of us had been affiliated with a Sephardic synagogue back in the US where the Fruticas event was a highlight of the year. The seder incorporates blessing and eating a variety of fruits grown here and someone pointed out how back in the old country we'd always have to say, "this fruit is LIKE what they eat in Israel." Not any more. Here we're picking, eating and blessing the real thing, the fruit of our own land. It seems the citrus smell will be lingering on my hands--and in my mind for a while.
Judy Lash Balint is an investigative journalist and author of
"Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen). It is available for
purchase from www.israelbooks.com Contact her by email at
JudyB14868@aol.com
Other pictures of the event are available at
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REPORTS OF SEXUAL ABUSE IN AMONA
Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, February 14, 2006. |
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There have been a number of rumors and reports circulating in the press and on the Internet regarding serious charges of sexual harassment and sexual abuse which took place in Amona. Many of the reports have been extremely graphic, and originate from less than credible sources. Because of the ongoing questions and concerns, I called the one organization in this country which has always handled such cases with the utmost care, sensitivity, and integrity. I've just gotten off the phone with Debbie Gross, the Director of the Crisis Center for Religious Women. Debbie confirmed that the center has received reports from girls of sexual harassment and sexual abuse which took place in Amona. In addition, The Crisis Center for Religious Women has been asked by certain schools in the religious community to meet with the students and to discuss the events at Amona. The Crisis Center for Religious Women has been serving all sectors of the religious community throughout Israel for thirteen years. It is quite possibly the only organization in this country which enjoys remarkable coordination and cooperation with religiously observant victims of abuse and the hospitals, halachic authorities, the police, the press, social services departments, the Knesset, and the courts. It also receives support, funding and grants from Diaspora organizations like UJC and various Federations. Debbie specifically requested that I stress to all young women, who were present at Amona, that if they feel victimized, traumatized, or are going through an emotional crisis as a result of what they experienced, they should call the center's 24 Hour Hotline at (02) 6730002 or 1 800 220 230. Volunteers are available to assist the Hebrew, English, Russian and Ethiopian -- speaking communities. One of the center's volunteers will handle the case with sensitivity and provide the assistance and anonymity required. Hotline numbers:
I have worked with the Crisis Center in the past, and can fully endorse their services and policies. Ellen Horowitz and her family live on the Golan Heights. She is a painter, columnist and author of The Oslo Years: A Mother's Journal (http://osloyears.com). |
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DANISH CARTOONS, UNSMILING MUSLIMS; THE SHOW TRIAL OF U.S. JEWRY; P.A. MONEY FLIGHT
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 14, 2006. |
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DANISH CARTOONS & UNSMILING MUSLIMS What are we to make of the standoff between Denmark and the Muslims over cartoons against Muhammad? The real issues are not entirely as presented in the media. The newspaper discussions I read were not very thoughtful. The NY Times did point out that when Pres. Bush sympathized with the Muslims, he probably was trying to recoup some popularity with them. He panders to political correctness. Before the cartoons were drawn, radical Muslims had behaved objectionably in Denmark and elsewhere. The cartoons were based on real grievances. There should be discussion about that. Muslims demand that the cartoonists or Denmark apologize to them, but they do not apologize for the misbehavior of offending Muslims. That is the first issue involved, Islamists' misbehavior, Muslims' double standard, and the media's ignoring of the cause of the cartoons. The media focuses on freedom of the press that the Muslims demand be curbed in their favor. They demand it along with the heads of the cartoonists. Barbarians don't deserve an apology, but the newspaper did apologize and Danish Muslims accepted it. Freedom of press and civil society must prevail. Those are two factors that distinguish Western from Islamic civilization. But freedom carries responsibilities. Did the cartoonists meet their responsibility? I say, yes and no. Some of the cartoons dealt with Islamist behavior, but others were irrelevantly irreverent. The latter were unwarranted. The artists should apologize for them. Denmark shouldn't, because it was not responsible for them. The former, however, were accurate commentaries on Islamic or Islamist behavior. One referred to Muhammad as a terrorist. Historically, he did have civilians attacked. That is terrorism. His followers do commit suicide bombing of civilians. Another cartoon referred cynically to promises of virgins in Paradise for martyrs. Islamists do exploit youths' sexual desires with promises of willing super-women. How can Muslims object to that cartoon? If they think it untrue, let them sue for libel! The Prime Minister of Denmark ought to challenge Muslims to sue for libel. If the Muslims don't take him up on it, he can question whether their objection has a solid basis. So far, Muslims threaten to kill Danes and Norwegians in the Mideast. The Muslim idea is one of collective guilt, although those Scandinavians probably are aid workers come in behalf of the Muslims. Muslims object not only to painful truth but to any pictorial representation of Muhammad and especially a negative one. They have no tolerance for the ways of other societies. Why should other societies have tolerance for their intolerance? In my opinion, however, revered founders of a religion dear to masses of people should not be lampooned, out of consideration for those who revere them. It is in poor taste. But it is legal. The Western press ignored Muslim hypocrisy. Islamic media are replete with insulting cartoons of Jews and of Pres. Bush, committing blood libel against them. Libel is a form of Islamic propaganda. Who are they to object when cartoons finally are used on them! THE SHOW TRIAL OF U.S. JEWRY Just as Israel has show trials of good Jews, so has the US. The first one here was of Pollard. It was used to end many programs of joint military research with Israel. (It also instituted an atmosphere of suspicion and persecution of some Jews in the FBI and CIA. Spies from other countries had been discovered in the US without suspicion of their ethnic groups and without much punishment of most of them.) The second one is of former AIPAC officials for accepting classified information. First the government got convicted Larry Franklin, a government official, for passing the information. It indicted him under an espionage statute clause that had fallen into desuetude. Such laws usually are treated as if repealed. What Mr. Franklin did, pass classified information to an ally, in order to influence domestic US policy, is a common practice. It is what journalists, scholars, and lobbyists do. (So does the Administration.) There was some uproar when Pres. Clinton's National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, stuffed his socks, pocket, and briefcase with classified documents, and destroyed some that were needed in the 9/11investigation. He got away with a fine. Former CIA Director Deutsch jeopardized national security by bringing batches to his unsecured home. He got a pardon from Pres. Clinton. Franklin was singled out. Why? Franklin sought AIPAC help in persuading the Bush Administration to take Iran's nuclear development seriously. (He was right, in his goal, if not in his method.) He fell into the coils of an investigation of one of the AIPAC duo that secretly had been going on for five years. The FBI extorted him into a sting operation against the duo. It was entrapment. Franklin's sentence depends on how much he helped the prosecution of the AIPAC men. They are the real object of the hunt. Ironically, they did not elicit the information, and although classified, it was public knowledge. They did no harm to the US. But prosecuting them, although AIPAC has divorced itself from them, would weaken that Jewish lobby and gratify the Arabs, who are the real enemies of the US. AIPAC caved in, as intended. It abandoned the men it should have upheld against the politically motivated sting. It has reduced its lobbying for Israel, such as in favor of the S. Arabia Accountability Act. That Act would force S. Arabia to stop financing terrorism. The sting hurt the US. AIPAC's retreat did not work. The government now is conducting a witch-hunt in AIPAC. Jews increasingly are being made to seem unpatriotic. This is the old case of Jews running for cover, instead of resisting persecution. It calls into question the security they have or feel in the United States, supposedly a haven of theirs. If AIPAC is to regain influence, it must rally to the defense of its former officials (Winston Mid East Report, 2/1 largely from Caroline Glick). Will US Jewry let itself be repressed in our supposedly tolerant country? WHAT THE ARAB STATES ASK OF HAMAS "Arab nations are eager to moderate Hamas and see it enter government with policies that would avoid a cutoff of international aid to the Palestinians and avert a breakdown in the peace process with Israel. They also want to prevent the Hamas victory from boosting the Islamic movements in their own territories." The King of Jordan called foreign aid desirable as humanitarian for a people he claims was victimized by Israel (IMRA, 2/1). Arafat's Arabs are victims of his war and corruption, as is Israel. King Hussein presides over a country that launched aggression against Israel twice. He is in no position to point fingers. Arab aid is solely for jihad. It is not humanitarian. Western aid often is diverted from a humanitarian purpose, but what is humanitarian about aiding a bigoted, imperialist, terrorist people? Why doesn't the King express humanitarian concern for the Israeli victims of Arab aggression? If the Arab states wanted peace with Israel, they could make peace treaties, end the boycott and incitement against Israel, stop subsidizing jihad, and stop Egypt's arming against Israel. What they call "peace process" is the diplomacy side of jihad, wresting secure borders from Israel. The Arabs are trying to aid jihad abroad, but avoid it domestically. That they are finding difficult. The youths whom they imbue with fanaticism turn against them. P.A. MONEY FLIGHT Arabs in the P.A. have been shifting many millions of dollars abroad, in anticipation of confiscation by Hamas. This proves that foreign aid was stolen (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/1). How does it prove it was stolen? But it shows Arab flight for Arab causes, the same as happened in the late1940s but was blamed on Israel. IRONY OF THE AMONA DEMOLITIONS Amona is where the police committed a pogrom against mostly peaceful demonstrators. Some protestors did throw rocks at police. (It is not known whether they were agent provocateurs.) One of the homeowners observed, "The land here was never occupied by an Arabs, it was totally barren when we came, no one has ever come to claim ownership, and we did not banish any one from this land -- as opposed to where you might be sitting in Jerusalem, or in Tel Aviv, or in Haifa, where many Arabs used to be living..." (Winston, Mid East Analysis, February 1, 2006.) Many Jews in Israel, who treat settlers with contempt, got their land by virtue of confiscation of property Arabs had abandoned in their war on Israel. I think that Israel should have confiscated more land from the Arabs, who attempted genocide. Land that they had forced Jews from should have been returned to those Jews' heirs, just as paintings the Nazis stole from Jews were returned, when identified.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com.
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WHY THE NRP COLLAPSED
Posted by Batya Medad, February 14, 2006. |
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I sent this letter in ressponse to The NRP collapsed because its constituency matured. It's as simple as that. The patriotic, national religious community no longer feels the need to leech onto the party in power and stay in its political ghetto. At the same time, the political leadership of the NRP disengaged from its potential voters. Orlev's statement that: " he would he would rather close down a settlement than a state religious school," he obviously forgot that there are state religious schools in the "settlements." This lack of simple common sense is typical of the way the NRP leadership thinks. Many people whose life style fit the "NRP stereotype" find the National Union, consisting of Moledet and Tekuma, to be the political party that most supports and defends our positions and needs. We don't accept the idea that the Mamlachti Dati, State Religious School System should be political, dependent on the NRP. It's a responsibility of the national government, not a partisan political party. We also don't see being religious as a political statement. We are part of the entire country and want to work with Israelis of all levels of religious observance to improve and defend our country. In this, too, the National Union is the only party in the political spectrum for us. The NRP is finished, and I for one think that it got too many places in the agreement to join the National Union, especially since Tekuma is already included. There's no need to be so sentimental, let the National Religious Party rest in peace. Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il |
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LEFTIST POET CHAIM GURI: 'PALESTINIAN TREES' IS A HUMANITARIAN CONCERN,
'JEWISH EVACUEES' IS POLITICS
Posted by Shaul and Aviva Ceder, February 13, 2006. |
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This comes to us from Shoshanna Walker. It was written by Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis). Contact IMRA by email at imra@netvision.net.il or visit their website: http://www.imra.org.il In a live interview broadcast on Israel Radio this morning, leftist author and poet Chaim Guri responded to criticism that while the Israeli Left is concerned about Palestinian olive trees that they express no humanitarian interest in the fate of the Jews who were evacuated from the Gaza Strip and have suffered greatly because the Government has failed to provide the compensation and other services. Guri explained that the "plight of Palestinians is a humanitarian concern while the settlers removed from Gush Katif is politics." Guri went on to explained that the Palestinians were the "poor of one's own city" -- thus qualifying for priority. The phrase "poor of one's own city" is a phrase from Jewish law regarding priority in the distribution of limited resources in humanitarian cases. That, other things being equal (in terms of critical nature of need, etc.), one first takes care of one's own poor. Settler leader Bentzi Lieberman responded on the program that when Guri says that he considers Palestinians who genuinely desire the eradication of Israel to have the same standing -- if not higher standing -- than fellow Jews -- that this illustrates a seriously distorted morality on the part of this representative of the Israeli Left. Contact Shaul and Aviva Ceder at ceder@netvision.net.il |
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SHARON'S PLANNED DEATH
Posted by Bernard J. Shapiro, February 13, 2006. |
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OLMERT'S NEXT DIRTY TRICK? The policies of Ehud Olmert's transitional government reveal a lot about his lack of any sense of morality. Let's take a quick glance at his activities since taking office following the incapacitation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He has funded Hamas, the new terrorist rulers of the Palestinian Authority. Of course, the old Fatah terrorist government of Mohammad Abbas and Yasir Arafat also got funding. But this doesn't make it right. Olmert has launched a "no holds barred" attack on patriotic Zionists citizens of Israel. They rightfully live on Israeli lands that he plans to give to terrorists. And he has not attempted to enforce "the law" on some 20,000+ illegal Arab buildings on Israeli land. Despite all this he sent a large force of 4000 military and police to destroy nine Jewish homes in Amona. This mighty contingent was instructed to crack skulls, molest Jewish girls and break the arms and legs of peacefully protesting Jews. Most of the protesters were under the age of 21. The attack forces mounted huge German horses and set out to crush all dissent in the Jewish state with steel batons. Olmert has moved the security fence to a point where travelers on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway would be subject to sniper fire. He has also allowed terrorists to get within anti-aircraft range of Ben Gurion Airport. By allowing Hamas to run in the PA elections, he facilitated their takeover of the PA and gave them control of the Arab sections of Jerusalem. Olmert has announced that he plans further unilateral withdrawals from Eretz Yisrael. He would give up Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. This withdrawal would also include the strategic mountain range rising from the Jordan Valley that has protected Israel security since 1967. But the worst thing of all is that he is very serious about winning the coming election and attaining the political power to undo the Zionist dream of an independent Jewish State. He and his immediate family have become extreme leftists, deserters from the Israel Defense Forces and opponents of IDF security measures to prevent terrorist attacks on Jewish targets. So what is his next dirty trick? I believe that he is planning to stage a dramatic death of Sharon about a week before the election on March 28th. This may sound outrageous, but look at the facts. We now know that Sharon was declared dead following his massive stroke and brain hemorrhage. We also know that he was kept alive cynically to further the prospects of the Kadima Party and Ehud Olmert. Sharon has been venerated like a saint and is being used daily in the political campaign. The Sharon family has been an eager participant in this charade. Sharon's doctors have repeatedly misled the public about his condition. This deception began years ago with the first signs of the PM's Alzheimer's Disease, which we believe led to his personality change and new (?) political orientation. This drastic change led to the disastrous expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and N. Shomron. Think about the consequences of Sharon's death in the week before the election. A huge state funeral with all the world leaders coming to show their respect, and Ehud Olmert going center stage as the leader of Israel. Public media attention on Kadima, and its warnings to the Zionist/religious sector not to say anything to detract from this sacred moment. Politics would be considered treife (not Kosher or wrong) at such a time, except the Kadima Party will be politicking with a full court press, while suppressing the opposition. I have had serious and passionate disagreements with the policies of Israeli PM Sharon over the last three years. Now that he is no longer in charge of those policies, I feel that we must let him rest in peace. I fear that this man's comatose body will be used as another left-wing dirty trick. We must prevent that from happening by telling Olmert that the Israel public is too smart for such tricks. We must vote on the issues that will determine Israel's security and survival as a Jewish State. We must not vote on some misplaced sentimentality. There is no other choice. Bernard J. Shapiro is the executive director of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies and the editor of The Maccabean Online and the Freemanlist. Contact the Center at Freeman Center For Strategic Studies, P.O. Box 35661, Houston, Texas 77235-5661. Phone or Fax at 713-723-6016 This article is archived at www.freeman.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/ 235-OLMERTS-NEXT-DIRTY-TRICK-Sharons-Planned-Death.html |
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THE PIGSKIN PARABLE
Posted by Kate Wright, February 13, 2006. |
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The Islamic Caliphate is coming. Their version of the One World (Umma), gilded with Islamic symbols, is ready for prime time. It's going to get very weird. Just remember, Jesus got here first, courtesy of Abraham and Moses, and that's our side. Our side is your side, even if you think it's not. Our side is freedom: religious, civil, and economic. We celebrate Creator-based freedom on the Fourth of July, civil freedom on Veteran's Day, and economic-based freedom on Super Bowl Sunday, our market-created national party day. In fact, on Super Bowl Sunday, we invite the entire world to join our side, to celebrate American Pigskin. Jihadanomics: Global Jihad, Phase Two The next Caliphate has begun buying into the great learning institutions of the world. After Jihadis struck our national symbols on 9/11, the Caliphs declared themselves allies in the War on Terror, investing in Harvard University and Georgetown University to the tune of 20 million dollars each. They just added Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced Strategic Studies (SAIS) to the list, and in the name of cross-cultural "understanding" and "inter-faith" tolerance, are subsidizing our leading educational institutions to promote "modernity" in Islam. Sounds promising? On December 28, 2005, a terrorist gunman opened-fire on five prestigious scientists at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, the new Silicon Valley. Dr. M.C. Puri, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, was brutally assassinated and four others injured, including Vijay Chandru, the founder of the Indian-developed palm-computer, the Simputer. Moreover, Bangalore boasts some 1,500 tech companies, 200,000 employees, accounting for 40% of India's IT revenues. It is a major center for high-tech research and development for corporate giants such as Microsoft, Intel, GE, GM, Motorola, Cisco, and Google. Welcome to Jihadanomics -- the question is not just who killed Dr. Puri, the question is why? Is Pigskin Next? There was an ancient war over the pig. Jews and Christians worked it out, allowing each group their own pig views. After settling the pig matter, Judeo-Christianity reconciled the separation of Church and State, giving birth to the Grand Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the founding of America, where religious freedom gave rise to civil liberties and economic freedom. Islam rejects religious freedom, and still prohibits pigs, even more than 300 years after their (second) truce at the gates of Vienna on September 11, 1683. In fact, there is a permanent Jihad ("Holy War") against all that is non-Muslim, in order to establish Islamic law of Shari'a throughout the world. This Islamic government, dating back to the 7th Century, rejects your right to religious freedom, your right to exist as a non-Muslim if push comes to shove, any and all civil freedoms, and, of course, Israel's right to exist. We generally call this sort of system totalitarianism. According to Islamic tradition, all non-Muslims are pigs, though Jews are pigs and dogs. When The Three Little Pigs was banned from storytime in England last year, pig alerts went hog wild across cyberspace: Hide your piggy banks! Is Porky next? Babe needs Witness Protection! What about Miss Piggy's dream of a normal marriage, affirming "piglet" has a right to exist, like Israel? More importantly, if pigs are on the chopping block, what is gonna happen to football when they hear about Pigskin?! Jihad never sleeps We thought we could work out this religious freedom issue "in dialogue" with diplomats and theologians. We thought that with "understanding" we could make it work, but little things keep happening, like the killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh who was shot eight times, slit at the throat, and stabbed with two knives, one pinning a 5-page Jihadi threat to his chest. The murderer reassures us that the Prophet Mohammed justifies his act. Then, there were those attacks on Russian children, British bus bombings, French car burnings, decapitations of little Christian girls in Indonesia -- did they have to dump their little heads? Synagogues -- and churches -- have been destroyed in Palestine, where Christians are about to be charged a poll tax (jizya). On Christmas Eve, 28 bombs were defused in Indonesia, while only 18 exploded in seven cities, reportedly killing at least 14, and injuring nearly 100. The AK-56 assassination of Dr. Puri ushers in the new era of "understanding" modern Islam. Colleges and universities, especially Islamic-friendly institutions (Georgetown, Harvard, SAIS), are on edge. The Antique Media is just catching up with the freedom of speech issues surrounding the Islamist bomb threats in Denmark for 12 political cartoons, but the lingering question remains: Who killed Dr. Puri -- and why? Islam (nee Mohammedism) -- The "Eternal Word" Problem The Islamic Caliphate is not like the Vatican. They are new to problem-solving. They have no mechanism to renounce Jihad, nor to render pig-headedness obsolete. Islam believes, or would have us believe they believe, that the Quran is the "Eternal Word" of Allah. Because it is not Mohammed's word, nor is it written according to Mohammed, there is no likelihood of theologians guiding their "religion" into the 21st Century with debate, reformation, excommunication, or reinterpretation (ijtehad). In Islam, the "Final Perfection" is achieved by man alone -- with the help of the sword, of course. Not so long ago, Islam was called Mohammedism, after the military strategist and Prophet Mohammed, whose followers, Mohammedans, attempted to conquer other civilizations, not once, but twice -- and now, a third time. In fact, according to Dante's Inferno, the 14th Century poetic masterpiece, Mohammed is condemned to the 8th circle of Hell, as a "sower of schism" for having inflicted centuries of war on civilization. The Caliphate has both the power and means to establish "modernity" in Islam, to put an end to Jihad, but refuses the challenge. Who is dictating to Hamas? Why is CAIR refusing to denounce Hamas? Who is fueling Iran? Who is funding Hezbollah? Who is funding Muslim Brotherhood? Who is funding the madrasses? Who issued the fatwas against the Danish troops? Who killed Dr. Puri -- with an AK-56 -- and why? We are left to conclude that Dante is right. Mohammedism is stalled in the 7th Century, where it began, and Mohammed cannot move on. Pluralism -- Multiple Realities Pluralism is the new code word meant to invite Islam into the 21st Century, but pluralism is different from religious freedom. Pluralism is a concept that advances the idea of multiple realities, to offer Islam a place among world religions, despite its well publicized and longstanding practices of cutting off hands, raping and assaulting women, brutally torturing and killing homosexuals, issuing fatwas against apostates -- and banishing pigs. Jihad succeeds in the mainstream media, working in tandem with public relations firms and foundations that promote Islam as the peaceful religion, notwithstanding its historic cry "Kill the Infidel!" that makes murder a holy act. Moreover, their practices of taqiyya (deception) and kitman (concealment of intentions) -- "holy hypocrisy" -- are not sanctioned by any other world religion. On Easter Sunday, 2005, Meet the Press moderator, Tim Russert, welcomed Islamist media personality Reza Aslan to represent the "faith" of "Islam" on the panel discussion of "religion in America." The "inter-faith" discussion proceeded as if the new "moderate" Islamic reformation were already under way. If so, one might have asked whether Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates is leading the reform movement. Is there a doctrine that guarantees religious freedom? Who is their "Martin Luther"? Is there a "Henry VIII" who limits the practice of decapitation to only two wives? What, if any, are the Islamic new and improved pig views? Eight months later, Mr. Aslan's essay "A Coming Islamic Reformation," confirms that there is no Reformation, that "in 100 years, after the memory of 9/11 has receded, and the War on Terror is a somber chapter in our nation's history, we may look back on Bin Laden as a murderous criminal, but as one of the principal figures of an era that scholars are increasingly referring to as the Islamic Reformation." Osama bin Laden -- the principal figure of the Islamic Reformation? Yes, of course, Osama bin Laden is just like Martin Luther. Islam is just like Christianity. In fact, Jihad is no longer driven by the "Eternal Word" of Allah, Jihad is now driven by radical individualism, and the Jihadis are fundamentalists now. And just to prove how similar Islam is to Christianity, Mr. Aslan's own name is that of the Christian Lion -- Aslan -- in C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, also recently the #1 movie at the box office. This is so cool. The antique media were even bamboozled by 16-year-old Farris Hassan, whose (lack of) enrollment in the "immersion journalism" course at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale required a field trip to Iraq. Hassan's itinerary to Amsterdam, Kuwait City, and Beirut, tipped off Homeland Security to his father's (Dr. Redha Hassan, aka Redha K. Alsawaf) terrorist links to Hezbollah. "The Islamic Empire of Faith" Jihad rages across five continents to subdue Western, Hindu, Buddhist, and Chinese civilizations, forging truces (hudnas) to regroup and attack again. Jihadis wage war, even among themselves, to control their schools (madrasses) throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. The Caliphate, meanwhile, enjoys the benefits of free enterprise, while mullahs profess to respect the rule of law. Antique media elites make politically correct fools of themselves, while professors and scientists endure threats and intimidation. The Danes defend free speech, and Israel faces threats of imminent destruction, while Iran, Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah rant and rage. America and her allies attempt to bridge values with traditional Muslims, while other regimes and governments -- the usual suspects -- play switch and bait, implementing strategies to benefit their own Jihadamonics. "The Islamic Empire of Faith" gallops forward demographically, while Westerners march to extinction by our own destabilization of marriage, self-negating birthrate, and abortion-on-demand. Welcome to America, even if you hate us Jihadis have forgotten that the people of good will are also the people of free will. Our ancestors fought for freedom of religion and the rule of law. We know that a religion that rejects freedom of religion is not a religion. We know that a religion that rejects the right to exist, the full dignity of womanhood, and Israel's right to exist is not a religion. Pope Benedict XVI implicitly weighed in on Islam recently, addressing those "responsible for the life of nations" by demanding religious freedom for all. With the wisdom of the ages and the poetry of the saints, the Holy Father challenged the Caliphate, calling them to task for their 1400 years of trickery: "If you do not fear truth, you need not fear freedom." Treachery -- The 9th Circle of Hell Dante, the Medieval allegorical poet, saw Mohammed condemned to the 8th circle of hell, sliced, split, and disemboweled from his groin through to the top of his head, entwined with his cousin and son-in-law, whose assasination led to the Muslim schism into Shi'a and Sunni. In fact, in his poetic vision, Dante understood the nature of man and the course of history, such that he conceived yet another deeper circle of hell -- the 9th -- for those who practice treachery. The 9th circle giants of treachery are eternally eaten -- by Lucifer himself. Ya gotta ask yourself one question, do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Treachery is a violation of faith, known as treason. Dante depicted layers of treachery against family, country, friends -- and religion. The diabolical killing of Theo Van Gogh, like the Danish fatwas, violates freedom of artistic expression. The decapitation and dumping of the heads of little Christian Indonesian girls violates all humanity, revealing evil, heinous, disgusting, and repulsive aspects. The assassination of Dr. Puri violates all academic, cultural, and religious codes. Mr. Caliphate, Tear down that Jihad Jihad is not a "culture of death" to their way of life. Jihad is a "culture of death" to our way of life. The choice is clear. Live by freedom. Or die by dhimmitude. Just remember, our side is Pigskin, and our day is Super Bowl Sunday. Freedom reigns. Truth prevails. Pigskin rules. Babe, step into the sunlight. Miss Piggy, buy your wedding gown. Porky, you get the 50-yard line. Celebrate -- our freedom -- as America's favorite capitalist pigs! Kate Wright has taught sceenwriting at UCLA since 1995. She has been honored with many awards, and written historical epic screenplays: "Billy", "The Conspirator Saint", and "Handsome Harry". She is author of "Screenwriting is Storytelling," (Perigee Books, 2004). Contact her at katywrite@aol.com This article appeared in the American Thinker February 3, 2006. It is archived at www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5216&search=Wright The original has live links to additional material. |
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KNESSET TO HOLD CONSTITUTION SESSION
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 13, 2006. |
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From what I have seen of this, most of the proposals consist of an attempt to enshrine the power of ruling elite and make it even more difficult for "outsiders" to have any real say in Government. No effort is made to establish a balance of power or rope in the runaway power of Israel's Supreme court. No attempt is made to change the highly undemocratic proportional representation system that reduces the Knesset to a type of retirement center for political flunkies. Furthermore all the banter about separation of religion and state is no more than the effort to exclude and prohibit religion in the public sector. That is to say the emphasis is not on protecting the right of religious practice but of "protecting" the public from religion. From its very beginning this effort has been an attempt of the CHILLONIM to destroy the Jewish character of the State of Israel. Nevertheless, since the process has begun and it seems something will come out of this, it behoves all those loyal to the Jewish people to mold this constitution into one that is fitting to the needs, history and obligations of the Jewish people. It is also important not to be flippant as to the significance of this. There is an attitude amongst many in the religious and especially Haredi community to believe that what "they" do does not effect "us." That somehow or other we can go on and ignore the rest of the country. This is blatantly a mistake. Should the constitution of the State of Israel be anti or even just non religious, it would negate any political power the religious parties might have in the Knesset. Try to imagine what the impact would be on education if it were unconstitutional for "State" funds to be used for religious purposes as in America? In the very near future more than half of the students in Israel will be religious and enrolled in unambiguously religious schools. Schools that teach religion and not about religion. There are innumerable other sector as well that would be effected. It is therefor crucial to take this effort to create a constitution very seriously indeed. This article is from Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com) and it is archived at www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98444 The Knesset will hold a special session Monday afternoon in which, for the first time, a rough copy of a large part of a proposed national Constitution will be proposed. A Constitution has long been a matter of national debate, largely revolving around the Declaration of Independence's terming of the country as a "Jewish and democratic state." Broadly speaking, those who support the Constitution wish to emphasize the "democratic" aspects of the State, while the religious community says that Israel's democracy must chiefly be Jewish. The ultra-secular Meretz party also opposes the Constitution in its current format. A Meretz spokesperson told Arutz-7 that as currently formulated, the document does not protect the rights of minorities, "such as women, those who wish to marry outside the Rabbinate, Arabs, non-Orthodox Jews, and the homo-lesbian community." Scheduled to speak at today's session are Law Committee Chairman Michael Eitan, who has invested much of his personal prestige and many hours in work on the Constitution, as well as Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Opposition Leader Binyamin Netanyahu, and Justice Minister Tzippy Livny. The Law Committee will present a 9,000-page report -- on a CD -- to the Knesset today, including:
Committee member Rabbi Yitzchak Levy (National Union) explained, "The problem is that those who want to frame this Constitution wish to neutralize the concept of Israel as a Jewish state with a Jewish character. Israel must be a democracy -- but the democracy cannot override its Jewishness. For this reason, we cannot agree, for instance, to a Constitution that does not grant a special status to the Sabbath; they [those working on the Constitution] don't even want to agree to keeping the status quo." "Similarly," Levy continued, "there must be clauses governing what is known as personal status -- marriage, divorce, conversion and the Law of Return -- according to Jewish Law. Otherwise, the principal purpose of the State, namely, to preserve the Jewish Nation in the Land of Israel, will be lost. Admittedly, these are very difficult to formulate in a way that will satisfy everyone." Committee Chairman Eitan takes the opposite approach. "I want the religious and hareidi MKs to feel that they have influence, and that we take their opinions into account," Eitan recently told the HaTzofeh newspaper, "but they should know that there will never be a Committee Chairman who will fight to grant Judaism a special status in the democratic state of Israel. The Nation of Israel has the best constitution in the world [the Torah], which has preserved the nation for thousands of years. We are not making a new constitution for the Jewish People, but we have the State of Israel which also has non-Jews, and we have to give them a Constitution." MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party) said this past week, "The proposal for a Constitution is not as innocent as it looks. True, it does not make absolute proposals on religion-and-state issues, but the very presentation of such possibilities gives legitimacy to the separation of church and state in Israel... Its main chapter must relate to the State of Israel as a Jewish state; the State's commitment to the Jewish religion symbolizes the very heart of the Jewish State." Today's Knesset vote is largely symbolic, as the next Knesset will have to continue the work done thus far on the Constitution. MK Eitan said he hopes that the Constitution will be completed by Israel's 60th birthday -- May 2008. 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAMAS AND FATAH; ISRAEL COMES FULL CIRCLE WITH REPRESSION; NOT REPORTED ABOUT AMONA
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 13, 2006. |
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WILL THE WEST SUBSIDIZE HAMAS? The West, including Israel subsidized the P.A., although the P.A. is making war on Israel. It rationalized, as the NY Times still lies about it, that Abbas opposes terrorism. When the P.A. electorate voted for Hamas, which admits it wants war on Israel, the West suggested it would stop subsidizing the P.A.. It still subsidizes, now rationalizing that Hamas is not yet in the government. Of course, the aid it furnishes now would strengthen the P.A. that Hamas will take over. My guess is that the West will find rationalizations for continuing the subsidy for Hamas. The US will claim that it is aiding NGS, though totalitarian regimes mobilize all organizations in behalf of their wars. Israel would contend that it is legally required to subsidize. The EU would accept Hamas assurances. EFFECTIVE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAMAS & FATAH Both Hamas and Fatah want to destroy Israel. People pretend that Fatah was making peace, but its guns and rockets never fell silent. The popular complaint about Hamas' victory is that Hamas will not negotiate a peace and Fatah would. The complaint is mistaken. What Fatah negotiated enabled it to make war, and make war it did. Hamas may emulate Fatah in that dissimulation that the West swallowed eagerly. The real difference is that Fatah was too corrupt to fight effectively. Arafat and Abbas robbed not only the people in general but their own troops in particular. Fatah generals padded the payroll and starved the troops. Arafat's circle set up price-gouging monopolies and siphoned off foreign aid. Under Fatah rule, Israel had to bar most workers from the P.A. and had to retaliate, thereby discouraging P.A. commerce. Hamas would not start out making most of those mistakes. At present, it is not corrupt. As the West rationalizes its way to reallocating aid to the P.A., Hamas is likely to deliver the services civilians need, without stinting on the military effort. Besides, Iran and S. Arabia are increasing their aid for jihad from the P.A.. Therefore, the people are more likely to support Hamas. Bush will call the popular movement for holy war "democracy," while he claims that democracy reduces belligerency. Thanks to Israeli abandonment of territory and US demands that it not bombard cities from which rockets are launched at Israel, there may not be much Israeli retaliation. Therefore, the Arab people would not feel beaten. Israelis would desist, while boasting of a fine army. Actually, their army has become so politicalized, one wonders whether it has capable commanders. There remains the question of jobs in Israel for Arabs from the P.A.. The US presses Israel to let those Arabs in and take Israeli money back. Thus the Arabs, engaged in total war against Israel, get considerable help from Israel. Israel is a nation governed by suckers. WHAT ISRAELI GOVERNMENT DOESN'T ANSWER The Israel Resource News Agency asked Justice Min. Livni why, when Sharon's advisor acknowledged that the Arabs have more than 6,000 illegal dwelling units in Jerusalem, alone, the government is devoting all its resources against 18 units owned by Jews. The government did not answer (1/30). Israel doesn't deal in justice. It deals in appeasement, corruption, and anti-Zionism. THE START OF THE JEWISH STATE The Jews of Mandatory Palestine largely were self-governing. David Ben-Gurion led them, but felt insecure as a right-wing movement grew and revolted successfully against the British and then played a strong role in defense against the Arabs. Calling himself a Socialist but emulating many Soviet methods, he tried to smother the opposition by force. His militia, Haganah, expelled members of the other Jewish militias or merely of the right-wing movement from jobs and schools, seized them in the streets and from their apartments, tortured some, and turned others over to the British for capital punishment. Ben-Gurion put his program in language fit for Communists. At a time when the Israel was desperate for arms, Ben-Gurion ordered Rabin to sink a ship that the right wing was bringing in with arms mostly for Haganah and some for Irgun's effort to liberate the Old City. He also had Rabin murder Jewish troops who had jumped off the burning ship and were swimming to shore. Now Olmert seeks to retain leftist dominance against the multiplying population of observant Jews much the same way. Ironically, he pretends he is evacuating them from the Territories in order to protect Israel from an Arab demographic threat (Winston Mid East Analysis, 1/30 from Nadia Matar of Women in Green) He does not counter-act. JIHAD HAS NO IDEOLOGICAL RIVALS AMONG ARABS The Arabs had a few ideologies: monarchy, nationalism, military dictatorship, communism, and Islam. All but Islam have lost their appeal. The Islamist movement dominates the ideology of Islam, backing it up with terrorism and militias (IMRA, 1/31). Although Fatah was Islamist, it acted more like a military dictatorship. Hamas' eventual primacy was inevitable, given the reluctance by both Fatah and Israel to wipe Hamas out. The Arabs discuss but don't understand democracy. Genuine democracy has little appeal to them. It lacks a sufficient tolerant and civil society in which to develop. The Arabs call elections, alone, proof of having democracy. ROCKETS KEEP LANDING Terrorists continue firing rockets at Israel, from the haven Sharon left them. Israel does not take serious steps to stop or deter them (IMRA, 1/31). Inaction encourages terrorism; action induces criticism. The government of Israel prefers letting its citizens be murdered with impunity to getting its government criticized wrongly. If I were the head of government when the Quartet and its associates criticized Israel for military retaliation, I would berate them for their encouragement of terrorism and the US for hypocrisy in its supposed war on terrorism. They would hesitate to criticize Israel much after a couple of reprimands amply deserved and firmly delivered. EXTINCT SPECIES REVIVED? Archeologists at Masada had unearthed a seed of the extinct Judean date palm, from abuot the time of the revolt at Masada against ancient Rome. After 30 years in storage, it was planted a few years ago. It has grown 14 inches. If it be female, the species may be revived. It is thought to bear medicinal qualities (Arutz-7, 1/31). NOT REPORTED ABOUT AMONA David Bedein of Israel Resources Agency often raises issues that the major media fail to. He points out, "The Yesha Council publicly and officially offered to move the nine buildings that the Israeli courts declared to be on unauthorized property." Ehud Olmert rejected the idea. The question remains: "Did Olmert want blood?" (2/1.) Yes. The government refused to give residents a chance to make their case. Since polls showed lack of sympathy for settlers, Olmert's advisors suggested he seem to have overcome his poor credentials on security by cracking down on settlers in the name of security and law and order. Mr. Bedein reminds us that Acting PM Olmert had made a study finding 6,000 illegal Arab houses in Jerusalem, but now refuses to discuss enforcing the law against them. PM Sharon was supposed to have formed a police unit to deal with the 6,000, but it never got going. Olmert concentrated, instead, on the nine houses in Amona. Emanuel Winston saw more than a hundred youths severely beaten, many with multiple head wounds, as police went on a rampage. Mounted police charged peaceful demonstrators and clubbed them, too (Winston Mid East Analysis, 2/1). Law and order or fascism? MUNICH The review of Munich in February Commentary is the most comprehensive and specific I've seen. It cites many ways in which the movie twists the facts against Israel or for moral equivalency, the worst so of any movie. Unless viewers are informed, and few are, they won't know their credulity is being imposed upon. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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WHERE OLMERT LEADS, ISRAEL MUSTN'T FOLLOW
Posted by Women in Green, February 13, 2006. |
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This was written by Caroline Glick, and it appeared in The Jerusalem Post on Feb. 10, 2006. Israel's public debate is known for its ferocity and general nastiness, but very rarely is the prime minister called a bold-faced liar. The fact that both the Likud and Labor called Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just that after he gave his first televised interview as acting premier Tuesday night is therefore significant. In that interview, as during the tour he conducted earlier that day along the route of the security fence around Jerusalem, Olmert pledged that if he forms the next government, he will establish Israel's permanent borders. Olmert said those borders will maintain Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion under Israeli sovereignty. A unified Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley will also remain under Israeli control, he promised. Unfortunately, when Olmert's statements from Tuesday are compared to his actions on the ground, it becomes clear that the Likud's and Labor's invectives were accurate. On the ground, the government's policies are cutting both Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim off from Jerusalem and bringing about the partition of Jerusalem. As well, there is no evidence that the government is working to preserve Israeli control over the Jordan Valley -- to the contrary. Additionally, the Olmert government has failed completely to bring about the Palestinians' isolation in the wake of Hamas's electoral victory. It is not only that the government transferred tax revenues to the PA or that Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited Hamas leaders for an official visit to Moscow. The government's incompetence in dealing with the Hamas challenge was made abundantly clear by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's remarks at her joint press conference with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Wednesday. Tuesday Olmert was expected to make a final decision regarding the route of the security fence around the Palestinian village Jaba, which is located next to Gush Etzion. The planned route places Jaba outside the fence. To keep Jaba out of the fence's boundaries, it will be necessary to move Highway 367, which connects Gush Etzion to the center of the country, from its present location south of Jaba, to a new location north of the village. The project, which will cost Israeli taxpayers NIS 100 million, will locate the new road on a narrow ridge directly below Jaba and thus place every vehicle traveling on it within range of terrorist snipers. The new route will be surrounded on all sides by Hamas-controlled villages -- so the only link between Gush Etzion and the center of the country will be all but impossible to defend. Gush Etzion residents, as well as the IDF and the Defense Ministry support changing the route of the fence and leaving the highway where it is. Olmert deferred deciding the issue. When Olmert says that he will maintain Gush Etzion, it is not at all clear how he intends to do so. The current route of the security fence excludes its three eastern communities -- Nokdim, Tekoa and Karmei Tzur. As well, while last month the government ordered hundreds of IDF troops and policemen to destroy an unauthorized home at Neveh Daniel North, as well as a crate and an antenna on a hill two kilometers north of the small settlement, it refuses to enforce its own orders calling for the demolition of hundreds of illegal Palestinian structures. Hundreds of such illegal structures have been built along Highway 60, which connects Gush Etzion to Jerusalem. The Palestinians have also seized thousands of dunams of state lands all around Gush Etzion. In both cases, the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria has issued orders to destroy the structures and take back the lands, but it has not moved to implement any of those orders. Neveh Daniel North, like the hilltop where the antenna and crate were destroyed, are located directly above Highway 60 and the road that connects the towns of Tzur Hadassah and Betar Illit to Jerusalem. If the government wanted to guarantee Gush Etzion's integration with Israel, it would be allowing more Jews to live in Neveh Daniel North and enable Jews to settle on the unpopulated hilltop where the antenna and crate were located. For its part, the Palestinian Authority is directing the seizure of government lands around Gush Etzion in order to link the villages of Husan and Nahalin to one another and link both to Bethlehem. If the Palestinians are successful -- and given the Civil Administration's refusal to enforce the law against the Palestinians, there is no reason to believe they will fail -- the road from Jerusalem to Gush Etzion will be surrounded on all sides by hostile villages under Hamas control. So if Olmert was truly committed to preserving Gush Etzion, he would be implementing policies directly opposed to the ones he is advancing today. The same is the case for Ma'aleh Adumim. Today, there are two obstacles blocking the linkage of Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem: The government's refusal to permit a neighborhood to be built in the area known as E-1; and Olmert's support for a plan that would serve to connect the Arab neighborhoods of Isawiya and A-Tur. If the neighborhoods are allowed to link up, their expanded boundaries will prevent the connection of Jerusalem to the Judean Desert and expose the road between Mount Scopus and Ma'aleh Adumim to the threat of rifle attacks from the Hamas/Palestinian Authority-controlled territories. Three weeks ago, Haaretz's weekend magazine published an article regarding the plan to expand the two neighborhoods. The article accused Aviatar Cohen, who runs the Nature Reserves Authority's Jerusalem District, of working to prevent their expansion for "political" reasons. In accordance with a decision by then interior minister Natan Sharansky from 2000, the Nature Reserve Authority is building a national park called "Ancient Landscapes Park" in the area where the Arabs wish to link Isawiya and A-Tur. According to sources in the Nature Reserves Authority and the Jerusalem Municipality, the article led to Cohen being removed from his office and forced to work from the authority's offices Ein Hemed. As well, the plan to build the national park is being revisited. One of the major players behind the initiative to expand Isawiya and A-Tur is former Israeli and New York attorney David Fox. Fox is known to be friendly with both former prime minister Ehud Barak and Olmert. Fox developed the plans to link Isawiya and A-Tur in conjunction with the radical leftist planning organization Bimkom. Bimkom, which is supported by the New Israel Fund, has been prominent in attempts to expand the village of Bil'in near Ramallah amid violent clashes between Palestinians and their leftist supporters and IDF and police forces. It has also been active in attempting to foil development plans for the abandoned village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. During his tenure as Jerusalem mayor, Olmert opposed the expansion of Isawiya toward A-Tur and even destroyed 18 illegal structures in Isawiya. But, as deputy prime minister, Olmert wrote Fox a letter expressing his support for the building plans. As to Jerusalem itself, like Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu said in recent weeks, the fence that Olmert has pledged to complete within six months will endanger both the city and vehicles traveling on Highway 1 between Tel Aviv and the capital. This is the case because Olmert's fence relinquishes Israeli control over the village of Beit Iksa. The transfer of Beit Iksa to Hamas/Palestinian Authority control will place residents of the adjacent Ramot neighborhood and the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that travel daily on Highway 1 within the rifle range of terrorists. Even more disturbingly, according to knowledgeable, well-placed sources, senior members of Olmert's Kadima Party have been conducting discussions for over a year with Palestinian officials regarding the partition of Jerusalem. According to these sources, the two sides have agreed that all Arab neighborhoods in the capital will be transferred to Palestinian control. As to the Jordan Valley, while Kadima's platform makes no pledge to preserve Israeli control over the area, Tuesday Olmert promised to maintain "control of Israel's eastern border." As we learned in Israel's capitulation regarding the Philadepli Corridor and the Rafah Terminal that connect Gaza to Egypt, in the wake of the withdrawal from Gaza, there is no reason to believe that Olmert is serious. The fact that over the past few years, right under our noses, the government has built a border passage between the Jordan Valley and the Beit Shean Valley, tells us all we need to know about the value of Olmert's pledge to retain Israeli control of our eastern border. AN ANALYSIS of Olmert's actual policies shows that far from following a hard-nosed strategy, Kadima is implementing Yossi Beilin's agreement with Mahmoud Abbas from 1995. According to that unofficial agreement -- which then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin rejected because it did not address Israel's security needs even in an era of peace -- in exchange for peace, Israel was supposed to transfer 95 percent of Judea and Samaria to Palestinian control, partition Jerusalem and agree to security arrangements on the Jordan Valley that would pave the way for the area's eventual transfer to Palestinian control. The irony is that at least Beilin's unofficial agreement was supposed to bring Israel peace. Today, Olmert and his associates seek to implement Beilin's plan as Hamas takes control of the PA, so ensuring that an Israeli withdrawal will not be accompanied by any guarantee -- even a mendacious one -- of Israel's future security in the framework of a peace treaty. That is, the Olmert government's policies are to the left of Beilin's. The Olmert government's desire to abandon Judea and Samaria makes the question of Hamas's international standing a pivotal one. Once Hamas gains legitimacy, Israel will not have international support for military actions aimed at defending what will remain of the country from Palestinian aggression. Unfortunately, the government's bid to isolate Hamas/Palestinian Authority in the wake of the Palestinian elections last month has been a total failure. This fact was made clear not only by Russia's decision to recognize Hamas, but also by Rice's statements during her joint press conference with Livni. During their joint appearance, Rice did not once use the term "terrorist organization" to describe Hamas. Indeed, the only thing about Hamas that seemed to bother Rice was the fact that Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist. From this it becomes clear that a vague declaration by Hamas which acknowledges -- for now -- the fact of Israel's existence, will likely be deemed sufficient for Hamastan to be welcomed as the newest member of the US-led international community. Olmert's current policies indicate that if he forms the next government, he and his cohorts in Kadima will lead Israel into a national and military abyss. The fact that he is basing his campaign on denying his actual policies is more than sufficient reason for Israeli voters to look elsewhere for their next prime minister. The fact that his actual policies endanger the long-term survival of Israel makes defeating Olmert and Kadima a national imperative. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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MAZIN QUMSIYEH IS NO LONGER AT YALE AND HE'S A CHRISTIAN ARAB ANTI-SEMITE
Posted by Jerome Gordon, February 13, 2006. |
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Dear Mr. Love: I received your email announcement to the Fieldston School parents regarding an Assenbly that included Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh to be held on February 27th. I was appalled to find that the well-regarded Fieldston preparatory school in The Riverdale Section of the Bronx would permit such a blatantly biased and extremist proponent of hate of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to engage in an unchecked discussion before the young impressionable audience at your preparatory institution. This is not "diversity." With no rebuttal of Dr. Qumsiyeh you are not engaging in 'civil discourse.' Quite the contrary you are poisoning young minds with a panoply of untruths and allegations of "racism." If you don't believe me then read an article of the Committee for Accuracy in the Middle East (CAMERA.org) published on-line in December, 2005 that decries his credibility. As a resident of Connecticut, I have spoken with and confronted Dr. Qumsiyeh at any number of college and university venues in this state. He did not receive tenure from Yale Medical school and therefore it is incorrect for you to refer to any academic postings there. He was the former director of the genetics lab at Yale Medical. He was also a former leader of an extremist Palestinian organization Al Awda ("Arabic for "the Return') advocating for the rights of return of Palestinian refugees and 'the elimination of 58 years of Zionist occupation of Palestine"- effectively the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. It is alleged that Dr. Qumsiyeh was asked to leave Al Awda because he was viewed as being "moderate." As you will see in the article I wrote in September 2005 about him and his cousin Samir in the disputed Palestinian territories entitled "A Tale of Two Palestinians," he has been caught in a web of anti-Semitic slogans and actions of his own making while on the faculty of the Yale Medical school. He has also abandoned his own people, Christians to Islamist pogroms in his home village of Beit Sahour-a suburb of Bethlehem. Last month, according to The New York Times in a news report entitled, "Boycott Call causes fracas at World Economic Forum", an article written by Dr. Qumsiyeh and initially published in the Global Agenda magazine distributed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland was withdrawn under some controversy following objections to Qumsiyeh's extremist views calling for divestment against companies doing business with those in the State of Israel-essentially calling for economic warfare not peaceful trade and dialogue with the Jewish State. If you have the time go to the website of the Yale-based Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism Policy (ISGAP) and click "events" and click the video of a recent lecture by Dr. Benny Morris, an Israeli historian of note and watch the Q+A section with an exchange between Dr. Qumsiyeh and his radical colleague Stanley Heller of "the struggle.org" and Dr. Morris and draw your own conclusions. I therefore regard his presence at the Fieldston School assembly as tantamount to support of his anti-Israel xenophopbia and patent anti-Semitic vitirol. His cant is akin to that of the notorious Nazi era propaganda newspaper, Der Sturmer. Who else would call Israelis "Zionazies," or "Ashkenazis". Who else would call Zionism a "disease." Only Dr. Qumsiyeh and a number of his extremist radical colleagues. This is not the level of civil discourse and preparation that any self-respecting and concerned parent of a student in the upper form at the Fieldston school would tolerate whether Christian Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, aninmist, atheist or even Muslim, I, for one am apppalled that you would solicit such individuals as Dr. Qumsiyeh to speak before an assembly at the Fieldston School. Read my article, talk to whomever suggested Dr. Qumsiyeh and brough his program of hate to your attention and either find a suitable substitute or broaden the panel to include rebuttal speakers. You should certainly correct the misinformation you are distributing about Dr. Qumsiyeh.. Giving equal time to hate is not the best American traditions of fair and open debate. I would trust that you would respond to this email after due investigation and deliberation. But, more importantly, you as an educational professional shaping young minds can ill afford to pour such poison into their ears and minds. I will call you shortly to discuss the matter of this Assembly at Fieldston and means of broadening the "dialogue," should you choose to proceed with this program.. You may reach via my cell phone at: 203-763-9135. Regretfully yours. Subj: assembly
Dear Upper School Parents, I am writing to let you know about an assembly we have planned for Thursday, February 23rd. We have invited Professor Muhammad Muslih of Long Island University and Associate Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh of Yale to speak to the Upper School students and faculty about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both Professor Muslih and Associate Professor Qumsiyeh are Palestinians. Professor Muslih will speak for 10 minutes in favor of a two-state solution, and Professor Qumsiyeh will speak for 10 minutes in favor of a one-state solution, and for the balance of the assembly they will entertain questions from the audience. In advance of the assembly the history department will be providing the students with some readings and will discuss those readings in history classes. Form III Dean David Swartwout teaches three sections of a Middle East history elective, and following the assembly he will be holding those classes in the Stu-Fac, inviting students outside the class to join in the discussion as well any Upper School teachers who would like to bring their classes. We will also be holding a discussion for interested students in the Stu-Fac during our activities period the following Tuesday. Finally we are investigating two possible assembly formats to follow up on this assembly and to present the conflict from an Israeli perspective. Following the elections in Israel, we hope to invite a representative of the governing coalition in Israel and a representative of the opposition party to discuss their differing approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Because of the timing of the Israeli election that assembly would have to wait until the fall. Alternatively we are looking into whether we could find one or two individuals who could present this same issue from the Israeli perspective at an assembly later this semester. In the article I recently wrote about diversity for the Fieldston News I observed that in a school with the progressive reputation of Fieldston one of the biggest challenges we face is fostering diversity of opinion. Lately I have heard that sentiment expressed more and more often among students. In fact it was that concern that led several students to suggest to their history teacher that we try and find someone who could present the Palestinian point of view to our community, a point of view that few of us, students or faculty, are familiar with or can claim to understand. The formation of a new party in Israel and the recent Palestinian election have cast a new light on the efforts of our historic ally Israel to resolve the conflict, and those events suggested to us that we should do more than a single assembly presenting the one viewpoint. We see this assembly on February 23rd as the starting point for a continuing discussion that will engage our school community in a vital issue. Thanks for your attention. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Sincerely,
Contact Jerome Gordon at jerry_gordon38@yahoo.com
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GEFILTE GANGSTAS
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 13, 2006. |
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1. Among the many plagues of modern Israel is a Hebrew version of rap "music". I use the term "music" here in its loosest form. Israeli Hebrew rappers, most of them white homies, dress up like black ghetto gangstas and spout grammatically-challenged sentences to bongos or to whatever is producing the percussion noise. Probably the best known Hebrew rapper group is named "Subliminal", although when my teenage children listen to them I invariably refer to them as "Subliterate". They are noisy and obnoxious, as is all rap "music". To their credit, they do have a couple of "songs" in which the lyrics are about a "Proud Jew". But suddenly I feel a great fondness for the Breakdancer-wannabes and gangstas from "Subliminal". It seems that they are about to sue Meretz. The semi-Marxist Meretz party stole one of the rap "songs" from "Subliminal" and is using it, without permission, in Meretz election ads as its jingle. The gefilte-gangstas are not amused, and all of Israel is hoping that Meretz will take the rap. 2. http://antiprotester.blogspot.com/2006/02/ left-bashing-starbucks-again-this-time.html The Moonbats from the Anarcho-fascists and their friends, the Marxoids, have a long track record of bashing Starbucks. They are back now with a call to boycott Starbucks because Starbucks fired a worker for insubordination after the worker refused to remove a witchcraft pendulum while on the job. Starbucks employee Suley Ayala is a practicing Wiccan and as a religious observance never takes off the necklace. A handful of Starbucks' looniest workers formed their own make-pretend trade union to defend the rights of witches on the job. We see the makings of a whole new cause for the Left! Earlier, some ultra-moonbats were calling for a boycott of Starbucks because one of the Starbucks execs is a "Zionist". I guess by that they mean he is a Jew. (Ironically, Starbucks does not even have branches in Israel.) Other ultras want Starbucks boycotted because America is in Iraq. Yes, we heard you say "Huh?". We figure the Left will never really get a successful boycott going. After all, where would all the lefties sip their lattes? Meanwhile, we enjoy watching the Left as it is bewitched, bothered and bewildered by folks at Starbucks. 3. The Ford-financed Nuremberg Rally at Lake Como, Italy seems to have been cancelled. The main funders backed out of the event after learning that the rally was little more than a Bash-the-Jews affair organized by leftist Eurotrash. The Ford Foundation had been returning to the Jew-bashing anti-Semitic roots of the founder of the Ford company. It agreed to fund the anti-Jew conference at Lake Como, so reports the NY Sun, but has now backed down due to public outcry. Henry Ford, the founder, was a borderline nazi and an open anti-Semite who promoted the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania who helped press the Ford Foundation in 2003, said that he found it "distressing" to learn that the Ford Foundation is "funding a conference in which more than a third of the participants support boycotting Israeli universities." The Rockefeller Foundation was providing the site at Bellagio, Italy, where 21 scholars will meet in a historic Lombard villa on the banks of Lake Como for a three-day conference to discuss academic boycotts and their relation to academic freedom. More than a third of these scholars publicly support boycotts of Israeli universities out of opposition to the Jewish state. The Ford Foundation is putting in a total of $70,000 to fund the meeting and to support publishing the conference's proceedings "It doesn't make any sense to have a conference which is dominated by people who are basically anti-Israel in their approach and only use the academic boycott as a technique or a vehicle ... for demonizing Israel and pursuing its destruction ... if you're going to have a discussion about academic boycotts and how to preserve academic freedom," a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, Gerald Steinberg, told The New York Sun. Mr. Steinberg is the editor of the Web publication NGO Monitor, a watchdog of nongovernmental organizations. This event, had it taken place, would have violated the Ford Foundation's pledge following the revelation that it had funded the NGOs participating in the infamous Durban conference on racism and xenophobia, in which the "Zionism is racism" slogan was revived. In reality, anti-Zionism is a form of racism. 4. The Trial of Ernst Zundel: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=6010 Please note that, in recent years, Israeli Bash-Israel crackpots, from Neve Gordon all the way down to Barry Chamish, have published their screed on the Zundel web site. See for example http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3528.html and http://www.zundelsite.org/english/zgrams/zg2000/zg0005/000523.html 5. What would you say if the Israeli Labor Party ran as one of its leaders an astronomer who insisted that the platform of the party be that the earth is flat? Well, the current situation is even MORE absurd, with Avishay Braverman, the "professor" who was never a "professor", leading the party's campaign to increase Israel's unemployment rate by raising the minimum wage. One of the few things that all economists agree about is that raising the minimum wage raises unemployment. Meanwhile, today's April Fool headline from the Jerusalem Post: www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395398467&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Braverman focuses on security "Even as Labor Party candidate Avishay Braverman publicized a detailed socio-democratic platform Sunday, he acknowledged the need for Labor to campaign more strategically on security issues. "The truth is that we have the best security people, the highest ranking generals of any party," Braverman said, citing candidates Ami Ayalon, Matan Vilna'i, Ephraim Sneh, Danny Yatom and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer." ** Let us note that this same Braverman turned Ben Gurion University into the Bir Zeit of the Negev and hired and promoted the above mentioned anti-Semite Neve Gordon. 6. The latest group of British anti-Semites to join the jihad for the
destruction of Israel is the Architects and Planners for Justice in
Palestine (APJP) which has published a call to impose a boycott on
construction companies involved in building the separation fence and
the settlements in the occupied territories in the West Bank and
Jerusalem.
In a reaction published in Building Design, Israeli-Canadian-American architect Moshe Safdie said, "The timing is appalling and I am just outraged. In Hamas, Israel is facing an enemy determined to destroy it. I am a big opponent of the wall, but as long as Hamas is in power, I am for the wall, it is for survival." As usual, much of the initiative behind the boycott is from Israeli far-leftists, urging the Brits to boycott Israel. The main target of the plan will be Caterpillar, whose diggers have been "used to demolish Palestinian homes." And also terror tunnels. The two Israelis promoting the boycott are architect Eyal Weizman, who pointed out the participation of the community of architects and planners in Israel in the practical implementation of the policy of occupation, and Rafi Segal. Their exhibit "A Civil Occupation," which he curated (with Rafi Segal) in 2002, and which was rejected for display. It is a Bash-the-Jews initiative. The British architects and their Israeli leftist Pappe-wannabes did not express any opposition to the continuing campaign of genocide by the Paletsinians nor to suicide bombings of Jewish civilians by the Arab terrorists. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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SELF-DESTRUCTION OF WEST CONTINUES AS IT & 'PEACE' CAMP GET SPIT IN THEIR FACES
Posted by Eugene Narrett, February 12, 2006. |
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I have written about the self-destructive tendencies of Western Civilization, deeply engrained and encoded in its imperial appropriation and malicious misrepresentation of Judaism and the Jewish people. The leader of Hamas, and not only him, also senses this clearly, and throws into the faces of Western nations, and of the so-called "peace" camp in Israel the lie of their ways. The coming months will show if this vigorous wake-up call will indeed rouse them from their torpid and suicidal trance. In terms of the West in general, it is to be doubted (see previous post). Despite its weak and treacherous leadership, mockingly referenced below, there is much greater likelihood that Israel will awake. The Jewish core is strong beneath the Hellenistic veneer; the threat is very immediate; and "Neztach Yisrael lo yishaker." [The following could be dissected for grotesque distortions and reversals of fact, e.g. the West has no need to pay for the oil it discovered and all the technologies involved in its pumping, transhipment and varied uses, but chooses to empower despots in opec so it can play a 'good cop, bad cop' routine with its own citizens. This is just one of myriad betrayals that empower those like Mashal who are in fact tools of the Western elites, albeit, tools that turn in the hands of the artisans. They are meant to do so, up to a point. And whose holy places are being pillaged! well... But the animus toward Israel and Jews is just what such people are expected to do and why they are funded, promoted, etc.]... Words of the leader of Hamas: "Our nation will be victorious. When it reaches the leadership of the world, and controls its own decisions, then it will prevent this overt interference [in our affairs], and its pillaging of natural resources, and will prevent these recurring offenses against our land, against our nation, and against our holy places -- then you will regret it. "Before Israel Dies, it Must Be Humiliated and Degraded" Mash'al: "Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day. America will be of no avail to them. Their generals will be of no avail to them. The last of their generals has been forgotten. Allah has made him disappear. He's over. Gone is that Sharon behind whose back they would hide and find shelter, and with whom they would feel relatively secure. Today they have frail leaders, who don't even know where our Lord placed them. "Allah willing, we will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains. "Their weapons will be of no avail to them. Their nuclear weapons will be of no use to them. They thought that they had hegemony over the region with their nuclear weapons, but suddenly Pakistan popped up with Islamic nuclear weapons, and they are afraid of Iran and several Arab countries have some chemical weapons. "Israel has begun to sense that its superiority has come to an end. Its army, which has superior conventional weapons -- the air force, the armored corps, and the missiles -- there are no longer wars in which these are used." This is a precise assessment of the psychological fatigue and surrender of a de-Judaized General Staff, political and judicial elites. On cue from Barak, Peres, and their terrified auditors in the coastal strip and major media, Olmert and other top generals have been saying for years that Israel must not [!!] fight and win another war, at least, "not too much." One can't expect enemies to ignore such defeatism.
Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston
University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and
reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a
study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He
writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a
weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham,
Massachusetts. Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com
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TERRORIST ATTACK ON JEWISH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 12, 2006. |
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This news item is called "Yassam Police Intimidate Grade-Schoolers In Shomron School Raid" and it comes from today's Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews). It is archived at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98396 (IsraelNN.com) Thirty Yassam riot police officers entered an elementary school in the Shomron Jewish community of Itamar Sunday afternoon, claiming that a rock was thrown at them from one of the educational institutions in the area, although they said they were not certain which one. Nitzan Yamin, the principle of the school, which has 300 students in grades 1-8, informed the police that according to the Education Ministry's regulations, it is forbidden for the police to enter classrooms without prior coordination. The police ignored him, entered a seventh grade classroom and began to photograph the students seated there. "They came in order to intimidate them, causing extreme panic, especially among the younger kids," Yamin said. "The entire incident is scandalous -- against all laws and regulations. I told them that if they were there for a specific reason they should describe to me the child they were seeking and we would look for him, but they preferred to do it their way." The police left after half an hour without arresting anybody. 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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MOSLEMS MUST MOVE ON
Posted by Naomi Ragen, February 12, 2006. |
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Friends, The article below is by Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@cox.net), an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com and http://www.east-asia-intel.com/ East-Asia-Intel.com. It's an article about the roots of the Muslim riots how the West must deal with it. One of the most interesting lines in it states a great truth: "Unfortunately, with the 24-hour CNN and Al Jazeera megaphone and their largely uninformed commentators, troublemakers are able to present the violence as motivated by legitimate religious sanctions." Those of you who have been with me on this list from the beginning, even before the launch of the Intifada, will remember how many e-mails I sent out about the ignorance of CNN commentators, and the Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Mike Hanna (who was very quietly fired or transferred, or something. He just disappeared one day from Jerusalem. I guess they didn't want to admit our complaints had anything to do with it.) CNN continues to pander to the terrorists. They, together with Al Jazeera, and the BBC and many, many others, are PR firms for Bin Laden and the Hamas and the Hezbollah. Hopefully, the less we watch, the more revenues they'll lose and the faster they'll go out of business. The article is entitled "Anatomy of the riots: Time to impose limits and move on." Naomi There was a sick joke making the rounds in the 1970s: $100 and a match could start a megariot in Karachi [or Calcutta, or Cairo, or Djakarta, or Bombay or even Hong Kong]. The bitter humor exposed a new situation: the old colonial lathi charge, taken over by the new rulers, was increasingly powerless faced with huge in-migration of poverty-stricken off the land. Karachi, pushing beyond 15 millions, has become almost ungovernable. Like Karachi virtually every South, Southeast and Western Asian city has huge floating populations living on the edge of subsistence, tinder for such flare-ups. [And such "communities" are building in Chinese cities despite rapid macroeconomic growth and a still iron-fisted attempt at control.] John Masters, who, however trite his scenarios, captured British India on the eve of independence, foresaw new urban patterns destroying old conflicts. He argued massive Northwest Frontier Pathan immigration to industry in Karachi would end age-old tribal warfare. But exploding birthrates, failure of Pakistan's earlier economic takeoff, and the law of unintended consequences took over. Too often old feuds simply carried over into the new urban environment. Larger social cohesiveness broke down faced with endless caste, tribal, ethnic, religious and racial groupings adopting whatever loyalties existed beyond the family. Sporadic and corrupt attempts by government -- either through electoral processes or simple cronyism -- often intensified these narrower loyalties. Karachi has had bloody guerrilla campaigns, until recently directed by a London-based politician, calling on the refugee progeny from the 1947 bloody Partition against "native" Punjabis, Pathans, and Sindhis. Evangelism by Saudi Wahabism and Iranian state terrorism has aggravated Pakistan's intra-Moslem Sunni-Shi'a conflicts as well as continued persecution of so-called heretical Islamic sects. It was child's play, therefore, for European-based Moslem leaders, months after they couldn't stir Danish social conflict to increase their political power, to spread venom through the Moslem world. The supposed violation of Islam's prohibitions on reproduction of any godhead was the impetus for disruptions sweeping the Moslem world. But in reality the Danish imams used the radical Islamic network to exploit always existing misery. Again we have the spectacle of psychotic misfits in Western society rather than Moslems in their home countries as the sparkplugs, often allied with looting criminal street gangs. [Even in more sophisticated Beirut Danish Embassy sacking was an excuse to steal from neighboring offices.] Unfortunately, with the 24-hour CNN and Al Jazeera megaphone and their largely uninformed commentators, troublemakers are able to present the violence as motivated by legitimate religious sanctions. Arcane debates about freedom of expression become tangled in the local web of poverty and social oppression. It's a world of which the average Western journalist [much less his reader and listener] has only the slightest inkling. Exploitation of children, oppression of women, child marriage, pedophilia, incest, "honor killings", family and tribal feuding, grinding poverty, everyday occurrences in these societies, go largely unreported and unacknowledged. But because of Western oriented worldwide news reporting, every such episode in the West is a major news story dispersed to the semi-literate in these countries. Furthermore, their hypocritical elite are ready to use these Western episodes to distract attention from much their own more frequent social abuses. What is to be done? First of all, Western policymakers must not make special concessions to one religion -- that is, Islam -- whatever its demands and peculiar prohibitions. Liberty, including freedom of expression, is the essence of Western civilization, a model for the oppressed in the rest of the world. Why do the populations of these countries make every effort to immigrate, were that not true? Because of economic privation and opportunities for jobs? Yes, but surely those are part and parcel of the Western society the Islamic radicals, many of them resident in the West, denounce as they try to exploit it. Wahabism floats on a sea of petrodollars! Secondly, the West [and the U.S. which suffered the first assault on 9/11] must make every effort to defend itself. That includes definition of what Islamic radicals can and cannot do living in our societies, including their rights of assembly, protest, and petition. That London police permitted demonstrators to carry signs calling for murder of their opponents is inexcusable. It calls up the old Oliver Wendell Holmes' axiom: free speech does not permit crying "fire" in a crowded theater which would cause panic and death. And lastly, the West -- and most particularly the U.S. -- must go on the propaganda offensive. Tolerance has never been a hallmark of Islamic societies whatever recent apologetics. But there is a tradition among Moslems, sometimes even dominant for brief periods in their history, where it has flowered. Just as sometimes in the Christian past intolerance and repression have been the norm, the world and the more than a billion Moslems must move on. Persuading the elite in these societies through education and example to follow that path has to be an essential part of what increasingly is now obvious, the still longer war against organized terror in store. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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SCENE ONE, TAKE TWO
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 12, 2006. |
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It seems the dirty tricks department of the SHABBAK forgot to take
into account the unlikelihood of Jews just slipping into Kalkilia and
doing a graffiti number so now we have to shoot the scene all over
again. So everybody; "Take two!"
A bit more believable but not by much.
I expect there to be a very high profile arrest of "known extremist"
suspected of this horrific crime. After locking them away in some
dungeon for a few weeks or so they will be released due to lack of
evidence. In the interim, the Government's propaganda organs will be
spewing out reams of anti-Jewish hate and accusations of plots to kill
our peaceful Arab neighbors. Duly punctuated by Arab riots. All of
this built on the "obvious" fact that it was those Jewish extremist
that started it all by their graffiti lynch.
This is called "Mohammed is a Pig Scribbled on Mosque Ignites Riots in Samaria." It appeared in Arutz Sheva -- IsraelNationalNews.com (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98401). Graffiti scribbled on a mosque in the village of Bnai Elias, calling Mohammed "a pig," sparked Arab riots in Samaria Sunday afternoon. An Israeli motorist was wounded and evacuated to the hospital. The motorist was lightly wounded when her car was stoned on the Azoun bypass road. After being struck in the head by a rock, she continued driving to the community of Karnei Shomron where she received first aid before being evacuated to the hospital. Four other Israelis were treated for shock after their vehicles were attacked by stone throwing mobs. Hundreds of Arabs rioted in the towns of Bnai Elias, Fundak, and Azoun, where mobs burned tires and threw cinder blocks onto IDF troops and Israeli civilians. In Azoun, after being attacked with cinder blocks, IDF troops opened fire, aiming for the legs of the attackers. Three Arabs were wounded and evacuated by the local Red Crescent, affiliated with the Red Cross. The IDF apologized for the graffiti, in a statement saying "The IDF apologizes for the incident and declares that the state is obligated to preserve the dignity of all religions and freedom of worship." Arabs from Bnai Elias, a village near Kalkilya, claimed that the graffiti was sprayed onto the mosque at 4:30 A.M. Sunday. They told Israel's Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria that a number of people got out of a vehicle bearing Israeli plates and sprayed "Mohammed is a pig" on the mosque's exterior wall. Representatives of the Civil Administration rushed to the village, condemned the graffiti, and erased the scrawl with the assistance of IDF troops. The identity of the perpetrators is unknown, but many in the Israeli media have already accused Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria for the provocation. The village of Bnai Elias, however, is frequently visited by Israeli Jews and Arabs (Moslem and Christian) shopping for bargains, so vehicles with Israeli plates are not uncommon in the town. The incident is under police investigation. Arab residents of Jerusalem rioted yesterday over the caricatures of Mohammed that were published in Denmark and other European countries. Rioters threw stones at police and attempted to burn the Danish flag near the Shechem gate to the Old City. Border police fired shock grenades to disperse the mob. No injuries were reported. 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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MORE DIRTY TRICKS
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 12, 2006. |
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Now let's see if I got this right. A gang of Jewish extremist, no doubt wearing large Kippot and Tzitzit streaming behind them, just waltzed into Hamas-controlled Kalkilia, wandered up to a Mosque there, spray painted anti-Islamic slogans and then casually waltzed out. With of course no one seeing them. Did I get it right? This appeared today in Arutz Sheva -- IsraelNationalNews.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11273089). It is called "Reactions to Graffiti Against Mohammad." (IsraelNN.com) MK (Meimad) Rabbi Michael Melchior denounced anti-Mohammed graffiti painted on the wall of a mosque in Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled Kalkilye. He stated such actions are a "desecration of G-d's name and are not only an affront to Islam, but to the image of Jews in the eyes of the world community." Arab MK (Ta'al) Dr. Ahmed Tibi blamed "extremist settlers," -- residents of Yesha communities, for seeking to inflame the fires of conflict. Baruch Marzel, who heads the National Jewish Leadership Party, would not condemn the graffiti, stating that while he would not engage in such activities, he cannot condemn the act while Islamists continue to burn and desecrate Jewish prayer shawls and holy items, without regarding to religious sensitivities. Israel Police on Sunday morning released a statement indicating that investigators believe "extremists Jews" are responsible for the graffiti attack. 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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"BIG EHUD" TO THE RESCUE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, February 12, 2006. |
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Dear Friends, Thought this anonymous piece was very appropriate. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has decided to fix a glaring breach in his political profile. Seen as somewhat weak by the Israeli people, perhaps because of his embarrassing habit of nail-biting, and having no real military background -- in the 1973 Yom Kippur War he served as a journalist -- he is now desperately trying to establish himself as a "tough guy". "How?", you may ask. "Maybe by taking tough action against the terrorist infrastructure being built up in Gaza? Or against the Hamas Terrorists? Or against those launching Kassem Rockets into the South of Israel?" Neutralizing all those objectives would certainly make Israel a safer place, but the international community would make its usual noises, claiming: "Israel is being too military." Olmert wants the international community to like him, since they can help him raise money for his bid to rule Israel if he wins the elections on March 28th. Therefore, having no choice, Olmert first "courageously" decided to take on the combined military/industrial might of 9 families living in an abandoned Arab fruit market in Hebron. True, those oh-so-dangerous families are living on land that is Jewish owned -- but why should Olmert wince at technicalities? In fact, it is not only from those nefarious 9 families that Olmert is rescuing us, but also from bands of rowdy teenagers, throwing eggs and bags of paint! It is really the 15 year old girls who pose the biggest threat to Israel's security, so fortunately, Olmert ordered the top anti-terrorist commandoes and border police to apprehend them (and rough them up a bit). Ehud Olmert may not be able to save Israel from incoming Hamas rockets or the known Terrorist build up but, at least, we can know that "Big Ehud" is protecting us from teenagers who still believe reason and justice have a place in this world. The Hebron clean out was on January 18th. Then, on February 1st, Sharon and Olmert's special Yassam forces and Maga Border Police, probably mostly non-Jewish immigrants from Russia, Arab and Druse who had no feelings for Jewish pioneering settlers on a huge troupe of horses bought from Germany plowed into unarmed Jewish men, women and children. As "Big Ehud" dips his sloganeering brush into the blood trickling (or gushing) from the wounds of teenage boys and girls of Amona to write "Olmert for Prime Minister" on the canvas of a society torn asunder -- no doubt, he feels his "show of strength" will resonate with the Russian voters. True, seeing horse mounted Cossacks, many of whom do seem to be non-Jewish, may remind some non-Jewish Russians of their "good old days" when they, as authentic Cossacks, could let their blood lust run amuck when attacking the great-great grandparents of those children whom they now beat with their truncheons. Actually, it may backfire. Most Jewish Russians fought to leave the land of the Cossacks. Olmert's re-inventing the Cossacks will bring back highly unpleasant memories. Watch for Olmert's popularity to plummet. |
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IN YOUR BLOOD, LIVE!
Posted by Women in Green, February 10, 2006. |
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This was written by Rabbi Eliezer Waldman and it appeared in yeserday's Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). Last week, on Wednesday morning, my wife and I were on our way to the community of Eli to participate in the festivities of the bris of my great-grandson, Amishav, who was granted to us by the grace of our G-d. On the way from Kiryat Arba to Eli, we already heard on the radio the unbelievable report of Jewish police deliberately clubbing Jewish youngsters, boys and girls, on their heads and all parts of their bodies, shedding their blood at the Jewish community of Amona. I immediately phoned my son, David, who was there. He told me that the youth sitting in the homes that were to be destroyed were clubbed one by one on their heads, indiscriminately, without exception. Unlike the evacuation of Gush Katif, where the people were removed from their homes with compassion, in the case of Amona, the youngsters were not permitted to leave the homes without each one receiving a brutal blow from police batons. This time, the police had orders to punish the demonstrators by smashing their heads, which they did with a vengeance. Even people standing outside the homes were chased by police on horseback and clubbed while trying to escape. The news reported that member of Knesset Effie Eitam was seriously injured by a police baton, his face completely covered with blood, to the point where he needed to be hospitalized. You can understand how distraught I was as the joy of my simcha was tainted by the agony of needless Jewish bloodshed. At the bris, I was invited to recite the traditional blessings and naming of the baby. When reciting the words of the prophet Ezekiel (16:6), "And I passed by you and saw you weltering in your own blood and I said unto thee, 'In your blood live,' and I said unto thee, 'In your blood live,'" I realized that these holy words were now describing the terrible events taking place just ten minutes away from the ceremony. I prayed that G-d give us the strength to maintain the flow of life despite the pains brought upon us by fellow Jews, "In your blood, live." I was called upon to deliver a Torah message as we partook of the seudat mitzvah. I expressed my feelings to our family and friends gathered to celebrate this joyous occasion. There is a need to explain the double expression "In your blood, live... In your blood, live". I always understood it to refer to Jewish blood shed by the hatred of our enemies bent on the destruction of our people. Now, I was ashamed at the feeling that the power of Jewish life must overcome this self-imposed tragedy. I felt a need to point out the ones responsible for this dastardly crime. On Tuesday night, a group of our people met with Mr. Ehud Olmert and presented him with the offer that the settlers would dismantle the nine houses by themselves within a short time. This would serve to avoid a dangerous and unwanted confrontation, while implementing the order of the Supreme Court. Mr. Olmert chose not to accept the offer and thus intentionally paved the way to this bloody confrontation. Another effort to implement this offer was made by an appeal to the Supreme Court, which issued a restraining order until a decision would be reached on Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, a majority decision was handed down by two Supreme Court justices, Mrs. Procaccia and Mrs. Arbel, rejecting the appeal. A minority opinion put forth by the third justice, Mr. Rubenstein, was overruled by the majority. With deep sorrow, along with a strong sense of responsibility, I accuse the acting Prime Minister, Mr. Olmert, and the two judges, Mrs. Procaccia, and Mrs. Arbel, of giving official sanction to a confrontation that could only lead to Jewish bloodshed. Any court that does not weigh the probable outcome of its decisions, and shows no sensitivity for the welfare and well-being of its citizens, cannot be considered a court of justice. What is even more painful is the biased approach of the Supreme Court. If the rule of law is of utmost priority, how is it that the court turns a blind eye toward thousands of illegal homes built by Arabs in Jerusalem, the Negev and the Galilee? Orders to dismantle these homes have been issued, yet never acted upon. Whereas, the dismantling of nine Jewish homes could not suffer even a delay. Am I wrong in sensing a sickening trend of self-hatred, revealing a complete disengagement from the roots of the Jewish spirit and Zionism? How can Jewish leaders take a path that is constantly creating a dangerous rift within the People of Israel? Another result of this loss of Jewish national pride and self-respect is the failure of our government to deal seriously with the security of our people and its land. The basic responsibility of a government is to protect and defend the people from its enemies. Ever since the crime of "disengagement", driving Jews from their homes and yielding our land to our enemies, rocket attacks are a daily occurrence in our southern towns. Just this last weekend a baby, seven months old, was severely injured together with her parents. All these months, no effective steps have been taken to stop these murderous attacks. How can any leadership accept a situation where Jewish citizens need to constantly run for cover into shelters? Again I ask, "Is there no feeling of national pride and sensitivity?" We warned our government that pulling out of Gaza would bring even more rocket attacks closer to Ashkelon and Tel Aviv. The response was that if that happens, then our army would return to that area and destroy completely the source of the attacks. Needless to say, nothing like that has happened. The attacks are continuing more intensely. The only conclusion I can reach from this unconscionable situation is that a government that does not have the courage and determination to use its armed forces against its enemies, but instead turns them viciously against its most loyal citizens -- this government must be removed. Sunday night, a mass demonstration took place in Jerusalem with the participation of more than a hundred thousand people. This was the first time since the degradation we experienced at the "disengagement" from Gush Katif that we could again absorb the spiritual elevation of multitudes of faithful Jews coming together to strengthen one another at a time of crisis. We all came to express our outrage at the shedding of the blood of Jews demonstrating in favor of strengthening the Zionist ideal of building our land and against the biased injustice of our government, again needlessly destroying Jewish homes in our country. All the speakers called for the establishment of a committee of inquiry to investigate the cruel, violent actions by the police commandos against young and old alike. The horrible pictures you all have seen were reminiscent of the darkest period of Jewish life in exile. It is unthinkable that such scenes should take place in the Land of Israel and be perpetuated by a Jewish government against its own people! Among the speakers were those members of Knesset who were injured and appeared with heads bandaged and arms in slings. The general impression left by the speakers was not of hatred, but of deep anguish and humiliation brought upon us by our own brothers who are blind to the reality of Jewish destiny. The most powerful call for the future was a call for unity. We feel a crucial need for the unity of loyal and faithful Jews. Responsible political leaders, as well as rabbis and Zionists aware of this period of crisis, must arouse the deepest spiritual powers within the Jewish soul. These powers are inherent only in the Divine land of Israel. The eternal secret weapon of Jewish unity must be restored and put into action in such a way that will create a leadership that will secure the life of the Jewish people and its homeland. We pray to the G-d of Israel to direct us to this goal and open the eyes of all Jews to the process of redemption inherent in our return to our holy Land. "And who is like your people Israel, that is one nation in the Land?" -- II Shemuel 7:23 Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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UNTIL YOU WALK IN MY SHOES
Posted by Arlene Peck, February 10, 2006. |
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Eons ago, when I was going through a divorce, people would come to me and say, "Poor thing, I know how you feel" And I'd think, "No, you don't." There are some feelings that, unless mutually experienced, you just cannot comprehend. The death of a family dog, for instance, means nothing to a friend unless they are also a dog lover. Now that the rest of the world has no choice but to witness the demonic, savage culture Israel has had to contend with for its entire existence, suddenly the times, they are a-changing! No longer are we hearing the politically correct mantra, "Oh, can't them Jews and A-rabs jus' get along and stop all that fighting." Since the world has been reluctantly forced to absorb scenes of mobs raging through major European cities, fists in the air, shouting "Jihad, jihad, behead, behead!", the take has changed. The latest "offended Muslim" chants of "Exterminate those who mock Islam," "Be prepared for the real Holocaust", "Europe, learn your lesson from 9/11" and "Europe you will pay, your 9/11 is on the way", has the "shock jocks" shouting, "Nuke them! Nuke them!" How ironic, that a few cartoons are achieving what Israel's entire history, 9/11 and our young heroes returning from Iraq in body bags, had only partially been able to achieve; an unavoidable awareness of the Islamicreality. Good Lord, I think we are finally getting it. When Mohamed's primitive goons rampage around the world protesting cartoons and burning down embassies because they are "insulted", the world can no longer ignore the danger these Gestapo robots represent to the rest of us; this can no longer be taken lightly or dismissed so easily. It was never about cartoons, nor was it about Sharon going to the Temple mount. With the Free World watching them in their feeding frenzy of hate, all these phoney "Jihadis" are doing, in reality, is lose the "public relations" war they thought would aid their cause. After all, it always worked in the past. They may feel they are earning the approval of their prophet, and the sly pay of their Imams, but they have proven beyond a doubt what a majority of the world has reluctantly acknowledged for a long time. They have only added to the growing number of people who can see no reason in them, and little purpose in "dialogue". How many people in the West can retain any sympathy contemporary Islam? There will be some, for sure, but the percentage is dropping with each burnt Embassy and their self-appointed positions as "opinion monitors" is increasingly under threat. Hello L.A Times, NY Times, ACLU, BBC. It is difficult to justify, and becoming harder to tolerate in a democratic world, a culture that is ideologically incapable of, and religiously opposed to, the basic concepts of democracy. It is a basic premise of our culture that the press must not be harnessed. America's founding fathers knew that a free press was so critical to freedom itself that they enshrined the concept as a Constitutional right. We innately understand how all other freedoms would be in peril if this one core value were nullified. On the other hand, the press in Muslim countries is notoriously censored and controlled by their dictatorial governments. The complete Nazification of these dysfunctional people, has left them no point of reference, so they cannot understand that a reliable, objective press relies on that thing called freedom, if it is to serve any function at all beyond propaganda. Because of the state of their nations, they cannot understand that in Europe and elsewhere, propaganda does not control content and governments do not control what is printed in a free press. In the new Caliphate, Imams have complete control over what is written -- and believed! Surprisingly even the LA Times seems to have gained a tenuous grasp of the situation, probably out of self-interest and self-preservation, because they have never allowed such concern, previously, to influence their reporting of Israeli or Islamic affairs. These were their words of wisdom, "The furore over satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad intensified across the world as Syrian protestors set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus." Well golly, LA Times, do ya' think these Islamofascists really need an excuse to revert to standard operating procedure? Naw, for them, any excuse will do. Of course the ones with a little savvy have learned the benefits that come with donating $20 million to Universities thus allowing them to host hate conferences under the guise of a questionable and transparent "Palestine Solidarity Movement", as Saudi Prince Alwaleed did at Georgetown University, with the all-too obvious intention of spreading his cancer into young American minds. I am reminded of the Los Angeles riots in 1990, when the residents of Compton looted and burned South L.A. These weren't deprived citizens who were crying because of their poverty and bad treatment. They were thugs and criminals who wanted to vandalise for the fun of it! However, they were pussycats compared to these mask wearing cretins, who cry "sensitivity" and then use that as an excuse to do what they do best, KILL! The German Chancellor Angela Merkel was quoted as saying escalating violence would accomplish little. And, who better than them to know? Merkel said, "I can understand that religious feelings of Muslims have been injured and violated, but I also have to make it clear that I feel it is unacceptable to see this as legitimizing the use of violence." Well, she's got that right. What I would like hear around the world are questions over the absence of a counter-Muslim voice, saying definitively that these 8th century savages do not speak for them? Maybe I missed the million-man march of protest. The thousand-man march? Actually, about a hundred Muslims were at the United Nations protesting the violence. A meagre hundred, out of 1.4 billion! The cartoons printed in September had nothing to do with the burning and destruction we are seeing across the world. For years, Islam has been preaching love and peace, and playing the victim, in one language and then raging war in another! They feel they have infiltrated enough of Europe to become a fifth column and are ready to make their move against the world at large. Hopefully we, in America, are beginning to wake up and see that the only thing these savages understand is strength. I have always known that this mass of evil humanity had a plan, to rid the world of the "Saturday people", with "the Sunday people" next. Now, they have focused on churches across Europe. No longer content to tear them down and build a mosque on top, they want complete destruction. If they find themselves successful in this endeavour, expect to see attacks on more and more churches and synagogues around the world. What has all this brought me to? Let them know we also know where they live -- starting with Mecca and Medina! A few well-placed bombs, targeting the worst of their Imams, would get their attention. Power they understand. For every burning church, synagogue, dead Jew, Christian or otherwise innocent, they need to be put on notice that they will receive the same -- ten-fold. The Islamic Jihadiis are primitive but they do understand repercussions. They are trained and "educated" in mosques. This might be an opportune time to remind the Imams responsible for initiating these "missions", that they also are vulnerable. Now, Europe and the West are "hoping for negotiations that would avoid humiliating Iran and allow it to maintain its 'national dignity.'" Who is left standing that thinks Iran has any dignity? I'm waiting for the ACLU to rush in and sue the offending newspapers for bruising the feelings of the shocked Arabs. Even the self-haters and psychotic leftists seem to be toning down their rhetoric. The scenes they are watching on television might have shocked some sense into their mushy brains. Personally, I think that this just might be the time for Israel to seize the moment. They always have to, sooner or later. Instead of waiting for new directions for more road maps to hell, how about cutting off their implacable enemies' electricity, water supply and access to Israeli hospitalisation and ship them back to their home in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia so their "brothers" can show some love? Transfer is a logical word. Don't fund them? don't negotiate with them, don't hire them, don't befriend them... deport them! Defeat them! And keep in mind -- since they revere death, give it to them. Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at: bestredhead@earthlink.net and www.arlenepeck.com |
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THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND DIVESTS OF ITS SENSES
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, February 10, 2006. |
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Those enlightened blokes governing the Church of England recently vote to throw down their own sanctimony-stained gauntlet, following in the fatuously trod hollow footsteps of kindred spirit Palestinian apologists inhabiting the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. subsumed in misdirected logic of its highest dudgeon, threatening divesture from corporations presumably supporting Israel's "offending" activities protecting Israeli citizens from hostile Arabs in Gaza and the so-called West Bank. Indeed, such historically astute moralizing souls know something about empires, as in British, and surely in their own collective muddled mind's eye see that imperial nexus in "nasty" Israeli's plan to dominate poor abused waifs of the Arab world. Might such English gentry have formulated these opinions after viewing a copy of "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" obtained from a local mosque library or perhaps the personal collection of "Muslim-bombed London" mayor Ken Livingston, defender of homicide/suicide bombings when perpetrated exclusively on Israelis by "defenseless" Muslim lads with no other choice? (Maybe Ken believes the Muslim metro bombers of London thought they were in Tel Aviv?) Never mind facts suggesting those territories in question were rightly acquired by Israel in 1967 while successfully defending its very existence from anti-Semite Arabs intent on annihilating the Jewish State. Never mind facts suggesting Jews have every right to dwell where they choose, even in perceived lands of disputed governance, presciently suggesting that Israeli troops do not occupy but indeed are forced to protect brethren surrounded by less than neighborly mortarly driven Arabs who otherwise would pounce like hungry deranged hyenas on those men, women, and children of Jewish faith. Furthermore are such Church of England pea-brain popinjays unaware that Israel no longer allows its citizens to dwell within the Gaza strip, currently and sadly stripped of civilized behavior as a consequence of that regrettable choice? Might these Israel-bashers comprehend that those democratically elected boys of Hamas now infect this land once blessed by evolved Israeli developed life-nourishing hydroponic greenhouses, soon to be cursed by devolved caches of life-destroying kalishnikovs and explosives? Indeed, who just might underwrite such weaponry but that other Israel despising kindred spirit erstwhile-Persia's Presidential potentate Mahmoud Ahmedinajad who purrs at the thought of arming jihad junkies? Could it be that Church of England strategists are less than aware that their beloved motherland is not so loved, but fervently detested, by testy Iranians smarting from presumed British involvement in many perceived sleazy schemes, including one greasing the skids of the coup that brought repugnant ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi's despised dictatorship to power, finally toppled by the Shiite revolution in 1979? If but one Church of England representative strolled along "Bobby Sands Street", past the British Embassy in Tehran, merely contemplating why Muslims might name that roadway after the anti-British Irish republican who died of a hunger strike in 1981, a glimmer of enlightenment might suggest that "God Save The Queen" would never quite make it on any de rigueur Iranian hit list, even if such folks were allowed to hear music. Now connect the dots. The Church of England votes to economically punish Israel for abusing so-called Palestinians, even though Hamas now rules that roost, is likely to seek funding from the aforementioned fossil fuel extortionist "got rocks" Iran (even Sunnis can't be choosers and will deal with Shiite kindred spirit fanatics), and possibly attempt to create a Mediterranean-abutting bastion for Islamic terrorists salivating to someday mold Europe, including England, into a fundamentalist fanatical Muslim empire. Putting Israel out of business, in effect, implies carte blanche approval towards Hamas, Iran, and all those who wish to put Western civilization out of business. Might Palestinian apologists rethink a policy that effectively encourages eventual replacement of their own house of worship with a fundamentalist Mosque of England, or would that stretch the logic circuits of their nimble brains a tad too much? Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Posted by Israel Zwick, February 10, 2006. |
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Press conference by Khaled Al-Batsh, media spokesman for The Islamic Jihad Movement, discussing the decision not participate in the new Palestinian government and the continuation of the resistance and struggle against Israel (Al Jazeera TV, 11:40 (GMT+2) February 8, 2006) The following was translated from the Arabic by Federal News Service. ANCHOR: We go now to Gaza to broadcast to you a press conference by the Islamic Jihad movement on the Israeli escalation. KHALED AL-BATSH: --on the cost of our sons' blood, the children of our Palestinian nation and also the blood of the members of Saraya al-Quds and the al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades. Based on that, the Islamic Jihad movement wants to assert the following: First -- the Islamic Jihad movement holds the government of the Zionist enemy responsible for the latest escalation and the assassinations, and thus the enemy is responsible for any heroic actions by the resistance in the context of a legitimate response to the hideous crimes by the enemy as a punishment to what it perpetrated. Second -- the Islamic Jihad movement adheres to its right to defend the Palestinian people and to respond to the crimes of the occupation which we can no longer remain silent to. Third -- the movement condemns and incriminates the Arab and formal international silence towards the crimes of the occupation, and the policies of assassinations and bombardments by tanks and F16 fighters against members of our Palestinian nation and its possessions. >From here, we plead to the Arab League and its Secretary General, and the Organization of Islamic Conferences and its Secretary General, and the United Nations Security Council and its Secretary General, to take a role in stopping the escalation and aggression, and to end the occupation. We also plead to Mr. Amr Mousa personally to act effectively through the Arab League to hold an emergency session to protect the Palestinian issue. Fourth -- the Israeli seclusion of the Islamic Jihad movement, Saraya al-Quds, the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades and their leaders requires all the Palestinian forces in the Palestinian arena to reconsider their positions, and the necessity to take its natural position in resisting occupation and to bring respect back to the choice of resistance and Jihad, after the distorted picture which reached the world, surrounding us -- describing us as an independent state with sovereignty that holds elections. The only missing thing for our nation was a dose of democracy in a western and American style in order to please (Condoleezza) Rice and (George) Bush. Fifth -- the Islamic Jihad movement calls the Brothers in the Palestinian Authority, Presidency and Government, to urgently act to stop the aggression and bear their responsibilities in defending and protecting the Palestinian people. Sixth -- the Movement emphasizes the unity of our people and the consolidation of its Mujahideen (holy warriors) in confronting the Zionist aggression and the assassinations, and the aerial bombardments which aim at spreading chaos and fear amongst the Palestinian people. With regard to participating in the government, the Islamic Jihad stresses the following: The Islamic Jihad movement had the choice between elections and resistance, and went with the choice of Jihad and resistance. Thus, it rejects participation in the new proposed government, and it is committed in front of God and the people to continue the resistance as long as the occupation is perching on Palestinian Land, and as long as this occupation is continues to desecrate our Al-Aqsa (Mosque) and our holy shrines. Also, the Islamic Jihad movement rejects holding a long-term period of calm with the occupation, considering that it harms the Palestinian issue which the enemy might understand as a voluntary concession by the resistance, and it also delays the struggle with the enemy, where the only winners would be the enemy and its mercenaries in the region. Thirdly, on the desecration of the Prophet Mohammed, Peace and God's Blessings be upon Him, the Islamic Jihad Movement salutes the Islamic and Arab nations which rose to victor the Prophet, Peace and God's Blessings be upon Him, his family and his followers, and we call on them to: 1 -- To continue their public activities against Denmark and to boycott its products and goods, and we also plea for Arab and Muslim ambassadors in Denmark to be recalled. 2 -- The Movement calls on the Queen of Denmark and its Prime Minister Rasmussen to apologize to Muslims, and it also calls for the prosecution of the newspaper and the people in charge, because the concealed apology by the newspaper is not enough to stop the protests and the rejection of the desecration to the Prophet Mohammed, Peace and God's Blessings be upon Him, his family and his followers. 3 -- The Movement calls for laws and legislation, the movement calls the United Nations and the international organizations to issue laws and legislation which prohibits targeting Prophets and Messengers, and the Holiness of Islam, Christianity and others. I say this and will pause to take questions from the journalists. REPORTER: Brother Abu Ashoor (nickname for Khaled al- Batsh), it is obvious that Israel has recently been targeting and concentrating on targeting members of Saraya al-Quds and al-Aqsa Brigades. How do you see this Israeli escalation at this stage precisely, and do you consider this Israeli escalation another obstacle aimed at Hamas in light of the formation of the next government? My other question is, if participation in the government was presented in a plan which adheres to your goals and plans, would you join (the government) or consider this position? KHALED AL-BATSH: Let me answer the question part by part, because each question is about a different topic. First of all, with regards to the latest Israeli targeting and escalation, it is very clear that there is an Israeli policy aimed at striking the resistance and eliminating it in order to facilitate what is happening in the region, and to go along with the western plans and the acceptance of Israel in the region. Thus, when the issue of the elections came up, and the elections took place and the world accepts it and say it is the most democratic elections in the region, then the enemy surprisingly immediately goes on assassinating Nidal Abu Sa'da and the martyr al-Toubasi in Jenin. It is obvious that the Zionist enemy now wants to hunt down and strike as many members as it can from the leaders of the resistance in a clear message. The contents of this message is a letter of blood, executions and escalation against the Palestinian people in the hope that Olmert's Party, Kadima, will win the upcoming elections with the largest number of votes. In the absence of Sharon, they have a kind of spiritual and leadership void. Thus they wanted to prove to the Zionist nation that (Shaul) Mofaz and (Ehud) Olmert are capable of leading Kadima, and that they will start a war with no leniency against the Palestinians. But none of that, Brother Samir, will deter the Islamic Jihad Movement, nor will it deter the resistance. We will continue to resist and confront the enemy until they stop this aggression. We can never accept the fact that members of our people are being killed like this, and slaughtered like this, and everybody is silently and motionlessly looking at us. The second point to your question, regardless of the shape of the government, the government complies with a new agenda. The government has new faces. Until now, the political ceiling for any Palestinian government was the Oslo agreement. Thus we clearly say that we will not participate in this government regardless of who will form it -- whether Fatah will form this government or Hamas. Our priorities at this stage are not to be partners in the government. The priority at this stage is to regain respect for the resistance and to respond to the aggression and to stress that the Palestinian nation is an occupied nation, that calls on all the resistance factions to respond to this aggression and to maintain the choice of resistance and Jihad as legal in the face of the Zionist enemy. REPORTER: Does the escalation represent an obstacle (inaudible)? KHALED AL-BATSH: We are not escalating -- it is the Zionist occupation -- and we are under occupation and we are defending ourselves. The Zionists are the ones who are escalating. Now this escalation represents an obstacle for Hamas, and the international community must stop this escalation to help facilitate Hamas' agenda. REPORTER: The Hamas leadership suggested a conditional calm and did not suggest an open calm, meaning that Israel introduces certain conditions or requirements from the Palestinian people, then Hamas and the Palestinian people agree to calm. Will this calm be reached by dialogue, another round of dialogue internally and externally? If you did not participate in the government, will (inaudible) if its agenda agrees with the plan of the resistance and the perseverance of the Palestinian people? KHALED AL-BATSH: First of all, the thought of introducing the idea of a calm now, long-tem, with or without conditions, is not in the interest of members of the Palestinian people. This means that the enemy might, as we said, understand it as acceptance and a weakness in the Palestinian stance. At the end of the road, we need someone to lead the resistance, someone to have a consensus and to attract the world around in the direction of the resistance in Palestine. Suggesting any calm at this time to the enemy is not in our interest. Why would we suggest calm? We reject a short-term calm, how much more so if it is a long-term calm! (inaudible) and the enemy rests and surprises us by building settlements and a separating wall that might reach -- God knows -- Beirut and Damascus. Thus, we say that this idea is harmful and won't be fruitful, and it won't accomplish any political achievements for anybody. On the contrary, this is a sign the enemy might understand as a weakness in the Palestinian stance and we completely reject it. Now, if this government has a resistance agenda, then we will salute this government and we will not put any obstacles in front of it, and we will always aim at serving the Palestinian people, each person in his position. They are in the government and we are in the resistance and Jihad. REPORTER: Mr. Khaled, I understood from your words that the next few hours might see suicide attacks inside Israel. Is this expected in retaliation to the Israeli aggression in the last few days? KHALED AL-BATSH: Thank you brother Mustafa. First of all, Saraya al-Quds, the military wing for the Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs, have complete responsibility. They are the decision makers in carrying out whatever operations they wish to carry out. This matter is entrusted with the military leadership. They are more capable of understanding the needs of the Palestinian people and on the actual size of the Israeli aggression and what type of Palestinian response to expect. Thus, we say that whoever started this battle of assassinations, whether they were the Zionists or somebody else, they must understand that the Palestinian people will not remain silent, and that they will respond to those crimes on the same level and size that matches the importance of who they assassinated in the occupied territories. REPORTER: Mr. Khaled, the first thing, with regard to the resistance -- there is the Hezbollah experiment. They participate in the government and they participate in the resistance. They formed a link between the resistance and politics. Why don't you repeat the experiment of Hezbollah in Palestine? This first. Second, the corruption has gnawed away at the Palestinian people and has become formidable. Unemployment rose and there are many internal problems that might affect its (Palestinian) perseverance. What is your position? The government will have a role in improving the internal conditions for the people and fighting corruption, and also what the leaders of Hamas announced, that they still adhere to the choice of resistance -- why don't you participate in the government which also carries the slogon of resistance? KHALED AL-BATSH: First of all, the battle is not between us and the Hamas movement, and it is not between the Palestinian people and the (Palestinian) Authority. The battle affiliates Hamas, the Jihad, all the resistance forces and Fatah together against the enemy who is occupying our land. Now there is an attempt by Hamas, and I don't want to direct the discussion towards the position of Hamas. Hamas says that it can join in withpolitics and with the resistance. This is Hamas' choice. We differ on that choice. We say that the only choice that is capable of ending the occupation is the resistance. With regard to corruption, we are definitely against it and we will not be an obstacle. On the contrary, we will help any Palestinian side that wants to clear the arena of corruption, and who wants to rid us of the corrupt, but we must not --- ANCHOR: Well, we will suffice with this portion of the press conference by Khaled al-Batsh, the spokesman of the Islamic Jihad Movement. END. Contact Israel Zwick at israel.zwick@earthlink.net |
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ONLY 35% OF ISRAELIS (INCLUDING ISRAELI ARABS) FAVOR MORE
UNILATERAL WITHDRAWAL
Posted by ZOA, February 10, 2006. |
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New York -- A new poll by respected Israeli pollster Yitzhak Katz of the Maagar Mohots Survey Institute shows that only 35% of all Israelis, (including Israeli Arabs), favor "unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria if the PA doesn't fight terror." Among those voting for the Ohlmert Kadima Party, 54% supported further unilateral withdrawals. (Poll was taken Sunday and Monday, February 5-6, 2006, of 624 adult Israelis including Israeli Arabs, with a survey error of +/- 4.5% points). This poll was commissioned by the Zionist Organization of America. Other key findings in the Poll: Only 25% of respondents supported unilateral withdrawal if it meant "Quassam rockets will then fall in the center of Israel" not only Ashkelon and Sderot. ZOA President Morton A. Klein said: "Despite the strong public support given for additional unilateral withdrawals by Kadima's Ohlmert, Defense Minister Mofaz and Labor's Peretz, only one-third of Israelis agree with this position, and probably even fewer among only Jewish voters. "The fact that this poll shows that 34% of the Israeli electorate is still undecided or won't say who they will vote for in the March 28 elections indicates that the election is still up for grabs. In addition the fact that 60% of Israelis believe a vote for Kadima is a vote for unilateral withdrawal, while only 35% support unilateral withdrawal further indicates that support for Kadima may be weaker than expected and that the undecided vote may go largely for a party opposed to unilateral withdrawal. Support also drops for unilateral withdrawal the more Israelis believe such actions will reduce security." The Zionist Organization of America (www.zoa.org), founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver. |
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COMMUNICATIONS WITH LOST SOULS
Posted by Steven Shamrak, February 10, 2006. |
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Several times I wrote in my letters that I have no biased views about Arabs or Muslims. I only have pro-Jewish views! Jews need to be unambiguous, focused and actively pursue our main objective -- Jews living in peace on the all Jewish land. Only united we will be able to accomplish our goal. Our enemies and ordinary people, who have been brain-washed by anti-Israel propaganda, quite easily make unchallenged, derogatory and demagogical comments about Jews and Israel. They are very weak on facts, but strong on empty rhetoric and emotions! These are the extracts from my communications with some deluded souls: The problem with truth is that it is subjective. -- That is why I present these facts for your consideration. You'd have to concede the Arabic position. -- Jewish position is enough for me. Too many people, Jews in particular, give enormous consideration to the fake Arab position only. I admit my ignorance lends me a certain aloofness from the issues. -- It did not stop you form forming the highly subjective opinion and actively expressing this uninformed opinion? Israel should have done a lot more in reaching and negotiating. -- Why must Israel do anything for them? What have Arabs done for Jews and peace? We are getting only suicide bombers and Kassam rockets from Arabs! Arabs (Palestinians) are real people, with very real lives and roots and traditions in that land. -- Please, read and study the facts of history. They became 'real people' in 1964, in order to annihilate Israel. Most of them have less than 100 year old roots in Palestine. Why don't you care about Jews -- the "real people", and their "lives and roots and traditions in that land"? Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement. For the last few years, he has been publishing internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict -- independently, not as a member of any organization or political movement. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@mail2world.com |
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OLMERT'S ELECTORAL TASK; UNFAIR STATE DEPT REPORT; ISRAEL HELPED HAMAS WIN
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 10, 2006. |
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OLMERT'S ELECTORAL TASK Acting PM Olmert is heir and mentor for Sharon's abandonment, a monumental blunder in policy and in implementation. Whatever the intelligence and military experts had warned Sharon would result, did. They had warned that terrorism would not cease, but thousands of Jews would be ruined. They insisted that Israel patrol the border, but Sharon gave up border control. They warned that arms and terrorists would pour into Gaza. "The vacuum created by Sharon by evacuating 500-600 Jews from the four communities in the Samarian mountains, also gives the Terrorists free access to battle bases and munitions storage depots from which to attack the center and north of the country." "Even as the Hamas Palestinians pledge to destroy Israel as per the terms of their Charter, Olmert (Kadima), Amir Peretz (Labor) are promising more unilateral withdrawals from Judea and Samaria with Hebron on the immediate list and dividing Jerusalem -- in effect, repeating the blunders of Oslo and Gaza. Israel will be truncated to an indefensible sliver -- no longer a military asset to America -- with her people put at great risk." Olmert made his own blunders. He let Hamas stay on the P.A. ballot (and let Arabs vote in Jerusalem). The terrorists are uniting under Hamas, and forming a bigger army. Now Olmert's task as a self-serving politician is to cover up. Sec. Rice is doing the same for Pres. Bush. Bush added his delusions of planting democracy amid Muslim theocracies to Pres. Carter's helping to bring Khomeini out of his Paris exile. Israel's new method of defense is retreat. It doesn't work (Winston Mid East Analysis, 1/30). EFFECT OF GOLDEN GLOBES AWARD A Golden Globes was awarded to Paradise Now. The film seemed to humanize suicide bombers and justify their attacks on innocent people. The Arab excuse (which is false and unethical), that they had no other means to promote their cause (an unjust cause of conquest), was not challenged by the film. Filmmakers can say that the award legitimized suicide bombing. The movie set no limits on how many innocent people may be slain and where (IMRA, 1/30), by religious fanatics who break peace treaties. If you hadn't thought the movie industry perverse, before, surely you should think it so, now. Not only does the industry favor wrong over right, it favors enemies who would murder its them for having other vices or for having any independent opinions. UNFAIR STATE DEPT. REPORT ON ISRAEL For years, the State Dept. has unfairly alleged Israeli human rights abuses of Arabs. NGO Monitor advised the State Dept. how unreliable its reports are. The State Dept. got most of its factoids from NGOs, which are not reliable sources about a terrorist war. The State Dept. is aware of its unreliability. Its 2004 report acknowledges that the NGOs poorly document abuses and fail to criticize the PA for its abuses. Nevertheless, its reports quote from NGOs whose bias against Israel is obvious and consistent. Their claims lack credibility and are simplistic. "These highly politicized NGOs include the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, the Public Committee against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B'tselem, Adalah, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Amnesty International (AI), and Human Rights Watch. Many are active participants in incitement and the 'Durban' strategy of demonizing Israel through false allegations of human rights abuses and selective citations of international law." "Detailed NGO Monitor reports have shown that these NGOs consistently promote this political agenda at the expense of accurate analysis." "And citing their publications as fact leads to serious inaccuracies, while simultaneously giving credence to their often distorted reports and political 'campaigns', including efforts to impose academic boycotts, and divestment." Thus, the reports by "human rights groups" regarding the "alleged abuse of preventative or administrative detention orders," and their claims "that Israeli closures impeded and, at times, completely prevented their work" "lack credibility and reflect a strongly biased political agenda..." "Most of the NGOs cited in the 2004 report do not have an independent research capability, are unable or unwilling to document allegations for verification, accept and rely heavily on politically motivated claims and anecdotal information, and selectively discriminate between sources..." "Donatella Rovera, AI's researcher concluded that Israeli violence against women had escalated to an "unprecedented level." Rovera confirmed that the report was based on anecdotal information, primarily from Palestinian NGOs. 'We talk to anyone who would talk to us,' she said. When I asked her for a list of the NGO's that were the sources of the information, she refused to provide them because 'there are things we can simply not provide to outsiders.'" "When reporting on dead Palestinians (Arabs) throughout the Rafah report, HRW provides statistics showing that in each individual confrontation Israelis killed more civilians than armed people. How exactly do they know? In fact, Israeli statistics in all of these cases show quite the opposite. So how did they choose between the conflicting versions? Also, how exactly did they count houses in Rafah =- how exactly did they distinguish between inhabited and uninhabited houses/tin huts/shacks,?" when they accuse Israel of demolishing people's homes. Said an Israeli commander, "...on the eve of the Israeli military incursion into Rafah in May 2004 when it was clear to the local population that the Israelis were coming, we noticed that some of them were taking off the roofs of their homes (mostly huts). Our information indicated that this was done so as to be able to claim that their homes were damaged by the Israelis and demand compensation from international relief bodies (such as UNRWA)." The NGOs disproportionately condemn Israeli responses to terrorism, and ignore Arab terrorism and the Israeli government's obligation "to provide security to its" people (IMRA, 1/30). The State Dept. blames Israel on the word of agencies whose clients damage their own houses in order to collect compensation. The Israelis may be fools, but they are not cruel and try to make it easier for the Arabs. The Arabs are cruel and believe in lying. BUSH'S INCONSISTENCY BETWEEN HAMAS & FATAH Pres. Bush said about Hamas, "Secondly, this new democracy that's emerging in the Palestinian Territories must understand that you can't have a political party that also has got an armed wing to it; that democracies yield peace." The reporters failed to follow up and ask, shouldn't that apply to Fatah, which had a political party and a larger armed militia (IMRA, 1/30). Using more a weasel word than euphemism, he said democracy in the Territories is "emerging." When will it emerge? How can an Islamic state be democratic, when it does not believe in minority rights, truth, or decency, but in repression, deceit, and mercilessness towards enemies? These people are enemies only for thinking differently. The President declared, "democracies yield peace." The US had a democracy when it launched a war against Spain, a war that yielded Puerto Rico. Bush urges Hamas to drop the war planks in its program. An infidel cannot tell that to a jihadist. Hamas exists to make war to establish Islam wherever it can. Its other planks, such as ending corruption and disorder, are appeals for voters to switch to it from the rival party, Fatah, which exists to make war, establish Islam, and line its leaders' pockets. Journalists ask many questions to try to trip up the President. Certain questions, however, they don't ask, such as ones to trip up his favoring the Arabs over Israel and for the wrong reasons. INSIGHT INTO ARAB THINKING The Jordan Times described the P.A. election as "the first truly democratic elections in the Middle East." IMRA notes that Jordan apparently doesn't consider Israel to be in the Mideast. Then again, the paper also claims, "Israel has frozen the peace process for years now." (1/30.) I don't think Israeli elections are very democratic, but neither was the P.A. election. Imagine, if there were any moderate Muslims in the P.A., who would form a party to end jihad, to grant full citizenship for Christians and Jews, and to allow women to go unveiled. Not only wouldn't it get many votes, its candidates wouldn't get any life insurance. It is interesting to examine in which ways various cultures are unrealistic. Jordan pretends, as do most, that there was a peace process, but blames Israel for not pursuing it lately. No, Arab aggression stymied it. Jordan expects Israel to keep negotiating with a government that wants to overthrow it, and to keep making concessions that facilitate jihadist conquest of Israel. HOW ISRAEL COOPERATED WITH THE P.A. ELECTION During the campaign, Israel allowed imprisoned Arab murderers, who were candidates in the election, to give press interviews. The Hamas prisoners expressed an expectation of early release and resumption of warfare to overthrow Israel (Israel Resources News Agency, 1/30). Note, they did not say they just want to gain the Territories. The Fatah and PLO Covenants avow the same determination to destroy Jewish sovereignty. Therefore, there cannot be land for peace. Nor should there be. Neither would concessions be necessary if the Arabs want peace. The Oslo Accords bar terrorist candidates. Why did Israel cooperate with such candidates? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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FIRST THEY CAME FOR ISRAEL, THEN THEY CAME FOR AMERICA ...AND NOW DENMARK
Posted by Gary S., February 10, 2006. |
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This was written by Dennis Prager. It appeared on the Townhall
website
In 1945, the anti-Nazi German pastor Martin Niemoller wrote the following: "First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me." This famous statement can be updated for Europeans: First they came for Israel, and we didn't speak up because we weren't Jews. Then they came for Lebanon's Christians, and we didn't speak up because we weren't Maronites. Then they came for America, and we didn't speak up because we weren't Americans. Then they came for Sudan's blacks, and we didn't speak up because we weren't Sudanese blacks. Then they came for us, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for us. As long as Muslim demonstrators only shouted "Death to America " and "Death to Israel," Europe (and the rest of the world's Left) found reasons either to ignore the Nazi-like evil inherent in those chants (and the homicidal actions that flowed from them) or to blame America and Israel for the hatred. But like the earlier Nazis, our generation's fascists hate anything good, not merely Jews and Americans. And now the Damascus embassy of Norway, a leading anti-Israel "peace at any price" country, has been torched. And more and more Norwegians, and Brits, and French, and Dutch, and Swedes, and the rest of the European appeasers who blamed America for 9-11 and blamed Israel for Palestinian suicide bombings, are beginning to wonder whether there just might be something morally troubling within the Islamic world. Some on the Left here and in Europe are beginning to reassess whether America and Israel or their Islamic enemies are at fault. The fact that major newspapers in most Western European countries published some or all of the cartoons that triggered the riots against Denmark, the country in which the offending cartoons of Muhammad first appeared, was a statement that at least some in Europe have had it with appeasement of Islamic violence. And here in America, a left-of-center columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Tim Rutten, just wrote: "It's no longer possible to overlook the culture of intolerance, hatred and xenophobia that permeates the Islamic world." As it happens, I have sympathy with the notion that newspapers and others need to be sensitive to religious, including Muslim, sensibilities. However, when Muslim governments and religious spokesmen attack the West for its insensitivity to Muslims and its anti-Muslim prejudice, one has entered the Twilight Zone. Because nowhere in the world is there anywhere near the religious bigotry and sheer hatred of other religions that exists in the Muslim world. Christians nearly everywhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds are usually second-class citizens at best and terribly treated at worst. The Taliban Islamic regime in Afghanistan blew up the unique Buddhist sculptures in their country because they didn't want even a trace of a non-monotheistic faith to survive in an Islamic country. About a million non-Arab and non-Muslim men, women and children have been slaughtered by the Islamic regime in Sudan. Nigerian Christians are periodically murdered by Islamic mobs. And regarding Jews, Andrew Sullivan writes in this week's Time: "The Arab media run cartoons depicting Jews and the symbols of the Jewish faith with imagery indistinguishable from that used in the Third Reich." As for the riots and Islamic government protests, one question needs to be posed to these people: Which casts Islam in a worse light -- political cartoons depicting Muhammad, or Muslims who murder innocents around the world in the name Allah and Islam? Did any Jews riot when the Los Angeles Times published a cartoon of the holiest site in Judaism, the Western Wall, with its stones reconfigured to spell "hate"? Did any Christians riot when museums displayed "Piss Christ," a crucifix submerged in artist Andres Serrano's urine? Did Jews riot in Australia when Australian cartoonist Michael
Leunig published an offensive cartoon in the Melbourne Age Newspaper
about Ariel Sharon lying gravely ill after suffering a stroke. The
cartoons and Mr Leunig's response to the criticism are at What we have is a culture largely based on saving face and honor juxtaposed with a Judeo-Christian Western culture largely based on saving liberty and innocent life. All of us, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, should pray that the better one wins. Contact Gary S. by email at ahavat@telkomsa.net |
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MUSLIM FANATICS DENIGRATE OUR SPECIES
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, February 9, 2006. |
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One picture paints a thousand words one explosion propels thousands of pieces of blood-drenched flesh. Muddled fanatical fundamentalist Muslim minds seethe at the sight of satirical cartoons concerning their prophet yet stir not at the subhuman spectacle of sanguinary sadism wrought by their mesmerized martyrs. Abstract images, products of Western imagination, trump tangible obliteration, incited by a murderous hatred of the presumed infidel. This indeed is the state of a dysfunctional intelligent bifurcated species, entering nascent century twenty-one with two distinctly different perspectives, sharing but one ever shrinking spherically shaped orbiting piece of real estate. No doubt, the cultural divide between secular and theologically oriented humanity is enormous. Fundamentalist Islam, alas, has perilously added to its repertoire of theological fanaticism the aforementioned willingness to perform acts of homicidal/suicidal martyrdom in a delusional quest to attain paradise. Belief in a heavenly after-life dominates all facets of such a Muslim's temporary worldly life. Thus, secular progress of any sort is stifled. Indeed, secular life for such muddled Muslim males is secondary to imagined blissful trysts someday in a delusional misogynistic heaven replete with virginal females. Furthermore, freedom of expression, an intrinsic part of democratic secular culture is summarily rejected by such Islamic fundamentalist adherents ever threatening to behead rather than verbally joust with theologically offending satirists practicing their art. Indeed, in civil societies, fanatics that so threaten others, or indeed are deemed so bizarre they might attempt to blow themselves up along with proximate victims, would be worthy candidates to be placed in mental institutions for the criminally insane. Moderate Muslims valuing their culture must forthwith loudly condemn the lunatic fringe, obsessed with maniacal agendas, intent on usurping Islam. Those who ambulate on terra firma should not disrespect its wondrous essence notwithstanding personal views concerning an after-life. All civil denizens must unite in this effort. There are no excuses. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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AN ELOQUENT, HEROIC 17-YEAR OLD ISRAELI ASKS AN IDF GENERAL: HOW
COULD YOU?
Posted by Buddy Macy, February 9, 2006. |
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This evening, I received the E-ALERT from the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, dated 2/9/06. Included in that edition of the online publication are articles about a highly offensive, anti-Semitic speech, Iran and its nuclear activities, the reaction to the Danish cartoons, Palestinian terrorists, the Church of England's partial divestiture from Israel, and more. What was not included in that publication, was news about the Knesset's vote to establish a commission of inquiry into alleged police brutality at Amona. Nor was there any news about the health of the 200 Jews who were injured, some seriously, during the shocking military and police rampage in the tiny Jewish community. That there were no articles concerning the events and victims in Amona does not surprise me. It only supports my view, and that of many others, I am sure, that American Jewish charitable organizations are intentionally avoiding any discussion of the horrendous brutality perpetrated in Amona, at a time when the victims of that horrific event need our help most. We Jews do not accept it when the world judges Israel and our fellow Jews with a double standard of morals and ethics. It is so sadly ironic, then, that the leadership of American Jewry is using the same double standard that they protest in others? The world says, "Israel cannot fight terrorism in the PA (and, thus, defend her own citizens), because she might hurt civilians." The leadership of American Jewry says, "We cannot say anything negative about/to the Government of Israel, no matter how heinous its actions appear, because the leaders of Israel know what is best for their country, and they behave appropriately (thus lifting the mortals of the Israeli Government to an almost G-d-like status!). I realize that the "missing" news is mostly about money: the vast majority of American Jewish charities that raise funds partly or fully in the name of Israel, are afraid that any negative publicity about the Jewish State would effect their monetary campaigns. That may be true; but, the Federation, the AJC, and organizations like them, are apolitical groups of Jews who help other Jews in need. How can they sit by "blindly," as needy Jews continue to get oppressed, humiliated, beaten and broken? And, maybe, just maybe, the American Jewish charitable associations underestimate the wisdom and compassion of their constituencies. Perhaps the organizations would receive more respect and greater support, if they did the humane thing; the right thing. Just as, hopefully, the Israeli people will show Mr. Olmert, that an attempt by a government of Israel to make political gains by demonstrating its toughness, does not work when it involves the systematic, inhumane, stomach-turning persecution of its own citizens! So this is to the leadership of the American Jewish charitable organizations: (Borrowing some words from the eloquent, heroic Jew, Yaakov Tessler) "Why, when you saw these things happening to" our fellow Jewish brethren, "did you not" protest to the Israeli Government, as you would have if it were perpetrated by an anti-Semitic group anywhere else in the world? "Why did you not tell the truth" to the American Jewish public, to whom you are entrusted with representing Jews in need locally, in Israel and throughout the world? Most sincerely, Buddy Macy The following article was written by Hillel Fendel and is from Arutz Sheva. It's about a letter by a 17-year-old Israeli, who says it all. It's called "Letter to IDF General: How Could You?" a letter written by Yaakov Tessler. Yaakov Tessler, 17, wrote to the IDF Central Commander, asking why he was cruelly beaten in Amona, nearly losing an eye, even though he posed no threat and was merely registering his protest. 
Dear Central Commander Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh, Peace and blessing. I feel an obligation to turn to you, as one who is entrusted with the values of the army and the rule of law on the one hand, and with Jewish values and the Torah's commandments, on the other. I would like to address the events that occurred during the evacuation of the nine houses in Amona. As one who did not merit being in Gush Katif during the evacuation there, I felt a deep solidarity with the protest actions of the Gush Katif residents. I felt that this time, I could express my feelings by protesting. I therefore arrived happily in Amona, with the understanding and knowledge that there was still an appeal pending to the Supreme Court that might allow the houses to be evacuated voluntarily, without a struggle. My heart told me that the Supreme Court would certainly agree to this option, but I still decided to come in order to be certain that the houses would not be evacuated without the required protest against such an act of evacuating homes or communities in the Land of Israel. To my surprise, the Supreme Court preferred the forced evacuation, rather than having it done by agreement. I prepared myself for the evacuation, with the intention of undergoing this event -- the evacuation of houses from the Land of Israel and a struggle -- together with the cream of the crop of Israeli youth, struggling for their Land and inheritance with dignity and valor. I never dreamt or imagined that I would soon undergo such humiliation, murderous punches and injuries (my eye was saved from permanent damage only by miracle) by the policemen of the State of Israel, over whom you, as the Region Commander, commanded. I hereby declare that I held nothing in my hand, I threw nothing, I did not fight, I did not hit and I did not curse anyone. I sat in one of the houses with the understanding that very soon, I would be asked to leave, in accordance with a political decision and court order. As I was sitting in the house, a group of Yassam police entered and did not make any request for us to leave. Instead, they simply started hitting us with clubs, very forcefully and painfully, as if those sitting in front of them were criminals and murderers. When I tried to go out, and despite my telling the Yassamniks that I was going on my own and that I didn't need to be dragged or hit, they struck me for no reason: They smashed my head against the wall, kicked me in my back, threw me on the floor, and hit me very hard with their clubs on my head, eyes and nose, to the point where I was severely and painfully injured. All this occurred as I was asking them to be allowed to leave the house. Up to this very minute, the feelings of dread and fear pursue me, entirely shaking up my feelings towards the law, the police, the army, the Supreme Court, and all the government institutions. I would be very happy if your honor would respond to this letter, which is written from the depths of my heart. Why, when you saw these things happening to me and my friends (there are tens of testimonies), did you not intervene and stop the evacuation? Why did you not tell the truth when you were interviewed? How could you have planned and approved such a sensitive mission as the evacuation of parts of the Land of Israel with orders for such terrible violence against the most idealistic youths in Israeli society? I am sad to say to you, General Naveh, that it will be hard for me to forget or forgive those who injured me so severely, or to those who commanded those forces -- unless I receive a reasonable explanation and a public apology from all the elements who hurt me and my friends with no justification. It is very unfortunate that precisely in the year before my enlistment in the army, and after having received an invitation to apply for the Israel Air Force pilots' course and for the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, this is the slap in the face that I and my friends receive. Enclosed is my photograph, taken after the police battle in evacuating me from the house in Amona. Signed with sorrow,
Buddy Macy is a 1979 graduate of Brandeis University. He writes
that his "perspective and opinions, incorporating reality, developed
much later in life." He is a secular Jew who believes in the freedom
of religion. Contact him by email at vegibud@aol.com |
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CARTOONS ARE A MANUFACTURED HOAX
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 9, 2006. |
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This is called is called "Rent-A-Riot Abcs" by Amir Taheri. It was in today's New York Post, (https://www.nypost.com/useradmin/useradmin.htm). Iranian author Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates. Taheri gets it right. Very close to my interpretation; but he has more accurate details and time line. He has good sources. I was just surmizing. Spread this article around as much as possible. people need to know that this whole cartoon intifada is a hoax, sponsored by extremist Moslem terror groups and rent-a-mob Moslem governments to intimidate the west, cripple Israel, and gain greater control over the UN just as the UN is turning attention to Iran's WMDs. "A BLESSING from God": So have Iran's leaders, starting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, described the controversy over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. A closer look at the row, however, shows that the whole rigmarole was launched by Sunni-Salafi groups in Europe and Asia, with Ahmadinejad and his Syrian vassal, President Bashar al-Assad, belatedly playing catch-up. God had nothing to do with it. To see how the whole thing was manufactured to serve precise political ends, consider the chronology of events: The cartoons were published last September and, for more than three months, caused no ripples outside small groups of Salafi militants in Denmark. In December, a group of Danish Muslim militants filled their suitcases with photocopies of the cartoons and embarked on a tour of Muslim capitals. They failed to get to Tehran: The Iranians, being Shi'ites, saw them as Sunni activists bent on mischief. But they managed to go to Cairo, Damascus and Beirut and, were allowed to send emissaries to Saudi Arabia. The Danish Muslim group also did something dishonest -- it added a number of far more derogatory cartoons of the Prophet to the 12 published by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, and misled its interlocutors in Muslim capitals into believing that all had appeared in the Danish press. In Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood told the Danish group that this was not the time to kick a fuss over the cartoons. The brotherhood was busy plotting its election strategy and pretending to be a "moderate" political party. The last thing it wanted was to be branded as a rabid anti-West force. The brotherhood leaders suggested that the matter be put on ice until January. The Danish militants also received a negative reply from Hamas, the Palestinian radical movement. Hamas was busy trying to win a general election and needed to reassure at least part of the Palestinian middle classes. The Hamas advice was: Wait until after we have won. The emissaries found a more sympathetic audience in Qatar -- where the satellite-TV channel Al Jazeera (owned by the emir) specializes in inciting Muslims against the West and democracy in general. The channel's chief Islamist televangelist, Yussuf al-Qaradawi (an Egyptian preacher who is also a friend of Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London), was all too keen to issue a "fatwa" to light the fuse. He then mobilized his network of Muslim Brotherhood militants in Europe to attack the cartoons and claim, falsely, that images were not allowed in Islam and that the Danish paper had violated "an absolute principle of The Only True Faith." Thus the call for Jihad received its supposed "theological" green light. (Ironically, the section of the brotherhood headed by al-Qaradawi is financed by the European Union as a non-governmental organization.) As the first rent-a-mob crowds appeared on global TV screens, Ahmadinejad realized that here was a cow worth milking. For Denmark is set to assume the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council -- at the very time that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to refer Iran to the Security Council and demand sanctions. What better, for Tehran's purposes, than to portray Denmark as "an enemy of Islam" and mobilize Muslim sympathy against the Security Council? To regain the initiative from the Sunni-Salafi groups, Ahmadinejad quickly ordered a severing of commercial ties with Denmark, thus portraying the Islamic Republic as the Muslim world's leader in the anti-Danish campaign. Syria was next to jump on the bandwagon, again for mercenary reasons. The United Nations wants Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and five of his relatives and aides, including his younger brother, for questioning in the murder of Lebanon's former premier, Rafiq al-Hariri. (Assad has tried to negotiate immunity for himself and his brother in exchange for handing over the others -- but the U.N. wouldn't play.) As with Iran's nuclear program, the Syrian dossier will reach the Security Council under Danish presidency. To portray Denmark as "an enemy of the Prophet" would not be such a bad thing when the council, as expected, points the finger at Assad and his regime as responsible for a series of political murders, including that of Hariri. The Danish-cartoons cow will also be milked in another way: Tehran and Damascus have launched a diplomatic campaign to put the issue of "protecting religions against blasphemy" on the Security Council agenda. If that were to happen, issues such as Iran's quest for the atomic bomb and Syria's murder machine in Lebanon might be pushed aside, at least as far as world public opinion is concerned. People watching TV news may think that the whole Muslim world is ablaze with righteous rage translated into "spontaneous demonstrations." The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims, even if offended by cartoons which they have not seen, have stayed away from the street shows put on by the radicals and the Iranian and Syrian security services. The destruction of Danish and Norwegian embassies and consulates happened in only two places: Damascus and Beirut. Anyone who knows Syria would know that there are no spontaneous demonstrations in that dictatorship. (Even then, the Syrian secret police failed to attract more than 1,000 rent-a-mob militants.) And the Syrian government refused the Norwegian Embassy's request for additional police protection. It was clear that the Syrians wanted the embassies sacked. The rent-a-mob attacks in Beirut were more cynical. The Syrian Ba'ath -- which has been murdering, imprisoning or deporting Sunni-Salafi militants for years -- was suddenly transformed from a radical secular and Socialist party into "the Vanguard of the Faith." The mob that committed the atrocities in Beirut was bused from Syria and consisted of Muslim Brotherhood militants who are never allowed to demonstate on their own account. The Muslim crowds that have demonstrated over the cartoons seldom exceeded a few hundred; the Muslim segment of humanity is estimated at 1.2 billion. And only three of Denmark's embassies in 57 Muslim countries have been attacked. The Danish Muslim gang who lied by adding cartoons that had never been published has done more damage to the Prophet and to Islam than the 12 controversial cartoonists of Jyllands-Posten. The fight between Denmark and its detractors is not between the West and Islam. It is between democracy and a global fascist movement masquerading as religion. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THE AMONA BLOODBATH
Posted by Naomi Ragen, February 9, 2006. |
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Friends, I had a conversation with my own daughter the other day. She's a lovely girl, the mother of three, who works at Weizmann Institute. She did her National Service in Gush Katif. " I told her how upset I was about what happened in Amona. She said: I read in the paper that Effie Eitam was hit by a block that the settlers threw on his head. I read how settlers beat up army guards who are guarding their communities. It's hard to have any sympathy for them." When I heard her speak that way, I understood just what kind of propaganda is going on to turn brother against brother in this country. For the sake of all the wonderful people who are convinced by this kind of ceaseless instigation to turn against their brothers, I send you the following film. It isn't very clear, and the music I found very annoying, but watch it until the end and you will understand what is happening in the State of Israel. It is at http://www.nakim.org/skull-smashers-rojanha.wmv I appeal to all those who can have an influence in stopping the juggernaut of Ehud Olmert and the Kadima Party to power to please do so. It's not absolutely clear to me that we will have a country left to defend once these people take over. Please distribute this film and do not allow this to be white-washed. I have received e-mails detailing horrific injuries suffered by these young people: a boy who lost an eye, a number of young girls who lost their wombs....I couldn't verify it so I'm not sending it out. But it's clear from these pictures and the number of hospitalized that this was a bloodbath. I never liked Shimon Peres. But I must say I'm beginning to really despise Ehud Olmert. And that's my freedom of speech. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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SPREADING DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST IS SUICIDAL
Posted by Dr. Yaron Brook, February 9, 2006. |
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President Bush has staked America's security on his policy of spreading "democracy"--i.e., unlimited majority rule--throughout the Middle East. But the democratic victory by the terrorist group Hamas is further proof that the President's strategy is suicidal. Our enemy in the Middle East is not a handful of unpopular dictators and terrorists, but a popular, militant ideological movement--Islamic totalitarianism--that enjoys support by numerous regimes. The Islamic totalitarian enemy cannot be defeated by bringing the vote to the civilians who support, sympathize with, or appease it. Victory can only be achieved by defeating the enemy; that means doing whatever it takes to end state support of Islamic totalitarianism and Islamic terrorism. Dr. Yaron Brook is President of the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism. |
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AND WHAT IF WE ...
Posted by Batya Medad, February 9, 2006. |
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All over the world, Moslems are going on rampages, rioting, claiming insult over some cartoons. Are they so "thin-skinned," or are there other reasons? Just a couple of months ago, there were a couple of weeks of riots and destruction in France, by ... Moslems. Bin Laden, the master terrorist behind the 9-11 attack on the United States is a Moslem. Most of the Arab terrorists who attack and murder in Israel are Moslems. Actually most of world terrorism has an Islamic connection. But the vast majority of Security Council resolutions of condemnation are not against them, neither the Arabs nor the Moslems. They are against Israel. Years ago when the intifada began, and as far as I'm concerned, we're still in that same one, since it never ended, our home was on the "must visit list" for foreing journalists. During one of the interviews with me and a neighbor the journalist, who if my memory is correct, was a female from Denmark. She was trying to be nice and helpful, so we'd understand what was really going on: "The Arabs throw rocks at you to get the world's sympathy." I didn't miss a beat: "You mean if we threw rocks we'd get the world's sympathy." She looked at me with horror, and my neighbor looked like he wanted to hide under the table. And I still can't understand why those who harm Jews can win popularity contests, like the polls giving Kadima a plurality of Knesset seats. Just because it's incomprehensible to me doesn't mean that it's not the way the world runs. Remember that one of the greatest all time Jewish fund-raisers is Yad Vashem. It's a lot easier to raise money for dead Jews than for the Jewish Education of live ones. The big donors prefer memorializing dead Jews than preventing assimilation, which is the loss of live Jews. It doesn't matter what we do, everyone's against us. Every type of demonstration is either condemned or ignored. But that doesn't happen to the Arab terrorists. They murder and maim, and the world loves them. Remember all the praises heaped on the dead Arafat, and when he was alive, too. The only solution is to "disengage" from the world. We have to become immune from what others think. There's only one opinion we should be worried about, and that's G-d's. Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il This essay is archived at |
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ISRAELI POLITICIAN'S TRICKS; MISGUIDED IDEOLOGY; DEMAGOGIC DEMOGRAPHICS;
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 9, 2006. |
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P.A. ELECTION ANALYSIS I've read a dozen accounts of the P.A. election. All state how many seats the parties won. None state what proportion of votes Hamas received. The election is called a landslide, but was it? Seats often are not distributed in proportion to votes. A small plurality in most districts may produce a great majority of seats. Those pundits who lament the decline of Fatah are unaware of Fatah's having become a subsidized outlet for Hizbullah, in turn, of Iran. On the other hand, Iran also subsidizes Hamas. Iran may be the real winner of the election in the P.A., extending its influence there. They talk about a democratic transfer of power in the P.A.. Do you think that if the untrained, poorly paid and armed, undisciplined, and demoralized P.A. police and Fatah, which far outnumber Hamas' militia, were in fighting trim, the P.A. would turn power over to it? POLITICIANS TRICKS It's sad to see the same tricks played on the Jews repeatedly. They employ non-sequitur or oxymoron, such as "give peace a chance," "land-for-peace," "withdrawal to secure borders". Another is "international guarantees" and US assurances of friendship and backing, not reassuring to those who know the US record of betrayal. There is the false distinction between Fatah and Hamas. When Israel accepts being under Arab attack, it does so with a stern warning to the Arabs that the Arabs have learned is empty. Sharon would protect "settlement blocs," which he didn't define and whittled away. Israel asserts it is a government of law and order, but it finds technicalities for prosecuting settlers and finds no reason to prosecute Arabs for blatant criminality. It worries about losing the Jewish majority, but its policies bring in and subsidize Arabs and other gentiles. It calls the settlers hoodlums, but the police commit brutalities not seen in the US in decades. Each major party candidate to be Prime Minister promises to protect the people, but bows to US demands to let Arabs through. The Army sets up checkpoints after a terrorist attack, asserting that it does what it must to protect the people. A week later, after US protests, it takes down the checkpoints, asserting that it makes life better for the Arabs, consistent with national security. In response to Arab attacks, the Army usually bombards empty fields. Israel boasts of a "vibrant press," but the media is monolithic, and withheld news of Sharon's corruption until after he completed abandonment of Gaza. Politicians said that when Sharon actually got to the point of abandoning territory, they would stop him. They didn't, and perhaps it was too late, for he had set things in motion. Opponents are cowed by being called "extremist" by those who give aid and comfort to the enemy. The Establishment conceals its repression with boasts of being a democracy, of which Israel actually lacks most characteristics. One could go on and on. It is a record of national shame. EGYPT WANTS NUCLEAR PLANTS Russia is helping to build atomic plants in Egypt, that has ample reserves of natural gas (IMRA, 1/29). It appears as if Russia will do for it what Egypt did for Iran. By contrast, the US discouraged Egyptian efforts. Egypt's military doctrine treats Israel as the enemy to invade. Egypt has spent most of the US aid building up a large military, although no country, including Israel, threatens it, and its economy is lagging. IRAN HAS AN A-BOMB Iran bought one a decade ago from the Pakistani proliferator (Op. Cit.). WHEN IDEOLOGY MOTIVATES THE GOVERNMENT The government of the so-called Jewish state is evicting the Jews from property in Amona, in the territories. It had brought them there, but now claims their presence is illegal. They say they paid for the property, and need a few days to secure the records. The government claims the Jews have fortified the property, as by digging ditches around it, so their petition is in poor faith. The Jews deny there are ditches and cite their having sealed off the houses as evidence of not having fortified them. (Bad faith is reneging over their presence, to please the US, and not letting them prove their ownership.) The court does not cross-examine witnesses. It does not send a representative to the site to see for itself (Arutz-7, 1/29). How poorly the courts conduct hearings! Here is another story about injustice in the service of anti-Zionism. About 50 Arabs admitted in court having thrown rocks at a Jew, Daniel Pinner, an immigrant from England and a dissident in Israel. In self-defense, he fired a warning shot into the air. He was charged with "willful and malicious injury" to an Arab. Police admitted not having checked the trajectory, to determine whether he could have fired the shot that wounded the Arab. Nor was the wound proved to have come from a rifle! Police had not put him or a photograph into a lineup. The judge convicted the defendant (Arutz-7, 1/29). No jury trials in Israel. The Arab mob was not put on trial. This contradicts the government's claim that it expels Jews to preserve order. Rather, it discards its national heritage to appease the unappeasable Arabs. Israel urges Jews to immigrate, but persecutes those who defend themselves and the national patrimony. DEMAGOGIC DEMOGRAPHICS The "big lie technique," of repeating a big lie often enough until it gets believed has taken root in Israel. (It is the main way by which Israel's monolithic media discuss the Arab-Israel conflict.) Some academics fabricated and accepted false P.A. statistics, about the Arabs gaining a higher proportion of the population west of the Jordan R.. The assumptions of those statistics were dubious. The sociologists got away with it, because Israelis don't question studies to find their fallacies and don't read treaties to find their flaws. The harm came with policy analysis of those demagogic demographics. Advocates of appeasement concluded that Israelis would have to withdraw from the Territories, to preserve their Jewish majority. They continue to cite the now debunked statistics in favor of further withdrawals. It is a peculiar logic to preserve the Jewish people by ruining many of them and bringing their enemies close to Israeli cities they then attack (Winston Mid East Analysis, 1/29). Fact is, the Jewish proportion has not changed vis-a-vis the Arabs. The falsity of the basis for the argument does not faze its advocates. They are too ideological for integrity. They hop from one discredited argument to another. If the next one sounds plausible to Israelis, who are gullible, they swallow it for a time. The advocates of withdrawal ignored other alternatives. That is typical of public discussion these days, especially in Israel. The focus is narrow. The statistics and policy misapplied to it become self-fulfilling. When Israel withdraws, more Arabs come in. Israel should not withdraw and not let them in. If Israelis were alert, they would ask the proponents of the demographic argument: (1) If you believe Jewish majority status threatened, why do you let into Israel hundreds of thousands of Russian gentiles of over-attenuated Jewish origin?; (2) Why don't you expel more illegal aliens, especially Arab ones?; (3) Why don't you enforce the law against polygamy among Bedouin?; (4) Why do you let Arabs entrench themselves by stealing public and private land, building illegally, evading taxes, and with college preferences? Genuine Zionists have asked proponents: Where does your argument for Israeli withdrawal stop? Arabs are gaining demographically in Jerusalem. Should we withdraw from Jerusalem? Arabs are gaining in the Negev. Should we withdraw from that large section of the country? Arabs have a majority in the Galilee. Should we withdraw from it? Such withdrawals would render the country indefensible and non-viable. They should ask why not adopt policies that encourage the Arabs to leave Israel and the Territories, to spare Israel civil strife. Zionists do ask, why withdraw from all of the territories, when there are settlements contiguous to Israel and large unsettled areas. Genuine Zionists, as contrasted with Jews who take their cues from hostile gentiles, do not have much access to the Israeli media. They get no answers. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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EVEN MORE DISENGAGED
Posted by Batya Medad, February 9, 2006. |
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So what? Another American rabbi took a tour of the Disengagement victims' present living conditions--you call that living!?!--and decided that it's a shanda, a disgrace. And we're supposed to be impressed? All of this was predictable, and you didn't need any great mystical gifts to see it. One of my greatest disappointments during last summer's visit to New York was the fact that the Orthodox Jewish community was disengaged from the threat of Disengagement. Besides the rally I attended in Times Square, there were no other public expressions about the fate of our People. I admit that I didn't expect the sort of fear and unity I remember from the pre-Six Days War. That was an amazing time, but I was certain that there would be an awareness of the dangers Disengagement would bring. First to the people uprooted, thrown from their homes. It was clear that there wouldn't be any housing for the vast majority. And that was the easy part. The most serious of the Disengagement dangers was the precedent of giving away Jewish land to the Arabs without even the pretence of getting something in return. This Disengagement just to make Jews suffer is the worst. It is DISENGAGEMENT in the purest sense of the word. It is a flight from reality. That is the meaning of "disengagement." Disengagement is the act of releasing from an attachment or a connection. That is exactly what I felt was happening. The American Jewish Community had disengaged from the Israeli Jewish Comminity. And I must admit that the situation is much, much more serious. There is disengagement in Israel, too. Most of the Israeli Jewish Community is also disengaged. They really don't care what happens to other Jews, even in Israel. That's why the Kadima Party is so popular. It's the "me and now" party. Don't care about Eretz Yisrael. Don't care about YESHA. Don't care about other Jews. Don't care about the future. As long as terror and rockets just touch the perifery, the "border" areas. Keep Ramat Hasharon, Ramat Gan, Ramat Aviv. They don't want to be reminded of history. Who cares about Shiloh, Shechem, Hebron and Beit El? They're disengaged. But they don't realize that without our ancient history, they have no rights to Tel Aviv, Kfar Shmariyahu and Herzliya. There would be no Herzliya without Herzl's dreams. Today's Israelis dream of Los Angeles and New Zealand. The kibbutzim dream of selling their land to yuppies for luxury housing and reaping millions from the deal. The "settlers" frighten them by their unabashed love of the Land, by their large families, by their faith. Just look at the pictures from Amona, and it's clear that Olmert, as head of Kadima and defacto Prime Minister, declared war on loyal citizens. That's one of the reasons that the (sic) security forces were instructed to hit the young demonstrators in their reproductive organs. The physical blows were sexual, sadistically aimed to physically and emotionally traumatize those innocent young kids. They aren't the sexually active teens you'll find in the Tel Aviv pubs. Most of the demonstrators strictly follow Jewish laws restricting sex before marriage. The physical attcks at Amona are a continuation of Disengagement. All of those who didn't protest Disengagement helped encourage the government to go further in attacking Jews. Now it's just harder to stop, but we must, because each additional government act is worse. It is up to us, each and every one of us. Yes, it's late, but we have no choice. We must not give up and we must not give in. Shabbat Shalom Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il |
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BEHEAD THOSE WHO DARE BESMIRCH OUR BESMIRCHERS
Posted by Marion D.S. Dreyfus, February 9, 2006. |
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What the nearly global "cartoon riots" reveal is not comic. But apologies are not the answer. In fact, apologizing is diametrically the wrong tack to take in regard to this latest wrinkle in Islam's delinquency to the universe. As analysts Daniel Pipes and Michelle Malkin have noted, it is the essence of maintaining our very lives and independence to assert and defend our correct rights to self-expression. Should we foolishly and outlandishly bend to their triumphalism of droit du religion--only Islam of all isms must be respected and obeyed, evidently; all others may be trampled upon by these disrespectful and violence-worshipping people--we will have succumbed to the ugliness of dhimmitude and the squalor of inevitable decline under their ceaseless and envious bullying. The recapitulation after four months of cartoons only a few of which, by the way, were authentically drawn by cartoonists in response to a request for depiction of the islamist issues relevant to today, of these mostly innocuous depictions, is a ploy of several Middle Eastern autocratic/dictatorial governments involved, predominantly Syria. The vociferous rubbish indulged in by this mind-poisoned scourge -- does not a single male Muslim work, ever??? anywhere in the Middle East? -- is a potempkin front to rattle our infidel cages. Be assured they are state-sanctioned showcases: See what we can engineer, when we put our minds, matches and feet to it!? Side B: Look at our fireworks, ye mighty, and be afraid, be very afraid. The mass of the rampaging and artificially ramped-up crowd hardly devours its own media, and is moreover largely unacquainted with Danish, let alone Chileno or adjuvant news. The technique of priming the rage of the unhappily underemployed was flogged similarly by the nazi tyrant 65 years ago to distract from economic, sociological and communal woes that bore little resemblance to the proximal 'cause' of the demonstrations, however. No country should apologize. Unless the weasel states apologize to the West for their canker acts of decapitation, name-calling and retail rewriting of history. If these same vile states of insult continue to lambaste and caricature Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism, they must learn that turnabout is just fair play. A major lesson must be extrapolated from one of the placards held aloft in one of these demos: 'To hell with your freedom,' it read. The concept that they willingly lap up their lack of freedom is an ironic statement no government bloviation can obscure. Their message is plainer than mud on a mollusk: We want to be preliterate and pre-modern. We know enough English to tell you our mindset, but we don't have a farthing's-worth of regard for what you hold dear, even if it would look good in our breakfronts for the occasional hudna. Eventually, their Jurassic, ignorant exceptionalism will be penetrated by the futility of defending the dank feudal they have sold their souls to in a bad bid for virgins or rescue. Contact Marion Dreyfus at dreyfusmarion@hotmail.com |
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THE GREAT TREASON -- OLMERT UNILATERALLY TO KICK JEWS OUT OF WEST BANK
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 9, 2006. |
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Now you see how it is done in Israel. The non elected, supposedly temporary caretaker, Prime Minister is enacting existential changes to the State of Israel totally on his own. All this is happening with national elections only a month and a half away. That means Olmert (pronounced all-merde) and his keepers intend to force the destruction of the State of Israel before there can be even a small possibility of preventing them by changing the Government through elections. It is incumbent on anyone loyal to the Jewish people to do whatever is possible to stop them. Every effort must be made to prevent any changes in the status quo and the holding of elections. I have argued that the polls predicting a Kadima Krud victory are totally fake. No action on Olmert's (pronounced all-merde) part could better prove this than his acts of desperation. If they really believed they were going to receive such an overwhelming majority, why rush? Why risk the inevitable violence and uncertainty of such actions. In fact the true polls must show a constant reduction in their strength due to the obvious disaster the Sharon Pogrom in Gaza has brought on. Every Katusha and Kassam that hits Israel undermines public confidence in the Kadima Krud people. Also, I do not believe that the Amona Pogrom increased the voters to Kadima. Have we forgotten that most Israelis are Jews? No Jew can see such disgusting and vicious actions and then say YASHAR KOACH. No way. The Kadima Krud are heading for an electoral disaster and they know it. They will therefore attempt to impose as much of their treasonous program before the elections as they can. Our job is to stop them. This was written by Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau
chief, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud
Barak, Mahmoud al-Zahar and leaders of the Taliban. It is called "It's
official: Israel to withdraw from West Bank Acting PM says plan will
ensure 'Jewish majority'"; it appeared today in World Net Daily and
is archived at
JERUSALEM -- Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced Israel will unilaterally withdraw from most of the West Bank and make other moves aimed at changing the Jewish state's borders. In taking the widely anticipated actions, Olmert explained his policy by claiming Palestinians may soon outnumber Jews and threaten Israel's Jewish character unless a separation is imposed. Critics have said not only is the territory covered by Olmert's plan strategic and vital to Israel's defense, but state the acting prime minister is relying on false demographic information. They point to a recent studying indicating Jews likely will outnumber Arabs by more than double in 20 years. "[Israel] will separate from most of the Palestinian population that lives in the West Bank, and that will obligate us to separate as well from territories where the state of Israel currently is," Olmert said in his first media interview since assuming his job as premier after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke last month. "We will gather ourselves into the main settlement blocs and preserve united Jerusalem. ... Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel will be part of the state of Israel," he said. Olmert, leading overwhelmingly in most polls ahead of March's national elections, explained at a conference last month any West Bank withdrawal will be for reasons of Palestinian demography. "The choice between allowing Jews to live in all parts of the land of Israel and living in a state with a Jewish majority mandates giving up parts of the land of Israel," Olmert said. "We cannot continue to control parts of the territories where most of the Palestinians live." Olmert said under his West Bank withdrawal plan, Israel will maintain select security zones and some of the area's major West Bank Jewish communities, alluding to evacuating West Bank towns that fall outside Israel's security fence. About 200,000 Jews live in the West Bank. The security fence, still under construction in certain areas, cordons off nearly 95 percent of the territory from Israel's pre-1967 borders. More than half the West Bank's Jewish residents reside on the side of the fence closest to Israel. About 80,000 more Jews live on the other side of the barrier. Olmert said he is seeking a West Bank withdrawal to set "the permanent borders of the state of Israel to ensure a Jewish majority." But as WorldNetDaily reported, a new study presented last month by American researchers and widely ignored by Olmert's administration contends a West Bank withdrawal based on demography is groundless because Israel's Jews will more than double Arabs in 20 years. The study, titled"Forecast for Israel and the West Bank 2025," found Palestinians have inflated their population by as much as 1.5 million. It also said Jewish birthrates are outstripping Palestinian rates by far, and that Israel's own statistics fail to account for even low levels of Jewish immigration when calculating national demographic trends. Americans Bennet Zimmerman, Roberta Seid and Michael Wise put the current Palestinian-Arab population of the West Bank at 1.4 million and Gaza 1.1 million, for a total of 2.4 million, instead of the 3.8 million reported by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics. They found faults in the methods used by the PA to determine its population, including counting the 230,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem twice and retroactively raising growth and birth rates while the rates actually have been declining. Zimmerman's team has shown birthrates among Israeli Orthodox Jews are at their highest levels ever and that general Israeli Jewish fertility over the past five years has risen above top scenarios first considered by Israel's Bureau of Statistics. The study says Israel did not account for a likely continuation of Jewish immigration trends over the next 20 years. The allegedly inflated PA population numbers have been accepted by Israel and were used in formulating future demographic statistics, including those outlined in Olmert's address. The PA information also was adopted by such prominent Israeli demographers as the University of Haifa's Arnon Soffer and the Hebrew University's Sergio Della Pergola, who both famously warned that by 2020 Jews will make up between 40 and 46 percent of the population in both Israel and the territories. Under Zimmerman's mid-case scenario, however, Israeli Jews maintain current fertility rates and immigration averages of 20,000 per year or 400,000 over two decades. Israeli Arab fertility rates, meanwhile, fall slowly over a 20 year period. The result is a Jewish majority in Israel in 2025 of 63 percent. According to other likely scenarios contained in the new data, Jews could outnumber Arabs by 71 percent if Jewish fertility rates continue to rise and immigration increases further. Some Israeli critics, a few of whom have been associated with Israel's liberal parties, have been slamming Zimmerman's study. Della Pergola, who conducted previous studies in Israel upholding the PA claims, called Zimmerman's findings "groundless," politically slanted and baseless from a research perspective. He also slammed some of the credentials of Zimmerman's researchers. But the study has been lauded by esteemed American demographers Nicholas Eberstadt and Murray Feshbach, among others. "It is ironic that just as we now find Israel is in the best position ever with regard to population, Olmert announces a plan to run away and give up the West Bank, claiming Israel's Jewish character is threatened," said Zimmerman. The West Bank is considered landlocked territory not officially recognized as part of any country. Israel calls the land "disputed," while the United Nations says the West Bank is "occupied" by Israel. The Jewish state maintains overall control of most of the area while the Palestinian Authority has jurisdiction in about 40 percent. The territory remained under Jordanian rule from 1948 until Israel captured it in 1967 after Jordan's King Hussein ignored Israeli pleas for his country to stay out of the Six Day War. Most countries rejected Jordan's initial claim on the area, which it formally renounced in 1988. The West Bank borders most of Israel's major cities, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Military strategists long have estimated Israel must maintain the West Bank to defend its borders from any ground invasion. Many villages in the West Bank, which Israelis commonly refer to as the "biblical heartland," are mentioned throughout the Torah. The book of Genesis says Abraham entered Israel at Shechem (Nablus) and received God's promise of land for his offspring. He later was buried in Hebron. The nearby town of Beit El, anciently called Bethel meaning "house of God," is where Scripture says the patriarch Jacob slept on a stone pillow and dreamed of angels ascending and descending a stairway to heaven. In that dream, God spoke directly to Jacob and reaffirmed the promise of territory. And in Exodus, the holy tabernacle rested in Shilo, believed to be the first area the ancient Israelites settled after fleeing Egypt. 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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THE MUSLIM JOY OF RAGE AND RIOT
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, February 8, 2006. |
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The world has been offered a window to see something within the Muslim world which they may not have noticed before. As a result of a Danish newspaper posting a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a turban shaped like a bomb, Muslims in the Middle East countries have been prodded into rage and riots with burning, stoning with some killings being reported. The cartoon had long since disappeared from the newspaper when some clerics began to spread it around using the insult to whip up the crowds' zeal. It quickly became a cause celebre in Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, Egypt, Indonesia, Europe and elsewhere - wherever Muslims had achieved a critical mass. TV coverage showed the mobs pouring through the streets, burning, attacking embassies all over the world. In Lebanon, Christian churches were attacked who had nothing to do with the cartoon. In Afghanistan the mobs tried to break into an American base which had no connection with the cartoon. What became evident was that the cartoon quickly became a colorful, sensationalistic excuse to attack anything and everything that was not Muslim. When you watch the footage of the rioters, you could see that their rage was joyful. Here was an excuse to riot, break, burn and relieve a frustration of their humdrum lives. There, too, was their poverty -- none of which was the fault of the Danes, Europeans, Americans. A CNN newscaster displayed a globe which was marked with the areas of riots. Wherever there was a Muslim population, there was rioting. The newscaster kept repeating that these were poor countries. What he neglected to say was that the dictatorial leaders of those nations, including the religious Mullahs had kept the people ignorant and in poverty. Where there was plentiful money from oil and export of minerals the masses were kept in poverty with the money going for weapons or glorious villas for the ruling class. In Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, like other Arab dictators, tried to shift the rage of the masses outward toward the Jews or America. Presently President Ahmadinejad is busy denying the Holocaust and even sponsoring a contest of who could draw the best cartoon what graphically depicts that the Holocaust never happened. Vicious anti-Semitic cartoons have been a mainstay in the Arab Muslim Media since Israel was established so it is nothing new. Enraging the mob is one of the main tools of Islamic Jihadists. Yassir Arafat was a master of mob control. Some will remember the time when former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon toured the Temple Mount and Arafat used that as an excuse to kick off his second intifada. What was ignored was a statement by a high-ranking member of the Fatah PLO to the effect that they had been planning a start of an Intifada but need an event to spark the rage and subsequent killings. Then there was the first Intifada started in the town of Rafah in Gaza. There an accident was the excuse for kicking off the riots which were strangely not put down on the Israeli side of the border. On the Egyptian side, however, they did what all Arab rulers do when rioting breaks out. The Egyptian military brought in some trucks, dropped the tail gate which exposed 50 calibre machine guns and mowed down the rioters. The trucks pulled away leaving the bodies and that was the end of the Egyptian Intifada. As it turned out, both Rabin and Peres were on a mission to recruit the American, French and English to put pressure on the Israeli government to implant a withdrawal and the Intifada helped their case. Riots can be useful if you have an agenda. Let us not forget the recent Muslim rioting in France with joyful torchings of cars and other violence. Interestingly enough the concept of not portraying the image of G-d was taken from the Torah of the Jews wherein one does not carve replicas of G-d or humans due to the tendency of man to worship idols. Even the grave sites of Moses and Aaron were to remain hidden lest people deify them as some sort of earthly men-gods. Those who use Islam to whip up the people have a vested agenda. They want the entire planet of men to become one Great Caliphate under Sharia'a laws. (Like those followed by the Taliban or the Saudi Wahabbis). To get there, they must be able to prod all Muslims into a frame of mind to attack whatever host country they live in. All religions must disband and acknowledge that Allah is G-d and Mohammed is the last Prophet. Any method, any strategem, any agreement may be used to achieve this end. If teaching the youngest child that the infidel is to be hated and killed, then that is taught as a noble achievement. When a Muslim speaks of Islam as a peaceful religion, he is correct for the brief moments those words are spoken. But, when called to serve Allah through rage, riots, arson and murder -- many who never thought they could or would respond to such a call, find themselves reacting to the blood lust Islam calls for. The Jihadist made two mistakes in their timing. The first was 9/11 -- resulting in a premature exposure of an underground Terrorist movement in an incomplete stage of development. Had they waited, no doubt, their sleeper cells could have decimated our cities. The second premature exposure was the cartoon event, showing the world how the critical masses of Muslims could be prodded into motion all over the globe with dangerous consequences for the West. We will be lucky to have a wake-up call, unless we ignore the alarm and go back to sleep. In summation, there is a clash of civilizations, denials notwithstanding. It has happened before and it is happening now. If we chose not to confront it, then we will all be absorbed as is happening now in Europe which has been euphemistically re-named: EURABIA. 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 by email at gwinston@interaccess.com |
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"TRUE" ISLAM IS IRRELEVANT IF IT DOES NOT CONFRONT THE TERRORISTS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 8, 2006. |
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Maha el-Genaidi's "Offensive Caricatures..." (SJMN, 2.8.06) presents the tempered opinion of a local Moslem regarding the Danish cartoons spoofing the connection between Islam and world-wide Moslem-led terrorism. It is commendable that she addresses the underlying problem; but she makes several factual errors, and ends up apologizing for that which she should be condemning. In Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Rim, UK, and various Asian Moslem countries, Muslim mobs spread mayhem, destruction, and death. They riot and burn and threaten death, beheading, even genocide to any and all Europeans and Americans, because they feel their religion has been insulted. There is a problem here. It is not that some Danes may have insulted the Moslem religion. That is bad; although it does not deserve the death penalty. The problem is, why are no Moslems out in the streets protesting the protestors, with placards, shouting "Not in my name" in Arabic and English? Aside from the facts that the cartoons show no pictures that are specifically Mohammed, nor is depicting Mohammed a sin in Islam (as many centuries of Moslem illustrated Qur'an manuscripts prove), and three of the fifteen cartoons shown to Arab leaders last week were forged by the Arab European League commission that took the cartoons to Syria (the twelve Danish cartoons were really not so bad, so the commission had to manufacture some really bad ones in order to justify the rage).... .......there are still these points to consider: Muslims fly commercial airliners into buildings in New York City and Washington DC killing thousands. No Muslim outrage...anywhere. Not in Moslem countries, and not in western countries. Muslim officials block the exit where Saudi school girls are trying to escape a burning building because the girls are unveiled. The girls burn alive inside the building. No Muslim outrage, anywhere. Muslims cut off the heads of three teenaged Christian girls on their way to school in Indonesia. No Muslim outrage. Muslims cut off the heads of journalists and truck drivers in Iraq, and televise the scene, and use it for recruiting purposes. No Muslim outrage. Muslims murder teachers trying to teach Muslim children in Iraq. No Muslim outrage. Muslims blow up mosques killing scores of fellow Moslem worshippers inside, and destroying innumerable Holy Qur'an books. No Muslim outrage. Muslims murder over 80 tourists with car bombs outside cafes and hotels in Egypt. No Muslim outrage. A Muslim attacks a Christian missionary children's school in India. Kills six. No Muslim outrage. Muslims slaughter hundreds of children and teachers in Beslan, Ossetia (former SSR), shooting the children in the back as they are fleeing. No Muslim outrage. Muslims murder more than 50 commuters, injure 700, in attacks on London subways and busses. No Muslim outrage. Muslims murder hundreds of innocent vacationers in Bali. No Muslim outrage. Muslim newspapers publish anti-Semitic cartoons far more gruesome than anything Der Sturmer ever published. No Muslim outrage. But when there is the accusation that an American may have mis-handled a Qur'an at Guantanamo, or a newspaper in Denmark publishes cartoons spoofing a Moslem man who may or may not be Mohammed, then it is not just 'outrage'. Then thousands take to the streets, in over half the world, in an eruption of Moslem hatred, unrestrained violence, murder, arson, threats of beheading, destroying property, placards declaring destruction of Denmark, genocide of Europeans. Ms. El-Genaidi is correct that these bloodthirsty rioters do not represent the majority of the world's Muslims. But, when does that majority of true, peace loving, honest, Moslems become outraged? When do those Moslems take to the streets to express their outrage at the terrorist radicals who have hijacked their peaceful religion and are making it into an object of worldwide hatred and ridicule? When do they demand of their leaders that the fanatics among them stand down? Where are the fatwas condemning this abhorrent behavior? It is woefully inadequate to quietly tell us non-Moslems that "true" Islam does not condone such barbaric brutality. It is the Osama's and Zawahiris who need to be confronted. To paraphrase Salman Rushdie: as their ancient, deeply civilized culture of love, art and philosophical reflection is hijacked by paranoiacs, racists, liars, male supremacists, tyrants, fanatics, violence junkies and genocidal maniacs, why are those peaceful Moslems not screaming?" David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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FORD FOUNDATION SUPPORTS ANTI-ISRAEL CONVOCATION
Posted by David Meir-Levi, February 8, 2006. |
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The Ford foundation was 'outed' two years ago as giving money to Arab NGOs that support terrorist groups, and to anti-Jewish groups. Its leadership was quite embarrassed. They apologized and promised to more thoroughly check out the recipients of their largesse. because these gifts to terror-related groups was a big over-sight. See www.NGOMonitor.org for details. But....are they at it again? Or are they sponsoring sincere open academic debate? Notice the comment of one of the participants, Ms. Yehudit Harel: "I support the idea of boycott in all fields because the boycott is essentially a nonviolent means to resist and protest an impossible situation -- a cruel military occupation going on for decades -- almost half a century -- and it is only getting worse and worse all the time." Ms. Harel could not be reached for comment yesterday." Now, if the 'cruel military occupation' has been going on for ALMOST HALF A CENTURY", just which "occupation' is she talking about? Israel's sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip lasted from 1967 to 1994 (27 years) and began again with its RE-occupation in 2002, which ended in 2004. 28+ years. hardly half a century. Israel's sovereignty over pre-1967 Israel (based upon the 'green line' armistice demarcations) has gone on since 1949: 57 years. a bit more than half a century. Is she suggesting that Israel in toto is 'occupied territory'? And what about "Getting worse and worse all the time"? Unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, dismantleling of some communities in Samara, evacuation of Jews from Hebron.....worse and worse? Worse for whom? This article is by Alec Magnet and it appeared in the New York Sun yesterday. It is called "Ford Foundation Will Pay for Parley of Anti-Israel Scholars at Lake Como." It is archived at www.nysun.com/article/27123 Less than three years after reports of Ford Foundation funding of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activity prompted an international uproar, the Manhattan based philanthropic giant is at it again, paying for at least eight scholars who favored a boycott of Israeli academics to attend a conference scheduled for Monday at a villa on the shore of Lake Como in Italy. In November of 2003, the president of the Ford Foundation, Susan Berresford, announced that the foundation "deeply" regretted some of its funding of anti-Israel groups. She announced new policies requiring grantees not to engage in bigotry or promote violence or terrorism. At the time, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who had called the Ford Foundation's actions "extremely disturbing," said he had "been utterly clear with the leadership of the Ford Foundation that they must follow through" on its new policies. Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania who helped press the Ford Foundation in 2003, said yesterday that he found it "distressing" to learn that the Ford Foundation is "funding a conference in which more than a third of the participants support boycotting Israeli universities." The Rockefeller Foundation is providing the site at Bellagio, Italy, where 21 scholars will meet in a historic Lombard villa on the banks of Lake Como for a three-day conference to discuss academic boycotts and their relation to academic freedom. More than a third of these scholars publicly support boycotts of Israeli universities out of opposition to the Jewish state. The Ford Foundation is putting in a total of $70,000 to fund the meeting and to support publishing the conference's proceedings. "We really have a strong view that academic boycotts pose a threat to academic freedom. We've spoken to the AAUP about this issue and voiced our concern. They're strong opponents of academic boycotts, they understand our concern and they've assured us that they've taken the necessary steps, done the due diligence, and they're going to host a rigorous academic exchange," a spokeswoman for the Ford Foundation, Marta Tellado, said. Critics are calling on the organizer of the conference, the American Association of the University Professors, to delay and rethink it. Some critics wondered if the Ford Foundation's funding of the conference violated its pledge not to support any grantee who promotes terrorism or bigotry, or calls for the destruction of any state. "It doesn't make any sense to have a conference which is dominated by people who are basically anti-Israel in their approach and only use the academic boycott as a technique or a vehicle ... for demonizing Israel and pursuing its destruction ... if you're going to have a discussion about academic boycotts and how to preserve academic freedom," a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, Gerald Steinberg, told The New York Sun. Mr. Steinberg is the editor of the Web publication NGO Monitor, a watchdog of nongovernmental organizations. In April 2005, the governing council of Great Britain's faculty union, the Association of University Teachers, voted to boycott two Israeli universities, the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University. After the international outcry that ensued, the union voted to rescind its boycott at an emergency meeting the next month. The AAUP, the American university faculty union, was one of the first institutions to protest the boycott, and has since drafted a statement condemning academic boycotts categorically. At least eight participants at next week's conference, however, publicly supported the boycott. The general secretary of the AAUP, Roger Bowen, said in a telephone interview that the point of conference is to debate the issue of academic boycotts more broadly. After the conference, he said, the association will publish a special issue of its bimonthly magazine, Academe, including its statement in opposition to academic boycotts and written responses from some of the conferees. "What we seek is a sampling of various views," Mr. Bowen said. A lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London, David Hirsh, who has criticized the conference, told the Sun, "What the AAUP is doing is inviting this whole discourse, this whole way of thinking, into the union and making it seem like a legitimate position." Mr. Hirsh is the editor of the Web publication Engage, founded in response to the British union's boycott. One scholar scheduled to attend the conference, Yehudith Harel, has publicly said, "I support the idea of boycott in all fields because the boycott is essentially a nonviolent means to resist and protest an impossible situation -- a cruel military occupation going on for decades -- almost half a century -- and it is only getting worse and worse all the time." Ms. Harel could not be reached for comment yesterday. The Ford Foundation, with assets of about $10.6 billion at last report, was established by the founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, a famous anti-Semite. The foundation now has no relation to the automaker or to the Ford family. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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MEET THE DISENGAGEMENT BUNNY
Posted by Zalmi, February 8, 2006. |
Meet the Disengagement Bunny! It gives up territory and security like no other bunny. Long after others have given up on "giving up" -- this one just keeps on going. With its distinctive comb-over top, it's guaranteed to outlast all others. On Election Day you are invited to renew its batteries.
For another 4 years of the same uninterrupted defeatism.
This comes from
http://zalmi.blogspot.com/2006/02/disengagement-bunny.html. Contact
the author at zalmi@zalmi.net
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MR. GUTERMAN IS OUT OF TOUCH
Posted by Barry Shaw, February 8, 2006. |
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I sent this to the Jewish Telegraph (letters@jewishtelegraph.com) in England In far off Netanya I read that the Church of England had voted to divest from companies whose products are used by the Israeli Government 'in the territories' (read Judea and Samaria ). This anti-Israel campaign, and consequent result, was led by the head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. It was the same Dr. Williams who was on his way to pay a courtesy call to Yasser Arafat in Ramallah when he received a message that there had been a Palestinian suicide attack in Netanya that had killed many and injured more. Many right minded leaders would have turned around and cancelled their homage. Not Dr. Williams. Nothing, not even the death of innocent Israelis, would detract him from taking tea with Arafat. Now he has successfully led a boycott against the Jewish State. Against this background, I was shocked to read a letter in this column dated 23rd December from Henry Guterman, the Vice-Chairman of the Manchester Council of Christian and Jews, in which he castigated Dr. Irene Livingstone who had dared to criticize the inefficiency and lack of effectiveness of this organization. In his letter he referred to the Anglican Churches anti-Israel actions by stating, "I had the assurance from a number of Bishops and senior officials of the Church of England that there was little chance that the Church of England would agree to carry it out". He went on, "It does not help... when ill-judged comments about CCJ are made". I do not know Mr. Guterman. I am sure he is a most pleasant and honourable man. However, he has either been duped, or failed to appreciate the crisis that has occurred under his watch. Either Mr Guterman should remove himself from this organization in protest, or be replaced by a more effective campaigner for Israel and for Jewish rights. Certainly one who can read the signs and assess an impending disaster, and not one who buries his head in the sand. Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, 25 years ago with his family. He spent eleven years on various kibbutzim, ending up at Mishmar HaSharon, the same kibbutz that served as home to Ehud Barak. He now lives in Netanya, where he runs a real estate office. To receive his "View from Here" columns, contact him at netre@matav.net.il |
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WHAT ABOUT HAMAS INDOCTRINATION TOWARDS HATE?
Posted by Mordechai Ben-Menachem, February 8, 2006. |
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This article was written by Hillel Fendel and appeared today in Arutz-Sheva -- www.IsraelNationalNews.html. It is archived at www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98164 Andrea Levin is Executive Director of CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. Below are excerpts from her article of Feb. 7, 2006, entitled, "Ignoring Hamas Hate-Indoctrination." A familiar quality of unreality pervades much of the news and commentary about the ascendance of Hamas in recent Palestinian elections. Note is endlessly made of the fact that Hamas, with its clinics and other welfare operations, is less "corrupt" than the old-guard Fatah chieftains... And many news stories duly report that the radical Islamic organization specializes in suicide bombing and rejects Israel's existence. But as to why Palestinians en masse are comfortable choosing a leadership engaged in the defamation and murder of innocent Jews -- including children, teenagers and the elderly -- very little is said. Harold Evans, writing in London's Times several years ago, observed: "Everyone talking about Palestine or terrorism is talking in a vacuum, for nothing can be understood without proper appreciation of the way minds have been poisoned." ("Anti-Semitic Lies and Hate Threaten Us All" June 28, 2002) He had it exactly right. Without addressing the mind-poisoning, there can be no clear understanding of events... The Islamist group has long made clear the importance of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel indoctrination, which occurs intensively throughout its network of charities, schools, mosques, clinics and summer camps. 
Arab Children With Toy Rifles and Enemy (Israeli) Flag ...From earliest childhood, lurid messages demonize Zionists and Jews as evil and extol the joys of martyrdom attained in killing them. Hamas is in the forefront of Palestinian groups exploiting the Internet to disseminate propaganda, with approximately 20 sites in seven languages. A children's on-line magazine called "Al-Fateh"(www.al-fateh.net) -- meaning the conqueror -- juxtaposes child-like cartoons and stories with shocking images of violence. Issue number 38 of Al-Fateh includes a photograph of the decapitated head of a female suicide bomber. The caption reads "Zaynab Abu Salem, who carried out the suicide bombing attack. Her head was severed from her pure body and her headscarf remained to decorate her face. Your place is in heaven in the upper sky, Zaynab ... sister [raised to the status of heroic] men." Abu Salem had killed two Israeli border policemen and wounded 17. ...Terrorism specialist Matthew Levitt writes of a Hamas "incitement machine" in the Winter 2004 Middle East Quarterly, describing, for instance, a kindergarten graduation run by a Hamas charitable association. The event "featured 1600 preschool age children wearing uniforms and carrying pretend rifles. A five-year-old girl reenacted attacks on Israelis by dipping her hands in red paint, mimicking the bloodied hands Palestinians proudly displayed after the lynching of two Israelis in Ramallah." 
Preschool Arab Child Being Taught To Hate and Kill He describes an Islamic school in which "11-year-old Palestinian student Ahmed states, 'I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys ...I will tear their bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know.'" His classmates shout in response, "God is great," and his teacher adds, "May the virgins give you pleasure." The depth of hatred instilled from a young age is such that mothers push their own sons to suicide-murder. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has translated an interview with Umm Nidal Farhat, a woman whose three sons, raised on incessant hatred, joined Hamas, one of them killing five Israelis before being shot, the others engaging in other anti-Israel actions and killed by Israel. Her own remorseless expression of hatred is chilling -- and she was just elected by her fellow Palestinians to the Palestinian legislature.. Why, one wonders, do so many reporters consistently neglect the
mind-poisoning that profoundly affects Palestinian views and actions?
Why do American journalists, whose own society promotes acute
awareness of the power of stereotypes and insensitive language to
damage others, seem impervious to the grotesque demonizing of Jews and
Israelis and the deadly toll that hatred continues to take?
Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be
reached by email at quality@computer.org
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HAMAS AND FATAH
Posted by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, February 8, 2006. |
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Many people, from Jerusalem to Washington, have expressed their dismay at Hamas' unexpected victory. Truth be told however, there is nothing new about their platform -- they are no worse than Fatah -- the party of Arafat and Abbas. Both are equally determined to wipe the State of Israel off the map, the only difference being that Fatah camouflages its intent with politically correct language, while Hamas openly proclaims its evil intent. Both parties indoctrinate their young in hatred of Israel, and both parties mobilize their government controlled media to spew forth their hatred. Throughout the years, Hamas has been an asset to Fatah, because as heinous and as bloody as Fatah's deeds have been, they were always able to point to Hamas and tell the world, "Be happy that you are dealing with us and not with Hamas, because if they come into office, things will be far worse." And incredibly, many intelligent and well-intentioned people, bought their rhetoric -- hook, line and sinker. But now that Fatah is out and Hamas is in the driver's seat, will the "peace-process die-hards "change their attitude? Will they finally recognize that you cannot negotiate with those who have only one goal -- to see you dead. Will they see reality for what it is or will they continue blindly on their course? If the past is any indication, I am afraid that nothing much will change, and Hamas will be accepted even as Fatah was. Just give it some time, and when Hamas feels the financial crunch, they will emulate the teachings of their predecessors, Arafat, and Abbas; they too, will sanctimoniously denounce violence in English, while inciting violence, in Arabic. And why shouldn't that formula work for them? After all, it has proven successful in the past. Didn't our political pundits proclaim "the Peace Process must go on, no matter what." Didn't Israel negotiate although as Jewish blood was being spilled? I'm afraid that it will be just a matter of time before Hamas makes some pious pronouncements and is deemed "kosher". Pressure will once again be placed on Jerusalem to make further concessions, and this pressure will come not only from foreign sources, but most damaging of all, from our own people, who have forgotten G-d's Covenant -- the Covenant in which He deeded Eretz Yisrael to us, the Jewish people, as our eternal inheritance. But as bleak as this may sound, it is HaShem who directs the world: "Rabbos machshovos b'lev eesh..." -- "There are many thoughts in the heart of a man, but it is the counsel of HaShem that prevails" (Proverbs). So, even as some years ago, Arafat refused Barak's offer to hand over chunks of Israel when they met during Clinton's presidency, with G-d's help, we will once again see HaShem's Hand restraining Israel from following its self destructive predilection for giving away her holy soil. Throughout our long history, we have been tormented and terrorized by many evil regimes, but they have all been swallowed by the sands of time while we remain -- and please G-d, such will be the fate of Hamas as well. Rebbetzin Jungreis's column "The Rebbetzin's Viewpoint" can be read in the Jewish Press (www.JewishPress.com). She is founder of hineni.org. "Hineni" means "Here I am." The organization is devoted to strengthening Jewish life by personal commitment. It also offers a full complement of services for young people, including vocational training and counseling. This article is archived at:
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TRUTH AND REALITY: A REPORT OF THE WAR FOR IDENTITY
Posted by Yocheved Golani, February 8, 2006. |
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A former journalist, I wish to report to the world on a breaking story. I'm temporarily coming out of retirement so I can help the world at large to understand the significance of a long-festering problem presently rocking Israeli society. That problem seemed to be manageable at times, unmanageable at others. Now it is ripping the fabric of our society apart. The last lines of my piece offer uplifting reason for hope. Bear with me as I set the scene for a decades-long phenomenon fully expressing itself on land and in the headlines, as follows: Once upon a time, there were a lot of Jews in country with two influential news outlets. One publication called itself TRUTH. The other journal was labeled REALITY. One appeared in print, the other in airwaves. Like-minded imitators mimicked both news outlets, generating further confusion. A funny phenomenon occurred with each form of those scandal sheets. No matter what happened in the outside world, the customers of these so-called chronicles only viewed type or heard sound bites extolling the wrongs of outsiders and triumphantly presenting the propaganda of the ruling political elite. The outsiders either lived beyond the country's borders and political system or, more commonly, inside prisons within those borders. The prisons sometimes had bars, and sometimes they were situations that raised blood pressures and fear. Facts or Fictions? It didn't seem to matter whom the alleged editors or owners of TRUTH and REALITY were. Sophisticated readers and listeners understood that you couldn't find the one in the other. Both misinformation sources provided intellectually numbing drivel that was designed to quash executive thinking skills and private initiative. Not much reality presented itself in the TRUTH tabloid and only scanty bits of truth appeared in the REALITY rag. A thinker's best bet for finding objective truth in reality and vice versa was to learn about the weather, perhaps. It required a look out the windows for verification purposes, however. Consumers grumbled and scoffed at the paradox, and began turning their ears and rational minds to innovative media resources, and even to occasional surreptitious visits with outsiders who'd made contact with the no-longer captive and fact-starved audience. Now that they were more fully informed about life, formerly deceived listeners and readers could discern simple facts from socialized spin. And they sympathized with the outsiders. They understood with increasing clarity about what made an outsider tick: it was belief in G'D. And that translated into noncompliance with the mindset of the ruling political powers. It also promoted adherence to beliefs that threatened to undermine the anti-hoi polloi position. The pro-G'D crowd's numbers mushroomed. The misinformation crowd shrank not only in numbers, but also in a sense of durability. The ruling party's inevitable revenge would be an act of fighting to remain alive. Life Becomes a Temporary Stalemate In time, educated listeners and readers with constructive lifestyles mimicked private enterprise just as outsiders did. And they liked it. Thriving communities of listeners succeeded financially and socially. Honesty, integrity and quality of life were hallmarks of the newer communities. Citizens continued paying taxes though they disliked the ruling regime's policies that threatened their schools, houses of prayer and lifestyle. An occasional sigh about the need to change the upper crust's warped way of thinking sometimes filled the air or mass media essay. And angry rumbles of disagreement bellowed back. The stalemate continued its self-limited life span and escalating level of tension. Then the stalemate broke, shattering lives, bodies and comprehension. Lockstep compliance and patriotic pledges to serve the government self-destructed as political fantasies fell apart. The gods of totalitarianism began to fall from challenges to their authority. Soldiers refused to serve irrational commanders. Roads filled with dissatisfied taxpayers. Punishments were handed out, but there was a problem built into the situation from the start. Over time, the country realized it couldn't build enough prisons to house the increasingly aware population. And that citizenry made advances in living lives according to the people's wishes, not those of the tyrants ruling them. And they made friends with intellectually honest masses inside and outside their country. Israel's Torah-oriented Jews have friends in Christian Zionists, non-religious but non-hostile fellow Jews, and among themselves. The momentum builds as tensions tear at hearts at minds. Facts Provide Sturdy Bases for Thought and Life As walls fell, bridges were built and lives improved with honest communication. The everyday folk found themselves smiling more, and making choices for which only they were responsible. Life became more satisfying and metaphysically fulfilling for the listeners. And their neighborhoods were steadily marked for extinction via increasing levels of harassment. The ruling regime didn't wish to lose its grip. It resented the spirit of spiritual yearning. Red Rosa had long ago designed an educational system designed to create laborers, not thinkers, of the young. Politicians steeped in the old school of reigned-in thought made sure the private initiative resulted in punitive audits, limited building permits and a lot of screaming designed to drown out protests regarding a lack of integrity. A network of Band-Aid approaches to maintaining a tattered social structure rivaled that described in Ayn Rand's anti-socialist novel We the Living. Oppressive laws sprang up to quell the rebellion. Debates over the prima facie character and debatable purpose of the nation failed to produce either a constitution or a definitive charter. Those in positions of political power vacillated between the historic roots of its G'D oriented people and the relatively recent fads of political dreams. One Country Separated by Two Ideological Languages Meanwhile, both sides of the battle spoke one common language separated by ideologies. Though some accentuated the spiritual roots of their native tongue, sworn enemies emphasized its historic irrelevance to humanity. Lines were drawn between the Jews who acknowledged their G'Dly mandate and religious preferences, and the secularists who spoke in Hebrew when they ordered ham sandwiches on Sabbaths and holidays. Hebrew, please forgive the analogy, was like a bastard child showing up to a family picnic. Its mere presence instigated accusations from both sides. The mass media went into full frenzy, struggling to present its version of TRUTH or REALITY. The continuing rise of alternative information outlets, published by the Jews who lived for G'D and His laws, challenged their take on life and threatened to divide the country. The rift then ripped uncontrollably apart. Instead of screaming "ZHID!" the secularists shouted "MITNACHLIM"
with venomous voices. This is the legacy of morally bankrupt secular
Zionism. Its followers speak Ivrit and walk on streets named for
prophets and kings. Secular Zionists model themselves on the
totalitarian Russia we thought they'd left since the first waves of
modern aliya just before 1948. Secularists do not appreciate the very
nature of their "Israeli" language skills. They use their mouths not
to praise HaShem but to rebel against Him. And dati (halachically
observant) Jews remain the targets of their murderous bloodlust. See
Arabs are redefining the word THRILLED due to Jew on Jew violence. The Eirev rav and Amalek's offspring are identifying themselves as they hunt down your halachically compliant relatives and friends. Soon Israeli streets will be filled with flying bullets and they'll be coming from arabs and Jewish soldiers etc. Citizens won't know where to hide for safety! The violence will spread to wherever there are Jews in the world at large. As my rav notes, "On a national level, we are reaping the fruits of Secular Zionism plain and simple. It is B"H in its death throes. Not enough people cared when it handed out money and Land. We are now waking up." Milchemet Zahut The failure of the OU, Agudah or any formerly significant Torah-oriented Jewish organization to cry out against the insanity in the Holy Land is beyond measure. They are no longer significant organizations. They are failures to G'D and to His priorities. And world Jewry is faced with a choice: come to the only home that HaShem commanded you to live in. Or die as a Jew in lip service only. Israel is in the midst of its last battle for a national identity. We are caught in a Milchemet Zahut. Sympathizers of the government presently in power are either bashing in the skulls of religious countrymen or dragging them through the streets on camera. And yet Torah-oriented Jews are winning the battle. It is our growing physical and socially influential presence that has prompted the pogroms. Secularism is built on an unstable premise. And it is collapsing more thoroughly by the hour. It cannot outlive a vast increase in aliya by halachically oriented Jews. Secularists will either get with our program or live out their lives in countries other than Israel. Many of their former compatriots already do. Israeli society, as any society, cannot prosper under unending social upheaval. The situation is self-correcting. We who are here already are cleaning up the mess so you can assume lives of health, peace, prosperity and adherence to Torah. Come home and claim your identity. The Holy Land is the only place where G'D has commanded you to live. Addendum: One week after Ms. Golani prepared her Op-Ed above, she learned that the Orthodox Union had sent a letter of protest dated February 7 2006 to Olmert. The letter appeared on the upper left corner at www.ou.org. Ms. Golani's reaction to the letter is as follows: "Why is that sort of kvetching being offered instead of the one answer H' seeks (ALIYA)? Nobody has been commanded by Heaven to live in the Diaspora. Self-serving Jewish trips to Israel and advice to its politicians do not protect Jews from being attacked in their own G'D-given land. I suggest that concerned Jews skip the lip service, grab their briefcases, ipods, and transcription machines and move to Israel. Forever. "Numerous Torah sources expound on the superficial, materialistic attractions of Galut and an ensuing Galut Mentality. It all bears a strong relationship with Chibut Hakever. I recommend that my potential critics read Rabbi Pinchas Winston's 2006 publication "Talking About Eretz Yisrael: the Profound and Essential Meaning of Making Aliyah." I especially recommend that they read Chapter Seven." Yocheved Golani provides a journalist and writing service; she does author reviews and book reviews. She can be reached at her websites: www.ygolani.com, www.yochevedgolani.com or contact her by email at yocheved@yochevedgolani.com. |
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OBSERVERS LEAVING HEVRON IN FEAR OF ARAB VIOLENCE
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, February 8, 2006. |
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This is from today's Arutz Sheva -- IsraelNationalNews.com It is archive at www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=98190 Why do I have this uncontrollable urge to roll on the floor laughing? (IsraelNN.com) In the wake of attacks by rock- and bottle-throwing Arab mobs on the International Observer Mission building in Hevron today, the international force has decided to pull out of the ancient city. The attacks by hundreds of rioting Arab Hevron residents were part of the global Muslim protests against the Western press over a series of caricatures depicting Muhammad, founder of Islam. According to Gunhild Forselv, spokesperson for the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, the Arab mob also tried to set the structure ablaze. She said more than 50 workers are based in the Mission building. The international force, made up of Norwegians, was established in 1996 to "assist in promoting stability and in monitoring and reporting the efforts to maintain normal life in the city of Hebron, thus creating a feeling of security among Palestinians in the city of Hebron." 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. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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THREE ILLUSIONS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 8, 2006. |
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1. ISRAEL WILL SET ITS OWN BORDERS Proponents of unilateral Israeli withdrawals assert that Israel is setting its own borders. Nonsense! Other countries won't recognize a new border. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, it did not declare a new border. Certain foreign offices, such as State Dept., are anti-Zionist. They insist that Israel should withdraw from all of the Territories. They do not justify their demand nor discuss the consequences of Israel retreating to indefensible borders. Their insistence is likely to prevail, given the appeasement-mindedness of all the major candidates for the Israeli premiership. Israel does have the right under the Mandate to annex all or some of the Territories. It is a right that Israel is forfeiting by never having made a case for its entitlement to the Territories. Israelis should have preached Arab withdrawal. Israel was busy making concessions to the undeserving Arab aggressors, while the Arabs were busy making their false case known and believed. Israel really is giving its people the illusion that it is acting firmly in ceding certain areas, after which it would keep the rest. After it cedes them, however, the Arabs would demand the rest. Israel would not get new borders, but new demands from the rest of the world to appease the Arabs. Otherwise, Israel would be told, there would be no peace. But there is no peace, anyway. Better to defeat the enemy than to build it up. 2. HAMAS SAID IT WILL GOVERN, NOT PROSELYTIZE The NY Times quotes Hamas leaders' propaganda seriously. What the newspaper omitted in the edition I saw was advice to the readers that most incoming regimes, whether dictatorial or democratic, in government or in business, seek a stable environment in which to take control without arousing opposition or losing money. Once it grasps power securely, changes and crackdowns ensue. We should not be lulled into complacency by self-serving disavowals. The newspapers confound us. I think this is due to their policy of often quoting without explaining. Only the better informed members of the audience may catch on. 3. HAMAS "MUST" DISARM & MAKE PEACE Pres. Bush was among those who said this. How naïve! oHHHamas exists for warfare. It is an organization for jihad. Its doctrine centers on conquering first Israel and then absorbing other states into a single caliphate. There is no chance that Hamas will disarm and make peace. It might make agreements it calls truces for the purpose of gaining an advantage over the enemy, and which the US would call peace. Bush's statement is unrealistic. If sincere about it, he is a fool. If not a fool, he is insincere. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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ISRAEL MIDWIFED HAMAS STATE; WHY "HAARETZ" CELEBRATES IT; BUSH DOESN'T LEARN
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 8, 2006. |
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ISRAEL MIDWIFED HAMAS STATE "... Everything that the Israeli political establishment did over the past 13 years led directly and unwaveringly to the Hamas nazi state. The Labor Party and the Likud are equally to blame." "The campaign of national self-abasement; the demonization of the anti-Oslo dissidents; the anti-speech McCarthyism after the Rabin assassination by Yigal Amir; the self-recruitment by the Israeli media -- under the near-hegemony of the Far Left -- on behalf of endless appeasement of the Palestinians, the Peace Now campaigns; the Tel Aviv "peace" rallies with their numbers inflated manifold by the media; the conversion of the Israeli universities into Petri dishes of Post-Zionism; the propaganda and indoctrination in the public school curriculum; the "We have a Partner in Negotiations" campaign; the make-pretend cooperation with the Palestinian Authority; the suppression of much of the news of the daily atrocities by the PLO and its affiliates; the campaign to get international recognition of the PLO; the Israeli funding of the Palestinian Authority; the arms sent by Israel to the PLO; the campaign to grant the PLO representation and legitimacy in international forums; the turning of a blind eye when Israel was flooded with international "solidarity" protester thugs assisting the terrorists and attacking Israeli soldiers and police; the persecution of Jewish settlers when they defended themselves; the fabrication of the "settlers vandalizing trees" and "settlers attacking Palestinians" canards; the turning a blind eye to the open treason of some Israeli Arab politicians; the turning of a blind eye to the enormous growth in Islamofascism among Israeli Arabs; the insistence by the Israeli political elite that the nazi propaganda coming out of the Palestinian Authority was "just talk" and "letting off steam"; the "controlled carnage" agreements with the Hizbollah and the PLO; the release of hundreds of murderers to appease the Hizbollah after it murdered three captive Israeli officers; the turning of the other cheek when hundreds of Kassams landed; the refusal to retaliate when Jerusalem neighborhoods were targets of PLO gunfire; the cowardly abandonment of Sderot to the shelling and rockets; the "Really Really Hard" empty threats after each PLO atrocity; the hectoring of the public by the politicians about how "we really need to make painful sacrifices"; the acquiescence to a policy of "Israel makes peace while the Palestinians continue to make war"; the promotion of the doctrine that peace can best be achieved by pretending that war does not exist; the lecturing of Israelis by their leaders about how they are selfish and unwilling to share; the campaign to purge all symbols of Judaism from the state and all Jewish content from the school curriculum; the promotion by Israeli leftist leaders and professors of "Naqba Day, in which Israel mourns its own creation; the continued employment of traitors and anti-Semites as university faculty members; the celebration of leftist "army service refusers" and mutineers as moral heroes; the refusal to prosecute Arab and Jewish extremists for treason; the indictment and investigation of Rabbis; the expulsion of the heroes of Gush Katif, and the ethnic cleansing of the Jews of Gaza; the labeling of all anti-Oslo dissidents as "inciters"; the campaign to accuse all anti-Oslo dissidents of collective guilt in the death of Rabin; the abandonment of any attempt to stop the smuggling of explosives into Gaza from Egypt; the countless make-pretend "projects of cooperation" with the Palestinian Authority; ignoring the open endorsements of suicide bombing and terrorism by Israeli Arab and Jewish extremists; the failure to indict Yossi Beilin and Ami Ayalon for their "initiatives"; the proposals to purge the Israeli flag of the Star of David and to expunge references to Jewish yearnings from the national anthem; the Israeli offers to abandon half of Jerusalem." (Prof. Steven Plaut, 1/27.) Yes, Israel could have stopped the progression to a terrorist state. It failed to make its own case. It failed to stand up to international pressure and to resist bribery. The US also played a major role in turning the P.A. into a magnet for terrorists. It will pay the price, unfortunately. The State Dept. did not look at the long-range implications, only its petty anti-Zionist prejudices. The State Dept. also blundered over Iran and Iraq. HOLDING HAMAS TO A HIGHER STANDARD THAN PLO? Former intelligence chief Avi Dichter is a candidate in Sharon's party. He said that Hamas would have to abandon terrorism when it runs the P.A.. Why? When the PLO ran the P.A., it did not abandon terrorism (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 1/27). Upon becoming, or anticipating becoming, politicians, experts trade in their knowledge and experience for demagoguery. Mr.Dichter asserts what Hamas "would have to" do, without explaining why it would have to and what are the chances of it not doing so. Already the Left is suggesting that Israel negotiate concessions with Hamas or make more unilateral withdrawals and ruin more of the independent-minded settlers whom it dislikes for reminding them what being Jewish is about. How much better off Israel would have been if, in 1967, it devised a plan for getting the Arabs out of Yesha and annexing the Territories! Instead, the Left plotted negotiations, sometimes in violation of Israeli law, to make concessions to the Arabs. The Arabs plotted and conducted war on the Jews. The continued violations of agreements and waging of terrorism made no impression on the ruling leftist elite. This ruling circle calls for more of what doesn't work. NEITHER DOES BUSH LEARN Pres. Bush claimed that he articulated a two-state policy to make peace. With democracy, the Arabs would make peace (IMRA, 1/27). The result is an election in which the people voted for two main parties dedicated to war. The state he wants for the Arabs would be a belligerent. Bush still thinks of those Arabs as if they were Americans and not jihadists. He does not learn. WHAT SEC. ANNAN THOUGHT OF THE P.A. ELECTION He praised the election for being orderly and called it an important step towards statehood (IMRA, 1/27). Elections were orderly in the USSR, too. That did not validate them. What Annan perceives as a step towards statehood, I see, in the election of one or the other slate dedicated to warring on a member of the UNO, a disqualification for statehood. WHAT ACTING P.M. OLMERT THINKS OF IT "Israel can neither countenance nor accept a PA, part of which is an armed organization that calls for Israel's destruction." (IMRA, 1/28.) He didn't know, when he dealt with Fatah-run P.A., that it too, was an armed organization calling for Israel's destruction? WHY HAMAS WON AND HAARETZ CELEBRATES IT The popular conception is that Hamas won because Fatah didn't take care of the people's needs. Prof. Steven Plaut believes that Hamas won because the population had become so radicalized, it disdained Fatah's pretense at making peace with Israel. It prefers Hamas' bald advocacy of conquest. (It certainly wants to conquer Israel.) Haaretz' Gideon Levy described the Hamas election: "'The good news from the occupied territories is that Hamas won the elections... These are very authentic results, achieved through elections that were respectably democratic, even though they took place under the least democratic circumstances imaginable, the occupation." The Arabs said "no" to a movement that did not bring it any achievements in the just struggle against the occupation, and it said "yes" to those who appeared to the voters to be braver and with clean hands... Second, both Israelis and Palestinians can learn important lessons from the results of the election. The Israelis have to finally learn that applying force will not get the desired results... To that end, both sides, Israel and Hamas, must free themselves of the slogans of the past. Those who pose preconditions, like disarming Hamas, will miss the chance. It is impossible to expect that Hamas will disarm, just as it is impossible to expect that Israel would disarm. In Palestinian eyes, Hamas' weapons are meant to fight the occupation, and, as is well-known, the occupation is not over. Practically, and indeed morally, the armed are armed if they are equipped with F-16s or Qassam launchers. If Israel were to commit to an end to killing Hamas operatives, there is reason to assume that Hamas would agree, at least for a while, to lay down its arms..." Other Haaretz columnists are demanding that Israel turn over to the P.A. the excise taxes due, even though Hamas said it would use the P.A. to build an army with which to conquer Israel (Prof. Steven Plaut, 1/28). I had thought Prof. Plaut exaggerating, when he asserted that Haaretz has taken the side of the Arabs against Israel. Not when Haaretz calls the Hamas victory "good news" for bringing in a group that the voters thought "braver", that the Territories are "occupied, that Israeli force will not work, that expecting Hamas to disarm is equivalent to expecting Israel to disarm, and that the Arabs equipped with rocket launchers are acting morally, equivalent to killing Hamas operatives." That is distorted Arab propaganda. Hamas "bravery" is in killing Jews, often defenseless. The Territories are part of the Mandate for a Jewish national home, and therefore not "occupied" by Jews. Israeli force was self-defense that worked to the extent it was employed. Employed thoroughly, it would have worked thoroughly. Arab rocket attacks on Israeli cities are not moral but war crimes. They are not equivalent to killing Hamas terrorists who seek to attack innocent Israelis, including innocent Israeli soldiers. Hamas has explained enough times to be understood by whoever wants to understand, that it considers the State of Israel to be occupying Muslim territory. Islamic jihadists believe that any territory ever conquered by Muslims belongs to Islam forever. Therefore, the Haaretz policy of total withdrawal from the Territories would not end the war but boost Arab waging of it. Mr. Levy and his colleagues have a warped view of ethics, based on self-hatred and a nonsensical view of the Arabs. Although they are pathetic, their treason is influential, because the almost monolithic Israeli media censors the news, covers for government illegality, and shames advocacy for Jewish national interests instead of for terrorists. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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TERRORISTS FLOWING IN AT RAFAH BORDER
Posted by Marlene Young, February 8, 2006. |
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This is from today's Haaretz (www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/680116.html). It's called "Israel has little say at Rafah crossing," and is by Amos Harel, Haaretz correspondent. The deal Israel reached with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt on operating the Rafah border terminal does not allow Israel to prevent the entrance of terrorists from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, a Haaretz investigation has revealed. Senior security officials confirmed that, despite the security establishment's official statements to the contrary, Israel has virtually no say in who crosses the border. The Rafah agreement stipulates that Israel cannot prevent Palestinians from leaving Gaza, but has veto power over those who enter the Strip. European monitors stationed at the terminal can prevent people from entering if Israel provides security information they consider sufficiently solid. Israel is supposed to monitor non-Gaza residents, who are meant to enter through the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing. However, the Kerem Shalom crossing is not in use and the arrangement at the Rafah crossing does not allow for real monitoring. Israeli supervision relies on a list of entrants supplied by the Palestinians and video footage from the terminal. But the lists are sent to the Israelis only a short time before the Palestinians cross into Gaza, allowing little time to check for blacklisted names. In addition, the pictures are generally small and too blurry to allow for identification and before a recent accession to an Israeli demand that the images be transmitted in real time, the pictures would arrive 15 minutes after being taken. "Our people have a few minutes to link a low-quality picture with a name that might ring a warning bell. In general, there isn't enough time to check with experts at Shin Bet headquarters," said a senior security official. "Even if [the security officer on duty] turns to the Europeans, it's not certain they'll have a chance to do anything. The bottom line is that the security effectiveness of this arrangement is close to zero." In practice, this means terrorists can pass through the terminal unhindered. Indeed, not a single Palestinian has been stopped at the border since the Rafah agreement was reached in mid-November. "There is a basic clash of interests that is difficult to bridge," a defense official said. "Israel is looking for an arrangement of maximum security. The Palestinian, Egyptian and European goal is to allow as much of a free flow of citizens as possible." U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed through the Rafah deal, and the many reservations security officials had been pointing out for two months were set aside in two days of intensive talks. The Bush administration needed a victory, and Rice told Israeli negotiation officials there was no more time for games. About a month ago, when embittered Fatah activists bulldozed their way through the wall at the Rafah terminal, Israel complained. But the situation is not much better today, even though the hole in the wall has been sealed Contact Marlene Young at marleneyoung1@yahoo.com |
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SOME OF THOSE CARTOONS WERE INVENTED BY THE ISLAMISTS
Posted by Steven Plaut, February 8, 2006. |
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1. Here is an interesting story from the Wall Street Journal: "What do you think about the statement that a woman has to obey her husband and that he can beat her if she disobeys him?" "Some people say the Jews are the source of all evil and that they are even behind the 9/11 attacks in New York. What do you think about such assertions?" 'These are just a couple of the 30 questions immigrants may have to answer as of this year if they want to attain German citizenship in the state of Baden-W.rttemberg. The "wrong" answer might cost them the right to a German passport.' (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113891848772563711.html ) Maybe the Germans are on to something! Wouldn't it make sense for Israel and the US also to ask people if they think that Dem Joos were really behind the 9-11 attacks and then strip anyone answering "yes" of their citizenship? Oh, and lest anyone accuse me of proposing to use this idea only against Moslems, I actually would begin by using it against conspiracists, including the Fifth Teletubby -- who claims that Shimon Peres murdered Rabin and used Yigal Amir as a patsy, and who also claims the Mossad was involved in the 9-11 attacks, given how the Mossad is controlled by the CFR Illuminati together with the UFOs and all! 2. Cartoons are NOT prohibited in Islam says Taheri: Amir Taheri
"The Muslim Fury," one newspaper headline screamed. "The rage of Islam sweeps Europe," said another. "The clash of civilizations is coming," warned one commentator. All this refers to the row provoked by the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper four months ago. Since then a number of demonstrations have been held, mostly -- though not exclusively -- in the West, and Scandinavian embassies and consulates have been besieged. But how representative of Islam are all those demonstrators? The "rage machine" was set in motion when the Muslim Brotherhood -- a political, not a religious, organization -- called on sympathizers in the Middle East and Europe to take the field. A fatwa was issued by Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Brotherhood sheikh with his own program on al-Jazeera. Not to be left behind, the Brotherhood's rivals, Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party) and the Movement of the Exiles (Ghuraba), joined the fray. Believing that there might be something in it for themselves, the Syrian Baathist leaders abandoned their party's 60-year-old secular pretensions and organized attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and Beirut. The Muslim Brotherhood's position, put by one of its younger militants, Tariq Ramadan -- who is, strangely enough, also an adviser to the British home secretary -- can be summed up as follows: It is against Islamic principles to represent by imagery not only Muhammad but all the prophets of Islam; and the Muslim world is not used to laughing at religion. Both claims, however, are false. There is no Quranic injunction against images, whether of Muhammad or anyone else. When it spread into the Levant, Islam came into contact with a version of Christianity that was militantly iconoclastic. As a result some Muslim theologians, at a time when Islam still had an organic theology, issued "fatwas" against any depiction of the Godhead. That position was further buttressed by the fact that Islam acknowledges the Jewish Ten Commandments -- which include a ban on depicting God -- as part of its heritage. The issue has never been decided one way or another, and the claim that a ban on images is "an absolute principle of Islam" is purely political. Islam has only one absolute principle: the Oneness of God. Trying to invent other absolutes is, from the point of view of Islamic theology, nothing but sherk, i.e., the bestowal on the Many of the attributes of the One. 3. Some of those "Cartoons" Were fakes, invented Chamish-style by the Islamofascists: (http://antiprotester.blogspot.com/2006/02/ some-mohammed-cartoons-were-faked.html) Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or contact him by email at stevenplaut@yahoo.com. |
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CHRIS MCGEAL ON ISRAEL'S "APARTHEID"
Posted by Jock Falkson, February 8, 2006. |
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The Editor
re: Chris McGreal on Israel's "Apartheid" Sir: The practical aspects of South African apartheid are totally inapplicable to Israel. Examples:
Israel has no color or racial problem. We brought in some 70,000 Black Jews and plan to absorb 30,000 more. The apartheid boot is entirely on the other foot. Unlike the Judenrein Arab countries the Jewish State does not practice such apartheid. Arabs can do everything in Israel which non-whites in South Africa could not. Yours truly
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