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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: POPPIES IN THE JORDAN VALLEY
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, May 31, 2010. |
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This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Anyone who observes me shooting at a simcha will often see me holding my camera hip high or resting it on a tabletop or on the floor, all while continuing to shoot the action. With automatic focus, I need only worry that my zoom is wide enough to encompass the entire subject area. A little practice makes perfect, but what I like about this technique is that the bugs-eye-view camera angle injects novelty and energy into subjects normally only seen from six feet above the ground. To get this shot of poppies growing in the Jordan Valley, I lay down on my belly and positioned the camera on a rock about five inches off the ground. Years ago I would have ripped out the foreground grass, preferring an unblemished view to my subject. Nowadays, I prefer to leave nature alone and record everything that the camera sees. The blurred foreground — which resulted from the blades of grass rocking in the wind — adds depth to the photo and creates the painterly effect I find so pleasing in many landscapes. It really did look that way, but you can only find it by "lowering" yourself to a new standard of shooting. Technical Data: Nikon D300, 28-105 zoom at 48 mm, f6.3 at 1/800 sec.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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FANCY RESTAURANTS AND OLYMPIC-SIZE POOLS: WHAT THE MEDIA WON'T REPORT ABOUT GAZA
Posted by Yaacov Levi, May 31, 2010. |
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This was written by Tom Gross, who is a former Middle East correspondent for the London Sunday
Telegraph and the New York Daily News.
This article appeared in the National Post (UK)
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In recent days, the international media, particularly in Europe and the Mideast, has been full of stories about "activist boats sailing to Gaza carrying desperately-needed humanitarian aid and building materials." The BBC World Service even led its world news broadcasts with this story at one point over the weekend. (The BBC yesterday boasted that its global news audience has now risen to 220 million persons a week, making it by far the biggest news broadcaster in the world.) Indeed the BBC and other prominent Western media regularly lead their viewers and readers astray with accounts of a non-existent "mass humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza. What they won't tell you about are the fancy new restaurants and swimming pools of Gaza, or about the wind surfing competitions on Gaza beaches, or the Strip's crowded shops and markets. Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live a middle class (and in some cases an upper class) lifestyle that western journalists refuse to report on because it doesn't fit with the simplistic story they were sent to write. Here, courtesy of the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, is a report on Gaza's new Olympic-sized swimming pool.[1] (Most Israeli towns don't have Olympic-size swimming pools. One wonders how an area that claims to be starved of water and building materials and depends on humanitarian aid builds an Olympic size swimming pool and creates a luxury lifestyle for some while others are forced to live in abject poverty as political pawn refugees?) If you pop into the Roots Club in Gaza, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, you can "dine on steak au poivre and chicken cordon bleu". The restaurant's website[2] in Arabic gives a window into middle class dining and the lifestyle of Hamas officials in Gaza. And here it is in English, for all the journalists, UN types and NGO staff who regularly frequent this and other nice Gaza restaurants (but don't tell their readers about them). And here is a promotional video of the club[3] restaurant. In case anyone doubts the authenticity of this video, I just called the club in Gaza City and had a nice chat with the manager who proudly confirmed business is booming and many Palestinians and international guests are dining there. In a piece[4] for The Wall Street Journal last year, I documented the "after effects" of a previous "emergency Gaza boat flotilla," when the arrivals were seen afterwards purchasing souvenirs in well-stocked shops. (You can also scroll down here[5] for more pictures of Gaza's "impoverished" shops.) But the mainstream liberal international media won't report on any of this. Playing the manipulative game of the BBC is easy: if we had their vast taxpayer funded resources, we too could produce reports about parts of London, Manchester and Glasgow and make it look as though there is a humanitarian catastrophe throughout the UK. We could produce the same effect by selectively filming seedy parts of Paris and Rome and New York and Los Angeles too. Of course there is poverty in Gaza. There is poverty in parts of Israel too. (When was the last time a foreign journalist based in Israel left the pampered lounge bars and restaurants of the King David and American Colony hotels in Jerusalem and went to check out the slum-like areas of southern Tel Aviv? Or the hard-hit Negev towns of Netivot or Rahat?) But the way that many prominent Western news media are deliberately misleading global audiences and systematically creating the false impression that people are somehow starving in Gaza, and that it is all Israel's fault, can only serve to increase hatred for the Jewish state — which one suspects was the goal of many of the editors and reporters involved in the first place. Footnotes [1] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ ViewDetails.aspx?ID=285242 [2] http://www.rootsclub.ps/services-ar.php [3] http://www.rootsclub.ps/index.php [4] http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ mideastdispatches/archives/001072.html [5] http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ mideastdispatches/archives/000973.html
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THE REAL TRAITORS
Posted by Khaled Abu Toameh, May 31, 2010. |
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The former PLO "ambassador" to Australia, Ali Kazak, believes that an Arab journalist who writes about financial corruption and theft in the Palestinian Authority is a "traitor" who should be murdered the same way as collaborators were killed by the French Resistance. Kazak told the newspaper, The Australian: "Khaled Abu Toameh is a traitor. Traitors were also murdered by the French Resistance, in Europe; this happens everywhere." Asked why he calls the journalist a traitor, the former PLO representative, who lives in Australia, explained: "Palestinians are the victims. He shouldn't write about them, he should write about the crimes of the Israelis." Kazak's threat does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the methods used by Arab dictatorships to silence anyone who dares to demand reforms and transparency. The threat reminds journalists like me how lucky we are that we live in Israel and not under the jurisdiction of the PLO or Hamas. We are also fortunate that Kazak and his radical supporters are sitting far away in Australia and not in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where they would be lining up journalists and critics against the wall and shooting them like the "traitors who were murdered by the French Resistance." The PLO, like most of the Arab dictatorships, has a long history of targeting journalists who refuse to "toe the line." This clampdown is one of the main reasons why the Palestinian media is still far from being independent and free. One of the first things the PLO did when it entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994 was to wage a campaign of intimidation and terror against Palestinian reporters and editors. Another photographer had his two arms broken by members of Fatah's armed wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, apparently after he had been heard bad-mouthing senior officials associated with Arafat. A photographer who took a picture of a donkey strolling along the beach of Gaza City was arrested and beaten by Palestinian security agents on charges of "defaming the Palestinian cause" by distributing a picture of the animal instead of documenting the "suffering" of his people. A newspaper editor who failed to publish a story about Yasser Arafat on the front page of his newspaper found himself thrown into a Jericho prison for a week. The offices of a newspaper in east Jerusalem were torched after the editor published an editorial denouncing financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The director-general of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation was gunned down in Gaza City, and it's widely believed that Arafat had ordered the assassination. Earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority leadership instructed all Palestinian journalists and editors to refrain from publishing allegations of rampant corruption made by Fahmi Shabaneh, the former head of the anti-corruption department in the Palestinian security forces. The absence of a free and independent media in the Palestinian territories has driven many Palestinians to seek work in the Western media, including Israeli newspapers and radio and TV stations. But Kazak thinks that it is not enough that these journalists have been forced out of their own media. Now he wants to see them being murdered for working for writing about one of the most significant problem facing the Palestinians: financial corruption and bad government. Kazak needs to be reminded that the party he claims to represent lost the January 2006 parliamentary election largely due to its failure to combat corruption. The real traitors are those who established another corrupt dictatorship in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and stole billions of dollars of international aid that was supposed to improve the living conditions of their people. The real traitors are those who built a casino for the Palestinians instead of building them a hospital and a school. The real traitors are those who are trying to silence journalists and reformists who want to see a better life for their people. Khaled Abu Toameh is a writer for the Jerusalem Post. He is also
with the Hudson Institute-New York).
Hudson. This article is archived at
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THE TERROR FINANCE FLOTILLA
Posted by Jonathan Schanzer, May 31, 2010. |
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The convoy of ships allegedly trying to bring aid to the Gaza Strip was organized by a group belonging to an officially designated terrorist organization. The Turkish organizers of the Gaza Strip-bound flotilla that was boarded this morning by Israeli commandos knew well in advance that their vessels would never reach Israeli waters. That's because the organizers belong to a nonprofit that was banned by the Israeli government in July 2008 for its ties to terrorism finance. The Turkish IHH (Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi in Turkish) was founded in 1992, and reportedly popped up on the CIA's radar in 1996 for its radical Islamist leanings. Like many other Islamist charities, the IHH has a record of providing relief to areas where disaster has struck in the Muslim world. However, the organization is not a force for good. The Turkish nonprofit belongs to a Saudi-based umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). Notably, the Union is chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is known best for his religious ruling that encourages suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. According to one report, Qardawi personally transferred millions of dollars to the Union in an effort to provide financial support to Hamas. In 2008, the Israelis banned IHH, along with 35 other Islamist charities worldwide, for its ties to the Union of Good. This was a follow-on designation; Israelis first blocked the Union of Good from operating in the West Bank and Gaza in 2002. Interestingly, the Union of Good may not only be tied to Hamas. Included in the Israeli list of 36 designees was the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). In 2006, both the U.S. government and the United Nations designated the IIRO branch offices in Indonesia and the Philippines for financing al Qaeda. French magistrate Jean-Louis Brougiere also testified that IHH had an "important role" in Ahmed Ressam's failed "millennium plot" to bomb the Los Angeles airport in late 1999. The U.S. government, it should be noted, also views the Union of Good as a terrorist organization. On November 12, 2008, a press release from the U.S. Treasury announced the umbrella group's leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), stating that the group was "created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to the terrorist organization." "Terrorist groups such as Hamas continue to exploit charities to radicalize vulnerable communities and cultivate support for their violent activities," said Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey. According to Treasury, Hamas's leadership actually created the Union of Good in 2000 — just after the launch of the armed campaign against Israel — as a means to transfer funds to Hamas. At the time of designation in 2008, the Treasury believed that the Union of Good was transferring "tens of millions of dollars a year" to Hamas-controlled entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As the Treasury release explained, "The Union of Good acts as a broker for Hamas by facilitating financial transfers between a web of charitable organizations — including several organizations previously designated... for providing support to Hamas — and Hamas-controlled organizations in the West Bank and Gaza. The primary purpose of this activity is to strengthen Hamas' political and military position in the West Bank and Gaza." It gets worse. The Treasury, drawing from declassified documents, stated unequivocally that the Union of Good "compensated Hamas terrorists by providing payments to the families of suicide bombers. One of [the charities], the Al-Salah Society, previously identified as a key support node for Hamas, was designated in August 2007... The Society employed a number of members of the Hamas military wing and supported Hamas-affiliated combatants during the first Intifada." Then there's the leadership. Apart from the aforementioned Qardawi, Union of Good's top officials include Hamas members, as well as Yemeni national Abd al-Majid al-Zindani, who was designated by the U.S. Treasury as a terrorist in 2004 for providing support to al Qaeda. Thus, the convoy of ships allegedly trying to bring aid to the Gaza Strip could never be characterized as a "peace flotilla." With ties to Hamas and other dangers groups, the IHH can only be described as a dangerous organization. Its members only underscored this fact when they attacked Israeli naval personnel with iron bars and knives, ultimately leading to the regrettable deaths this morning on the Mediterranean Sea. Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism analyst for the U.S. Treasury Department, is director of policy for the Jewish Policy Center and author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine. Contact him at js@defenddemocracy.org This article appeared today in The Weekly Standard (online). |
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CJHS DEMANDS ANSWERS FROM TURKEY OVER VIOLENT PRO-HAMAS GAZA FLOTILLA
Posted by Doris Wise Montrose, May 31, 2010. |
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This was written by Omri Ceren (omri@cjhsla.org). |
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Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors is calling on the Obama administration to demand answers from the government of Turkey regarding Ankara's role in supplying the Gaza Flotilla that yesterday violently clashed with America's ally Israel. The group of six ships departed from Turkey and attempted to violate Israel's internationally-recognized blockade on the Gaza Strip, the territory controlled by Iranian-backed Hamas Islamists who have repeatedly pledged to wipe out the Jewish State. Israel offered to allow the group to unload its ostensibly humanitarian cargo at the Israeli port of Ashdod, after which the goods would be inspected for weapons and sent to Gaza via overland routes. When the fleet explicitly declared its intention to run the blockade, they were intercepted and stopped by the Israeli Navy. The ostensibly non-violent group of activists and militants then attacked the Israelis with knives and clubs, stabbing at least one soldier in the stomach. A firefight erupted after the gun of another Israeli soldier was torn from his hands and turned on the rest of the Israeli contingent. As of this morning dozens are reported wounded or killed, from both sides. "Turkey is supposed to be one of our NATO allies, and President Obama has gone out of his way not to offend the Turkish people or the Erdogan government," said Doris Montrose, President and founder of the Los Angeles-based non-profit. "But here we have Turkey inciting anti-Israel violence, supplying anti-Israel thugs, and then spearheading an international campaign to completely delegitimize the Jewish State." Montrose added: "now is not the time for the White House's famed delicate touch, which has already pushed Turkey into the Iranian orbit and away from America and the West. Over the last year we've seen an erosion of US power and influence across the Middle East, not least of all because this administration refuses to back our actual allies and call out our genuine enemies." "Turkey's ambassador recently returned to DC after a month-long snit over the House's Armenian genocide resolution. If President Obama is truly a friend of Israel, the Ambassador will be spending today providing 'clarifications' as to why his government is providing succor to genocidal enemies of our ally Israel." CJHS grounds its mission in the core insistence that the last Holocaust imposes upon all people of good will a moral and political imperative to prevent the next one. It works to bring public awareness to the diplomatic, geopolitical, and military dynamics that threaten the American way of life, the existence of the Jewish State, and the freedom of all Westerners. Find out more at www.cjhsla.org. Doris Wise Montrose is with Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. Contact her at doris@cjhsla.org. |
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RE ARAB SEA INVADERS
Posted by Paul Lademain, May 31, 2010. |
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To: CNN International Online News Editor Leave it to CNN to commit agit-prop on behalf of the arab invaders. We fault Ted Turner and his poodle, Jimmy Carter, for fomenting war in the Middle East. You men DO know better than to scapegoat Israel while burying the crimes of your dear Saudi/UAE operatives under a cloak of Ted Turner's lies. You should understand that all decent people hold your editors and publishers responsible for the crimes committed by that thankfully dead Egyptian terrorist — Yasser Arafat — who was lionized by his poodle and your mouth-piece, Christianne Amanpour. We know the law, thanks to Prof. Howard Grief, and we support Israel should it succeed in retrieving all the land you people helped the Britz and their arabists steal from Jewish Palestine. And yes, we are proof that one need not be Jewish to support Israel. We are the Secular Christians for Zion and we say: Decent people want to know how Ireland would respond were it attacked by a flotilla of pothead-insurrectionists and known terrorists such as those attempting to attack Israel. Israel is in the right and a thousand euroid complaints cannot prove it wrong. These swinish invaders should be repeatedly reminded how much they deserve the very same fate urged for Jews by that thankfully-dead bloody Egyptian terrorist, Yasser Arafat. The law in on Israel's side. Israel has every right to retake Gaza despite Olmert's dreadful faux pas. BTW — Suha Arafat would make great fish bait. Is she aboard? Victoire and the SC4Z
To: Editor, USA Today Editor: Your reporting about the so-called 'aid' to Gaza invasion is utterly shameful. We ask you to carefully study what Ireland would do were it invaded by British NGOs intent on using charity as a cover for attacking Irish women and children. What would Ireland do? Study that! Now consider what Bahrain would do were it invaded by Iranian NGOs professing to bring aid to its indentured foreign servants. What would Bahrain do? Study that! The most productive thing you could do for world peace is to study Prof. Howard Grief's seminal treatise on international law. The title of his book is: A Treatise on Jewish Sovereignty over the Land of Israel — The Legal Foundation and Borders of israel under International Law. The Boundaries agreed to per the San Remo Resolution still hold and the US and Europe remain bound by international law to aid and support Israel and help Israel restore the lands of Israel (then commonly known as Jewish Palestine) that are encompassed by the boundaries established in 1920. These regions consist of what the British press calls the Gaza Strip; they include most of the Golan Heights, and all of the land you people wrongly refer to as "the West Bank" — and most what later became the new state of Jordan. Now, doesn't this help you understand why the arabs are desperate to go on the offensive and to do so thru false propaganda, invasion, and concerted lies? Doesn't this help you understand why the arab states multiply like cancer cells in order to rule UN policy-making? Doesn't this help you understand why the Saudis purchased controlling shares in Time Warner and other US media outlets? It makes not one whit of difference that the British gave the lands of Jewish Palestine to the Hashemite royals. Their acts can be set aside because they acted beyond their authority. They are ultra vires ab initio. That is, irremediably Illegal. What they did is not legally binding. In fact, whoever sponsored the divestment of Israel's lands could and should be prosecuted for violating international law. The lands wrongly severed from israel must either be restored to Israel, or else, if Israel agrees, confirmed by proper procedure to the arabs currently occupying the new state of Jordan — arabs who were allowed to call themselves 'palestinian' not only by the self-serving Saudis (who gifted millions to certain well known members of the US State Dept. to conspire with the arab invaders to violate international law) but by the British as well, who use carefully crafted propaganda to conceal their criminal activities during their mandate over the region that encompassed the Jewish Homeland, then known as Palestine. Ask yourselves what would happen should Saudi Arabia succeed in in quest to destroy Israel and seize control over Israel's land. Do you suppose the French would sit idly by? Or would they continue to nudge the US out of the Mediterranean and Europe and move in to fill the void with the French military-industrial complex. Ever consider that? Or the conflict that would arise between the UK and France? Ever since the Clinton Administration sponsored the consolidation of the US media, our news reports have been filtered by Reuters and the Associated Press and twisted and shaped and massaged to serve the political ambitions of the few (most of them foreign) at the expense of the American taxpayer who has been forced by the follies of the US State Dept. to underwrite America's destruction. We already have BHusseinO telling us that we should accept that the US will eventually become a second-rate "power". How prescient of him! We are taking note of Israel's valiant defense against the concerted thievery sponsored by the UN because we just might have to emulate Israel should your misbegotten editorials incite an "NGO" invasion of the US of A. If that sorry day comes to pass, you people will be worth less than the rats who crawl to the top of the rigging while their ships sinks due to the holes they chewed in the hull. Viva Israel from the Secular Christians for Zion. Paul Lademain is a Secular Christian for Zion (SC4Z). Contact him by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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ISRAEL SECULAR MIRACLE
Posted by Daily Alert, May 31, 2010. | |
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This was written by Bernard-Henri Levy.
It appeared today in Ynet and is archived at
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At Tel Aviv conference, Jewish-French philosopher lauds IDF morals, calls Israel 'island of democracy where dictatorships rule'. Referring to the IDF, Jewish-French writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said, "Much can and should be learned from Israel." Addressing the French-Israeli conference on democracy in Tel Aviv Sunday, Levy said, "I've covered many wars, and I've never seen an army that asks itself so many questions related to morals." As for Israel's status in the international community, the French philosopher said, "There is a demonization campaign against Israel all over the world. "In a region where dictatorships and truly fascist regimes rule, Israel represents an island of democracy. Zionism is the only movement that has not failed and turned into a caricature. It is the only movement that has preserved its spirit," he told the conference. "Israel is a miracle because since its inception it has been in a constant state of war, yet it never gave up on the democratic values at its core," according to Levy. He added, "Democracy was created (in Israel) out of nothing. People had no experience in democracy, but through willpower and a miracle, they invented a functioning democracy. Israel is proof that democracy does not require time. In France a newspaper was shut down every two weeks during the war in Algeria." Levy also praised the Israeli government's treatment of the Arab minority during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, adding that Arab-Israel villages he had visited during the war "were on the brink of explosion." "I am not certain that (governments in other countries) would have acted the same. I remember a terrible atmosphere and my admiration of the Israeli authorities' level-headed conduct. Israel represents a secular miracle," he said. The renowned philosopher also said democracy was a Jewish idea. "The Talmud is democracy in practice. The Jewish nation invented the notion that the truth lies in the most heated argument," he said.
The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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FROM ISRAEL: WE STOOD STRONG
Posted by Arlene Kushner, May 31, 2010. |
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It was inevitable, as things were going with the "flotilla" — for us there was no choice. And so I am enormously grateful that we stood our ground. Had we backed down in the face of extreme provocation that ultimately became physical attack, it would have been horrendous. A summary of events: Six boats were in the flotilla — two carried people and the rest supplies. During the night our Navy sent them multiple messages urging that confrontation be avoided. They were asked to return to Cyprus or re-route to Ashdod for unloading of the humanitarian supplies, but the "activists" on board rejected all offers. One boat — the Marma — carrying 600 people, was most problematic in its response. Yesterday, Al Jazeerah documented the cries of people on that boat: "Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!" Explains Palestinian Media Watch, this is a reference to "Khaibar...the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad's army in 628. Many Jews were killed in that battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see that as a precursor for future wars against Jews. At gatherings and rallies of extremists, this chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims." PMW put out the Al Jazeerah video report on its website:
See it, please! Save it and share it very broadly. It tells the story of what we faced more vividly than anything else. Most incredible was the statement of one Arab woman present: "Right now we face one of two happy endings: either Martyrdom or reaching Gaza." Hardly the statement of a humanitarian activist eager to supply food to hungry Gazans. This is the statement of a jihad extremist. Make no mistake about it. ~~~~~~~~~~ At about 3 AM, Navy commandos, trained and prepared for this, boarded the boat. They were met with premeditated violence. The IDF called it an attempted lynching. Those on board had weapons — guns, knives, iron bars, bats, clubs, slingshots with marbles — and attacked. In two instances, "peaceful activists" pulled the guns from our soldiers and began shooting. One soldier was beaten to the floor of the ship and pummeled, another was knifed in the stomach. As chaos ensued, our soldiers had no choice but to respond with fire — something they had hoped to avoid doing. In light of the circumstances, their response was controlled, and they have since been praised by their superiors for their proper action. In the end, seven of our soldiers were wounded, two seriously. Some ten people on the boat were killed. I have no information on who they were, but there was a large contingent of Turks among these fighters — the Turks, after all, were instrumental in the planning of this flotilla. ~~~~~~~~~~ "Live fire was used against our forces. They initiated the violence, that's 100% clear," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Prime Minister's office. Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed regret for the loss of life, but said that the flotilla was a provocation sponsored by extremists who support a terrorist organization. Indeed this is the case: The flotilla was organized by IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi - "humanitarian relief fund"), a Turkish aid foundation which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and global jihadi networks, as well as mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. It openly supports Hamas; members of Hamas had boarded boats at the Gaza coast and were waiting to "receive" the flotilla. ~~~~~~~~~~ At his press conference this morning, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said: "I want to report this morning that the armada of hate and violence in support of the Hamas terror organization was a premeditated and outrageous provocation. The organizers are well known for their ties with global Jihad, Al-Qaeda and Hamas. They have a history of arms smuggling and deadly terror. On board the ship we found weapons — prepared in advance and used against our forces. ~~~~~~~~~~ Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, on TV this evening, said, "Israel is a sovereign state and cannot accept the undermining of its sovereignty. Israel has stopped ships in international waters before and when ships refuse to accede to warnings and obey instructions, we have the right to board them under international law." (emphasis added) Additionally, he noted that passengers on board the ship "were not peace activists but terror supporters." ~~~~~~~~~~ Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was in Canada when this transpired, is on his way home. He has communicated to President Obama the impossibility of meeting him right now. Said Netanyahu, "Our soldiers acted in self defense": "I think both Prime Minister Harper and President Obama understand that Israel has a great security problem and I want to put that into context. The context is that Gaza has become a base for Hamas terrorists backed by Iran. They have fired thousands of rockets into Israel. They are amassing thousands more rockets to fire at our cities, at our towns, at our children. ~~~~~~~~~~ The ships have been brought to Ashdod. The "activists" will be either deported or arrested, and the wounded will be treated. The cargo of the ships will be unloaded and examined, and genuine humanitarian aid will be sent through crossings to the people of Gaza. Undoubtedly I will have more on this tomorrow. ~~~~~~~~~~ What is of enormous significance now is that each of you reading this should understand precisely what went on, what the true motivations and actions of those on the ship were — and what Israel's concerns and rights in the matter are. That we are going to take heat, big-time, is a given now. We'll hear, of course, from Turkey, the UN, Arab nations, etc., and likely some European nations as well. Each of us best serves Israel now by spreading this information at every turn, as broadly as you possibly can. I think you have what you need with the information above. Please use it. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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VIDEOS PROVE ISRAELIS WERE ATTACKED BY "GAZA FREEDOM FLOTILLA" BEFORE OPENING FIRE
Posted by Ron Mossad, May 31, 2010. |
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Do NOT believe the hype. This was NOT a "peace mission" by any stretch of the imagination. Please send out this video: ronmossad.cnn.10dead." Please share with your friends/readers as we can be sure that all of us are going to get angry questions from the misinformed public. |
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10 dead as Israeli forces storm "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" after soldier stabbed by peace activist Here's a great idea, why doesn't Turkey send a bunch of angry, Israel-hating "peace-activists" — armed with knives, axes and cudgels — to force a confrontation with the Israeli Coast Guard in what they bill as a "humanitarian mission" to break the "seige" of Gaza. What could go wrong? (CNN) — International condemnation poured in Monday after Israeli soldiers stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid intended for Palestinians in Gaza, leaving at least 10 people dead in the resulting violence. Jackpot! More negative PR for Israel? Check. Jews supporting their enemies, thereby contributing to their own demise? Check. Demands from Hamas terrorists that the world rally to support their extremist dictatorship that steals from its own population and conducts attacks where it deliberately murders Israeli and Palestinian civilians? THAT'S a big check! European rush to support these terrorists and prove yet again they learned nothing in the 40's by blaming the Jews as usual? Chickity check check check! Angry protests from clueless college students? Oh wait, nevermind it's Memorial Day — they're all at the beach or still drunk from the night before! You'll notice by the way that the CNN article I quoted didn't mention anything about the Israeli soldier being stabbed repeatedly by one of these idiots, only this "Israeli military version" (Translation: PROPAGANDA) that included one quote and 2 out of 7 paragraphs talked about the dead activists and THEIR side of the account. Apparently CNN doesn't have anyone that watches the news in Israel because the stabbing was all over the place this morning over there. The video, short as it may be actually tells us a lot about the incident. Aside from the fact that this guy stabs the soldier what seems like 100 times you'll notice that there was no gun being fired and the stabber had enough freedom of movement to get behind the soldier in order to stab him. This suggests one of two things: 1. This happened AFTER the initial raid/attack by the Israeli military during which, after opening fire on the ship, they inexplicably did not restrain and subdue the crew and passengers nor did they apparently search them for massive daggers before turning their backs to them. For this scenario to be accurate, the stabber would have witnessed at least some of his friends being shot and still decided to forfeit his life by attempting to single-handedly defeat a heavily-armed commando unit with nothing more than a knife of his own. OR 2. The stabbing occurred BEFORE the Israelis opened fire, which is what prompted the soldiers — who no doubt had been taunted and threatened endlessly by the "peace activists" before boarding — to open fire in self defense.  Flotilla "Peace Activist" (photo from jpost.com) My guess is that it's option 2. Oh what's that you say, you're still unconvinced? Just WAIT — there's more! Here IS ACTUAL VIDEO from the time the FIRST SOLDIER was lowered onto the ship: You can see VERY CLEARLY that as SOON as the commando rappels down from the helicopter he is IMMEDIATELY surrounded and attacked in what several of the Israelis who were part of the operation referred to as a "lynching" — going so far as to compare it to the Ramallah lynching of two Israelis in 2000. Furthermore, the
Israeli Navy warned the flotilla to turn around — going to far as to
offer an escort to the Israeli port city of Ashdod where they would be
allowed to offload their materials and deliver them to Gaza by land as
literally hundreds of thousands of tons of aid have been delivered in
the past three years. In fact, after the commando operation — that's
EXACTLY
what happened. Oh and I should also add that along with Israelis
injured in the attack, their enemies who attacked them were ALSO
airlifted to Israeli hospitals and treated by the same doctors who
treated the soldiers. And the IDF is barbaric?! Unbelievable! But you see, this was no "peace" mission. It was a trap for the Israelis. Once more the "plight of the Palestinians" has been used to delegitimize Israel and support terrorism. And you're all falling for it. UPDATE: More coming in now from eyewitness accounts embedded with the Israeli commando unit — definitely mirrors what we saw in the second video. From the YNet: Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back. Paintball rifles!! You have to read the rest of that article, it's shocking. UPDATE 2: Again, please note that this is PRIOR to any shots being fired. UPDATE 3: More video of the "peace activists" emerging
from even before any encounter with the Israeli Navy shows what is
basically a Hamas terrorist rally happening right on the boats. Martyrdom, the "army of Muhammad" — wow these guys are just the pinnacle of peaceful coexistence. How are we letting the media spin this the way they are?! UPDATE 4: One of the assertions all over the media is that because this raid occurred in international waters it somehow illegitimate or worse an act of "piracy." As if. Unfortunately for the Gaza Flotilla supporters, the ACTUAL laws of international waterways do not support this AT ALL. Also unfortunate for them is that Yaakov over at newsvine.com has entirely dispelled this myth that Israel had no right to do what it did based on the location of the boats. From the article: I direct your attention to the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea. Specifically, paragraph 67-68: Hmmmm. Breaching a blockade? Refusing to stop after being warned prior? Resisting visit, search or capture? I'm not international law expert, but would you say that based on what we saw in the videos above that the actions of the people on the boat would constitute "clearly resisting" a search?? Based on the law, Israel would have not only been justified in boarding the ship which was CLEARLY suspected on reasonable grounds of carrying contraband (being that they refused inspection by the nation that still maintains responsibility for the territory they sought to enter), they would have actually been justified in attacking the ships and sinking them entirely. It is only because they showed immense restraint that no other country ever would that this did not happen. And yet, we are allowing ourselves to be painted as aggressors, as oppressors and as persecutors when it is we who are actually being persecuted. The fact that I have to contend with JEWS who
parrot these ridiculous assertions just shows you how deeply ingrained
our need
to self-deprecate in order to please our not-so-gracious host
countries really is. Disgraceful to say the least.
Contact Ron Mossad by email at ronmossad@gmail.com
and visit the website: www.ronmossad.blogspot.com
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INTL CRIMINAL COURT TO PROSECUTE 'AGGRESSION'?; ISRAELIS ON GAZA TUNNELS; US STANDING WITH ARABS DECLINING
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 31, 2010. |
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INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT TO PROSECUTE 'AGGRESSION?' More than a hundred governments and NGOs are meeting to consider expanding international law. Chief topic is whether to give the International Criminal Court power to prosecute "aggression" as a crime. That would add to the Court's power to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Would this new rule outlaw pre-emptive strikes for defense, or just invasions? Some governments are afraid that the court would enter a morass of politics. Members of the Security Council fear this change would dilute the Council. Another objection is that the Court, which started in 2002, has heard only 2 cases so far. Let it consolidate its ability to handle what already is in its jurisdiction. Temporary tribunals have handled cases that otherwise might have been handled by the Court. A great difficulty would lay in defining aggression, which a previous attempt failed to do. Another proposal is to ban weapons that cause more suffering than other weapons, in domestic problems and crowd control (Marlise Simons, New York Times, 5/31, A7). Other difficulties of such a proposal are that the world is polarized ideologically and politically. Some ideologies are unfair and dishonest. For example, the Arabs consider Israel's self-defense "aggression" and Arab aggression "self-defense." For reasons of economics, ideology, politics, and prejudice, people went along with the Goldstone report. The report turned reality upside down, as my articles have demonstrated. Like the UN, itself, an international court cannot be trusted. Liberals need to learn that just wanting a law to accomplish a certain result does not by itself accomplish it. Laws have unintended consequences. Implementation can be unfair.
ISRAELIS ON GAZA INFILTRATION TUNNELS Israelis were polled about the continued digging of tunnels in Gaza, for the purpose of infiltrating terrorists into Israel. People were asked whether they approve of: (1) Existing IDF policy of noting the location of such tunnels and bombing them only as retaliation after terrorists have fired rockets into Israel; or (2) Send in forces to destroy all such tunnels and make known that hereafter, they will be destroyed as soon as identified. 20% chose (1) and 67% chose (2) (IMRA, 5/30). ISRAELI-BUILT HIGHWAY RE-OPENS TO ARAB TRAFFIC 
Controversial Highway 443 re-opened to Arab traffic. People expected traffic jams. There was little Arab traffic. Just 13 cars tried to use it. There were more reporters and Israeli soldiers than Arabs in the cars. Arabs said that it didn't pay to wait to be inspected and use the few kilometers available, only to be diverted off it before they could reach their destination. The first one using it complained at being inspected, though terrorists have mingled with the general public before, on that highway IMRA, 5/30). Between the court's sympathy for Arab travelers and the government's need to protect against terrorism, the change appears to have been minor. It was not the great reform hailed by the plaintiffs.
U.S. STANDING AMONG ARABS IS DECLINING Daniel Pipes reviews three years of polls of U.S. standing among Arabs and Americans. Obama entered office with high hopes of winning Arab approval. His ratings have risen and then fallen. The most recent poll confirms a downward trend, though opinion in Egypt, on that downward slant, still is higher than it was in 2008. In Egypt, it still is 69%. In four other Arab areas, it varies from 16% to 30% (5/29/10) During the election campaign, Democrats complained most of all about foreign disapproval of the U.S.. They anticipated that Obama would reverse it. Apparently, his appeasement just forfeits both foreign respect and American interests.
GAZA FLOTILLA AND THE U.S. The flotilla announced that it would be holding a ceremony commemorating the controversial Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty, which had entered a war zone and which Israel claimed to have attacked by mistake. The flotilla did not announce a ceremony commemorating the clear-cut Arab attack on the U.S.S. Cole, U.S. or the World Trade Center (Prof. Steven Plaut, 5/30/10). You can see that the announcement (by people not known for sympathy for the U.S.) is anti-Israel propaganda. It helps turn the flotilla is a dangerous circus. Some of the comments on my prior articles took too seriously the flotilla contention that it was humanitarian and necessary. They missed the points made that terrorists were participating and even sponsoring the flotilla, and that they could have delivered the goods the way other such goods enter, without risking people's lives. Those readers failed to ask what kind of humanitarians work with terrorists, who are the most inhumane people. (For pre-clash articles on flotilla,
click here.)
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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A BRUTAL AMBUSH AT SEA
Posted by The Israel Project, May 31, 2010. | |
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Below is an article by Israeli journalist Ron Ben Yishai for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot in which he provides a first hand account of the Israeli operation to take control of the Turkish-led flotilla. The Israel Project hopes you find this of interest. Ron Ben Yishai recounts bloody clash aboard Gaza-bound vessel: The lacking crowd-dispersal means, the brutal violence of 'peace activists,' and the attempt to bring down an IDF helicopter Ben Yishai, Ron, "A Brutal Ambush at Sea," YnetNews, May 31, 2010,
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Our Navy commandoes fell right into the hands of the Gaza mission members. A few minutes before the takeover attempt aboard the Marmara got underway, the operation commander was told that 20 people were waiting on the deck where a helicopter was to deploy the first team of the elite Flotilla 13 unit. The original plan was to disembark on the top deck, and from there rush to the vessel's bridge and order the Marmara's captain to stop. Officials estimated that passengers will show slight resistance, and possibly minor violence; for that reason, the operation's commander decided to bring the helicopter directly above the top deck. The first rope that soldiers used in order to descend down to the ship was wrested away by activists, most of them Turks, and tied to an antenna with the hopes of bringing the chopper down. However, Flotilla 13 fighters decided to carry on. Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back. However, to their misfortune, they were primarily equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons. One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other "don't shoot, don't shoot," even though they sustained numerous blows. 'I saw the tip of a rifle' The Navy commandoes were prepared to mostly encounter political activists seeking to hold a protest, rather than trained street fighters. The soldiers were told they were to verbally convince activists who offer resistance to give up, and only then use paintballs. They were permitted to use their handguns only under extreme circumstances. The planned rush towards the vessel's bridge became impossible, even when a second chopper was brought in with another crew of soldiers. "Throw stun grenades," shouted Flotilla 13's commander who monitored the operation. The Navy chief was not too far, on board a speedboat belonging to Flotilla 13, along with forces who attempted to climb into the back of the ship. The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandoes who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness. Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire. The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters' legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandoes. "I saw the tip of a rifle sticking out of the stairwell," one commando said. "He fired at us and we fired back. We didn't see if we hit him. We looked for him later but couldn't find him." Two soldiers sustained gunshot wounds to their knee and stomach after rioters apparently fired at them using guns wrested away from troops. Two errors During the commotion, another commando was stabbed with a knife. In a later search aboard the Marmara, soldiers found caches of bats, clubs, knives, and slingshots used by the rioters ahead of the IDF takeover. It appeared the activists were well prepared for a fight. Some passengers on the ship stood at the back and pounded the soldiers' hands as they attempted to climb on board. Only after a 30-minute shootout and brutal assaults using clubs and knifes did commandoes manage to reach the bridge and take over the Marmara. It appears that the error in planning the operation was the estimate that passengers were indeed political activists and members of humanitarian groups who seek a political provocation, but would not resort to brutal violence. The soldiers thought they will encounter Bilin-style violence; instead, they got Bangkok. The forces that disembarked from the helicopters were few; just dozens of troops — not enough to contend with the large group awaiting them. The second error was that commanders did not address seriously
enough the fact that a group of men were expecting the soldiers on the
top deck. Had they addressed this more seriously, they may have hurled
tear-gas grenades and smoke grenades from the helicopter to create a
screen that would have enabled them to carry out their mission,
without the fighters falling right into the hands of the rioters, who
severely assaulted them.
Editor's Note The IDF ordered the boats to sail to Askelon, where the goods that were not military and terrorist material would be trucked to Gaza. Israel trucks tons of food, etc., to Gaza daily. In other words, after the 200 tons of weapons that were later found by the IDF were confiscated, the humitarian aspects would not have been stopped. All but one ship obeyed. The "activists" on board the Mavi Marmara attacked with knifes, metal rods, broken bottles and guns. See videos of the "humitarians" preparing for the IDF boarding here. The only point in favor of the Turks appeared to be that the IDF mounted the boat in international waters. However, as one reader, Martin R, pointed out, there's:
To contact The Israel Project: write Marcus Sheff at marcuss@theisraelproject.org or Leah Soibel leahs@theisraelproject.org |
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THE GAZA FLOTILLA AND THE GALLANT RAPIST
Posted by Moshe Feiglin, May 31, 2010. |
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Do you remember the gallant rapist? The criminal who would offer his victims a ride home after the rape? He apparently thought that his "good manners" would make his crime seem less reprehensible. In the end he was apprehended and sentenced like all the other rapists. Today, Israel is the gallant rapist. We declared to the entire world that Gaza is not ours, but theirs. The world was not particularly convinced, so we expelled all the Jews from Gush Katif in Gaza and destroyed their homes. We even dug up their dead for reburial "inside Israel." Let there be no mistake, dear world, Gaza is not ours. Look, we have even retreated from there — with sensitivity and determination, of course. Now, the world is convinced. Gaza is really not ours. But just a minute: If Gaza is not really yours, why are you blockading it from the sea and the air, allowing entry only from your territory following your security checks? What are you trying to do? To gallantly rape the "Palestinians" and convince us that they consent? If Gaza is yours — stay there and fight! If it is not yours, get out of there and do not interfere in their lives! You can't do both. You can't simultaneously rape and be well-mannered. Oh, you say that they are trying to smuggle weapons into Gaza? Well, what's the problem with that? Who are you to tell them what to bring into their territory? Aren't you constantly arming yourselves as you please? If the state of Gaza will declare war on you, then defend yourselves. But don't tell us that you left while you are still ruling there by remote control. What right do you have to prevent them from building their own army? What? They actually did start a war and they are constantly shooting at you? OK, then re-conquer Gaza and administer a military government, like the Allies did in Germany. What? That's impossible because you convinced your citizens that it is good to disengage from Gaza? Hmmm. We tried to fool the world, and first and foremost — ourselves. Now the entire house of cards is collapsing on our heads. The question is not who is more well mannered, us or them. The question is not how much violence was used to stop the flotilla. The question is who is the rapist. The question is who is just, who is the good-guy and who is the bad-guy in this story. Israel in flight from its identity lost justification for its existence — not just in the Land of Israel but on the face of the entire globe. It maneuvered itself into the position of the most despised nation on earth. Achmadinijad can travel Europe freely. Tzippy Livni and Bogi Ya'alon dare not land there. If we would have adopted the stance of the just, we could have acted according to the maritime international laws that were determined by Great Britain when it ruled the seas. Call to stop. First shell in front of the ship's nose. Second shell into the ship, and the story is over. But this law is for legitimate ships, not pirate ships, like us. It will not help us to base our justness on good manners. We will always turn out to be rapists in the end. It won't work even if we enlist the most professional soldiers in the world for the mission. "I don't see Israel as a Jewish state, but rather as a state of all its citizens," said former Chief Justice Aharon Barak, and we lost the most important weapon of all — our sense of justice. The problem is that the other side did not lose its sense of justice. For the Arabs, the Land of Israel is not merely real estate or some sort of security shelter. For them, this Land is holy and they are fighting for it (and rightly so!). But you cannot fight for a land that by your own admission is not yours. The only option open, then, is self-defense. Even rapists are allowed to defend themselves. And that is how Israel has become the state of roadblocks, barbed wire, security guards at the entrance of every café, iron domes, cement blocks, concertina, atomic detectors and mobile bomb shelters. We outfitted our elite units with tear gas and other ridiculous toys. Now we can explain to the parents of the naval commando how the best fighter in the world was injured by a club to his head. We have cloaked ourselves in a gown of cement and barbed wire to preserve the lie that Jews can return to their ancient homeland after 2000 years with a false identity: Israeli instead of Jewish. They can forget who they are and the dreams of their ancestors and be just a normal nation — a nation like all the nations. Just like in the Gulf of Mexico, we are trying to bottle up the murky reality that is gushing to our surface with an iron dome. But we cannot cover up for the sense of justice that we have lost. If we had retained our sense of justice, we would not be waiting for Turkey to expel our ambassador, being portrayed as the guilty rapist along the way. On the contrary, we would have recalled our ambassador from Turkey and expelled its ambassador for its declaration of war on our sovereignty. But we cannot do that, because the Turks are right. After all, we declared that Gaza belongs to the Arabs, didn't we? So what right do we have to blockade a Turkish ship outside our territorial waters? When, in the last 20 years, have you heard an official Israeli representative — the prime minister, our ambassador to the UN or our Foreign Minister utter the simple words, "This is our land?" You can't remember? That is because it simply didn't happen. Israel is fleeing its Jewish identity and cannot even say this simple sentence. We must return to our basic sense of justice — the justice that sustained us during our long exile and the only factor that explains why we are not rapists and why this entire Land — including Gaza, is ours and only ours. When we return to that point, we will be able to truly establish our sovereignty in this Land. As long as we continue to attempt to escape our identity, Israel will continue to slowly crumble as it hides behind its barbed wire, road blocks and most advanced defense technology in the world. Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character. Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org. To learn more about Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) and to read their plan for Israel's future, visit www.jewishisrael.org. Or contact Shmuel Sackett, International Director (516) 330-4922 (cell) |
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ISRAEL, GET REAL! "PEACE" TALKS DANGEROUS FARCE
Posted by Batya Medad, May 30, 2010. |
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Shavua Tov, Have a Great Week. If you want to read more of my writings, please bookmark my other blogs, Shiloh Musings and me-ander. I post there much more frequently. Generally, I try to put things as simply as possible, like: Hypocrites for "Human Rights." Now for this morning's post: |
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There's no nice way to say this, especially considering how much hope, man-hours and money have been hyped into this Utopian idea that there can be "peace" between Israel and the Arabs, but the truth is that there's no way in this generation and probably the next, too, that there can be a genuine peace. I gave that long, probably run-on sentence its very own paragraph. The CPA's pragmatic daughter I am wants to make it very clear. Some people mock my strong religious belief as being rather "la la" or unrealistic, but I totally disagree. It's much easier to prove G-d's existence than it is to prove that the Arabs want to live in peace with the State of Israel. The internationally funded Appease aka Peace sic Now and all the related organizations and groups have been brainwashing Israelis for decades already. They've made such headway; we're in a real life episode of the Twilight Zone. To make things simple, like the popular modern child-rearing technique of "time-out," we should declare a one year postponement of negotiations for every single rocket or missile the Arabs launch at Israel, whether the rocket kills, damages or just malfunctions executing the very terrorists who launched it. Remind the United States, United Nations etc that this is non-negotiable. That's what a normal, self-respecting country would do, and didn't the early secular Zionists dream of being a normal country? I agree. We shouldn't agree to anything that any other country wouldn't agree to. We must ignore the bogus human rights organizations, because they consistently condemn Israel when Israel's actions would be praised if any other country had done it. We must, at the same time, use the military to go after those who attack us militarily. Nobody in their right mind would use body lotion on skin cancer. Would you? How about ointment on gangrene? I certainly wouldn't interfere with the PA's negotiating with the United States over issues between them, but not anything concerning Israel. United States President Barack Hussein Obama promised them a state. Well, there's lots of unoccupied land in the continental United States without the sort of documented history that our Land has. As I've written many times, since the western/Christian world swears on the Bible they should take it seriously. This is Jewish Land and only Jewish Land. If Obama sold them a can of worms, that has nothing to do with us. 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 http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2010/05/ israel-get-real-peace-talks-dangerous.html, which has live links to additional material. |
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AMNESTY INTERNATL DEGRADES HUMAN RIGHTS; IRAN NUCLEAR PLANT SOON BECOMING 'HOT'
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 30, 2010. |
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: UPDATE 
NGO Monitor finds that A.I. still exploits human rights issues to
degrade human rights.
When senior A.I.staff member Gita Saghal criticized A.I.'s alliance with a suspected Taliban member, A.I. suspended her. A.I.'s interim Secretary-General explained that that "jihad in self-defense" is not "antithetical to human rights." That A.I. explanation confirms NGO Monitor's complaint that A.I. degrades human rights. In 2009, A.I.'s focused primarily on Iran, but disproportionately on Israel. A.I. distorted the Gaza war. It led NGO campaigns and released more than 20 statements accusing Israel of "unlawful," "disproportionate," and "indiscriminate" attacks against Palestinian Authority civilians. A.I. had seven in-depth reports on Israel, fewer than on every other Mideastern state. Ideology drives A.I. more than does the cause of human rights. An 2009 report on water, claiming that Israel denies Arabs fair access "coincided with a campaign alleging that 'Israel's Control of Water [is] a Tool of Apartheid and a Means of Ethnic Cleansing.'" NGO Monitor's full report states that A.I. omitted evidence contrary to its claims that Palestinian Authority Arabs had less water than Arabs in neighboring states and omitted the quantities that they stole, which were considerable. AI's 2009 Annual Report on the Palestinian Arabs has "token mentions of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and condemnation of indiscriminate missile attacks from Gaza, in contrast to Amnesty's targeting of Israel." (IMRA, 5/28/10). When civilian sites are destroyed in war, the human rights organizations usually blame Israel, and not the Arab war criminals that booby-trapped those houses, stored ammunition in them, or fought alongside them so that civilian facilities took return fire. Some damage is accidental, so it should be noted that terrorist bombardment of Israel started that war, again a Palestinian Arab responsibility. If the human rights organizations cannot get that aspect straight, then one may suspect the rest of their presentation to be warped. I did not realize that the Taliban are engaged in "jihad for self-defense," did you? One can learn much about human rights from A.I.. But one could not learn enough about the other Mideastern areas of jihad and oppression. A tool of apartheid and ethnic cleansing? What ethnic cleansing? Arabs have been moving into Israel, and moving in and out of the Territories. To accuse Israel of a non-existent ethnic cleansing is to take up the Arabs' paranoid and propagandistic outlook. It is irresponsible. False accusations undermine the credibility of valid accusations when they were to be made. That does civil rights a disservice. People remember human rights organizations as reformers and media organs as watchdogs over government. They are less aware that some of those organizations and organs have been rich or powerful, ideological, and unfair. They are as much the enemy of decency and governments can be.
U.S. ASKED ISRAEL TO DEFER BOMBING OF HIZBULLAH ARMS SMUGGLERS "Security sources" find that Syria has set up bases near the Lebanese border. At those bases, Hizbullah men have their own barracks, arms warehouses, and trucks. The New York Times was shown satellite images of such a base near Adra, northeast of Damascus. Hizbullah transports the arms into Lebanon, at will. It prefers to do so when weather conditions prevent tracking by Israeli satellites. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Israel believe that Hizbullah has two Scuds. Israel was about to bomb one shipment, right after it crossed into Lebanon, but the U.S. asks Israel to desist, so it could ask Syria to halt the practice (IMRA, 5/28/10). If the US. diplomats thought they had a chance, what were they smoking in their pipedream? The more Obama sweet-talks Iran and Syria, the more their governments bad-mouth the U.S.. Likewise, the more checkpoints Israel takes down, the more trade barriers the Palestinian Authority put up. You see, weakness encourages defiance. Muslim Arab culture considers accommodation not decency but weakness. It is time the West learns the ways of the world.
IRAN NUCLEAR PLANT SOON BECOMING 'HOT' Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant is about to receive its fuel load. Western states had started the plan, but the U.S. asked them to desist. Russia finished the task (IMRA, 5/28/10). A rogue state can count on Russia to complete contracts. How honorable! When Menachim Begin was Prime Minister of Israel, he held off bombing Iraq's nuclear bomb factory, in the hope of effective international intervention. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not prevent or halt much trouble. Shortly before Iraq's plant was about to go live and "hot,' so that a raid afterwards could spread radioactivity among civilians, Begin gave the order to bomb it. One of the byproducts of that raid was lower casualties among U.S. troops in the Gulf War. A U.S. official belatedly thanked Israel. It is not popular to thank the international scapegoat for its many services.
IRAN SPOTS U.S. NUCLEAR SUB IN GULF Iran has spotted the presence of a U.S. nuclear sub in the Persian Gulf. U.S. subs have collided with ships in that narrow area, causing oil spills (IMRA, 5/28/10). One of my more militant sources questions whether the U.S. forces are there to raid Iran or to prevent Israel from raiding Iran. A likelier possibility is that the U.S. forces are there to counter-act any Iranian reaction against U.S. bases after an Israeli raid. Shouldn't the Security Council be telling Iran that if one country attacks it, self-defense against that country does not justify its attacking other countries not involved but which Iran doesn't like? Shouldn't the UN be condemning the threat to attack the U.S. after any Israeli raid as blackmail? I fear for the U.S. Navy in a constricted waterway. There is a popular misconception that peace agreements between Israel and some Arabs states and organization offer a reasonable hope for general Arab-Israel peace. This view is naïve. It takes things at face value. In reality, the pacts are superficial, and the Arabs violate them. Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel; the PLO and Palestinian Authority (P.A.) signed a series of Oslo Accords with Israel. All those pacts were supposed to normalize relations. The Arabs got concessions of land, water, and political power, but reneged on normalization. All continued their diplomacy, as an adjunct to their wars on Israel. Egyptian military doctrine treats Israel as the enemy. The P.A. preaches military aggression against Israel and Jews. Not a hopeful precedent. A treaty can be called a peace treaty, but the Arabs use those treaties and diplomacy to reinforce their belligerent goals. The mistake is in expecting a treaty to create peace. Usually, peace comes first, and the treaty ratifies and codifies it. The Muslim Arabs never reconciled with Israel first. How can they? Their reason for making war on Israel is religious. The treaty does not reform their religious reason for war. Therefore, while the treaty declares peace, the imams declare war.
SYRIA-EU MEETING A delegation from the EU met with Syria's President and other officials. The communique stated these points, some more than once: "The EU should play a more effective role in the peace process, launch new initiatives and assume the fair mediator role in light of its good relations with the parties concerned... the Arab Peace Initiative is a good ground for reaching a comprehensive peace in the region..." "Syria is an important regional power and assumes a basic role in the region." President al-Assad reviewed during the meeting the efforts being exerted by Syria to achieve security and stability in the Middle East, and Syria's continued work for the achievement of the just and comprehensive peace in the region in implementation of the international legitimacy resolutions, restoring the rights to their legitimate owners (5/28/10). It seems sophomoric of each delegation to tell the other how important it is. The EU relationship with Israel is that of slanted critic. Half the European diplomats sit at meetings at which others criticize Israel in antisemitic ways and ignore the accusers' own, real crimes. Let the EU concentrate on saving itself! The Arab Peace initiative has nothing to do with peace. It has everything to do with advancing jihad by rendering Israel vulnerable to conquest. (Earlier articles have explained how.) Syria is the major Arab instigator of instability in the Mideast. It recently destabilized Lebanon, which it is trying to absorb. A repeat aggressor, it has aligned itself with Iranian jihad. it arms Hizbullah terrorists. It sought to secretly build nuclear weapons. For years, Syria refused to negotiate an end to its state of war with Israel. Now it claims it would negotiate peace, if Israel returned the Golan. That is unconvincing, since Syria attacked Israel twice before Israel acquired the Golan. Experts believe that Syria has not undertaken effective economic reforms.
TODAY IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CLASH OFF GAZA Today is supposed to be the day of a clash off the coast of Gaza. The flotilla carrying goods but also hundreds of activists, at least some of whom are terrorists, was due to arrive. However, the number of those ships has fallen to eight, and several were having difficulty loading activists against a Cyprus refusal to give permission. The Israeli Navy was set to intercept the ships. A hundred boats from Gaza, bearing relatives of prisoners in Israel and people killed in combat with Israel, were to greet the flotilla. The Israeli organization [whose U.S. counterparts' website I've used], StandWithUs plans to send out six boats bearing the slogan, "Free Gaza From Hamas." It is not stated whether participants other than the Navy are armed (IMRA, 5/29/10). This event has the ominous portents of propaganda, hatred at least from the more notorious "activists," accident, violence, and tragedy. It may hurt families to lose relatives or it may not, considering their views of jihad as entry to Paradise. But Hamas started the war and waged in an illegal manner guaranteed to result in more civilian casualties. The relatives should be complaining to Hamas, not against Israel. All the Gaza prisoners in Israel were convicted of terrorism. They deserve punishment, as barbarians, not sympathy.
MAJOR MIDEAST MISCONCEPTION 15: JEWISH 'SETTLEMENTS' ARE KEY OBSTACLES A common misconception is that houses built by Jews in the disputed Territories are obstacles to peace. Those who say so usually do not delve into the matter deeply. If they did, they would find no justification for the claim. Their claim is on the superficial level that since the Arabs demand that Israel relinquish the Territories to them, building there by Jews makes it more difficult to meet Arab demands. But peace is not simply a matter of meeting Arab demands and of having a double standard about who many build houses in disputed areas. The state of war did not arise from Israeli possession of the Territories. To the contrary, the Territories came into Israeli possession because of a war by Arab states. Israel was accepting a UN partition proposal to leave the now disputed Territories to the Arabs. Rejecting the UN proposal, local and foreign Arabs attacked the Jews in 1947 and 1948. Since Israel did not then possess those Territories, it could not then have been Israeli possession of those Territories that prompted the war. By the same logic that the Territories are not the cause of the Arab-Israel conflict, Israeli withdrawal from those Territories would not produce peace. There must be a reason other than those Territories for the Arab aggression of 1947, for the Egyptian-sponsored terrorism that led to the Sinai Campaign of 1957, and for the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian aggression (joined by units from other Arab states) of 1967, all before Israel captured the Territories. Why no peace? Answer: the Arabs do not recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state. Abbas still will not recognize it. The Muslim Arab religious view maintains that once an area has become predominantly Islamic, it must remain so. They still consider Spain as lost Islamic territory. Why then, do Arabs and supporters in the State Dept. claim that Jewish construction in the Territories is an obstacle to peace? Because they seek a pretext for whatever Israeli withdrawals they can get. The State Dept. traditionally is anti-Zionist and an appeaser of oil exporting states. Arafat explained his strategy of using Israeli withdrawals as territory from which to conquer Israel. The more Israel retreats, the easier to conquer it. In other words, the claim is for propaganda. It hints that if Israel were to withdraw, peace would follow. That is a snare. Israeli withdrawals have been followed by more terrorism and by invigorated Arab demands for still more withdrawals. To the Arabs, Israeli withdrawals vindicate Islamic doctrine of triumph. Israel withdrawals, therefore, are an obstacle to peace. Israeli construction firms up Israel's position, making war by Arabs less feasible. Only making Israel so strong that none will attack her can bring peace. And strength, in part, depends on keeping vital territories.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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FLOTILLA FLOTILLER
Posted by Steven Plaut, May 30, 2010. |
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Based on the hit song "Thriller" by Michael Jackson (or — for those of
you who read Tikkun magazine — Reb Michael) — original lyrics can be
found here:
Flotilla — Flotiller lyrics It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark
'Cause this flotilla, flotiller night
'Cause this is flotiller, thriller night
They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side
That this is flotiller, thriller night
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
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THOSE WHO CANNOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT
Posted by Doris Wise Montrose, May 30, 2010. |
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This is by Dan Miller and it appeared May 29, 2010 in Pajamas Media. Dan Miller graduated from Yale University in 1963 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1966. He lives in a rural area in Panama. |
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Having read Churchill's The Gathering Storm for the third or fourth time, it strikes me as frighteningly inauspicious, and not only for the United States today. Churchill was a leading proponent of stopping Hitler before stopping him would involve the massive devastation inflicted on much of the world when World War II eventually came. He noted: We must regard as deeply blameworthy before history ... during this fatal period. Delight in smooth-sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts, desire for popularity and electoral success irrespective of the vital interests of the State, genuine love of peace and pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundation ... the strong and violent pacifism which at this time dominated the Labour-Socialist Party, the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality ... constituted a picture of British fatuity and fecklessness which, though devoid of guile, was not devoid of guilt, and, though free from wickedness or evil design, played a definite part in unleashing upon the world of horrors and miseries which even so far as they have unfolded, are already beyond comparison in human experience. Far worse horrors and miseries are now, decades later, easily possible. The world has changed dramatically and we are now in an exponential age[1]. Now, we have little more than "Churchillian resolution in the face of untrammeled cow flatulence" and the horrors of global warming[2]; this seems a misplaced priority. History remains important — perhaps to a greater extent than ever before. There are those who dilute the conception of what happened in and was done by Nazi Germany by drawing analogies to far less malign events. Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles recently said[3] the following in reference to Arizona's new immigration law: "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques." Ironically, he went on to say, "Let's not allow fearful and ill-informed rhetoric to shape public policy." We have also declared war on obesity and possibly acne. One petty example of the problem facing England was the 1933 Oxford resolution, which stated that "this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." This attitude (perhaps understandable not very many years following the end of World War I) and its all too adequate representation of the pacifist mood then pervasive in the country caused Churchill to write: Mussolini, like Hitler, regarded Britannia as a frightened, flabby old woman, who at worst would only bluster and was, anyhow, incapable of making war. Britain and France were both weary and reluctant to do much of anything about Hitler until too long after he had conquered territory which, had there been any showing of willingness to use force against his depredations, he would not have attempted. At the Nuremberg trials: Colonel Eger, representing Czechoslovakia, asked Marshal Keitel: "Would the Reich have attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938 if the Western Powers had stood by Prague? The Treaty of Versailles imposed grave and unreasonable burdens on a defeated Germany, and Hitler rose to power at least in part due to German resentment and his genius in taking full advantage of it. President Wilson's League of Nations was toothless and impotent, and its objections to such things as Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia had no effect except, perhaps, to make it the butt of jokes. Would things have been different had the United States joined the League of Nations? I doubt it, but it is impossible to know. Churchill observed: The Americans merely shrugged their shoulders, so that in a few years they had to pour out the blood and treasures of the New World to save themselves from mortal danger. The world is quite different now than in the 1930s, but President Obama in some respects resembles both Neville Chamberlain and his predecessor, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin found foreign affairs a bit of a bother but wished to be on good terms with the European dictators Hitler and Mussolini; he believed that "conciliation and the avoidance of anything likely to offend them was the best method." Chamberlain also "wanted to be on friendly terms" with them, and "conceived himself capable of achieving this relationship." He did not know what was going on between Mussolini and Hitler. Desirous of peace in our time, Chamberlain worked diligently to promote it. According to Churchill: His all-pervading hope was to go down to history as the Great Peacemaker; and for this he was prepared to strive continually in the teeth of facts, and face great risks for himself and his country. Unhappily, he ran into tides the force of which he could not measure, and met hurricanes from which he did not flinch, but with which he could not cope. Finally, when the Nazi aspirations toward much of Europe became so clear that Chamberlain had to face them, he did. By then, it was almost but not quite too late. Germany had for years, in gross violation of treaties but with the acquiescence of others, built up her army, her navy, her air corps and the materials needed to arm and otherwise to supply them. Britain had not and had instead pursued her own disarmament in the interest of parity and showing the way of righteousness to the rest of the world. Increasingly in recent years, the United States has seemed to be more intent upon ensuring political correctness[4] in the military than upon preparing for the next war, in the forlorn hope that there will never be another. She has seemed to be more interested in gaining popularity with our enemies — and turning upon our own military[5] in the process — by apologizing for perceived past slights and by assuming that they will, in turn, accept us as equals rather than as bullies. This has not been helpful. Instead, like the Oxford resolution of 1933, it has produced perceptions of weakness and submission; it has made the U.S. appear as an ally not to be relied upon. Historically, the U.S. has had a special relationships with Britain and Israel. Those special relationships are fast fading into history, and we seem willing to sacrifice[6] Israel,[7] Poland,[8] and the Czech Republic[9] upon the altar of good will toward their enemies. Perhaps the Obama administration "is incapable of believing that their actions can have marked consequences on the free world." In the late 1930s, Czechoslovakia and Poland were also sacrificed due to an illusion that Hitler's appetite for lebensraum would be satisfied; it wasn't. A few mild words are now occasionally spoken about the ill treatment of citizens in Venezuela[10], now becoming a Cuban colony,[11] and in Iran by their masters, but I strongly suspect that those words are more productive of giggles than of peace. Meanwhile, China is strengthening its military relations[12] with Cuba and, presumably thereby, with Venezuela. Russia[13] seems to be[14] doing much the same. The advice of "hold your friends close and your enemies closer" seems to have been misconstrued. Like (formerly Great) Britain in the 1930s, the United States seemingly lacks an overall strategic objective. This problem is made worse, if such is possible, by continuously making the gross mistake, as Churchill put it, of "behaving as if all the world were as easy, un-calculating, and well-meaning as herself." Poor England! Leading her free, careless life from day to day, amid endless good tempered parliamentary babble, she followed, wondering, down the downward path which led to all she wanted to avoid. Hitler's Germany during World War II may have wanted peace, but not until after she had achieved victory by subduing many other countries and harvesting their human and natural resources. Japan may also have wanted peace and prosperity on her own terms; peace was eventually accomplished, but not in the way she or Germany must have intended. China and Russia presumably want peace on their own terms as well and, like Germany under Hitler, seem more than willing to assist such useful idiots as Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and even the Obama administration as best suits their purposes. The United States can no more afford to be complicit in this process than could Britain in the 1930s. This article is in memory of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), whose bronze bust was removed from the Oval Office less than a month after the ascension of President Obama to the United States throne. Footnotes [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY [2] http://article.nationalreview.com/432476/ human-rights-watch-and-the-nazis/conrad-black?page=1 [3] http://cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot. com/2010/04/arizonas-new-anti-immigrant-law.html [4] http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/to-keep- america-safe-we-must-remake-the-military-in-obamas-image/ [5] http://www.humanevents.com/ article.php?id=36699 [6] http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ world/Risk-grows-that-Israel-will-go-alone-to-take- out-Iranian-nukes-92138599.html [7] http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/ 2010/04/026148.php?utm_source=feedburner& utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ powerlineblog%2Flivefeed+%28Power+Line%29 [8] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ sep/17/missile-defence-shield-barack-obama [9] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ sep/17/missile-defence-shield-barack-obama [10] http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/are-socialist- worker-militias-coming-to-a-city-near-you/?singlepage=true [11] http://lucianne.com/article/?pageid= Benny_Marx [12] http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId= 355966&CategoryId=14510 [13] http://laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId= 12394&ArticleId=354706 [14] http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/ what-if-anything-are-russia-venezuela/ Doris Wise Montrose is with Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. Contact her at doris@cjhsla.org. |
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FROM ISRAEL: GIVE US A BREAK!
Posted by Arlene Kushner, May 30, 2010. |
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Netanyahu (who is in Toronto, where he participated in a pro-Israel rally) is going to the White House this week: It's a command performance — commanded by the president, that is. The prime minister couldn't easily say, "Sorry, I choose not to come." It wouldn't be realistic to expect that of him — he does not have that sort of resolute stamina. Though I not only wish he would, but think he should. Expectations are that the president will be all "kissy-kissy" as he endeavors to show how he loves Israel and the Jewish people. After all, he held a White House reception last Thursday for Jewish American Heritage Month. What could be bad? Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Sandy Koufax was his guest. Doesn't that fix things? Delegations from various Jewish federations across the country came to Washington in the last few days as well to meet with administration officials and receive assurances of how strong US-Israel ties are. I find it all rather unbearable. ~~~~~~~~~~ Theories abound as to why he's doing this: because he's concerned about Democratic success in the November congressional elections, because there's been too much pressure on him for how he's treated Israel, or because he thinks he'll get more concessions from us with regard to the "peace process," and thereby be able to flaunt his success. It may be one of the above, or all — I am not going to belabor this now. You may want to see Caroline Glick's take on the situation, in her article, "Netanyahu, Obama's newest prop":
Her point, basically, is that this is for show — for whatever reason, and that Obama has not essentially changed his policy towards us one iota. Not only do I concur, I offer disturbing evidence here of the underlying hostility the president bears us. He is exhibiting enormous willingness to undermine our security — and behave deceptively — even as he opens his arms to embrace Netanyahu. If I were the prime minister, I'd watch my back. ~~~~~~~~~~ As many of you are aware, Obama was tremendously supportive of, and even promoted, the international non-proliferation treaty review conference, which has just finished meeting at UN headquarters in New York. On Friday, the review conference passed a resolution, with 189 signatories, that calls for a conference in 2012 to push for a nuclear free Middle East, and speaks of appointing a special coordinator to visit the region and prepare for such a conference. The resolution singles out Israel — the only country mentioned by name — calling upon her to sign the NPT and open herself to international inspection. But it does not mention Iran, which is a signatory of the treaty and in violation as it seeks to develop nuclear weapons. ~~~~~~~~~~ To no avail in recent weeks, Netanyahu implored Obama not to pursue this path: At the conference on Friday, the US delegation voted for the resolution. Then, after the fact, Obama had the unmitigated gall to declare the resolution unfair to Israel. Yes, he said, he is for a nuclear-free Middle East, but first the nations of the region must recognize Israel's right to exist, sign peace agreements, enter into security arrangements, limit arsenals of weaponry, etc. There is no one, but no one, who imagines that all of this will happen by 2012. So, then, if these are necessary precursors to a nuclear-free Middle East, why sanction a conference in two years? This time he cannot play it both ways at the same time: his actions are too public and too blatant. What he has done is to betray Israel. As Yossi Melman put it in Haaretz: Obama sacrificed Israel for the success of the conference. ~~~~~~~~~~ The official response put out by the Israeli government said: "This resolution is deeply flawed and hypocritical: It ignores the realities of the Middle East and the real threats facing the region and the entire world. ~~~~~~~~~~ The statement also says that the prime minister will discuss this with the president when they meet on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it additionally notes "the important clarifications that have been made by the United States regarding its policy." That is, we've closed our eyes, at least publicly, to the duplicity of Obama, nodding in his direction with a note of appreciation for his objections after the fact. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so, let's go my friends. In the US, please, contact President Obama and tell him you are not fooled by Jewish receptions in the White House. With the US support for the NPT review conference resolution, he has gone further in undermining Israel's security than any US president ever has. There is no way that objections after the fact mitigate what he has done: He has betrayed Israel. Let him know that you are watching him closely and will spread the word everywhere you can. Numbers, my friends! Numbers count, so get this out to undermine Obama's complacency.
~~~~~~~~~~ These are only disparate hints, and yet... First, last week there was a report in the NYTimes indicating that last September General Petraeus signed a directive, the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order: "The seven-page directive appears to authorize specific operations in Iran, most likely to gather intelligence about the country's nuclear program or identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive. The Obama administration insists that for the moment, it is committed to penalizing Iran for its nuclear activities only with diplomatic and economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has to draw up detailed war plans to be prepared in advance, in the event that President Obama ever authorizes a strike. "'The Defense Department can't be caught flat-footed,' said one Pentagon official with knowledge of General Petraeus's order." No promise of anything, but nice to know. Means it's true, at some level, that nothing is off the table. ~~~~~~~~~~ Then, a report in today's JPost alludes to an article — "Can a Nuclear Armed Iran be Deterred?" — that appears in the current issue of Military Review. It is by Amitai Etzioni, American-Israeli professor at George Washington University. Attacking Iran's nuclear facilities might be very difficult, he says, because they are so well hidden and protected, in addition to which, some are in heavily populated areas. However, there is a "different military option": "The basic approach seeks not to degrade Iran's nuclear capacities...but to compel the regime to change its behavior by causing ever-higher levels of pain." What Etzioni is suggesting is bombing of military bases, airports, bridges, railway stations and other infrastructure. Notes the Post: "Neither Israel nor the United States has ever publicly spoken about the targets that they would bomb if they decide to attack Iran." All very interesting. ~~~~~~~~~~ Finally, today, the Sunday Times (London) reported that Israel is planning to permanently station at least one submarine carrying nuclear cruise missiles (we have three) in the Persian Gulf, within striking distance of Iran. Well...news from London is not authoritative. But this too provides a spark of hope. Maybe we won't be sitting ducks after all. It occurs to me that simply knowing the sub was there might have deterrence value sufficient to give Iran pause on certain matters such as unleashing Hezbollah on us with unconventional weapons. If this story is true... ~~~~~~~~~~ You may have seen a May 24th article in The Guardian (UK), or references to it, claiming that in 1975, then defense minister Shimon Peres offered to sell nuclear weapons to the apartheid regime in South Africa. Since I've been asked about this, I would like to offer my conclusion that there is nothing to this charge. The office of president Peres put out an unequivocal denial in response to the article: "There exists no basis in reality for the claims published this morning by The Guardian that in 1975 Israel negotiated with South Africa the exchange of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, The Guardian elected to write its piece based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts. ~~~~~~~~~~ Elsewhere, as well, I've seen material that refutes this claim. My impression is two-fold: First that this charge is being made in part out of an attempt to link Israel, as an "apartheid" state, with the state that was apartheid. And two, I believe the South Africans may well have sought nuclear weapons from us — there is talk of "South African documents" — but that they did not receive a positive response from us. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to Khaled Abu Toameh, over the weekend PA president Mahmoud Abbas declared that the PA considers the US and not Israel to be its negotiating partner. According to Abbas Zaki, member of the Fatah Central Committee, Abbas told US envoy George Mitchell that the PA does not believe that the government of Netanyahu is a real peace partner. Well, we knew this because of the dynamics that are clear for all to see. But here it is explicitly said. What nonsense. The PA cannot make "peace" with Israel by negotiating with the US, even though this is what it clearly hopes to do. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Flotilla is apparently on its way. Stories vary with regard to how many ships actually departed; they apparently left Cyprus yesterday and traveled a way and then stopped — either because of malfunctions or some convoluted plans in terms of how to proceed. Arrival is projected for tomorrow. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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US TRYING TO DEPORT 'SON OF HAMAS' WHO EXPOSED TERRORISM
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, May 30, 2010. |
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The "Son of Hamas," whose recent book reveals his path to Christianity and exposes Hamas terrorism, says that U.S. Homeland Security wants to deport him on charges that he is a terrorist. Writing on his publisher's blog, Mosab Hassan Yousef expressed his "outrage" and described what he called a "security system that is so primitive and naive that it endangers the lives of countless Americans." Yousef wrote that he faces a deportation hearing on June 30 at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration Court in San Diego. He questioned why he is being deported. "For what? For risking my life fighting terrorism in the Middle East for 10 years? For saving the lives of Israelis, Palestinians and Americans?" His saga began in January, 2007 when he arrived at an American airport on a tourist visa without interference. "Seven months later, I went to the Homeland Security office, knocked on their door and told them, 'Hey, guys, I am the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, my father is involved in a terrorist organization, and I would like political asylum in your country.'" "They were shocked," Yousef wrote on the blog. "I came to you and told you who I am to wake you up. I wanted them to see that they have huge gaps in their security and their understanding of terrorism and make changes before it's too late.' His application for asylum was rejected last February "because there were reasonable grounds for believing he was a danger to the security of the United States and [was] engaged in terrorist activity." In a hearing, he presented a draft of his book "Son of Hamas" as evidence in his behalf. Homeland Security senior attorney Kerri Calcador claimed that, "In the book, the respondent discusses his extensive involvement with Hamas in great detail. For example, in one portion of the book, a member of Shin Bet shows the respondent a list of suspects implicated in a March 2001 suicide bombing and asks the respondent whether he knows the individuals. The respondent indicates that he does know five of the people on the list and states that he previously drove them to safe houses." Yousef countered that he was working as a secret agent for the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) at the time. "No one — not me, not my father, not even Israel — knew at the time that these men were involved with suicide bombings," Yousef argued. "I was the one who connected these men with the bombing at the Hebrew University cafeteria in July 2002. And Homeland Security would do well to remember that there were five American citizens among the dead. Apparently the agency needs also to be reminded that I was the one who located the terrorists and led to their arrest or death." He also claims that he posed as a terrorist while working for Israel. "Yes, I carried a gun," he wrote. "Yes, I was in terrorist meetings with Yasser Arafat, my father and other Hamas leaders. It was part of my job. And I passed on to the Shin Bet all the information I gathered during those meetings and saved the lives of many people — including many Americans. "Homeland Security has absolutely no idea of the dangers that lie ahead. For nearly 30 years, I watched from the inside as Hamas dug its claws deeper and deeper into Israel. They started awkwardly, clumsily, but they got good at it. And al-Qaeda is becoming more like Hamas. "Al-Qaeda started with huge attacks like September 11. But bin Laden has learned from Hamas's war against Israel how to bleed its enemy. Al-Qaeda understands how effective the Hamas strategy will be on American soil." A former Israeli security agent, identified as "G," has confirmed Yousef's account as a secret agent and said that Yousef's spying saved the lives of many Israelis. This was written by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu who writes for Arutz-7, where this article appeared today. |
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NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION CONFERENCE; PAKISTAN HINDUS AND HERETICS; NIF CONDEMNS CRITIC, IGNORES CRITICISM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 29, 2010. |
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NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION CONFERENCE RESULTS The conference on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty has concluded with setting a schedule for another conference, a regional conference on eliminating non-conventional weapons in the Mideast. They suggested that Israel, India, and Pakistan join the treaty. To produce a concluding document that would be generally accepted, provisions were inserted that all together disturbs most of the members. There is vague wording about being stronger. The document is considered a "great achievement." (Neil MacFarquhar, NY Times, 5/29, A11.) A "great achievement" for whom, how? Like American politicians not wanting to face a problem, the international politicians set a new date for a meeting, appoint a commission, or make a study, but do nothing. Considering the make up of the UN, doing nothing isn't as bad as the alternative, doing bad. The conference was an exercise in futility, like the UN sanctions on Iran that do not get passed unless watered down to ineffectiveness. The crucial flaw remains that nuclear scofflaws are getting away with proliferation and violation, unless Israel strikes their nuclear plants.
HINDUS AND HERETICS IN PAKISTAN HERETICS: Terrorists murdered dozens of people in two minority mosques in Lahore, Pakistan. As people prepared for prayer, nine youths burst in, opened fire at the helpless civilians, and some set off bombs that took their own lives, too. I spare you the details of the gore, but it is horrifying. The crime of the doomed? They belong to a sect that follows Islam except for believing that their leader is a "messenger" referred to by Muhammad. For that, the government has declared them heretics. it forbids them to call themselves Muslims and their temples mosques (Waqar Gilani and Jane Perlez). HINDUS: In one town of Pakistan in a single week, 57 Hindus in three waves converted under pressure to Islam. The pressure was from their employers and their neighbors. The employers were, themselves, under pressure from customers and suppliers, boycotting them for hiring Hindus. The Hindus converted in order to keep their jobs and ability to support their families. Such is life in the town of Sialkot, Pakistan. The source: "Diligent Media Corporation, which owns DNA (Daily News & Analysis), is a joint venture between two industry majors — the Dainik Bhaskar Group and Zee Group. With a reach of more than 120 countries and access to more than 250 million viewers globally..." CONCLUSION: The two incidents have in common intolerance by Pakistani society. It is not just terrorism, not just government, but government, terrorists, and society as a whole. This impression of Pakistan should inform U.S. foreign policy makers about what to expect from dealing with Pakistan. What temerity of callow youths to impose a death penalty on people who do them no harm!
NIF CONDEMNS CRITIC BUT IGNORES CRITICISM The New Israel Fund (NIF) advertised a defense against criticism by NGO Monitor that denounces NGO Monitor but ignores the actual criticism, based on detailed research. The ad called NGO Monitor "a mouthpiece for the extreme right. The ad further declared that NGO Monitor "distorts the facts," equates criticism (legitimate or otherwise) with "sedition," and denies "Israel's obligations to comply with international law." The ad also accused NGO Monitor of working against Israeli democracy. The ad adduced no evidence to support those contentions. NGO Monitor's denial states, "Instead of attacks on NGO Monitor, NIF needs to reconsider its support for groups that campaign to erase Israel's Jewish framework, promote anti-Israel boycotts, aid Goldstone and UN demonization, help prosecute Israeli officials abroad, and equate Israel with 'Russia, China, Sudan, and other authoritarian regimes.' These are the real 'attacks on Israel's democratic foundations.'" NGO Monitor said that the defamatory NIF counter-attack comprises irrelevant distractions from the controversy and themselves are attacks on Israeli democracy in the sense of attempting to cow or smear opposition. The ad answers NGO Monitor's legitimate criticism with false claims that the criticism is illegitimate, without backing up the answer (IMRA, 5/28/10).
NGO MONITOR'S CRITICISM THAT NEW ISRAEL FUND FAILED TO CONTEST` NGO Monitor had advertised in the Jerusalem Post its criticism of New Israel Fund (NIF). Their import is that NIF claims to love Israel, but gives millions of dollars to groups that defame Israel. Here are some examples of NIF's purported stance, and NGO Monitor's rebuttal: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/ 1, NIF: "If... [an NGO] denies Jews the right to self determination, that organization would not receive a grant from us." Rachel Liel, NIF-Israel Executive Director, April 2010 NGO: 'NIF grantee Mada al-Carmel ($200,000 in 2008) calls for a 'change in the definition of the State of Israel from a Jewish state,'" and bringing the Palestinian Arabs into Israel, which would effectively end Jewish self-determination. 2. NIF: "We deeply disagree with the use of 'apartheid' in the Israeli context." Daniel Sokatch, NIF CEO, March 2010 NGO: "NIF grantee B'Tselem's ($357,569 in 2008) Jessica Montell: 'I think the word apartheid is useful for mobilizing people because of its emotional power. In some cases, the situation in the West Bank is worse than apartheid in South Africa.'" 3.NIF: "None of our organizations appeared before the UN [Goldstone] commission." — Rachel Liel, April 2010 NGO: "NIF grantees (combined total $2.2 million in 2008) submitted a joint statement to Goldstone alleging 'human rights violations for which Israel must be held accountable.' Officials from one grantee, PCATI, gave anti-Israel testimony before Goldstone." 4. NIF: "NIF opposes the BDS movement... [and] believes these tactics to be unproductive, inflammatory and ineffective." — Daniel Sokatch, March 2010 NGO: "6 NIF grantees (combined total $477,974 in 2008) successfully petitioned the Norwegian Pension Fund to divest from Israeli firms." 5. NIF: "We...firmly oppose attempts to prosecute Israeli officials in foreign courts..." — NIF Website: FAQs NGO: "NIF grantee Adalah ($510,150 in 2008) submitted a legal opinion to a Spanish court in support of a lawfare case against Israeli officials." (IMRA, 5/28/10). If NGO Monitor's specific criticisms of NIF were incorrect, NIF easily could have challenged them. It did not. Based on that tacit admission that the criticisms were correct, is there are case for suing NIF for fraudulent solicitation? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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PRESIDENT OBAMA IS RIGHT
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, May 20, 2010. |
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More Muslim terrorist cells were exposed in the US in 2009 than in any year since 9/11. Islamic terrorism constitutes a real and present danger to the US in spite of — and inflamed by — President Obama's appeasement of Islam, as demonstrated in his most significant speeches at the Turkish Parliament on April 6, 2010 and at Cairo University on June 4, 2010. The intensification of the Muslim terrorist threat, despite Obama's rough/critical/cold attitude toward the Jewish State, refutes the claim that the Arab-Israel conflict, the Palestinian issue or the US-Israel friendship are the root cause of anti-US Islamic terrorism. Anti-US Islamic terrorism has been bolstered by the expansion of Hizballah's operational, financial and political infrastructures in Latin America, notwithstanding the contention by Obama and his advisors that supposedly there is no global Islamic terrorism (only Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorism), that ostensibly there is no Jihadist terrorism ("because Jihad means to purify oneself...") and that terrorism has been seemingly a derivative of Western exploitation of the Third World. President Obama was right when he declared — at Cairo University — that "Islam has always been part of America's story." Indeed, Islamic terrorism targeted US ships between 1776 and the beginning of the 19th century. In fact, John Quincy Adams, the 6th president of the USA, researched the causes of anti-Western Islamic terrorism, concluding that its core cause was endemic hostility toward the "infidel." During the 20th century, the US became a chief-target for Muslim Brotherhood hate-education, which was transformed into a manufacturing-line of anti-US terrorists. In 1983 — when US tanks in Lebanon stopped Israel's hot-pursuit of Arafat — 300 US Marines were murdered by Muslim terrorists who blew up the US embassy and Marines Headquarters in Beirut. In 1998, 300 persons were murdered when Muslim terrorists hit the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In 2001, the British Muslim Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber," failed to blow up an American Airlines plane bound for NY. In 2009, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert, murdered a US soldier at an Army recruiting post in Arkansas, Hosam Maher Smadi planned to blow up an office building in Dallas, Nidal Hasan murdered 13 US soldiers and injured 31 at Fort Hood, Texas, etc. in 2010, an Islamic terror act was foiled at Times Square, etc. The increase in Islamic terrorist operations in the US has been a direct result of the substantial growth in the number of Jihad-oriented Imams in US penitentiaries, seminaries and mosques: the dramatic boost in the number of Muslim Brotherhood-inspired US mosques: the expanded exposure of US Muslims to the Jihad ideology via Saudi and Qatari-funded Muslim TV channels and Internet; the rise in the number of Muslim terror organizations posing as charity foundations and summer camps, which benefit from tax exemptions; and, the surge in the number of activists, who draft American Muslims to training and indoctrination camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority. Most Muslim terrorists in the USA are Arabs and Pakistanis. The world leading Middle East scientist, Prof. Fuad Ajami of Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities, a Lebanese Shi'ite, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on May 10, 2010: "No strategy of winning hearts and minds, no great outreach, will bring this [Western democracies VS radical Islam] struggle to an end. America can't conciliate these furies." Ajami attributes contemporary Islamic fury and terrorism to the teaching of Egypt's Sayyid Qutb — one of the founding fathers of the Muslim Brotherhood — who considered the US a moral threat to Muslims and condemned Christians and Jews to hell. The inherent religious animosity toward the US has been intensified by Muslim leaders, who consider US values — such as freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, free election, free market and free Internet — as a present and clear danger to their own dictatorial regimes. Moreover, Iran considers the US as the most effective obstacle to the attainment of its megalomaniac aspirations. Syria views the US as a key obstacle to Damascus' historic goal of controlling "Southern Syria" — Jordan. Therefore, they support anti-US terrorism, irrespective of the Palestinian issue, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Jerusalem, settlements or the existence of the Jewish State. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il This article appeared May 28, 2010 YnetNews (www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3895486,00.html). |
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BEHIND THE AXIS: THE NORTH KOREAN CONNECTION
Posted by Jonathan Spyer, May 29, 2010. |
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North Korean spokesmen reacted furiously last week to claims by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that Pyongyang is supplying weapons technology to Iran and Syria. Representatives of the regime of Kim Jong-Il described Lieberman as an "imbecile." The official Korean Central News Agency in a memorable phrase accused the foreign minister in an official statement of "faking up sheer lies." The indignant denials notwithstanding, recent studies indicate that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as North Korea is officially known, is indeed playing a crucial but little remarked upon role in facilitating the arming of the Iran-led regional axis, including in the area of weapons of mass destruction. The North Korean role is multifaceted, and evidence has emerged of direct links to terror organizations such as Hizbullah and extensive strategic relations with both Iran and Syria. A recent study by Christina Lin, a former US Department Defense official and specialist on China, looked into North Korea's strategic partnership with Iran. Lin noted that North Korea has been described as the "the most important single leak" in the international anti-proliferation effort in the Middle East. Iranian-North Korean strategic cooperation dates back to the first days of the Islamic Republic. Its basis is clear. Iran needs access to advanced military technology to underwrite its regional ambitions. Its main suppliers are Russia and China. But both these countries are active members of the international system, and hence are to some degree constrained by international pressures. North Korea, on the other hand, is an isolated country, indifferent to Western attempts to control the access of Middle East radicals to advanced armaments. North Korean assistance plays a vital role in the Iranian missile program. Its flagship Shihab missile project is a product of the relationship. The Shihab is based on North Korea's Nodong missile series. Iran is reported to have purchased 12 Nodong missile engines from North Korea in 1999, beginning the development of the Shihab-3. The Shihab-3, which has a range of 1,300-1,500 kilometers, places Israel within range. More recently, Iranian officials were present at the testing of the advanced Taepodong-2 missile in North Korea in July 2006. This missile is the basis for the Iranian development of the Shihab-6, which has not yet been tested. These are intercontinental, nuclear capable ballistic missile systems, thought to have a range of 5,000-6,000 kilometers. One report has also suggested that Iran and North Korea are jointly seeking to develop a reentry vehicle for the Nodong/Shihab-3, which would be intended to carry a nuclear warhead. In addition, an Iranian opposition report in 2008 identified the presence of North Korean experts at a facility near Teheran engaged in attempts to develop a nuclear warhead to be placed on intermediate range ballistic missiles such as the Shihab-3 and the Nodong. The report was cited by Agence France Presse. The North Korean strategic link with Iran is not limited to Teheran. Rather, evidence suggests that it extends to cooperation with other, more junior members of the Iran-led regional alliance. Thus, Iranian defector Ali Reza Asghari is reported to have confirmed that Iran helped finance the participation of North Korean personnel in the Syrian plutonium reactor at al-Kibar destroyed by Israel in September 2007. Iranian scientists were also present at the site, the goal of which was to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Three North Korean scientists were reported to have been among the dead following an explosion at a Syrian chemical weapons facility near Aleppo in July 2007, suggesting North Korean involvement in other areas of the WMD endeavors of Iran and its allies. And one must not forget also the extensive evidence which has emerged to suggest a North Korean role in the construction of the Hizbullah underground tunnel network which played a vital role in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The network, according to the Intelligence Online Web site, was created by Hizbullah militants trained in the construction of underground facilities by North Korean experts. The tunnels in Lebanon are said to bear a striking resemblance to similar facilities discovered by the South Koreans in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. So despite North Korean official anger at Lieberman's remarks, the evidence is well-documented and overwhelming. Pyongyang is a vital factor in the arming of the Iran-led strategic axis in the Middle East. But why is North Korea playing this role? There is, after all, little ideological common ground between the Shi'ite Islamists in Teheran and Baalbek and the servants of the bizarre "Juche" philosophy used by Kim Jong-il to justify his dictatorship. The factors underpinning North Korean support for Iran and its allies are as simple as they are powerful: common enemies and hard cash. As a known rogue WMD proliferator, and as perhaps the most repressive regime currently on the planet, North Korea faces diplomatic and economic isolation. Like Iran, it is the subject of UN Security Council sanctions because of its nuclear program. Iran is prepared to pay good money for military and scientific assistance, and to underwrite Pyongyang's own research and development programs, from which it stands to benefit. North Korea and Iran play a similar role in their respective regions of opposition and subversion toward the US and its allies. A cynic might add that the tendency of both regimes to indulge in the faking up of sheer lies is a further point of commonality between them. These firm foundations mean that — short of action taken to disturb it — the friendship between the Kim Jong-il dictatorship in North Korea and the Iran-led "resistance bloc" in the Middle East is likely to flourish and continue to mutually benefit both partners in the years ahead. Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel. This article is archived at
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ISLAM IS FRIGHTENINGLY TIMELY AMID STRAINED U.S.-ISRAELI RELATIONS
Posted by Chuck Morse, May 28, 2010. |
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"Uncle Ho and the 2-state solution" Soviet archives, declassified shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, indicate that in 1973 Yasser Arafat's PLO operatives were advised by North Vietnamese political trainers in Hanoi to promote the so-called "two-state solution" as a negotiating tactic, as opposed to their previous policy of calling for the complete destruction of Israel. Arafat admired the North Vietnamese for their ability to garner sympathy and support within the American left, and he sought to emulate that success. By 1973, it had become clear that the crude PLO rhetoric, which included calls to drive the Jews into the sea and slaughter them all, was not winning any friends. Ho Chi Minh's advice worked like a charm while the PLO terrorism against Israel nevertheless continued unabated. Palestinian terrorist Abu Iyad, in his memoir published in Arabic and entitled "Palestinian Without A Motherland," recounts North Vietnamese political advisers suggesting to him that the PLO "stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand." The North Vietnamese had experienced amazing success in terms of convincing the American left that they were not engaged in an aggressive war of conquest against South Vietnam but were rather spearheading an effort to liberate the South from American oppression and establish independence for Vietnam under their rule. To truly understand anti-Israel vitriol in Middle East read Chuck Morse's "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini" The North Vietnamese propaganda failed to mention the fact that Ho Chi Minh, whose real name was Nyugen ai Quoc, had been a Soviet agent for 20 years before he became a public figure in North Vietnam in 1945. Hindsight indicates that the South Vietnamese people did not feel either liberated or independent due to the North Vietnamese conquest in 1975, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who braved shark-infested waters and pirates in their quest to escape the socialist paradise by getting on rickety boats. Neither did the people of Laos or Cambodia appear to appreciate the wonders associated with the communist takeover of their countries. The collectivization programs caused one of the worst genocides of the century, as radical Marxist Pol Pot collectivized Cambodia leading to millions of deaths. The PLO was no doubt encouraged when the U.S. Congress, having elected a new crop of young liberals in 1974, including Patrick Leahy and Joe Biden, cut off all aid to South Vietnam in March of 1975, which led to a full-scale invasion from the north and the fall of Saigon two months later. This disgraceful betrayal of America's ally occurred two years after the signing of the Paris Peace Accord in January of 1973, a treaty that resulted in the end of the war and the full withdrawal of American troops. The sellout of South Vietnam by American liberals, both on the street and in Congress, no doubt fostered hope in the souls of the PLO and their allies that American liberals would one day also sell out Israel — and they had reason to be encouraged. Ho's advice, which was to employ Marxist rhetoric when describing the Palestinian Arabs as oppressed and occupied, while referring to Israel in language that was probably borrowed from the chapters pertaining to Jews in Hitler's "Mein Kampf," a very popular book in the Arab world, was wildly successful in terms of garnering support from the international left including, to varying degrees, the Jewish left and even the Israeli left. The pressure in the ensuing decades led to the Oslo Accords, signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yatzak Rabin in a White House lawn ceremony presided over by President Bill Clinton on Sept. 13, 1993. On that same day, in a pre-taped interview that ran on Jordan TV, Arafat explained in Arabic that: "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do it in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel." Chuck Morse is a syndicated columnist and author of several books dealing with issues affecting Israel. He is a renowned radio talk show host where he co-hosts "The Fairness Doctrine" along with Dr. Patrick O'Heffernan in his home region of New England and was a candidate for US Congress in the 4th District of Massachusetts in 2004. Read a review of Morse's "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini" here. To interview Chuck Morse, please contact Ben Kilgore or Jess Segovia at (781) 698-9454 or media@wnd.com |
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MOHAMMED'S KARTOON KAFIRS
Posted by Bill Warner, May 28, 2010. |
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This was written by Kenneth Roberts. |
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In the TV sitcom 'Green Acres', Oliver Wendell Douglas, a New York attorney runs for public office against the popular incumbent. A rumor starts, suggesting that Douglas had been debarred as a lawyer. Though not true, the rural folk keep repeating the lie during the campaign, until everyone accepts it as an established fact... and besides, it's highly amusing to repeat the slander. Candidate Douglas is frustrated beyond endurance. Even though he is an accomplished attorney, he doesn't stand a chance against this entrenched prejudice. In the Koran, Mohammed uses the same technique. All sorts of things in the Koran are no more than cartoonish misrepresentations of people and other religions, but Moslems have no problem accepting them as established facts, merely because Mohammed said so and repeated them over and over, giving them divine authority... and besides, Mohammed's caricatures are highly amusing! Cartoons work. Hyperbole works. They entertain. They work viscerally by circumventing the intellect and appealing directly to the emotions through laughter and sneering mockery. A thing doesn't have to be true to be fun! Mocking outsiders is fun! It puts 'them' down, puts 'us' above them and thus dehumanizes 'them'. 'We' get control of 'them'. According to Mohammed, not only do kafir-subhumans deserve to be mocked, but they basically lack a right to share the earth with Moslems. They are on earth by the kind permission and mercy of Moslems who magnanimously restrain themselves from removing the kafirs altogether. By mocking their legitimate overlords (the Moslems), kafirs lose their right to exist on earth. That is the Sunna, the example, of Mohammed. In the TV episode, lawyer Douglas starts shouting, 'I was not debarred!' but no one hears him over the howls of bemused laughter. Mohammed discovered how effective laughing at one's opponents could be. He mocked all who didn't follow him, starting with the Jews, calling them sons of pigs and apes, and at other times calling them 'donkeys carrying the Taurat'. Mohammed refused to pronounce it 'Torah'. He distorted the names of people in the Bible as well, no doubt to make them sound funny. He told humiliating stories about Biblical heroes. Abraham had a humorous scrotal hernia. Talking rocks stole Abraham's clothes and ran away with them. Solomon bends over and overhears the language of ants. Trees, clouds and other objects in nature come alive and speak. Such imagery could come out of Tom and Jerry, but it is there in Mohammed's holy book revealed by his god, who only communicated with Mohammed. Mohammed also hired writers to lampoon his enemies in limericks. Mohammed could not take a joke at his own expense. No! Mohammed's narcissism was sacred! And poking fun at it was an unforgivable act of high treason punishable by death! He had writers assassinated who lampooned him. Of course, as with other matters, Mohammed gave himself a monopoly on cartoons. He wanted his opponents to be unarmed in the matter of satirizing him...as do pious Moslems today. Today, Moslems claim the right to satirize Jews, Americans, the British, the Pope and anyone else. But no one may satirize them. Moslems place themselves and their collective offended narcissism above comment. To criticize Moslems is an act of high treason against our divinely-appointed overlords! We are never told why Mohammed's narcissism needs defending more than another's narcissism. We are merely told that Mohammed taught his followers to defend his narcissism by assassinating critics...and that this is confirmed in Islamic law. Since Moslems claim a monopoly on lampooning, Moslems expect to fight opponents whose two hands are tied behind their backs. They expect to control all debate, so no one talks back. They expect to behead all verbal critique of Islam by removing freedom of speech from our writers, teachers and politicians. They would behead kafirs societies by silencing their leaders who are charged with hearing, speaking and thinking for the benefit of the body politick. They would silence opposition to Islam with a slice of the scimitar of censorship! This is being done by violence and threats of violence. Mohammed considered resistance to his censorship as unspeakable insolence that must be attacked with the utmost fury! Mohammed's narcissism would not bear the smallest slight. So he found a way to stop it. All laughter stops when a person picks up a knife. According to Mohammed, such murder pleases Allah. When Mohammed sent out his followers armed with knives, the mockers stopped mockery in Arabia forever. Anyone who disagreed with Mohammed left the country immediately, leaving Mohammed in complete control of all communications. Today Moslems still demand a monopoly on mockery, a monopoly on satire, a monopoly on cartoons. They want a safe position above the debate from which they can verbally lay into others. Islamic mockery goes only one way...towards the kafirs. Mohammed's mockery of Christian doctrines was as satirical as his mockery of the Jews. Mohammed's slanders of Christianity are some of the worst examples of his cartooning! The easiest and most distinctive Christian doctrine to remember is that of the divine Trinity, three persons in one God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Rather than admit he understood the clearly worded message, Mohammed intentionally distorted it as 'Father, Mother Mary and Son of God'. He obviously knew Mary was not part of the Trinity. He knew what he was doing. He was drawing a cartoon in which he removed the Holy Ghost from the picture. The first cult object tossed from the Kaaba by Mohammed was an image of a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Why was the Holy Ghost such a danger to Mohammed? Sometimes people reveal what frightens them by never mentioning what they fear! Mohammed never mentions the Holy Ghost. The gentle dove represents spiritual stillness, tameness and the Golden Rule. Their opposite qualities are activity, ferocity and opportunism. A world-conquering empire needed energetic warriors with the latter qualities, rather than contemplative Christian monks in a monastery preaching benevolence towards one's enemies. Mohammed's ultimate mockery of Christians was to mock the Virgin Mary by flying to heaven and make her his bride. Mohammed became the father of all Christians. His mockery of Christians was then almost complete. Practically everything Mohammed said about Christianity was a caricature and a distortion. In a final cartoon of Christianity, Mohammed claimed Jesus would return to betray and butcher his own followers and then break the crosses they possessed as the symbols of the Golden Rule! This is an astonishing cartoon caricature of everything Christians consider holy and a revelation of Mohammed's psychology of betrayal! The worst part of Mohammed's cartoons is that not only is he caricaturing the original doctrines, but he then claims that his cartoon represents THE TRUE IMAGE of them! Jewish and Christian doctrines as defined by the Jews and Christians themselves are wrong! Only Mohammed's cartoons are THE TRUE doctrines. No professional cartoonist would ever claim that! Cartoonists live enough in reality to know that their cartoons are highly exaggerated misrepresentations emphasizing a humorous aspect of events or personalities. If Mohammed thought his cartoons were REAL, he had obviously left reality. Koranic cartoons misrepresenting Jews, Christians and the pluralistic, cultured Arabs of Mohammed's day are not reality, but Mohammed's distorted comic strips, which Moslems have accepted as THE TRUTH ever since. Mohammed could not tell the difference between a cartoon and reality...or at least he pretended not to, if it was in his own political interest. This makes Mohammed a cynical, scheming politician, rather than a sincere spiritual leader. Was he mad or a schemer? Mohammed's cartoons of 'others' in the Koran are no more real than the evil and dehumanizing cartoons of Jews that appeared for 20 years in the Nazi propaganda newspaper, Der Stürmer. The purpose of these cartoons was the same as Mohammed's Koranic Kafir Kartoons ...to dehumanize the victims, make them out to be diseased animals and give Moslems the emotional freedom to treat these subhumans violently. Bill Warner is Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam. Contact him at bw@politicalislam.com and visit their website at http://www.politicalislam.com/ |
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PROF CHANES ON ANTI-SEMITISM; OBAMA'S TROUBLING STATEMENTS ON ISRAEL; PA ECONOMIC GROWTH REAL?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 28, 2010. |
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NEW YORK SCHOLAR ON ANTISEMITISM Part 1: Professor Jerome A. Chanes Professor Jerome A. Chanes, author of the award-winning A Dark Side of History: Anti-Semitism Through the Ages, among other books, spoke last night at the Fifth Ave. Synagogue in New York, on current antisemitism. Humorous and perceptive, the scholar had insufficient time to do justice to his subject, though he strove mightily to make proper distinctions. He explained that antisemitism is a reaction to broad events in society, events independent of what Jews do. Thus antisemitism has different motives at different times: religious, political, cultural, and racial. People like to hate. For instance, Chanes explained, If a sociologist asks Americans whether "the Jews" have too much power in the U.S., many will say "yes." But if the sociologist lists a couple of dozen major U.S. groups, Jews rank about the second from the bottom, thought to have too much power. America never had much of the ingrained antisemitism in institutions of state power, as did Europe. Antisemitism here has waned with each generation. Jewish defense organizations, such as ADL, work hard to sway individuals from antisemitism. Chanes finds no proof that approach works. Prejudice is generational, each generation coming under the influence of its own times. As a result, Jews have never been less disliked in America, nor have they ever felt less secure. Mr. Chanes did not get to explain his paradox, but he did mention the convergence of the new font of antisemitism, by the radical Muslims, with the new Left. A popular misconception, we were told, is that antisemitism kept the Jews together. No, Jewish vitality did, Chanes asserts. When is anti-Israel sentiment antisemitic? This question particularly riveted audience attention. Chanes defined ordinary criticism of some Israeli policies as not antisemitic. After all, Israelis themselves are divided over such policies. It is antisemitism when those criticisms extend to the legitimacy of the Jewish state and Jewish nationality, a legitimacy that the critics do not have for other ethnic groups [including the Palestinian Arabs, who are not a nationality and have current events but no separate history]. Elaborating, Chanes explained that driving that kind of antisemitism among non-Muslims in Europe is Europe's movement beyond nation states into international organizations. As a result, the pacifistic Europeans hate Israel and the U.S. for acting as nation states and defending themselves, The speaker applied his sense of humor somewhat at my expense. I asked, "If Europeans hate Israel for being a nation state, why are they striving to bring into statehood the Palestinian Authority?" He answered, "Richard, your mistake is in being logical." That reminds us that antisemitism is not logical but hysterical. I would explain European support for Palestinian Arabs both as appeasement of the Arabs and as driven by a hatred of Jewish statehood that exceeds their dislike for nation states in general. My comment on the antisemitism promoted by Muslims in the Mideast and in Europe: Antisemitism was the preeminent principle of the Nazis. After all, during WWII, the Nazis gave priority to trains carrying Jews to extermination camps, and not to trains carrying troops to the hard-pressed German fronts. The Muslim Arabs have added Nazi-style antisemitism, a racist variety, to their religious antisemitism. When my critics call Israelis "Nazis," they use words as weapons of deceit rather than as conveyors of information. They seek to divert attention from the Nazi-like ideology of totalitarian Muslims, and the fact that the main Nazi book is a best-seller among the Arabs. Part 2. Racial aspects The scholar did not define "antisemitism" nor elaborate on its racial aspect. He quoted a humorous comment that antisemitism is hating Jews more than absolutely necessary. He acknowledges that it can hardly be defined, but a sensitive Jews knows it when he sees it. Experts have explained that Islam started with antipathy toward Jews of that era, expanded that antipathy with blood libel and other features learned from European priests, and tinged their bigotry with Nazi racism. Nazi ideology, not just German opposition to colonial rule over the Arabs, was and is popular among the Arabs. The term, "racist," is so abused, that I usually avoid it. A racist holds descendants responsible for crimes of their forebears generations earlier, and holds responsible a whole nation responsible for what may have been done by a small portion of that nation and not because of that nation's culture. Nazism was indeed popular among Germans not purged by Hitler and inherent in their culture. Nazism had a theory of Jews being a race not fully developed except in evil. The mass-murdering Nazis, who dictated, warred, and looted, called other people evil! But contemporary Germans are much different and should not be judged the same. It is even less fair to call contemporary Jews "Christ-killers" for what a small proportion of the nation was accused of doing, out of context of its culture, and anyway had no power to execute and did not execute, two thousand years ago. The Islamist view extrapolates the religion's differences with a few Jews 1,400 years ago, into a genetically inherited plot to corrupt and conquer the world. They got that from the Nazis, who rely upon an antisemitic Czar having forged from a work of fiction not involving Jews, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That is racist. An Austrian coined the word, "anti-Semite," as my series on Major
Mideast Myths explains. (For start of the series, goto:
He originated it to mean hatred of Jews, his sentiment. He did not include Arabs in that. A persistent critic of mine misuses that word in two racist ways. First, he repeats the Arab excuse that Arabs are Semites and therefore cannot be antisemitic. "Semitic," however, is a language grouping. The critic is using the term as if designating a race. Of course, it is not logical, either, because some Jews are antisemites, too. Second, that critic resurrects the genetically disproved theory that modern Jews are descended from Khazar converts in what became Russia. There was barely contact between the Jews of Europe and the converted Khazar rulers. The theory also fails to account for the half of Israelis expelled by the Arabs from their ancient Mideastern communities. The critic suggests that modern Jews are not real Jews, because, he asserts incorrectly, they are not descended from them. However, Judaism recognizes converts. Therefore, the critic's view is racist, again. He relies on his mistaken notion of race, to claim that Khazar descendants never were in the Land of Israel. What a fantasy he must have, that the millions of Jews who dwelt in the European part of the Roman Empire, met and converted the Khazars, disappeared, and then the Khazars, whom the Russians conquered, moved into Europe, revering the Torah but not being, according to the critic, Jews! Beware of critics who accept almost any canard against the Jews, and who, as this one does, makes up his own blood libels almost daily. For example, he accuses the Israelis of murdering masses of Arabs to take their land, and cites no specifics. The Arabs used to be satisfied with the whopper that Israel expelled the Arabs. The critic embellishes it. His creativity in falsity indicates design, a combination of the very deceit, ignorance, and racism that he accuses others of.
OBAMA TROUBLING STATEMENTS ON ISRAEL: Part 1. Ten Statements 1. Upon signing the Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act, President Obama said that the "loss" of Mr. Pearl "reminded us of how valuable a free press is." Actually, Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded for being a Jew. The murderer admitted it and made Pearl acknowledge his being Jewish. Obama talked out of context, and without the indignation warranted, as if avoiding condemning radical Muslim murders of Jews. 2. In June, 2009, Obama visited the Buchenwald death camp, used primarily for Jews. He mentioned "Jews" only once, instead using innocuous wording, such as "where people were deemed inhuman because of their differences." 3. Usually, presidents refer to this country's Judeo-Christian origin and tradition, but in his inaugural, he said, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non believers." In January, 2009, he told the Saudis that we are "a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers." Note the odd sequence. 4. At Cairo in June, 2009, Obama used the self-serving Islamist estimate of 7 million. He said we have one of the largest Muslim populations in the world [actually no more than a few emirates have]. "The U.S. has about 6 million Jews. The 2007 Pew Research Center study estimates a U.S. Muslim population of about 1.8 million. A 2008 American Religious Identification Survey puts the figure even lower, at 1,349,000." 5. Obama equated the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust with the recent suffering of Palestinian Arabs. [That compares victims of genocide with attempted perpetrators of genocide, who lost their property as a result, and whose fellow Arabs confiscated a greater amount of property from Jews]. He also equated the Arab situation with that of blacks during U.S. slavery and S. African apartheid, implying that this was Israel's fault. 6. Jerusalem should be a place for all faiths, Obama said. That is not fair. Israel has made it such, but when the Muslims ruled, it was not. 7. Also at Cairo, Obama referred to the Koran, the Christian Testament, and the Talmud, but only the first two as holy. 8. He named other countries that helped Haiti, but omitted Israel, which helped more than any of those others. 9. When Israel announced another step in the approval process for some housing in Jerusalem, breaking no agreement with the U.S., Obama used such words as "insult," "affront," and "condemn." He did not use such words for Iran's nuclear programs or oppression nor for the Palestinian Authority's indoctrinating in bigotry and naming places in honor of terrorists. 10. Obama let himself be photographed talking by phone with Israel's PM Netanyahu, showing the soles of his shoes, which to the Arabs signifies insult, in this case, to Netanyahu. Some of the lesser incidents by themselves would not be troubling. However, they are part of a pattern. Obviously, Obama treats Muslims more considerately than Israelis. Like Israel's virulent critic, Jimmie Carter, Obama has appointed Jews and held Jewish ceremonies. But Obama's appointees share his policies harmful for Israel (5/27/10 press release by Zionist Organization of America, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member). Let us not make the simple-minded, incorrect assumption that if someone is Jewish, he automatically is pro-Israel. Same for politicians who say they are pro-Israel. They may not mean it. Part 2. Double standard If Israel lobbied to expel the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) from the UN, would Obama ignore it? The P.A. lobbies to expel Israel from the UN and Obama does ignore it. If Israel boycotted P.A. businesses, would Obama ignore it? The P.A. boycotts Israeli businesses in the Territories, and Obama ignores it. If Israel declared that all Jewish terrorists convicted of attacking Arabs should be released, would Obama ignore it? The P.A. declares that all Arab terrorists convicted of attacking Israel should be released, and Obama ignores it. Obama has a double standard, prejudiced against Israel. He lets the Arabs get away with every way by which they work against peace (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 5/27/10).
P.A. ECONOMIC GROWTH? 
By now you may have heard that the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) in Judea-Samaria enjoyed economic growth of 8.5% last year. P.A. Prime Minister Fayyad got the credit for it. The international monetary fund, however, gives the credit to increased foreign aid. There has not been much private investment representing real growth. Funds pumped in account for the real estate boom in Ramallah (IMRA, 5/27/10).
IRAN-RUSSIA ROW OVER SANCTIONS Iran and Russia have had their wars and other differences over the centuries. Many times in recent years, Russia saved Iran from UN sanctions, and has helped Iran's military industry. Iranian dissembling, however, has made Russia look foolish for it. Finally, Russia got the most recent UN sanctions watered down, and then approved them. That was not good enough for Iran's President Ahmadinejad. He warned Russia to think carefully before crossing a great nation such as Iran. He said that if Russia persisted, Iran would consider it an enemy. Russian President Medvedev told Ahmadinejad to stop his demagoguery. A specialist told Reuters that Ahmadinejad was attempting to blame his problems on others (IMRA, 5/27/10).
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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LANDAU LAMBASTES BARAK FOR LEBANON WITHDRAWAL
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, May 28, 2010. |
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Ehud Barak, aka; the coward of Lebanon, seems to only be able to wage war against Yeshivah students and their Rabbis. His hysterical, middle-of-the-night withdrawal from Lebanon succeeded in elevating a rag-tag street gang into international prominence. It is petty, incompetent bunglers like Barak that offer the greatest and most self evident proof for the existence of G-D. If Israel, and the rest of the world as well, were actually run by these low lifes, the world would not last till the end of the day. This a news brief from Arutz-7 (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). |
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Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau said Friday that Defense Minister Ehud Barak caused harm to Israel when, as prime minister, he ordered Israeli troops out of Lebanon. Interviewed by Arutz Sheva television in Hebrew on the 10th anniversary of the pullout (finished on May 24, 2000, the 19th of Iyar on the Hebrew calendar), the Yisrael Beiteinu lawmaker noted the way it left depicted the Israel Defense Forces as fleeing for their lives from Hizbullah terrorists, leaving them equipment and making the South Lebanese Army look abandoned. Asked why Barak is proud of the retreat, Landau asked, "Do you want him to come and admit all his mistakes publicly, as well as the heavy price the people have paid because of them? He's a politician, and not every politician admits his mistakes." Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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THE CAT'S OUT OF THE BAG
Posted by Robin Ticker, May 28, 2010. |
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This was written by Nadia Matar of Women in Green.
Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow
(Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their
email address is wfit2@womeningreen.org and their
website address is
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I was happy to read the reports in the media on Wednesday, May 26, 2010, that dozens of lecturers from the Hebrew University set out with hundreds of their students on a march to the "Sheikh Jarah" (Shimon Hatzaddik) neighborhood in Jerusalem "to demonstrate against the entry of Jewish settlers to the neighborhood and the removal of Arab families from their homes." The photographs accompanying the reports show the demonstrators with signs such as: "Students and Lecturers against Settlements," "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House," and the like. According to the report on Ynet, during the course of the procession the students and the lecturers voiced calls such as "We will not sit in classrooms when, outside, rights are being trampled" and "Civil rights will not be taught with racism in Sheikh Jarah." They also bore banners stating, among others (in a slogan that rhymes in Hebrew), "There Is No Sanctity in an Occupied City." The report quotes various lecturers who explain why they came to demonstrate: Dr. David Tsafti, a lecturer in genetics: "I don't agree to the expulsion of families from their homes. They say that the houses belong to Jews, and maybe that is correct, but it certainly isn't right [...] people have lost the ability to see Arabs as human beings." [Interestingly, five years ago Dr David Tsafti was not seen demonstarting against the expulsion of our brothers from Gush Katif...but let's go on to the next lecturer] Ruti Bettler, a professor of education, said that she has been active in this struggle [against Jews settling in Jerusalem's neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah] for a long time. "The attempt to expel these families from their homes is an injustice in the human and moral plane." [She too somehow, who is active on behalf of Arab squatters in homes they grabbed and stole from the original Jewish owners, did not decry the expulsion of Jews from their real homes.] Let's go on to the next leftist professor quoted in the article: Professor Tamar Rappaport said that no less than 10 lecturers in education came to the demonstration. "Word of the demonstration went though the social networks and [e-]mails, and reached people. In the final analysis, lecturers, too, are people, and in this land it's impossible not to be political." She made clear that the lecturers did not come to the demonstration in the name of the university, and rather were speaking for themselves, but she emphasized: "I think that the struggle of Sheikh Jarah is closely connected with academy." The professor of anthropology Yoram Bilu told that during all his years in academe, he did not encounter such a broad and diverse response by lecturers and students for such cooperation." You'll be surprised to hear this, but I am very glad that such a demonstration was held by the left. For years we have been trying to persuade teachers, educators, and rabbis in our national camp that it is inconceivable that they and their students would not be involved, even during study hours, in the struggle for Eretz Israel. During the Oslo period I attempted to persuade teachers to join the demonstrations against the Oslo accords, together with their students, during study times, as well. How is it possible to continue to study when the house is on fire, we told them? And likewise during the period of the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria, and likewise right now: when the Arabs, who are financed by international bodies, are stealing and grabbing thousands of dunams of state lands, tens of thousands of yeshivah students in the state-religious or hardal (semi-ultra-Orthodox) religious educational institutions continue with routine life as usual, continue to study in air-conditioned study halls — as if there were no physical war, on the ground, for the land. Don't misunderstand me. I am not calling to stop Torah study, or any other study, but I am calling to combine study with the actual struggle on the ground, as I will explain in detail below with practical examples. Once I also tried to persuade Bnei Akiva counselors to organize setting up new me'ahazim (outpost settlements), or to distribute informational material against the Oslo accords and for Eretz Israel as a whole. In all these instances described above we were confronted by the same puzzling response: "It is forbidden for us and our members to participate in "political" activity." Now, after dozens of Hebrew University lecturers, who publicly proclaimed their views, unabashedly participated in a demonstration by the left, I want to hope that in our camp, as well, educators, rabbis, teachers, lecturers, and their students will begin to arise and go out to defend Eretz Israel, on the ground. Ideas for action:
Robin Ticker writes: "This email is L'Ilui Nishmat Yisrael ben David Aryeh ob"m (Izzy Kaplan) a great activist and lover of Eretz Yisroel, Am Yisroel and the Torah. Yehi Zichrono Baruch." Contact her at faigerayzel@gmail.com |
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THE FLAG OF KAVEH
Posted by Jaff Sassani, May 27, 2010. |
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Jaff Sassani from the Sassanian Kurd Defense Committee (KDC) writes We are about three million people in Iran and Iraq. Our people are called the "Jaff" we are originally Sassanian people. We are acceptable by the Persian and Kurds people and other Iranian nations because of our origin. Read more about them here. |
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THE FLAG OF KAVEH True or mythological, the story of the blacksmith Kaveh goes back to an era before The Medes and Sassanian Empires. Kaveh led a popular uprising against the foreign demon-like ruler Dahag (Modern Iranian: Zahhak). Using the blacksmith's leather apron on a spear as a flag, Kaveh lead the Aryan people to destroy Zahhak, the Arab tyrant who unjustly ruled over the Aryan people's lands. The founder of the Sassanian Empire was the Great Spirit and tireless son of the Aryan people, Ardashir Sassani. Once more the flag of the blacksmith Kaveh was used. Sassani used this flag as his own, as a symbol to liberate and build an independent country for the Aryan nation. We hope that someday the Aryan people will once again come together to form a united front, similar to the Europeans union. Every Aryan nation should have the freedom to form the country and Government for themselves separately. Instead of trying to destroy each other, we should try to help each other to form a free country like those in Europe so that we can live with each other in peace. Racism will cause divisions, no matter whether it is Persian racism, Kurdish racism, Afghani racism or any other Aryan racism. Considering and accounting for each others interests, will bring the Aryan people together and get us united. The many languages used in Europe have not stood in the way as they form a solid European union. We, the Aryan people, have languages very similar to one another; it should be much easier for us to get united. We have a lot of powerful enemies, like families from the Islamic Sayed, with Arabic origins and Turks. They would not like to see us united. That is why they work to inject division among us. The Sassanian Empire was an independent Aryan country that followed the Zoroastrians religion. It was not solely a Persian country. Even Ferdawsi are questionable. Those who follow the racist Persian policy are enemies of the Aryan people without any doubt. It is possible that Shitte Islamic Sayeds or Turks injected this racist belief among the Aryan people to keep them from becoming united forever. But enemies of the Aryan peoples plans are useless because the Aryan people are much more knowledgeable and smarter than they are. The Aryan people's eyes were truly opened following the Islamic revolution of Iran. Sayed Allotola Komani's, along with his disciples, ruled as a tyrant and abused many. They are no longer accepting the propaganda and they are not getting fooled in the name of Shitte any more. There is hope for a better future and happier days for the Aryan people. Contact the Jaff Sassani by email at jaff.skdc@gmail.com or
visit their website:
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RE: THE JEWISH INTELLECTUAL PREDICAMENT
Posted by Paul Lademain, May 27, 2010. |
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We respond to Isi Leibler's article in the Jerusalem Post — November 25, 2009 which asks this question: "Why does so much of the world hate us?" We think what we have to say here in response to the JP article synchronizes with the views so brilliantly articulated by David Solway in his editorial "The Jewish Intellectual Predicament" — FrontPageMag.com May 27, 2010. We are the Secular Christians for Zion. We believe there are many answers to Isi Liebler's question: Here's some of our thoughts: 1) You ask for hatred whenever a Jew plaintively cries "Why does so much of the world hate us?" because this question rings a bell in the minds of people who would nor ordinarily think to hate you and so they prick up their ears out of curiosity and search in all the wrong places for answers that very question and of course they find your enemy's propaganda instead of your own. Therefore a small part of this animosity toward Israel reposes with Jews who have failed, utterly, to develop and passionately express effective propaganda to rebut the insults contrived by the Islamics. Instead, you produce reams of yackety-yak by prominent Israeli in-tell-leck-shu-alls who write boring tracts in rebuttal to the scurrilous accusations contrived against Israel. Like the dullest of pedants they carefully recite, paragraph after paragraph and word for word, the spurious accusations against Israel and then analyze them for paragraphs more. Worse still, these well-meaning bores are prone to conclude their magnum opus with so few words in defense of Israel — and these in phrases so coldly dispassionate and so tediously logical — that an uninformed reader will more often than not come away with the feeling that Israelis are actually confessing their guilt. The unintended consequence of this Hebraic intellectualism has been most unfortunately reinforced by Israel's peculiar leadership who repeatedly offer to make "painful concessions" for "peace" — words uttered not by the righteous and never by the virtuous but rather by persons who are necessarily presumed to be "down, dirty, and guilty-as-sin." What else would explain why a Jew would offer tribute to those who profess to despise them? Which begs another question: Do you really believe that your God commands Jews to offer "mitzvahs" to those who slaughter your children and stone your unarmed countrymen? (If so, its no wonder that people are so readily persuaded that you've got more than a screw loose, in which case they will feel not just tempted but rather entitled to take advantage of you.) 2) Then you have amongst you a large cadre of frightened Jews who are quick to agree with their Islamic accusers in order to dissipate their fear of receiving a thrashing at the hands of their clever enemies. They suffer from what we refer to as the "running Jew" syndrome and their trembling faints invite the very attacks they hope to avoid. We suspect these Jews whom you refer to as "leftists" are at bottom glued to each other in fear. And their fears might very well be justified because Israel's leadership has been, at least during their lifetimes, such a profound and unsettling disappointment. Ever since Israel defeated its enemies in 1967 and thereafter proudly relinquished their gains and abandoned their hard-fought advantages with such bravura displays of foolishness, the "running Jew" cadre has had every right to fear that their leaders are either corrupt or else nuts and hence willing to sacrifice their brethren for the sake of self-aggrandizement. Shimon Peres' ridiculous behavior turns the stomach of all who observed him simpering over Yasser Arafat even as Arafat's myriad goon gangs slaughtered Israeli women and children. Peres' response? He kissed his "dear little arab" and clutched him even closer to his sagging bosoms. How many Jews were aware that while Arafat's goon-gangs paraded through the streets of Jerusalem that Peres and Arafat were planning to do business together through their respective Cayman Islands tax haven corporate-NGO nominees? 3) Jewish hypersensitivity to criticism: Instead of responding to Euroid slurs with a loud "How DARE You!" the Jew, embodied in the personae of such senile old men as Sharon and the ever-plumping Ehud Barak, are prone to crouch down and then with rounded backs meekly offer to make "painful concessions" for "peace" with the arab squatters occupying Israel's lands. This knee-jerk psychological self-mutilation has encouraged the Islamics to hate Jews even more because arabs despise weakness even more than they fear power. Jews who offer "painful concessions" in the hope of parading "superior sensitivity to civilities" and who lack the will to confront their bullies invite disrespect instead of admiration. And once disrespect sets in, it can swiftly resolve into loathing. In short, far too many Jews give the impression that they are willing to rush to the cross and nail themselves up in order to forestall their enemies from dispensing worse punishment. 4) Jews have little or no experience when it comes to acquiring and then holding onto land. Islamics, on the other hand, have over a thousand years of experience when it comes to taking land and subjugating the natives. How do you think Abdullah grabbed almost the entire Arabian Peninsula for himself? By the wages of terrorism and wholesale slaughter of anyone who stood in his way, that's how! 5) We beg to differ with your opinion that Europeans have abandoned their "nationalism". To the contrary, the Euroids remain as nationalistic as ever. Have you forgotten how the UK bashed Argentina (with US support) in order to retain ownership and control of the Falkland Islands? Have you forgotten how Spain sent warships to evict a few arabs from the disputed island known as "Perejil" (to the Spaniards) and "Leila" to the Moroccans? And are you unaware of the fact that Spain refuses to cede even so much as an inch of its lands to the Basque? 6) Jews mistake their own mental laziness for enlightenment when they refer to every arab occupying the region between the ocean and the sea as a "palestinian". We shouldn't have to be the ones to remind Jews that the only true Palestinian is a Jew. The Islamics are fakers and false takers. Israelis should have declared so years ago. And all Jews, in unison, should have loudly reminded the Euroids that Jews also have "rights of return" to the lands from which they were driven by the arabs when Israel became a nation in 1948. Truly, more Jews were forced to become refugees and to flee for their lives than the arabs who now claim, without any proof, that they were "driven" from the remnant of Jewish Palestine that became the tiny nation of Israel. Viva to the Patriots of Israel from the SC4Z! Paul Lademain is a Secular Christian for Zion (SC4Z). Contact him by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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TALE OF TWO EMBASSIES
Posted by Shelley R. Neese, May 27, 2010. |
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It's 1979. Iran's monarchy lay somewhere between impotency and total collapse. The Islamic Revolution rolls full steam ahead as one of the largest protest movements in history. Millions take to the streets in anti-Shah demonstrations throughout Iran. On January 17, the Shah and the rest of the Pahlavi dynasty flee the country. Two weeks later, exiled Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran from Paris; millions of cheering well-wishers greet him at the airport. In a matter of ten short days the Ayatollah and his Revolutionaries overwhelm the last military forces loyal to the monarchy, ushering in the Islamic Republic. Hundreds of American and Israeli citizens in Iran evacuate during the February chaos. Key Embassy officials are an exception. Their governments fear that if they completely jump ship, their countries will never be allowed back. The remaining personnel at the American and Israeli Embassies hunker down and wait for Khomeini's next move. On February 10, Revolutionaries holding a political demonstration call for an end to the Israeli presence in Iran. Thousands of political demonstrators, chanting "Death to Israel, Long live Arafat," march to the nearby Israeli Embassy. According to Ronen Bergman in his book The Secret War with Iran, before the mob climbs over the walls and surround the building, the Israelis inside set fire to the few documents remaining. Most of the classified files were mailed back to Israel months ago. Personnel narrowly escape out the back gate, as the mob storms the embassy. Looting is rampant. The Israeli flag is torched. But, they are too late to take hostages or find intelligence. Later that day, Yasser Arafat, visiting Iran as the first foreign "head of state," gives a speech from the Israeli Embassy's balcony, declaring it the new headquarters for the Palestinian Liberation Organization. "Under the Ayatollah's leadership," Arafat announces, "we will free Palestine!" The deposed Israeli diplomats hide in Tehran apartments for a week until they secretly board a plane with eight hundred evacuating Americans. Fast forward nine months. The plight of the American Embassy is a story much more familiar. Diplomats remain in Tehran on the principle that the U.S. should not evacuate on its own accord. The State Department assures employees that everything is "perfectly safe." On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students and militants seize the compound. Calling themselves the "Muslim student followers of the Imam," they take fifty-three American staffers hostage, parading them in front of news cameras bound and blindfolded. The marauding Iranian students find a treasure trove of classified documents, many destroyed through a one-way shredder. They form teams to gather all the shreds and spend the next two years reassembling them. They publish sixty-five volumes of classified documents from what Khomeini referred to as the "American spy den." Consider for a moment the very different fates of both embassies. On that February day, when the Israelis heard boots marching, they ran for their lives and incinerated their secrets. Nine months later, when buses of Iranian demonstrators arrived at the American embassy, they met zero resistance. The Marine security guards were armed but refused to use force. According to the testimony of William J. Daughtry — an American hostage — one security guard announced he was going to "reason" with the mob. Shortly after, Daughtry spotted him blindfolded with the rest. In the throes of Khomeini's Iran, the Americans took little caution in improving the vulnerable security situation at the American compound. This is especially surprising considering that Revolutionaries had taken over the Embassy once before on February 14, 1979. Embassy personnel were held hostage for several hours in what became know as the St. Valentine's Day Open House. That event foreshadowed worse things to come. Even as the mob took over every Embassy office, the Americans requested Iranian police or military to intervene for their protection. The Americans assumed up to the bitter end that Iran would abide by international law that says embassies are sovereign space and diplomats are immune from arrest. Khomeini never got that memo. The Islamic Revolution took most of the world by surprise, including Western intelligence agencies. Israel's Ambassador to Iran, Uri Lubrani, was one of the few who predicted the fall of the Shah. In a letter to Prime Minister Begin in June 1978, he warned that the Shah's regime would collapse within two to three years. In the fall of 1978, the Central Intelligence Agency informed President Carter there was no chance of the monarchy collapsing. The CIA assessed that Iran was "not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation." According to predictions of the 1978 National Intelligence Estimate, the Shah would rule for another decade. Such estimates are a risky way of deciding business when it comes to Iran. America hoped the Revolutionary shakeup was an internal Iranian issue; the State Department thought if they kept a low profile then the anti-American rhetoric would blow over. The Israelis in the Embassy ran and hid because they took the enemy at their word. When crowds chanted "death to the Jews," they assumed they meant exactly that. As a result, the Israelis had a close shave but they came out unscratched. The Americans, for their part, got a black eye and a 444-day hostage crisis. The Iran of 2010 is on a path to nuclear armament. The Western world has been unable to stop or even stall these aspirations. Israel is taking Iran at its word and understands what's at stake. The U.S. is assuming benevolence, taking no heed to Iran's continued apocalyptic threats and diplomatic obstinance. The writing, however, is on the wall, literally. The former American Embassy, now housing Revolutionary Guards, is covered in Anti-American graffiti. A skeletal Statue of Liberty is spray painted along one wall with a scrawled message that translates "We will make America face a severe defeat." This time will America listen?
Shelley Neese is the managing editor of
The Jerusalem Connection. Visit the website at
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VOLUNTARY PALESTINIAN UNEMPLOYMENT — ON THE EUROPEAN DOLE (AGAIN)
Posted by David Frankfurter, May 27, 2010. |
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After decades of milking the European public to fund a corrupt and violent Palestinian regime, while deliberately keeping the average Palestinian in poverty, the cycle has started again. With the Palestinians supposedly " proximal" to the peace table, Abbas has decided to ignore his responsibilities to peace, to his own people and to wise fiscal management. He has also decided to ignore the dire situation of the taxpaying public of his European sponsors — and sidestep the fact that whenever under Israeli " occupation" the Palestinian areas have grown economically, and whenever under Palestinian "resistance" they have declined. Abbas has declared "voluntary" (under pain of traditional
Palestinian punishments) unemployment for the 20,000 or so
Palestistians gainfully employed in industries in Israeli communities
— at a self estimated cost of $50m which he assumes/demands will be paid for by the European taxpayer.
(Read about it here:
I would have thought that Europe has enough unemployment problems, without taking on new voluntary or political unemployed. I would also have thought that the Americans would consider this as deliberate sabotage of the so-called "proximity" peace talks. I would have also thought that after various "goodwill gestures" by the Israelis at Palestinian and US insistence, the Israeli negotiating team must be wondering if they are just wasting their time — and have once again been tricked by a duplicitous Palestinian leadership. David Frankfurter is a business consultant, corporate executive
and writer who frequently comments on the Middle East.
To subscribe to his 'Letter from Israel', email him at
david.frankfurter@iname.com. Or go to
http://www.livejournal.com/users/dfrankfurter/
This article is archived at
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FORMULATING A RESPONSE
Posted by Ari Bussel, May 27, 2010. |
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At times, it is the outside observer who sees the obvious, yet those engrossed in the details fail to see the larger picture. Observations rather than being characterized as "lucid" are viewed as "rancid;" systems are adverse to change. Thus, even the most astute observations are neither incorporated in the decision making process nor translated into necessary action. In the 18th Knesset, ministerial positions were determined by bazaar-like negotiations on which the formation of a coalition government was dependent. These perks, paid by Israel and her citizens, are the price for a faulty electoral system. Among the many ministers and their deputies, aides, assistants, relatives and other salary-getters, there are two in particular who are likely candidates to lead the current process of fighting delegitimization of the Jewish State: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) led by Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Liberman and the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs led by Minister Yuli-Yoel Edelstein. The MFA has representatives throughout the world in embassies, consulates and local offices. As a body, it could be most useful in presenting Israel's position. Since humanitarian aid to Gaza has been a hot topic since, at the very least, December, 2008, when Israel embarked on Operation Cast Lead, the MFA has had a year and a half during which not only to "formulate a response" but to put such a plan (or plans) into action. Every week the IDF puts out a summary of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Every foreign journalist receives a copy from the Prime Minister's Government Press Office (GPO). The GPO acts under the guidance of the Ministry of Public Diplomacy. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that despite arguments that the IDF's or GPO's dispatches are mere propaganda, the fact that 30,920 trucks containing 800,000 tons of supplies were transferred into Gaza during 2009 would not be lost on those reporting from Israel. At the very least, a reputable journalist could venture out to the field and attempt to verify the information or discredit the disseminator. Other facts, like the 3,676 trucks that went from Israel to the Gaza Strip with 48,000 tons of food products, 40,000 tons of wheat, 2,760 tons of rice, 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear, 553 tons of milk power and baby food all during the first quarter of 2010 (January to March), cannot be hidden. These are simply too many truck trips. It is simply too large a quantity to be left in a warehouse or a field and disappear unnoticed. Moreover, anyone visiting Gaza and seeing the flourishing trade there, the abundance of products in the markets and restaurants or even the active nightlife will be wondering about the real propaganda being used against Israel. Then again, it is easier to falsely accuse, as long as the accusation sounds bad and damaging enough to Israel's reputation. As far removed from reality as they may be, false attacks and their wide and warm reception reflect the world's eagerness to believe the worst about the Jewish State, no verification needed. While Hamas' Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and its operations are sponsored and supported by the Iranian regime, Israel is good for the Gazans. During 2009, 10,544 residents along with twelve thousand accompanying individuals were transferred to Israel to receive medical treatment. Likewise, there were 382 emergency evacuations from Gaza for medical purposes. Also last year, 7.5 million flowers and 54 tons of strawberries were exported from Gaza. Admittedly, these figures are provided by the IDF spokesperson's office, although they are easily verifiable. "Israel is putting stickers 'made in Gaza' to avert the world's scrutiny of the real genocide she is committing" will say the enemies. They may add: "How can the poor Gazans grow flowers, when Israel has been thirsting the Palestinians for 62 years, preventing them from fresh, running water?" Since journalists can travel to and from Gaza, they can check for themselves. Alas, there is only one small issue: If their reports are not liked by Hamas, they can either be executed while in Gaza or the next time they enter. Truth (thus reporting) is a risky proposition in this part of the world. Several weeks ago plans were announced for a sailing of another in a series of humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza. Promises were made that Israel's blockade will be broken at all cost. Hundreds of human rights activists gathered in Turkey for a journey to "Gaza under Siege," willing to sacrifice their freedom so that the Gazans will not starve. Alas, the Gazans are not starving for food nor is there any real need for medical assistance, water or electricity or even construction materials. All are supplied by Israel. There are limits, though, on what may pass into Gaza, for the Gazans have used certain materials to build and improve rockets, explosives and other terror-related means. I marked my calendar for Monday, May 24th, the official sail date of the mission. It is not the first time that such a mission sets sail toward Gaza. These missions are most effective: If they are allowed to reach Gaza, the participants are viewed as victors. If anything happens to them, if Israel boards the vessels and takes control or worse, if anyone gets hurt, Israel is seen as the aggressor. This time, however, Turkey vowed to retaliate if Israel does any harm to the journey of the "peace activists" and "humanitarians." Israel responded that any humanitarian aid can be offloaded in the Port of Ashdod or in Egypt and passed by land into Gaza according to the guidelines set forth which maximize transfer to those who really need the aid (rather than be hijacked for profits or other motives) while minimizing the usage for terror purposes. A group of Israeli boat owners have — of their own volition and initiative — decided to set sail to meet the incoming "Messengers of Peace." The official government response was congratulatory, although officials kept emphasizing the counter-sail is a private initiative. Minister Edelstein said, "the answer was given by citizens who I am not clear if they belong to the right or the left, but certain these are people who did not forget what is Zionism. When there is unity and we understand the hypocrisy, the goal has been reached." Israel seems to want to distance herself from necessary action. Thus, private individuals or NGOs have to take charge. Will Israel's culpability or liability differ any if she takes the lead? On the contrary, it would be most beneficial, for Israel will send a strong message: WE TAKE A STAND. It is easier, instead, to let the others do the work. Yigal Palmor, the Spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has repeated Israel's invitation for the organizers of the "humanitarian attempt to breach the blockade" to use the land crossings, in the same manner as all reputable international organizations. However, he states "they are engaging in political propaganda and not in pro-Palestinian aid." Palmor reiterated, "If the organizers were truly interested in providing humanitarian aid — as opposed to engaging in publicity stunts — they would use the proper channels to ensure delivery of any supplies." So what do we have? A private initiative, an IDF data sheet and a MFA interview. After the ships sailed on their wanted collision course, activity from Israel has intensified. "Suddenly" fact sheets are being provided, interviews are being given, information supportive of Israel's claims disseminated. The GPO even sent out a list of recommended restaurants in Gaza and others followed suit. Guess who is going to gain more credence, Israel's last-minute attempt at a reply or the organizers now on the way to Israel? Who will emerge with an upper hand from this repeated exercise? Who will perfect their modus operandi for the next attempt to breach the "blockade?" Who will eventually win this public diplomacy war? For those in doubt — it will not be Israel. Success will not happen miraculously when procrastination has characterized the response. In fact, why even bother after the vessels have already set sail? Defense Minister Barak has already advised several Foreign Ministers, including those of Ireland, Cyprus and Greece (under whose flags some vessels are sailing) that the Israeli Navy will prevent access. Possibly one should study what has prompted Israel's waking up at all? I am reminded of a time not that long ago that Judge Goldstone was in Israel "researching" (or more correctly conjuring findings). His stay did not warrant an equally forceful plan of action until after his report was published and caused major damage in its detached-from-reality conclusions. For those in America who have had a taste of what is happening on university campuses, the situation is similar. Our enemies have used the guise of "free speech" and "academic freedom" to hijack our system to attack Israel and prevent free speech from anyone not in agreement with their radical agenda. The response? Organizations like Stand With Us are doing the work, individuals from Israel come to speak, but this is the job of the MFA and the Ministry of Public Diplomacy. They, apparently, were quite surprised when the Israeli Ambassador to the USA was not as welcomed during a speech he attempted to give at the University of California Irvine. Alas, like the current sailing, it was not the first, nor the last occurrence. There are many capable, thinking persons in Israel. "Formulating a response" or "coming up with a coherent approach" should have been concluded long ago. It was time for action not for academic discussions while Israel is being beaten and defeated on the public diplomacy front. The time is long past for the official echelons in Israel, the Government and the Israel Defense Forces to PROTECT ISRAEL. To do so, Israel taught the world, one must go on the offensive. There is no time to be waste. Israel must regroup and attack. Clearly she will be able to do an amazing work if she only sets her heart and mind to the task. Israelis were able to come up with microscopic cameras to travel the human body's blood vessels, devised drip irrigation, developed vaccines and medications and are working on the forefront of discoveries that will continue to benefit humanity. They must now focus some of that same ingenuity and creativity to defend their nation. If Israelis do not rise to this challenge, there may one day no longer be a country for Jews around the world to call their home. Sadder yet, the words "never again" once again fall on deaf ears, and the world is eager to witness another Holocaust as the job of exterminating the Jews was abruptly stopped 65 years ago but has finally resumed. In the series "Postcards from Israel — Postcards from America," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, an Israel visitors rarely discover Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
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THE WAR OBAMA AND HIS ADVISORS NEED TO STAY IN POWER
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, May 27, 2010. |
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President Barack Hussein Obama seems to be an anomaly — in the general scheme of politics. We know that Obama has no military experience but, those he chose to advise him supposedly have both the military expertise and the global experience as high ranking political players from past regimes. It has been observed that Obama and family have a repugnance for the American military, political speeches of approval notwithstanding. In the lore of political history, when leaders are losing the confidence of their people, starting or participating in wars has often been the preferred method of maintaining power. The people at large are generally loath to change rulers just before or during a war. There are several reasons why a war would be beneficial to the Obama regime and his currently dominant Democratic Party. Note that the upcoming November mid-term elections already show a high probability of the Democrats losing control of Congress and their 'right' to spend without restraint. Unfortunately, Obama has shown that he is not competent to lead or protect America from normally occurring disasters, whether they are financial meltdowns, natural or man-made disasters like the oil contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, or from a nuclear-armed rogue state such as Iran or North Korea or the Taliban in Pakistan.... His deliberate bumbling to stop Iran from going nuclear within a very few months is reminiscent of a second-rate prize fighter agreeing to take a dive in a certain round. Obama's advisors are "experienced" in making threats for public consumption but, dealing under the table to insure they would never have to live up to their bluster. We have observed Obama and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, bluster about how they will pressure Iran to behave and not to advance their nuclear plans. But when Iran ignores every threat with impunity, Obama shifts the blame over to Israel. As Muslims around the globe attack every outpost of the West, including their infiltration of radica Muslims Terrorists into democratic nations' areas of vulnerability and influence, Obama and his cohorts find ways to blame Israel. While Israel is barely a dot on the map of the Middle East and Obama is representing the world's major Super-Power, he genuflects in Muslim style to a people who pledge to make America adopt Islam as part of their goal for a Global Caliphate. In addition, as always, the radical Islamist Muslims proclaim they will wipe the Jewish Nation/State of Israel off the map — with fire. Obama gets daily briefings on the advanced state of weaponry accumulated by Iran and Syria who duly pass much of it on to Hezb'Allah (now a controlling hostile force in Lebanon) and Hamas (ready to begin a Third Intifada in Israel). Much of these weapons' systems originate in Russia or China and North Korea. But, Obama bows, scrapes and genuflects to all of these nations while attacking Israel's right to defend herself. Obama even has top ranked General Keith Dayton training the Muslim Palestinian paramilitary forces to attack Israel when the time comes. Let's not forget Egypt's recent war-game exercises called "Badr 2010", where the targeted enemy was known to be Israel — despite the supposed Camp David peace treaty. ["Badr" refers to the first military victory of Mohammed in 624 CE which damaged Meccan prestige and established Islam as a viable force. (1)] Many experts in analyzing the prospects for imminent war are deeply aware that Iran and Syria are preparing for all out war, using their proxies of Hezb'Allah and Hamas to start the action. Obama must know this but, to protect his political behind here in America, he has sent some minor munitions to Israel so he can brag: "See, I am protecting Israel as I promised." Reports coming in speak of three American aircraft flotillas heading toward a position off the coast of Iran. The next questions: Are there orders to attack Iran's Nuclear facilities or to strike a potential Israeli attack formation, claiming that America is keeping the peace? Is Obama to be trusted with the life or death of Israel? I personally would not trust Obama and his advisors — like James Baker III, Zbigniew Brzezinski, or any of his court Jews, such as Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod with any semblance of protection for a Jewish ally. Note! This lack of trust does not apply to the American people or the American Congress, who have demonstrated that they are stalwart allies and supporters of Israel. Regrettably, the American government is filling up with Arabists whose loyalties lie with hostile Arab nations who just happen to be sitting on pools of oil. If there is a war this summer between Israel vs. Iran, Syria, Hezb'Allah, Hamas, the pertinent questions are: 1. Whose side will the Obama Arabists stand with? Therefore, is Obama's intention, on advice from his Arabist advisors to rescue Israel when it no longer exists or is too weak from inside attacks to resist surrender in compliance with Obama's Middle East plans to assist the Muslims' declared goal of a Global Caliphate? The next questions are: 1. Will Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accept these results? ### (1.) "Battle of Badr" (Islamic History) Britannica Online
Encyclopedia
Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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PROTEST SONG for MOSQUE at GROUND ZERO
Posted by Rock Peters, May 27, 2010. |
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To see and hear the 9/11 memorial music video "Lady Liberty" go to www.youtube.com/keepsafe2da A mosque on the hallowed earth of Ground Zero would absolutely be sacrilegious; even the thought of putting a mosque near the site of 9/11 mass murder is such a complete outrage, so vile an obscenity that it truly offends all human sensibilities. May the blood of the innocent victims of the September 11th MUSLIM terrorist attack on America cry out to the Lord: "GOD FORBID THERE BE A MOSQUE at GROUND ZERO!" Yours in Liberty,
Rock Peters is an author, songwriter, poet and patriot. His multimedia website — www.godsaveusa.com — is dedicated to fighting Muslim terrorism. It is both factual and attractive. Contact him at rockpeters@aol.com |
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JEWS OF JUDEA-SAMARIA TO TAKE IN ISRAELIS, IF WAR; GAZA BLOCKADE;
EGYPT-ISRAEL RELATIONS DEPEND ON MUBARAK'S LONGEVITY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 27, 2010. |
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JEWS OF JUDEA-SAMARIA TO TAKE IN ISRAELIS, IF WAR 
The Jews in Judea-Samaria are preparing to host up to half a million Israelis, in case of war. They base this on experience in prior wars, when their areas were more remote from combat. And they care about their fellow Israelis (IMRA, 5/26/10). Experience does not always get repeated. This time, the Arabs have several times as many rockets. If Israel gives away Judea-Samaria, it would have no strategic depth for its population against its war criminal enemies who bombard civilian populations. The Israeli Left often maligns "settlers," but those are the people who would give them refuge and without checking their politics. The photo here is about a Bedouin attempting to squat on public land just outside a Jewish community, which countered by putting up its own tent near the Bedouin tent. This A.P. photo has a caption that explains only that the settlers set up a tent next to the Bedouin tent. No mention of the squatting and that the reaction to it was a form of self-defense. The caption slants the issue. (For more on Israeli civil defense,
click here)
EGYPT-ISRAEL RELATIONS DEPEND ON MUBARAK'S LONGEVITY Egypt is Israel's regional ally and energy supplier. Haaretz journalist Aluf Benn writes that relations between Egypt's President Mubarak and PM Netanyahu are good. Israel wants to keep them that way. Mubarak shakes Netanyahu's hands in public. Mubarak tells people he is sure that Netanyahu "will do the right thing." Egypt shares in Israel's partial blockade of Gaza, to protect itself from terrorism, but Israel takes the whole obloquy over it, so as not to roil Mubarak. For the same reason, Netanyahu has curbed the tempers of Cabinet Ministers who tend to lash out at foreign leaders, including Mubarak. The treaty with Egypt has enabled Israel to reduce defense expenditures. Having Egypt as an enemy would be a greater danger than Iran poses. Since Iran poses a danger to Egypt, as by subversion and terrorism, [and by taking up the mantle of Mideast leadership that Egypt feels entitled to], Mubarak drew closer to Israel. The U.S., including the current Administration, is careful not to use human rights issues to undermine Mubarak's rule as a bulwark against Iran. Netanyahu must wish Mubarak longevity. He is up in years, no successor declared, and if the Moslem Brotherhood succeeded him, Israel would be in trouble. Israeli intelligence believes that the Egyptian military intelligence will not let the Brotherhood take over their country. Mr. Benn fails to link the precariousness of Mubarak's relations with Israel, the possibility that the Moslem Brotherhood may take over Israel, and proposals that Egyptian forces be let into Gaza to unseat Hamas (IMRA, 5/26/10). http://www.imra.org.il/ Israel had better beef up its defenses. Like Americans, Israelis casually label other countries "ally." For Americans, it suffices that a foreign country accept U.S. subsidy. Pakistan took American aid, but for its own purposes, purposes contrary to American interests and to peace and freedom. Egypt is no ally of Israel, though the two countries have some temporary, common, non-ideological interests. The military doctrine of Egypt identifies Israel, though by location and not by name, as the enemy it trains against. That military just held war games about invading Israel. Egypt wages a diplomatic offensive against Israel, the current one being to deprive Israel of its nuclear deterrent. Egypt's leader shakes hands with Israel's. So what! Arafat shook hands with Rabin, and then made war on Israel. Israel's enemies are divided between those who shake hands and those who do not. Haaretz has an ideology that the Arabs are making peace with Israel. When this leftist ideology clashes with reality, leftists thrust reality aside.
It does not take much to make my fellow Jews feel accepted. A shake of the hand or a pat on the head. The Jewish people developed an inferiority complex from centuries of political powerlessness.
And so a fellow Jew told me today that he thought that Presidents Nixon, Clinton, and Bush were pro-Israel. The media told him so. Very comforting. Facts? Not his area of expertise.
Israeli politicians should learn not to sound off and when to speak up. Speaking up should be channeled by policy to accomplish something and not offend unnecessarily.
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 1. LEGALITY OF BLOCKADE 
Israel's Foreign Ministry explains the legality of its partial Gaza blockade: 1. Israel withdrew all its residents and military forces from Gaza. It cannot honestly be said to be occupying Gaza. It withdrew to foster good relations. Instead, the entity in Gaza turned the opportunity into a state of armed conflict. 2. Hamas prosecutes this war by bombarding Israeli citizens and by sending terrorists to infiltrate into Israel. 3. Sovereign countries have a right to decide who and what may go into and out of its borders. The U.S. restricts trade with many offensive regimes. Israel does not have to trade with Gaza. Being in a state of armed conflict, why should it? 4. Israel does let in humanitarian supplies, a million tons in the past year and-a-half. Israel's purpose is not to punish the people there but to pressure the regime to cease its armed hostilities. 5. The wherewithal for Hamas' war is imported, including smuggling by sea. Therefore, Israel gave due notice of a partial blockade. "Under international maritime law, when a maritime blockade is in effect, no vessels can enter the blockaded area. That includes both civilian vessels and enemy vessels." The blockader has the right to bar foreign ships from entering the waters of the blockaded entity. This right is recognized by international law. Many countries engaged in it (IMRA, 5/27/10). Ending the blockade is up to Hamas. All it has to do is end its state of armed conflict and preparation for war, such as building tunnels to infiltrate forces underground and across the Israeli border. Foreigners who would like to see the blockade ended should press Hamas to end its state of armed conflict. The explanation of the blockade shows that Egypt considered itself in a state of armed conflict with Israel, when it imposed a blockade of Israel's Red Sea port, Eilat, in 1967. That was before Israeli forces fired a shot. That blockade is one of the ways by which Egypt started that war.
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 2. WEEK'S GOODS LSRAEL LET INTO GAZA "Last week, between May 16th and May 22nd,2010 a total of 523 truckloads, consisting of 13,517 tons of humanitarian aid were transferred into the Gaza Strip from Israel via the various crossings," including: "938,127 liters of Heavy-Duty-Diesel fuel for the power station.
"Additionally, 281 medical patients and accompanying individuals
from the Gaza Strip crossed into Israel and the Judea and Samaria
region for medical treatment. 158 staff members of international
organizations crossed into the Gaza Strip, and 150 crossed from the
Gaza Strip into Israel." (IMRA, 5/26/10 from IDF).
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 3. TERRORISTS FOR FLOTILLA 
The IDF cites a report by the Intelligence & Terrorism information Center that the Gaza-blockade-running flotilla was launched by radical human rights violators, in the name of human rights. Attending the ceremony "were Mahmad Tzoalha and Sahar Albirawi, both top Hamas terrorists who today operate in Great Britain, and Hamam Said, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan." "Bolant Yilderim, the chairman of the IHH, a Turkish based pro-Palestinian organization that is spearheading the Gaza flotilla, delivered a radical speech at the ceremony to the applause of Turkish politicians and radical Islamic activists: 'Israel behaves like Hitler did towards the Jews. Hitler built concentration camps in Germany, and today the Zionist entity is building concentration camps in Palestine.'" [Of course there were no facts to back this up.] Also present was Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement. "Salah has previously admitted in an Israeli Court to conferring with foreign agents and assisting unauthorized organizations," such as Hamas. "He often voiced anti-Semitic hate messages that are based on the most ancient blood libels: 'We are not the ones who eat a meal based on bread and cheese in children's blood.'" He had called the Jews "butchers of pregnant women and babies... Thieves, you are the bacteria of all times... The Creator meant for you to be monkeys and losers..." The head of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Reuven Ehrlich, said that if the flotilla sponsors were humanitarian, all they need do is send the goods to Israel, through legal channels. He explained that they just want to provoke and embarrass Israel, and to help Hamas, hardly a humanitarian organization (IMRA, 5/26/10). Hamas has stolen humanitarian aid and fired upon the land-based portals for the goods' entry. No noticeable international humanitarian protest over that. Bigots used the flag of humanitarianism to cover their own moral nakedness.
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 4. TERRORISTS WHO SPONSOR FLOTILLA Israel found that one of the sponsors of the flotilla, IHH, Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, plays an important role in international fund raising by Islamist terrorists, and banned it from its territory. Close to the Moslem Brotherhood, IHH openly associates with the Brotherhood offshoot in Gaza, Hamas. IHH works with Hamas terrorist fronts posing as charities. IHH substantially helps finance Hamas and its regime. At conferences, IHH officials support Hamas against the Palestinian Authority, and support Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, in other words, terrorism. IHH dispatched Azat Shahin to open an IHH branch in Judea Samaria. During his stint there, he transferred tens of thousands of dollars from IHH to Hamas organizations. Israel arrested him on suspicion of financing terrorism and supporting Hamas. Turkey got him extradited (IMRA, 5/27/10). http://www.imra.org.il/
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 5. ISRAEL'S OFFER TO FLOTILLA Israel has warned the governments of the countries from which the flotilla is sailing that entering Gaza waters would violate international law (as explained in Part 1). The Foreign Ministry explained that Gaza is run by a terrorist organization that commits terrorist aggression, to the neglect of the people. As an alternative, Israel invited the flotilla to unload its goods at the Israeli port of Ashdod, after inspection. Israel would deliver any humanitarian goods through the usual land portals to Gaza (IMRA, 5/27/10).
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 6. ISRAEL PREPARES, AND NOTE TO READERS Israel is warning the flotilla at every stop it makes en route, to turn back. If the ships run the legal blockade, the passengers would be arrested and deported. The goods, however, would be delivered. The government advised its troops to be wary of provocations and of the possible presence of terrorists. The IDF has been practicing for its interception of the flotilla (IMRA, 5/27/10). My newspaper had a photo of Hamas ships in Gaza practicing, too. How will the Israeli Navy cope with them? Is Hamas' purpose to provoke shooting, so by reflex action, the "humanitarians" will blame Israel? Some of my readers fail to distinguish between what the sources report and my comments after citing the course or in ellipses, and between what Israel does and I do. They get personal, which no editor permits and I have warned them against. They contradict each other over whether I am a liar, stupid, or cunning but working at some lobby's behest. Do they know something about my finances I don't? A particularly persistent one makes derogatory comments about my ethnic group, up to the point of history-distorting blood libel. He smears, but I'm a "racist." I'm a liar, but he claims I delete articles for disagreeing with me, though since he obviously reads my articles, he can see the disagreeing comments that are relevant and not personal, which I do not delete. I'm stupid, but he wonders why I delete his personal and antisemitic comments, false and generalized without backing. (I have deleted comments that agree with me but which mock Muslims for being Muslims. Commentary must be respectable, as with any American newspaper.) Such readers call me uninformed, but fail to deal with the dozen or so
specific points in each article. Are they keeping some great font of
information to themselves? All they do is raise irrelevant and
discredited revisionist theories about the origins of the Arab-Israel
conflict. Irrelevant generalities neither debate nor enlighten. I
discuss, they defame.
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 7. UPDATE ON HUNGER AND ACTIVISTS In today's news, Isabel Kershner presents a somewhat different story from my earlier reports, so today I bring you the other side. Whereas another source put the total weight of humanitarian goods that Israel let through into Gaza, in the past year and-a-half at a million tons, as according to Israel's Foreign Ministry, Ms. Kershner puts it at this year as 100,000 tons. Another difference in Kershner's report is a UN claim that the partial embargo has repressed Gaza's agricultural sector, leading to a food shortage in 60% of Gaza households. No further details provided (New York Times, 5/28, A10). If Kershner's tonnage figure were correct, and if it were comparable to transfers for the past year and-a-half, then the earlier figure would be not 1.5 million tons but about 400,000 tons. It would have been useful to know how the partial blockade impaired local agriculture. What kind of food shortage is there? How extensive is "insufficient" food? Was any appeal made to Israel on it? Israel has been amenable to humanitarian appeals, such as to let Gaza patients transit through Israel. Surely Israel would prefer Gaza self-sufficiency in food production, rather than have to manage food shipments through Israel. Another difference between the New York Times report and my
series is the Times omission of the terrorist support and partial
sponsorship of the flotilla. Kershner refers to passengers as
"activists." That word is vague. Some of the passengers are customary
anti-Israel. To them, the blockade is another opportunity to denigrate
Israel. But it also is another lost opportunity for supposedly ethical
people to denounce the terrorists who run Gaza oppressively and for
the purpose of making war, a war that led to the very blockade
purportedly offending the "activists."
GAZA BLOCKADE: PART 8. ON THE PASSENGER LIST One of the passengers on the "Free Gaza" flotilla is Greek Catholic Archbishop Hilarion Capucci. He had been convicted by Israel in 1974 of smuggling guns from Lebanon to the PLO. The Vatican got Israel to release him from jail (Prof. Steven Plaut, 5/27/10) with a promise he stopped intruding into Israel affairs. He soon broke that promise. So when the New York Times refers to the passengers merely as activists, it is covering up for a multitude of sinners. Many are not humanitarians.
ISLAMIST KIDNAPS AND FORCIBLY CONVERTS HINDU GIRL IN PAKISTAN The Pakistani Daily Times reports an alleged kidnapping and forcible conversion of a 13-year-old Hindu girl in Pakistan. Mehnga Ram has a shoeshine booth in Rahim Yar Khan in Bengal, Pakistan. His daughter, Radha, has been missing for months. He and family looked everywhere. Then friends informed them that the girl had been adducted by the head of a madrassa, Darul Aloom in Khanpur. The family says that first the madrassa people denied taking the girl. Then they claimed that she has converted to Islam and refuses to meet with her family. The family when to the police, but police refused to act, on the grounds that she had converted. Police advised the family to forget their daughter. Forget their daughter? Yes. The family pleaded with respectable personages and various officials who gave them false promises but did nothing. Finally, the madrassa arranged for the girl's older brother to have a brief meeting with the girl. They told him she had married a Muslim. At the meeting, the girl was crying, but tried to say something reassuring. The "husband's" family gave the brother a non-working phone number for contacting her. Human rights activists say this is a clear-cut case of forcible conversion. The distraught father laments the poverty that limits his ability to fight back. My comment: Note the series of criminal and inhumane acts: (1) Kidnapping; (2) Forced conversion of a child; (3) Forced marriage; (4) Protection of the criminals. Where is the morality in those acts done in the name of a religion? I have read of similar cases in Egypt. In such cases, as well as in cases of Muslim attacks on Egyptian Christians or against Christians in Nigeria, the authorities stonewall. That is what life is like in a Muslim country lacking the rule of law or equal protection of the law. When Jews lived in Yemen, Muslims would take away their children when their fathers died, even if the family could support them. I attended a hair-raising lecture on that.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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THE UNWILLINGNESS OF TAU OFFICIALS TO STAND UP TO WHAT BECAME AN ORGANIZED CAMPAIGN OF THE VILIFICATION OF ISRAEL
Posted by Israel Academia Monitor, May 27, 2010. |
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A letter from Edgar Pick, Professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University to Mark Tanenbaum, resigned TAU governor. |
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May 24, 2010
Dear Mr. Tanenbaum I am a Professor of Immunology at the Sackler School of Medicine, since 1970, when I joined the academic staff of Tel Aviv University, following postdoctoral studies at the Scripps Research Foundation in La Jolla and the University of London. I am attaching a brief Curriculum Vitae. The reason behind this letter are the recent events at Tel Aviv University, following the speech by Mr. Dershowitz and your resignations from all your Tel Aviv Universityrelated functions, after many years of serving this institution in more than one way. Your letter of resignation of May 11, 2010, was made public and the tumultuous events at the Board of Governors meeting have been aired in the press. Not having been present at this event, my knowledge of what went on is based on what we scientists would define as incomplete and possibly biased evidence. I do, however, believe that your description of what happened, in your letter of resignation, is accurate, meaning that the President of Tel Aviv University refused to allow a vote on your very important proposed resolution. I understand that your resolution dealt with the issue of some radical Tel Aviv University academics promoting a worldwide boycott of our own university. I shall state from the beginning that I would like to congratulate you on your courageous stand at the Board of Governors meeting and after the meeting. As someone who has been with Tel Aviv University for forty years, I am well familiar with the intensive, unrelenting and extremist activities of a number of the members of the academic staff of our University, who will not miss a single occasion to accuse this country of the worst crimes, support the most extreme forms of academic boycott against the Israeli academia, and offer support and encouragement to those whose explicit purpose is the elimination of Israel, as the home of the Jewish people. The purpose of this letter is not to reiterate what is known to all who are honest enough to admit it, but to draw your attention to lesser known facts about the unwillingness of the officials of Tel Aviv University to stand up to what became an organized campaign of the vilification of Israel. Any attempt to put a halt to it is countered by the argument that the "McCarthyites" are trying to suppress academic freedom and free speech on the campus. I would, thus, like to draw your attention to the more subtle ways by which Tel Aviv University is condoning activities that endanger the very existence of the university as an academic institution where the quality of research and teaching should be valued more than political sympathies. I shall not bring up the well known names mentioned by Alan Dershowitz but point out some of the events taking place on the campus under the very eyes of the present and past Presidents and Rectors.
I would like to congratulate you on your decision to stop all financial support to Tel Aviv University. I hope that you can recruit other donors to direct their donations for this University elsewhere, until the time that a new, honest and courageous leadership takes over. In the dire financial state that they are in, they should be taught a lesson. That playing Chamberlain to the threats from within the academia, mentioned in the Dershowitz speech, comes with a negative price tag. Once again, thanks for your honesty and courage. Many of us were waiting for a long time for a Mr. Tanenbaum to appear on the scene. With best regards, Edgar Pick, M.D.,Ph.D.
Contact Israel Academia Monitor at email@israel-academia-monitor.com |
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PROXIMITY TALKS
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, May 26, 2010. |
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part 1Palestinian Arab aggression against the territorial integrity and political independence of Israel cannot and should not be rewarded. Professor, Judge Schwebel, the former President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) explains why Israel has the better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem: "(a) a state [Israel] acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self-defense; part 2Palestinian Arab aggression against the territorial integrity and political independence of Israel cannot and should not be rewarded. "No Legal Right Shall Spring from Wrong" [1] "Territorial rights under international law ... By their [Arab countries, E.H.] armed attacks against the State of Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973, and by various acts of belligerency throughout this period, these Arab states flouted their basic obligations as United Nations members to refrain from threat or use of force against Israel's territorial integrity and political independence. These acts were in flagrant violation inter alia of [UN, E.H.] Article 2(4) and paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of the same article." [2] Because the Arabs were clearly the aggressors, nowhere in UN Security Council Resolutions 242 or 338 — the cornerstones of a peace settlement — is Israel branded as an invader or occupier of the Territories and there is no call for Israel to withdraw from all the Territories. Palestinians allegations that the wording of 242 was 'deliberately ambiguous' or misconstrued are unfounded. [1] Professor, Judge Schwebel "Justice in International Law," Cambridge University Press, 1994. [2] Professor Julius Stone "Israel and Palestine, Assault on the Law of Nations" The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981, p. 127. Professor Julius Stone was recognised as one of the twentieth century's leading authorities on the Law of Nations. His work represents a detailed analysis of the central principles of international law governing the issues raised by the Arab-Israel conflict. He was one of a few scholars to gain outstanding recognition in more than one field. Professor Stone was one of the world's best-known authorities in both Jurisprudence and International Law. Eli E. Hertz is president of Myths and Facts, Inc. The organization's objective is to provide policymakers, national leadership, the media and the public-at-large with information and viewpoints that are founded on factual and reliable content. Contact him at today@mythsandfacts.org |
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SINK THE BISMARCK, ER, UH, WE MEAN THE "RACHEL CORRIE"!
Posted by Steven Plaut, May 26, 2010. |
| This was written by Justus Reid Weiner and Itai Eres. |
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Radical groups are hijacking her name for their purposes. International "activists" are at it again. A nine-ship flotilla of "peace activists" is on its way from Turkey, Greece and other European countries toward the Gaza strip, laden with left-wingers and a variety of goods to supplement those available to Gaza residents. This represents the latest effort by a radical group known as the Free Gaza Movement (FGM). In an attempt to galvanize support and sympathy, and achieve a better result than the three earlier abortive attempts, the group has chosen to name the lead ship the Rachel Corrie. For those who don't recall, Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American student activist killed in a tragic accident in 2003 while attempting to block an IDF bulldozer. Corrie arrived in Israel as part of an independent study program during her senior year at Evergreen State College. It was there that Corrie first heard of going to Gaza with the loosely affiliated assortment of left-wing radicals known as the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Evergreen's faculty also displayed gross negligence in allowing her to spend a semester abroad, for course credit, in the West Bank and Gaza during the height of the second intifada. After a mere two days of ISM "training," Corrie and her fellow activist trainees were sent to the Rafah crossing, described by IDF spokesman Capt. Jacob Dellal as "the most dangerous area in the West Bank and Gaza." Ironically however, Corrie is perhaps a more apt reference than the FGM organizers realize. The tragedy of her death is that it was completely avoidable. Moreover, her behavior, flouting local and international law, raises the question of what role, if any, small groups of extremist activists have in interfering in the counterterrorism measures of a democratic state. Despite dishonest testimony by the ISM, subsequent developments revealed that the driver of the bulldozer likely couldn't even see Corrie. The most startling discovery was the recklessness of the ISM in dealing with its volunteers. They were encouraged to prevent the demolition of buildings and smuggling tunnels by using their bodies as shields against trucks and bulldozers. Although the volunteers were provided with visibility vests and megaphones, it was only a matter of time before the folly of the ISM led to catastrophic results. If playing chicken with cars is suicidal, doing so with an armored bulldozer, more difficult to control and with less visibility, borders on insanity. Yet that is exactly what the ISM advocated, while making sure to record all their encounters for use in the event of just such an accident. As one of Corrie's colleagues stated, "Several times we had to dive away at the last moment in order to avoid being crushed. This continued for about two and a half hours."
WHILE THIS may not have been exactly what Evergreen College envisioned as Corrie's independent study, the ISM was complicit in these dangerous antics, having promoted activism that would "more directly challenge the Israeli military." The ISM views its volunteers as pawns in a political game, fully aware that some gambits require the loss of a pawn. Corrie's death, a terrible accident for the IDF, became a propaganda weapon for the ISM. ISM is an organization that recognizes a Palestinian "right" to resistance via "legitimate armed struggle." Its "accolades" include preventing IDF demolition of bomb-making factories and weapons-smuggling tunnels as well as the aiding, abetting and protecting of terrorists. In addition, the ISM also encouraged confrontational, reckless resistance by its international volunteers. In 2002, in the midst of a violent takeover of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem by Palestinian terrorists, 10 ISM members ran in to act as human shields. The same year as Corrie's death, a popular bar in Tel Aviv, Mike's Place, was attacked by two suicide bombers who had had tea with ISM members only five days earlier. The ISM's behavior is typical of such radical groups. Purporting to protect human rights, they are often callous toward human life in general. What legitimacy is warranted by NGOs that have no respect for the lives of their volunteers? Additionally, these groups fail to recognize that Israel abides by both local and international law. It has a well-developed judicial system, with the authority and will to limit its executive and legislative branches, one that has already delineated Israel's commitments, obligations and rights in Gaza. The potential harm to local interests and stability caused by the audacious interference of a handful of people from other continents is tremendous. Individuals in Europe or North America may read about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and wish to help, but chartering boats to sail to foreign waters is a misguided effort. To promote their personal delusions, the ISM and FGM neglect any legal, judicial, diplomatic or otherwise politically palatable routes. While their personal risks are less than those taken by activists illegally entering Iran, North Korea or China, they still choose to waste public and private resources while violating domestic and international law. The Rachel Corrie ironically represents a seaborne version of the organizational callousness and disregard that led to Rachel Corrie's death in 2003. With such dubious priorities, these activists continue to be a part of the problem, not a legitimate attempt at a peaceful solution. Instead of being embarrassed by their role in Corrie's death, these radical groups are hijacking her name for their current efforts to help Hamas dominate Gaza. Let Rachel Corrie rest in peace. Justus Weiner is an international human rights lawyer. He is currently a Scholar in Residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and an adjunct lecturer at the Hebrew University
2. That Bumsky, Chomsky "Thoughts On Israel's Chomsky 'Ban'"
It seems the only nation not allowed to ban people with belligerent, racist or hostile political views is Israel. Recently, MIT professor Noam Chomsky was prevented by Israel from entering the country via Jordan. Chomsky was on his way to give an anti-Israel speech at a university in Ramallah in the West Bank. (Instead he gave the speech by videoconferencing from Jordan.) Chomsky had been in Israel for visits before, and the "ban" was evidently nothing more than some bureaucratic glitch in the instructions to Israeli border passport checkers. Chomsky was invited at the Jordan River to enter the country through the Tel Aviv airport. This did not prevent a worldwide campaign of anti-Israel vilification by the usual crowd blasting Israel for "banning" Chomsky, complete with denunciations of "Israeli fascism." Chomsky himself denounced the Israeli decision to block his entry as "Stalinism." To tell the truth, when I first heard that Chomsky accused Israel of Stalinism I assumed he meant it as a compliment. Chomsky has gone out of his way to defend Stalin and publishes his articles on all the best Stalinist websites. Ironically, the bureaucratic glitch resulted in Israel's accidentally doing the right thing. Just a few individuals have been prevented from entering Israel because of their ties to terrorists or their involvement in anti-Semitic or anti-Israel political activities. One of them was Norman Finkelstein, the hatemonger fired by DePaul University, who was banned from entering Israel a couple of years back due to his public championing of Hizbullah terrorists. Another was Richard Falk, the retired Princeton propagandist who's made a career out of denouncing Israelis as Nazis. Falk was denied entry into Israel as a UN "investigator," though earlier he had been allowed to enter as a private citizen. In Chomsky we have someone who has pow-wowed with Hizbullah terrorists and promoted Holocaust deniers. Like Finkelstein and Falk, Chomsky has long led the campaign to boycott and "divest" from Israel. The very same people who whined about Israel's refusing Chomsky entry into the country to engage in anti-Israel agitation were strangely silent when Britain banned 16 people on grounds they held politically incorrect opinions. These included radio host Michael Savage. Before that the UK banned Rev. Fred Phelps from entering the country because he is anti-gay. Few on the enlightened Left denounced the UK for fascism for those decisions. Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a candidate for prime minister of the Netherlands, was barred from entering the UK because of his opinions. The Brits have banned a host of Israelis from entering their country, including activist Moshe Feiglin. Not a single Israeli leftist tearing out hair at the barring of Chomsky has spoken out against that. The United States has banned all sorts of people, not limited to those suspected of having ties to terror groups. In some cases it was because of their political views. Journalist Robert Fisk was banned for that reason. Professor John Milios from Greece was banned. Tariq Ramadan, the darling of the pro-jihad Left, was barred until recently from both the U.S. and France. Adam Habib, professor of political science and deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, was barred from entering the U.S. for three years. Liberian President Charles Taylor and other leading Liberians were banned from entering the U.S. because of their support for rebels in Sierra Leone. Canada has also banned people because of their views or behavior, most famously George Galloway, the British member of Parliament who enjoyed close ties to Saddam Hussein. Germany, Austria and some other European countries routinely ban neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers from entering their territories and sometimes jail them when they enter. In the late 1970s, a professor of literature at the University of Lyon named Robert Faurisson wrote two letters to Le Monde claiming the existence of gas chambers in concentration camps used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews was a hoax. Faurisson was convicted of Holocaust denial and hate speech in two trials in France, in 1983 and 1990. Faurisson has also suggested that the diary of Anne Frank is a Zionist forgery and has spent much of his career smearing Nobel Prize-winning Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Noam Chomsky has long been Faurisson's most prominent defender. In the 1980s he signed a petition denying Faurisson was an anti-Semite and saluting Faurisson as a "respected professor." In defending Faurisson, Chomsky wrote: "I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson's work." Personally, I would have let Chomsky enter Israel and then immediately arrested him for Holocaust denial (if not the Holocaust of the Jews then surely the genocide against Cambodians). Holocaust denial is illegal in Israel, though the law is never enforced against anyone, even Arab politicians. Indicting Chomsky would have made such a wonderful legal precedent. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
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G-D DWELLS IN OUR MIDST
Posted by Moshe Feiglin, May 26, 2010. |
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Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion; for, I will come, and I will dwell in your midst says G-d. And many nations shall join themselves to G-d on that day, and shall be My people, and I will dwell in your midst; and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto you. And G-d shall inherit Judah as His portion in the Holy Land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, all flesh, before G-d; for He is aroused out of His holy habitation. (From this week's reading of Prophets, Zecharia 2: 14-17) Behold I will come and dwell in your midst. True, you thought that you could live here without Me. You thought that you could be "normal" like all the other nations. Your left hand replaced me with socialism and universalism. Your right hand banished me with nationalism and state supremacism. The non-Jews whom you so desperately wanted to imitate are waiting for My message of redemption and they are sure that you are the bearers of My word. On the one hand, they turn their backs on you, deny that you have a legitimate right to exist and arrest your leaders in Europe. If you are not My daughter, they wonder, what are you doing in My royal palace? On the other hand, they are counting on you to bring them closer to Me when I will dwell in your midst. You have fled your destiny, you have denied your connection to Jerusalem. You surrendered it in 1948, you gave your beating heart — the Temple Mount — to the Moslem wakf in 1967 and now — you are freezing, tearing and dividing My holy city. But I will choose Jerusalem once again and nobody will dare protest — not Iran and not Washington. Nobody will utter a word when I will restore My presence to Jerusalem. Shabbat Shalom,
Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside
the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character.
Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a
theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The
Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org.
To learn more about Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) and to read
their plan for Israel's future, visit www.jewishisrael.org.
Or contact Shmuel Sackett, International Director (516) 330-4922
(cell)
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OBAMA PLAN: GLOBAL TROOPS TO PROTECT ISRAEL
Posted by David Meir-Levi, May 26, 2010. |
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Hmmm... so good to see that Obama is deeply concerned about Israel's security. Let's see: global troops...this raises a few hypothetical ( nor not so hypothetical questions) which UN member countries will volunteer their troops for this job? (likely not canada or usa) once stationed on Israel's border, will these troops do what the UNFIL troops have done in Lebanon? (and if you think the answer is "no"....tell us why you think that) How about what the UN peace keeping force in Sinai did on May 15, 1967? (in case you don't know, they fled the scene within a few days of Gamal Abdul Nasser's demand of U-Thant (UN Secretary General, aka the "bungling Burmese") How about what UN observers have done to prevent Hamas weapons smuggling in Gaza Strip since 9/2005? (aka: nothing, have actually helped Hamas) How about what UN forces have done in retaliation to Hamas' attack on UN summer camp for under-priviledged Arab children? (Hamas burned it down, because it was teaching the kids very un-Islamic, vice-promoting stuff like sports for girls, gymnastics for girls, etc.). How about what UN peace-keeping forces in the Congo have done? (in case you don't know, some of them have been replaced due to well-substantiated evidence of sex-for-food deals with under-aged starving Congolese girls). And, as noted in the article below, such troops could easily, intentionally or accidenally, get in the way of Israeli hot pursuit of terrorists; and they could impede or prevent Israel from penetrating "Palestinian" state territory in chase of terrorists. Bottom line, such troop deployments would help the terrorists and hinder israel, (especially when you recall that the states most likely to offer their troops could be Libya [member of the UN human rights council], other Arab states [since they are all so anxious for peace and good fellowship with their neigbhoring non-Mulsim state], many Muslim states [since they are so commited to peace in the middle east], and far away neutral states like China [who would like to impress Iran with its stand on peace in the middle east so that Iran would buy more gasoline and WMDs from china]. Not a pretty picture. And all of this instead of simply acknowledging the real problem, and demanding that the PA and Hamas and Hezbollah stand down from their genocidal terrorist goals, stop the violence, stop the incitement, and start cooperating with all of their neighbors (including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, etc.), and putting pressure on them to do so. david ml This below is by Aaron Klein and it was posted yesterday in WorldNetDaily. It is called "The New World Disorder". |
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NEW YORK — A U.S. plan envisions stationing international troops along Israel's border with a future Palestinian state, WND has learned. Palestinian Authority officials privy to the plan say the Obama administration proposed deploying NATO soldiers along the Palestinian side of a future border with Israel as well as along the borders of Jordan and any future Palestinian state. Israeli government sources confirmed such a plan has been proposed. The sources said the concept is not exclusive to the Obama administration. Both Presidents Clinton and Bush broached the idea of stationing international troops along the borders of a future Palestinian state. International troops and monitors do not boast a positive track record in fulfilling their protective duties on behalf of Israel. Monitors previously stationed along the Gaza-Egypt border fled their duties multiple times amid Hamas threats and attacks. The monitors were deployed to report any instances of weapons smuggling or terrorist infiltration along the border. Also, following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, about 15,000 soldiers under the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, deployed in South Lebanon with the objective of ensuring a truce between Israel and Hezbollah as well as to stop the Hezbollah terror group from rearming. According to reports, Hezbollah, with international troops present, has acquired more rockets and sophisticated weaponry from Syria and Iran than before the 2006 war. The group reportedly has enough rockets to blanket Israeli population centers for a prolonged period of time. Israeli security officials told WND the Israeli army routinely passes to UNIFIL commanders aerial photographs and video images of Hezbollah weapons smuggling routes. But with few exceptions, the international forces have not taken action. The security officials are concerned the UNIFIL forces could get in the way and impede any future Israeli defensive action needed against Hezbollah. 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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WHAT BARACK OBAMA IS THINKING
Posted by Truth Provider, May 26, 2010. |
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Dear friends, This is a very serious political topic that has direct bearing on what is happening in the Middle East. President Obama's kudos to the Muslim world and his policies which cause a sharp decline in America's deterrance are too serious to be ignored. Following are two important articles on the disturbing subject.
The first is by Peter Ferrara
and it appeared on American Spectator
The second is by"Great power no more?" By Arthur Herman and it appeard in You should also consider reading Newt Gingrich's new book: To Save America. Your Truth Provider, Yuval. |
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"What Barack Obama Is Thinking"
Students of history will recognize the method to President Obama's madness. The parallels in both policy and politics to the Roosevelt Administration are too striking not to be deliberate. President Obama is consciously modeling his Administration on the Roosevelt Administration. But just as the liberals of the 1930s graduated to the New Left of the 1960s, President Obama's policies and politics transcend the liberalism of the 1930s. He is building what Newt Gingrich rightly calls a secular socialist machine in his new book To Save America. Unreconstructed Keynesian Economics Roosevelt's Keynesian economics was left for dead in the 1980s with President Reagan's supply-side revolution miraculously ending the stagflation of the 1970s with a 25-year economic boom. But President Obama came into office talking as if that never happened, casting it down the memory hole. While Reagan's early 1981 budget cuts slashed the federal budget by about 5%, Obama rammed through an almost $1 trillion stimulus package of nearly all Keynesian economics from the 1930s, laughing at his astounded critics with the question, "What do you think a stimulus is?" Economically, it didn't work, just as it didn't in the 1930s or the 1970s. Now 29 months after the recession officially started in December, 2007, unemployment is 10% and rising, and the stock market is again stumbling, with the Dow still 4000 points off its last highs. The recovery was overdue a year ago, and even now economic growth is not half what it should be. But note how the stimulus spending was structured so that more is spent this year than last. Was the goal to reduce unemployment as quickly as possible, or to use the guise of Keynesian stimulus spending for a political slush fund to buy as many votes as possible in this political year? Note also that about half of the direct "stimulus" spending went to state and local governments to prop up the employment of public employees, the most reliable supporters of liberal Democrat candidates. The only thing President Obama's stimulus is stimulating is a left-wing Democrat political machine. Attack on Wall Street Another early central theme of the Roosevelt Administration was a searing attack on Wall Street. The famed Pecora hearings, led by the Chief Counsel to the Senate Banking Committee Ferdinand Pecora, crucified top Wall Street bankers and brokers as the cause of the Depression. Despite the hallowed political propaganda long taught to American schoolchildren, Wall Street misdeeds played only a minor bit role in the Great Depression. The real causes were Fed mismanagement enabling a drastic collapse of the money supply, causing ruinous deflation, followed by brutal tax rate increases, and the soaring protectionist tariffs of the Smoot-Hawley Act. Roosevelt's massive overregulation and Keynesian economics draining private sector investment were additional factors extending the Depression for a decade, putting the "Great" into the "Great Depression" as Amity Shlaes put it in her eye-opening book, The Forgotten Man. But the Pecora hearings and Roosevelt's class warfare rhetoric excoriating "the malefactors of great wealth" successfully shifted the blame politically from the government to the private sector. The result was passage of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, imposing extensive new regulation on Wall Street, as if that would resolve the causes of the Depression. The measures did not produce economic recovery, but rather mostly just decades of voluminous securities filings filled with meaningless boilerplate that nobody ever read. Today we see President Obama trying to pull off the exact same thing. The Democrats managed to inspire union-generated civil unrest with their incendiary rhetoric regarding contractually specified Wall Street "bonuses." The statesman Obama then poured oil on the fire, explaining, The people on Wall Street still don't get it. They're still puzzled why is it that people are mad at the banks? Well, let's see. You know, you guys are drawing down 10-, 20-million-dollar bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it's gone through in decades, and you guys caused the problem. And we got 10% unemployment. But actually, no, Washington, it was "you guys" who caused the problem. The Fed again started it, this time with excessively loose monetary policy during the Bush Administration keeping real interest rates below zero for years, as explained by Stanford monetary policy guru John Taylor in his book Getting Off Track. That policy essentially subsidized excessive leverage and runaway risk. Those cheap dollar, easy money policies joined with the "affordable housing" policies of the Clinton Administration and Congressional Democrats to create the housing bubble, pumped up by subprime mortgages going to people who couldn't afford them, or who were just speculating and willing to abandon their homes if they got into trouble. The Congressionally sponsored, financial terrorist organizations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac then spread trillions in toxic securities backed by these subprime mortgages throughout the global financial system, ultimately threatening to bring it all down. Following Roosevelt, President Obama again used the crisis to enact further government regulation of Wall Street in the financial regulatory reform bill. But Obama's regulatory monster makes Roosevelt's Wall Street regulation look like a sellout. Obama's bill effectively takes over Wall Street, institutionalizing bailouts with comprehensive new federal authority to seize any institution the government deems troubled. That power does not even have to be used, for the financial industry to become a house pet of the Democrat political machine, with President Obama's new billy club always ready and waiting in the closet. Don't expect to see any Republican fundraisers on Wall Street any time soon. Those are all Democrat affairs now, collecting protection money. Further following the Roosevelt model, the Obama Administration inaugurated the Congressional debate on the financial regulation bill with a trumped-up, show-trial securities fraud suit against Goldman Sachs. Any free market advocate has to detest Goldman, which already has long been a central cog in the Democrat political machine. But the civil fraud suit against Goldman is an abuse of power, alleging essentially that Goldman defrauded itself into $75 million in losses in sponsoring an investment vehicle demanded by the market, which enabled investors to bet either for or against the subprime housing bubble. The suit is so contrary to legal precedent and the basic facts that the government prosecutors richly deserve sanctions, and if it ends with the deserved judicial excoriation, remember you read it here first. In the end, two of the actual malefactors of the great wealth of government power themselves at the root of the housing bubble crisis, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, stood taking credit for the financial reg reform bill, which will only add to the secular socialist machine rather than address the root causes of the financial crisis. Crony Capitalism Another major portion of the stimulus went to subsidies for so-called "green" energy, solar, wind, biofuels, etc. This was supposed to create "green" jobs, with President Obama proclaiming, "The nation that leads the green energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy." (The global warming scientific grounds for such subsidies are sheer fantasy as discussed at length in this column many times before). Last year, a study of the experience with such subsidies in Spain found that they destroyed 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy for every green energy job created. High cost energy that has to be heavily subsidized with taxpayer dollars is not a good strategy for creating jobs. More recently, a leaked Spanish government study estimates even greater net job losses. As Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute reported last week at Pajamas Media, the Socialist Party Spanish government has publicly acknowledged that its green energy subsidy program has to be drastically curtailed if not abandoned altogether, "lest the experiment risk Spain becoming Greece." Investors Business Daily further reported last Friday a new study of green energy subsidies in Italy considering the full impact of the higher energy costs on the economy, and concluding, "Each green job cost 6.9 jobs in the industrial sector and 4.8 jobs across the entire economy." Indeed, high energy costs kill manufacturing. But while green energy corporate welfare fails miserably as economics, it succeeds politically in building the Obama/Democrat political machine. All the "businesses" that exist, whether wind, solar, ethanol, or others, solely because of their Democrat party benefactors now also have trade associations that will join in contributing and openly campaigning for continued Democrat party majorities, especially as Tea Party conservatives exhibit greater clout in the Republican Party, defeating RINOs. The same strategy is now being pursued in the new Kerry-Lieberman cap and trade bill, structured to deliver billions and billions to corporate interests to buy off their potential opposition. If that bill becomes law, all these businesses will be added to the Obama/Democrat political machine as well. Government Dependency President Obama has also followed Roosevelt's creation of massive new entitlements with the Obamacare takeover of health care. If not repealed, that government takeover will mean the end of high quality American health care, with government bureaucrats ultimately deciding what health care you can receive in service of the cause of "social justice" rather than your personal health. But in the process, the legislation massively increases government dependency with an estimated trillion dollars in increased welfare providing health insurance subsidies for families making as much as $88,000 per year. Those cost estimates will prove woefully inadequate, as the legislation will likely cost at least 3 times as much, if not following Medicare in costing 10 times original estimates. But the ultimate cost does not matter to President Obama. What matters is that he considers the votes of everyone receiving the new entitlement benefits to be bought and paid for as part of the New Left political machine. The same politics are reflected in the one-third increase in federal welfare spending President Obama has already adopted in his first two years alone, with total national welfare spending now to cost an astounding $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years. Like Roosevelt, Obama has thoroughly aligned himself with the labor unions, even though the great majority of workers today have rejected unionism as not in their best interests. Just as Roosevelt's 1935 Wagner Act heavily favoring the institutional interests of unions over the interests of workers until corrected by the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, Obama today seeks to pass card check legislation that would take away the vote of working people over unionization. It would effectively turn small and medium businesses over to union organizers as well through mandatory, 90 day arbitration dictating the terms and conditions of union contracts. Besides the massive auto bailout, actually a bailout for the UAW, Obama seeks to overturn the careful balance of traditional labor law through every means possible, including the appointment of radical leftists like Craig Becker to controlling labor-related government positions. Expanding unions, of course, just further expands the Obama/Democrat political machine. President Obama's misrepresentation and defamation of the Arizona immigration control law is a further, naked attempt to build his secular socialist machine. That law was carefully crafted only to enforce current legal requirements of federal law. It also expressly prohibits racial profiling, allowing officers to investigate immigration status only during otherwise lawful contacts arising out of other matters, and only when there is probable cause to question such status. Yet Obama sponsors Mexican President Felipe Calderon before a joint session of Congress misrepresenting the Arizona law and effectively denouncing America, to the great applause and glee of Congressional Democrats, while Mexico maintains punitive immigration laws. Obama here is simply trying to rile up his Hispanic voter base for this year's elections. In short, President Obama and the Democrats are trying to nationalize the urban political machines dating back to New York City's Tammany Hall that have long been the backbone of the Democrat party. It Won't Work But it won't work. Only an intellectually cloistered prep school Marxist could think the politics of the 1930s would be an effective model for today's modern America 75 years later. While America's old media and brain freeze academia are part of the Obama/Democrat New Left political machine as well, they are effectively countered today by the modern media of the Internet, cable and satellite TV, talk radio, nationally distributed conservative newspapers and magazines, and the conservative and libertarian think tanks and grassroots organizations. In this environment, the Obama/Democrat political machine cannot survive the substantive policy failures that will blast it to smithereens over the next 24 months. We are enjoying now the high point of the Obama economy, a natural cyclical recovery that Obama has already managed to stunt to my own surprise. Yet the ultraliberalism of Washington's ruling Democrats is already cratering their political fortunes. When the concrete economic disasters of the 1970s begin to reappear next year with a new economic downturn, President Obama and his propagandists are not going to be able to talk their way out of political chaos. The American people are far too sophisticated now and have experienced too many years of bountiful prosperity to settle for the stagnation of European and Latin American socialism that Obama and Pelosi are brewing. Compounding this is a trajectory of grievous foreign policy reversals, with President Obama inviting War through Weakness in the Middle East and elsewhere, and mushrooming nuclear proliferation in response to the now emerging nuclear Iran. The likely result of all this is a geometrically worsening downward spiral of political collapse for the Obama Democrats. The better political survival strategy for the Democrats is the Blue Dog Democrat ploy that continued to work in the Pennsylvania 12 special election last week. But even that shows the weakness of the Obamunistas. In a two to one Democrat district, represented by Democrats for decades, with the national union infrastructure able to focus all of their resources on that one race, the Democrat won campaigning against the Obama agenda on a Rush Limbaugh platform. Will Obama really be able to maintain his leftist agenda with a Congress increasingly populated by those winning in this way? Republicans must and will learn to counter this more effectively by aggressively attacking and exposing Blue Dog double dealing. Even more important, they must get much better at projecting a vision and theme of renewed American prosperity and growth. Peter Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute, and general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. "Great power no more?"
It seems Barack Obama has a new presidential role model, at least as far as national de fense is concerned: Dwight Eisenhower. But the Ike that Obama likes isn't the easy-going golfing geezer — and certainly not the grim Cold Warrior who promised massive nuclear retaliation on the enemy if they started any serious trouble. No, this is the Ike who slashed America's defense budget by more than a quarter after the Korean War, and who, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, was willing to "make hard choices" about where American military might should be used, and where it shouldn't. That was the message Gates conveyed in a May 8 speech at the Eisenhower Library on the future of America's national defense — echoing Obama's own praise for Ike at West Point Dec. 1. To the Obama team, the Eisenhower years represent an America aware of its strategic limits and willing to just say "no" to more money for the Pentagon. "The gusher" of post-9/11 military spending is going to be shut off, Gates announced, for "a good period of time." The fact is, America is being set up for a sharp decline in our ability to project military force and protect vital interests. In that vein, Gates mentioned Ike more than a dozen times — and Ronald Reagan not once. Our nation's soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors know how to take orders and salute. The problem audience here is America's enemies, present and future. The Navy is down to its lowest number of vessels since the Carter years. The next generation of destroyers has been cut from a planned 32 ships to 3. The F-22 Raptor advanced-fighter program will soon be as extinct as the dinosaur it's named after. We're already planning to peel out of Iraq and Afghanistan; the jihadists have the dates marked on their calendars. Evoking the name of America's greatest soldier-president since George Washington won't cover the fact that the new "Ike" approach looks like a formula for America's demise as a great power. Five days before the Eisenhower speech, Gates spoke at the Navy League conference in DC. According to one eyewitness, you could've heard a pin drop among the assembled ex-sailors and navy contractors as Gates announced that "we simply can't afford to perpetuate a status quo" of 11 aircraft carriers and 57 nuclear submarines. This is the Obama Pentagon Two-Step. Last year, we had the cuts in specific military programs, including the Raptor. This year, with deficits soaring thanks to Obama's gusher of domestic outlays, will come the actual cuts in spending — including mothballing ships, shutting down bases, reducing the number of officers and trimming raises and health benefits for service personnel. It is important to realize this is not the result of rethinking our defense priorities, as Gates and his supporters like to insist. Of course the Pentagon could use some cost-cutting; yes, certain weapons programs like the Littoral Combat Ship have involved a disgraceful waste of time and money. No one denies that we need to be ready to face the military challenges of the future, rather than the past. But we just don't have the leisure to hit the "reset" button on our military. We're entangled in two major conflicts, Iraq and Afghanistan, involving every military service — and may be unable to avoid others in the near future, including possibly Iran. Yes, Eisenhower trimmed defense after Korea, much as Obama wants to do after Iraq. But even at their slimmest, Ike's defense outlays were 10 percent of GDP; we're at less than 4 percent today. By Ike's standards, our defense budget should be at least double the current $786 billion. And Ike got "more bang for the buck" by putting his defense dollars into nuclear weapons, ready to be carpeted across Russia and East Europe by Air Force bombers if the Soviets made a major move. Red China, even Albania, were slated for annihilation whether combatants or not. That's hardly the kind of "balancing of strategic options" that Obama and Gates say they want — or that our forces are capable of doing right now. We've been here before. In the '70s under Jimmy Carter, and in the '90s under Bill Clinton, Democrats tried to cash in their peace dividends after Vietnam and the Cold War by cutting the Pentagon to pay for domestic spending. Carter's cuts yielded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Soviet troops in Cuba. The Clinton-era cuts — in the case of the Army, almost 40 percent — left us gasping to catch up when Afghanistan and then Iraq beckoned. The US fleet of aircraft carriers that Gates sees as "wasting assets" are in fact the guarantors of our great-power status and our strategic reach. The post-9/11 "gusher" of spending he refers to was actually the result of trying to make up for a decade of neglect — almost certainly what a Republican president will have to do after Obama. In fact, a revolt against the Obama-Gates crash diet is already starting in Congress. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) is pushing for proscribed limits on how many Navy vessels can be retired before replacements must be ordered. And bigger resistance looms after November. Gates certainly doesn't want to be remembered as the architect of America's military decline. Sadly, there may be some in the Obama White House who do. Arthur Herman's most recent book is Gandhi and Churchill. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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PM: IRAN-BRAZIL-TURKEY URANIUM DEAL IS AN ACT OF DECEPTION
Posted by Gil Ronen, May 26, 2010. |
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`Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu broke his silence Tuesday regarding Iran's enriched uranium deal with Turkey, calling it "an act of deception." Until this statement, the Israeli government had offered no official comment on the deal, apparently preferring to let other countries react to it first. Iran announced last week it would ship its nuclear reactors' low-grade uranium to Turkey, which in return will give Tehran fuel rods of medium-enriched uranium for a "medical research reactor." The deal was also signed by Brazil. Speaking before the Knesset plenum in a special session convened at the request of 40 Knesset members, Netanyahu said: "This is transparently an Iranian act of deception that is meant to divert international opinion from the sanctions against Iran in the [United Nations] Security Council." The deal between Iran, Turkey and Brazil is "a bogus suggestion," he said, "because it leaves Iran with enough uranium to manufacture nuclear weapons." "It is commendable that the United States has decided to move forward in pushing through sanctions," said the Israeli head of state. "This is an important move in a symbolic sense, but it is clear to us that these sanctions will not stop Iran. Harsher sanctions will make clearer the determination to prevent Iran's arming with nuclear weapons, but it is not certain that even they will stop it." Regarding indirect negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, which began recently and are to last four months, Netanyahu said: "The primary and most important principle, which I am glad that the United States adopted and made clear to the Palestinian Authority, is that there are no preconditions. This should not prevent the discussions from taking place." "The second principle that we and the United States agree about — and I would like to hope that the Palestinians understand this too — is that the proximity talks are the initial stage and a short corridor to direct talks." Gil Ronen served n the IDF as Army Radio's Knesset and Territories correspondent and later reported for Koteret Rasheet and Ha'ir and serving as Editor at Haaretz and Yediot Aharonot. |
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IDF MAY FIGHT US-TRAINED PALESTINIAN ARAB ARMY
Posted by Yaacov Levi, May 26, 2010. |
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Could US-Trained PA Military Turn Guns on Israel? This was written by Avi Yellin. |
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During a military exercise with the IDF's elite Kfir Brigade last week at the Tze'elim base in Israel's south, GOC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi warned soldiers of potential challenges they may face in the near future. The Kfir brigade, created December 2005 to deal with unrest in Israel's Judea and Samaria regions, trained extensively in urban warfare and simulated a scenario in which IDF soldiers were pitted against the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority's new American-trained military. Mizrahi told soldiers that the PA security forces, trained in Jordan by United States Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, is a formidable potential enemy and that the IDF needs to know how to fight them if the need should arise. "This is a trained, equipped, American-educated force," Mizrahi said. "This means that at the beginning of a battle, we will pay a higher price. A force like that can shut down an urban area with four snipers... It is a proper infantry force facing us and we need to take that into account. They have attack capabilities and we do not expect them to give up easily." Keith Dayton himself has expressed belief that his PA army would likely attack the Jewish state in the event that Israel does not give in to the demands of the Middle East Quartet, comprising America, Russia, the United Nations and European Union. At a May 2009 lecture in Washington, Dayton indicated that if Israel does not surrender Judea and Samaria to the PA within two years, the Fatah forces he and his fellow American officers are currently training could easily turn their guns on the Israelis. "With big expectations, come big risks," Dayton said. "There is perhaps a two-year shelf life on being told that you're creating a state, when you're not." Following these remarks, United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates extended Dayton's tour of duty for an additional two years and gave him the added responsibility of serving as deputy to President Barack Obama's Middle East Envoy George Mitchell. The United States has already poured over $300 million into the new PA army and the acknowledged prospect of that army attacking the State of Israel has not deterred Washington from continuing to arm, train and finance it. Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
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THE FLOTILLA TO GAZA: A PUBLICITY STUNT, NOT A GENUINE AID CONVOY
Posted by Anglican Friends of Israel, May 26, 2010. |
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We received this statement from the Israeli Embassy on the 'Flotilla to Gaza': |
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The Flotilla to Gaza: A publicity stunt, not a genuine aid convoy Since last year's January cease fire, 133 million liters of fuel entered Gaza from Israel — That's more than enough fuel to fill the fuel tank of every car and truck in Israel! Since the ceasefire, well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel — That's almost a ton of aid for every man woman and child in Gaza. Israel transfers food, medicines, clothing and school-books for all Gazans, but Hamas demands concrete for its reinforced bunkers, from which they will be able to continue to fire rockets at Israeli schools and hospitals. Nevertheless, despite the need to restrict the supply of building materials for this reason, Israel has this week allowed 6 trucks loaded with 250 tons of cement, one truck loaded with 5 tons of iron and 15 trucks loaded with gravels to enter Gaza for building projects operated and executed by UNRWA. Israel transfers 15,000 tons of real aid to Gaza each and every week — so a flotilla claiming to carry 10,000 tons of concrete is clearly about a different agenda. International aid groups send their aid to Gaza through the Israeli humanitarian pipeline, while publicity seekers merely exploit the humanitarian agenda to promote their own media stunts. In 2009 alone, 10,544 patients and their companions left the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel. Humanitarian aid flows into Gaza daily, except when the crossings are rocketed by the Hamas regime. In 2009, 21,200 international organization staff members entered the Gaza Strip, and some 4,883 tons of medical equipment and medicine were brought in. Israel is now coordinating the transfer of 200,000 laptops for Gaza schoolchildren. Transferring Aid to Gaza through Existing Channels Israel maintains land crossings into Gaza, through which food, fuels and other materials are supplied. These transfer points operate despite numerous Palestinian terrorist attacks on the crossings, which have cost Israeli lives. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, although Hamas attempts to portray the situation as such. Enormous amounts of supplies and humanitarian aid cross into the Strip on a regular basis. Each day, many dozens of trucks carrying supplies are transported from Israel to the Gaza Strip. The land crossing points remain the most efficient means for the transfer of goods. Reputable international organizations, such as the Red Cross, regularly use these crossings to deliver supplies and transfer personnel. Israel is very willing to assist the organizers of the flotilla in using the land crossings, in the same manner as it does for the other international organizations. Given that sufficient land crossings are open and that Israel has invited the organizers to use them, the flotilla clearly is both futile and a publicity stunt. If the organizers were truly interesting in providing humanitarian aid, as opposed to engaging in publicity stunts, they would utilize the proper channels to ensure delivery. Millions of dollars worth of international food aid continually flows through the Israeli humanitarian apparatus, ensuring that there is no food shortage in Gaza. Food and supplies are shipped from Israel to Gaza daily. Despite attacks by Hamas, Israel maintains an ongoing humanitarian corridor for the transfer of food items to Gaza. This conduit is used by internationally recognized organizations including the United Nations and the Red Cross. Large quantities of essential food items like baby formula, wheat, meat, dairy products and other, are transferred daily and weekly to Gaza. In a typical week the IDF coordinates the transfer of hundreds of trucks containing about 15,000 tons of supplies: during the week of May 18, 2010 there were 65 trucks of fruit and vegetables; 22 truckloads of sugar, some 27 truckloads of meat, poultry and fish; and 40 trucks of dairy products and more than 100 truckloads of animal food. During the first quarter of 2010 some 553 tons or 40 trucks of milk powder and baby food were shipped to the Strip. One hundred and eight trucks of rice, 164 trucks of clothing and shoes, 1,115 trucks of wheat and 1,753 trucks of various food products including vegetables and cheese went through. These items were channeled through aid organizations or via the private sector. In 2009, more than 738,000 tons of food and supplies entered Gaza. During holidays, Israel increases transfers. During the Muslim feast Eid al-Adha, Israel shipped some 11,000 head of cattle into the Strip. Maintaining Medical Aid for All in Need No Palestinian is denied medical care in Israel. Israel maintains a corridor for the transfer of medical patients out of Gaza, and about 200 medical staff go through the crossings every month. Israel helps coordinate the transfer of Jordanian doctors into Gaza. In 2009 alone, 10,544 patients and their companions left the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel. The Israeli Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem donates $3 million in aid annually to treat Palestinians in Israel. Since 2005, Palestinians exploited medical care arrangements more than 20 times to carry out terror attacks. In the first quarter of 2010, Israel shipped 152 trucks of medical supplies and equipment into Gaza. A new CAT scan machine was recently shipped to Gaza. In a typical week (in May 2010), some 37 truckloads of hygiene products were shipped to Gaza. In 2009, 21,200 international organization staff members entered the Gaza Strip, and some 4,883 tons of medical equipment and medicine were brought in. Contact Anglican Friends of Israel at their website: www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com. |
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SHAMMAI LEIBOWITZ NEEDS SOME SMOKES TO BUY PRISON SUNDRIES
Posted by Steven Plaut, May 26, 2010. |
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1. You will all be pleased to hear that Noam Chomsky again met with
the Hezbollah in Lebanon this week and attended a Salute to Nasrallah
event
2. When does the Israeli Moonbatocracy NOT scream against
destruction of Arab homes? See this:
3. Well, one of the happiest events of the week — nay, of the year — was the (re-) sentencing of ultra-leftist shyster Shammai Leibowitz to 20 months hard prison time in the US. Leibowitz, the 39 year old grandson of the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz (himself a fascinating mix of serious knowledge of Judaism with leftist flakiness) is best known for his campaigns on behalf of Arab terrorists and his defending arch-murderer and terrorist Marwan Barghouti (with New Israel Fund money!!). Before that he was the lawyer of choice for International Solidarity Movement accomplices to the Hamas. As you may recall, Shammai got himself into a jam in the US when the FBI discovered he was leaking to the media documents he had been hired by the same FBI to translate. Shammai has been living in the US (he has dual citizenship) and got a job working as a translator for the FBI. The fact that the FBI would hire this collaborator with terrorism from Israel tells you a lot about how much "intelligence" there is inside the skulls of the heads of the FBI these days. Shammai had signed a plea agreement last year but evidently tried
to back out of it. In it, he confessed to engaging in the leaking of
sensitive documents to bloggers and to a pro-terror Palestinian group,
the "Electronic Intifada." See
Anyway, evidently Shammai tried to back out of the plea and the matter went to DC court, where Shammai this week got sentenced to doing the 20 months he agreed to in his plea. Lawyer tricks did not help him this time. Now here is a math problem for you. If Shammai gets 20 months in the US slammer for leaking two documents to the media, just how much jail time should the leftist spy Anat Kamm and her Haaretz handler Uri Blau, the current darlings of Israel's Left, get for stealing more than 2000 military documents and leaking their contents? Why he was not given a sentence at least as long as Pollard's is not clear. Well, yes, it IS clear. Evidently Shammai was spying for the Palestinians! Did he also leak materials to the New Israel Fund? Enquiring minds want to know! I just love the idea of Shammai making license plates and serving as a prison sissy for some big tattooed gangbanger missing his front teeth and wearing gang colors. I will try to get you his prison mailing address in case you want to mail him a carton of cigarettes or maybe a cake with a rubber file inside?
See also this:
He has his own blog here:
4. I have a confession. I despise the TV show "Sex and the City," fantasize about slapping and then sending the characters in it to a nunnery, and think that Chris Noth should have ended his acting career getting shot in "Law and Order." The "Sex and the City" movies are even worse. Nevertheless, I am suddenly tingling with delight that the four skanks in their new movie go to Abu Dhabi and upset the Islamists. Radical Moslem blogs are already threatening a new wave of violence against the offenders, which will recall their anti-cartoon riots. See this.
I had a dream last night of Islamists throwing shoes at the
visiting hussies — all Gucci designer shoes from Fifth Avenue.
5. "Elvis" Costello, a "singer" in the loose sense of the word,
decided he is boycotting Israel and will not perform here. See
I think we should all say a Birkat Ha-Gomel for being rescued from that imminent musical threat to our health and well being. 6. University of Haifa anti-Zionist "New Historian"; Discovers that Israel Itself Caused the 1973 Yom Kippur War because it refused to make peace with Egypt
7. Tel Aviv University — On anti-Semitic web site, TAU's Ran
HaCohen (Dept of Comparative Literature) explains that Israel is
"Colonizing" ... Israel
8. Tel Aviv University — Ariella Azoulay (Dept of Arts) has
Nightime Fantasies about the Palestinian "Right of Return"
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
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WHAT IS MOST IRKSOME IMO ABOUT ANTISEMITES
Posted by Post Futurist, May 26, 2010. |
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What I don't like is how Israel is being used as a 21st century Christ to as be nailed to the cross for the sins of humanity. Contact Post Futurist by email at p0stfuturist@yahoo.com |
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NUCLEAR FORUM MENTIONS ISRAEL, NOT IRAN; MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO; ARE GAZA ARMS TUNNEL WORKERS 'CIVILIANS?'
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 26, 2010. |
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NUCLEAR FORUM MENTIONS ISRAEL BUT NOT IRAN The draft declaration at the nuclear forum mentions Israel, India, and Pakistan as non-signatories to the non-proliferation treaty. It names North Korea as a violator of the treaty but not the IAEA determination that Iran is a violator of the treaty for many years and in many ways. Iran warned that if it were mentioned, it would cite Western powers as violators for spreading nuclear technology. Iran gave no specifics. Iran may suppose that the U.S. helped Israel gain nuclear technology (IMRA, 5/25/10). The U.S. had no interest in Israel acquiring that technology, would have preferred Israel not get it, and did not help it. Some people suspected that the purpose of the conference was an Obama desire to "get Israel" and score PR points with the Muslims. His neglect of Iran is not strengthening U.S. national security.
GAZA ECONOMY AND HOW THE MEDIA REPORTS IT The BBC and other media write about a non-existent humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The flotilla is launched to generate more anti-Israel propaganda over it. Reporting is slanted to omit the affluence in Gaza. When passengers disembarked from the prior flotilla, they went souvenir-shopping in well-stocked shops. On the other hand, poverty exists almost everywhere, including parts of Tel Aviv and backwater Negev towns in Israel. Journalists rarely report that. They report what they want you to see. In both parts of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), there is a middle and upper class. There are Olympic-sized swimming pools, fancy restaurants, crowded malls, and wind-surfing competition on Gaza beaches, as well as the much-reported lower class, used for propaganda. The media laments shortages of water and building material, and ignores the Olympic-sized swimming pools. The Lonely Planet guidebook mentions "steak au poivre and chicken cordon bleu" at the Roots Club in Gaza. The menu is in English, to attract people from the UN, NGOs, and the media, which do not report about it. The manager told the source that many Palestinian Arabs dine there. The media drums upon a theme of poverty caused by Israel. This theme leads to hatred of Israel, probably its purpose (IMRA, 5/25/10 from Tom Gross). When Israel ran Gaza, it greatly increased the standard of living and the longevity of life. Afterwards, the Palestinian Authority ended much of the market economy and rule of law. It further discouraged enterprise by extortion, monopoly, and war. The media's anti-Israel slant reminds one of the false reports from the first Lebanon War that the IDF had devastated most of Lebanon's cities. The truth is that most of the cities were spared, but the photos showed the few blocks of destruction. Some photos were of earlier, Lebanese civil war damage. The same kind of alarmist reporting exaggerated many-fold the number of casualties and the damage in Jenin. The damage was confined to a portion of the so-called refugee camp within the much larger city. Casualties turned out to be a small fraction of what originally was claimed and proclaimed. Some of those casualties and some of the damage occurred because the PLO had booby-trapped their own people's apartment houses, causing them to collapse. If the Arabs did not fight like war criminals, by fighting from among civilian populations whose lives and property the terrorists therefore risk, how little civilian loss of life and property there would be! Jihadists do not care about their own people. The terrorists are responsible for their own people's suffering but get the media and UN to blame Israel for it. The predictable media and UN reaction bears some moral responsibility for Arab suffering, too. So much for humanitarian sentiment by the media, UN, NGOs, and other Israel-bashers!
MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO 
A Manhattan community board approved the project to build the bigger of two mosques near where radical Muslims bombed the World Trade Center. Some members of the audience, who lost relatives there, protested. Their sensibilities were disregarded. Someone from the area thought this is a good area to teach tolerance (Javier C. Hernandez, NY Times, 5/26/10, A23). [People in the neighborhood as well as firefighters from all over the country have suffered from cancer caused by the gases released from the destroyed and burning buildings. Some of that suffering continues.] Bret Stephens reports and interprets the event differently, as a test case for tolerance by Muslims. The Kuwaiti-born project sponsor, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, portrays the project as leading to Muslim Americanization. His wife, who runs the American Society for Muslim Advancement, foresees interfaith activity. The imam's Americanization and tolerance self-portrayal is reported by some to be a sham. One is that he denies that Muslims perpetrated 9/11. Another is that he urged the U.S. to let religions judge their members by their own religious law. That means replacing some American law with Islamic law. Mr. Stephens suggests that the $100 million to be raised for the New York Islamic center would be better spent on interfaith activity in Arab and Pakistani cities. Here is what Stephens thinks the Community Board should ask the imam and wife: 1. Who attacked New York on 9/11, and what was their religion? [And was it a factor?] Beware, interfaith activity often is a vehicle for an aggressive
religion to chip away at other religion(s), rather than recognize
their legitimacy! Beware, radical Muslims are skilled at portraying
themselves as moderate, in order to gain acceptance rather than
deportation. I have reported on this a number of times.
REHABILITATING ISLAMISTS IN YEMEN, S. ARABIA, U.S., ETC. The U.S. has concentrated on fighting Islamists. But they keep coming. This compels other approaches, such as deprogramming and rehabilitating radicals. Egypt let terrorist organizations stay together in prison, where reformed leaders might persuade followers to reform. They discuss their ideology and what is wrong with it. This approach has had some success. Without research on recidivism, it is difficult to tell whether such programs are sincere. Yemen had a program for rehabilitating captured jihadists that was too lax. Little retraining and supervision involved. It was a form of parole [like American "liar mortgages.'] Recidivism was high. The program was canceled. Saudi Arabia fleshed out a program. Applicants underwent psychological evaluation and other screening. There follows extensive re-education, mostly of recruits and those poorly educated in their religion, using Islamic scholars whose religious authority the prisoners respect. Inmates can debate or discuss with scholars via intercom. Ex-prisoners stay at comfortable half-way houses. Then they are paid to start a new life. The difficulty with the Saudi program, aside from its expense, that other countries cannot readily afford, is that the Saudi's Wahabi version of the faith encourages jihad. The program therefore does not prohibit jihad but differentiates sanctioned from non-sanctioned forms of it. Recidivism is not studied there. Is the program effective or a show for the West? President Obama praised the program, but is he over-eager to transfer Guantanamo inmates to Saudi Arabia? U.S. detention centers in Iraq initially allowed extremists to turn moderate Muslim inmates into Islamists. Now the U.S. separates extremists from moderates. "Each incoming detainee now undergoes a thorough background check, and psychologists analyze education, skills, motivation, and religiosity..." Vetted imams talk with prisoners. They educate the majority in several ways, including work training and in how to read the religious texts for themselves. Again, estimates of recidivism vary. However, inmates due to be released prefer to complete their programs. Iraqis ask the U.S. to enroll their non-incarcerated children in the program. Singapore believes that it takes a man of God to revise a terrorist's belief he is serving God. Its program involves one-on-one conversations between imam and convict. The family is screened, too. When the case officer, imam, and psychologist agree to release the inmate, he goes out with help in getting work, appointments for future counseling, and support for the family. No known recidivism, but the number of graduates is small. British police work with Muslims to identify youth having radical tendencies. Rehabilitation includes not only anti-radical reprogramming but efforts to alleviate feelings of alienation. However, some of the youths who turned radical were not alienated. Britain may be picking radicals, such as Tariq Ramadan may be, to do the rehabilitation. Many British Muslims refuse to join the program. British Muslim prisoners may be in process of getting more radical. A moderate Canadian Muslim has developed a program emphasizing tolerance, peace and a broader-minded faith than the Wahabbi sect has. This program emphasizes Islamist misinterpretations of history. No recidivism figures for it. Such programs need to eradicate sympathy for jihad, or else ex-inmates may assist jihad by fundraising or other activities not in themselves violent (Katherine Seifert, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2010, pp. 21-30) The U.S. program respects the Islamic religion while it tries to defang the aggressive violence of the Islamist interpretation.
ARE GAZA ARMS TUNNEL WORKERS 'CIVILIANS?' In retaliation for Gaza terrorists firing four more rockets and mortars into Israel, the Israeli Air Force bombed two tunnels built to permit terrorists to sneak into Israel from below ground (IMRA, 5/26/10). Who digs those war facilities and arms smuggling tunnels? Who smuggles the arms in? Not troops. Are they therefore civilians? In my opinion, no. They may not be on the Hamas payroll, and they may not themselves carry weapons, but either they are part of the immediate war effort or are responsible for the risk to themselves when they build or use the war facility. When they get killed, they should not be considered civilians, as if Israel did something wrong in liquidating them. Calling the bombing of tunnels "retaliation" is peculiar The tunnels exist primarily to boost Hamas war materiel and maneuvering for terrorism. They are legitimate targets whether Hamas or its allies fired rockets that week or not. By waiting to call a limited destruction of tunnels "retaliation," Israel misses the opportunity to crimp Hamas' armaments sooner. Since apparently Israel knows the location of many tunnels, it should bomb all the ones leading to Israel. It should advise Egypt of the locations of all tunnels leading to Sinai, to see whether Egypt would wreck their Sinai portion. If Egypt does not, then Egypt's complicity with jihad would be demonstrated. Perhaps Israel is afraid to confirm that complicity, since it is pretending that Egypt is a constructive force. In any case, what Egypt does not demolish, Israel should, but from the Gaza side.
U.S. RECONNAISSANCE A WAWRNING TO IRAN? General Petraeus has ordered widespread military reconnaissance over Iran and more clandestine military activity in the Mideast. Whether intended as a signal of U.S. determination or not, it appears to signify that. U.S. officials acknowledge that the reconnaissance prepares for possible raids (IMRA, 5/26/10). The New York Times indicated that the Pentagon may be gathering some of its own intelligence, rather than relying upon the over-stretched staff of the CIA. Reconnaissance over Iran may be intended to prepare to squelch Iranian attacks on U.S. facilities, if Israel raids Iran. It also may be just a bluff, for Iran, Israel, and the American public, while the Obama administration dithers until doomsday.
U.S. ON ISRAEL, ABBAS, AND HAMAS U.S. envoy Mitchell said that both Israel's PM Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority head Abbas both are sincere in wanting negotiations to succeed and to make peace. He said Hamas, an extremist organization that uncompromisingly calls for the destruction of Israel, complicates the process. When the time comes, however, he said that any party that accepts principles of peace and democracy is eligible to participate (IMRA, 5/26/10). That is like saying, we'll end WWII or the Cold War if the Nazis or the Communists, fresh for making aggression for fanatical reasons, suddenly promise to behave, we will make peace with them. No suspicion that they may be faking it? Why expect Hamas to embrace democracy and peace, when Abbas does not? He runs a dictatorship. Mitchell is being misleading about that, inasmuch as what Abbas demands would get Israel conquered — admission into Israel of millions of vengeful Arabs. Abbas has said that if he does not get what he wants, he would make war. Indeed, he indoctrinates his people in its desirability. Some peace maker! Nor does he compromise on anything. Considering that the Arabs already have a state in Palestine, called Jordan, true compromise would involve the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza moving there and leaving the rest to the Jews. Mitchell is not being truthful about Abbas in other ways. He said he is not in a hurry for negotiations, he can ask the UN to make him a state. By taking the Arabs' side, Obama reduced any slight inclination to compromise.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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GAZA BELONGS TO ISRAEL, ALWAYS HAS ...
Posted by Paul Lademain, May 26, 2010. |
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We are the Secular Christians for Zion — the SC4Z. We support the Patriots of Israel not because of matters of religion but because we regard Israel as the boulder on the path of Islamic imperialism. We want a larger boulder. No, we NEED a larger boulder! We understand you are a visiting professional in the journalism department at Stanford University. We read your article about Gaza and your stated objections to the blame being cast upon Israel for the supposedly hapless condition of the Arabs occupying that region. Your article dwelt at length on the supposedly wretched living conditions in Gaza. However, this emphasis upon the latter point begs several questions: 1) If these Arabs who now call themselves "Gazans," are so hapless and impoverished, why do they all look so well dressed and well fed? In the photos we have seen, both online or as presented by Reuters, the Arabs who are hurling rocks and lobbing bombs at Israeli civilians are seemingly all the same age and none of them appear to be poor little ten year olds. More like ages 18 to 30 and shod in new shoes and designer jeans; the same age as most of American troops in Iraq. Why, if you intend to defend Israel, do you not buttress your argument on behalf of israel with reference to established international law which almost a hundred years ago — in 1920 — decided the legal foundation for and delineated the boundaries of the Jewish Homeland? These boundaries encompass Gaza, the entire West Bank, most of the Golan Heights, and most of the region that became the new Hashemite nation of Jordan. For a refresher course in international law pertaining to the
Jewish Homeland, we recommend Prof. Howard Grief's meticulously
researched and recently published book The Legal Foundation and
Borders of Israel under International Law reviewed by Wm. Mehlman
at:
Quoting from the review: "With The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law (Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem — available at www.amazon.com) Canadian-born Israeli constitutional scholar and lawyer Howard Grief has given us a book that shatters every myth, lie, misrepresentation and distortion employed over the 61 years of Israel's existence to negate the sovereign rights of the Jewish People to their national home." Our position: International law ends land disputes and resolves them in favor of Israel. We say: No more begging for peace: International law prevails over all Islamic claims to the lands of Israel. All Jews "wherever they are to be found" must demand the restoration of the lands of "Jewish Palestine" to Israel and the US is bound by Treaty to support these demands or else the US and the Euroids will fall victim to the schemes of the UN and its Islamic functionaries. We predict that Israel can expect many loud and underhanded skirmishes from Israel's resident seditionists and their Euroid enablers because application of international law will end their careers. The actions of Jewish leaders who agreed to cede away Israel's lands were "ultra vires" (beyond the scope of their legal authority) and therefore such concessions can and must be renounced and reversed. The next question a journalist should ask is whether the US State Dept. is now utilizing the same persuasive tools on Netanyahu as were applied to Gorbachev, to wit: offering him a promise of a comfortable future lifestyle either in the US or some other hidden place. Funds to be provided to Netanyahu if he "cooperates" — and withholding funds to the nation of Israel and increasing US funds to Mubarak, if he doesn't. We think a review of the rewards accorded to Gorbachev and how the State Dept. turned him might shed some light on Netanyahu's secretiveness and his double-talk to the people of Israel. Turning Gorbachev served the national interests of the free world, but turning Netanyahu away from Israel will accomplish just the opposite and prove disastrous not only to Israel but to the US and the rest of the free world. Viva to Professor Howard Grief and the Patriots of Israel. Respectfully yours — Paul la Demain Paul Lademain is a Secular Christian for Zion (SC4Z). Contact him by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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FACING IRAN'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM: ISRAEL'S TIME FOR DECISION
Posted by Professor Louis Rene Beres and Major General (IDF/Res.) Ben-Israel, May 25, 2010. |
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Israel's Strategic Future, a special report of the Project Daniel Group, was presented to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on January 16, 2003. Among other things, the report asserted that under no circumstances should Iran be allowed to "go nuclear." This firm position stemmed from our understanding that stable deterrence could never exist with a nuclear Iran led by the current extreme regime, and that Iran's belligerent stance toward Israel had remained openly genocidal. Iran has moved steadily forward with plans to build and deploy nuclear weapons. On April 8, 2008, Iran's "National Day of Nuclear Technology," President Ahmadinejad announced his intent to install 6,000 additional centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Now no serious observer could any longer accept the argument that Iran seeks nuclear power only for peaceful purposes. International law is not a suicide pact. Every state has not only the right, but also the obligation, to protect its citizens from aggression. This expectation is beyond any moral or legal question when a determined and possibly irrational enemy seeks nuclear weapons. Ideally, Israel could deter any Iranian WMD attack by maintaining a credible posture of nuclear deterrence. But this is not your father's Cold War, and Israel's notably small size leaves Jerusalem very little room for strategic error. Not surprisingly, Israel continues to maintain a prudent plan for active defense against future Iranian missiles. The plan's indispensable core is the Arrow anti-ballistic missile. Still, no system of active defense can be "leak proof." And terrorist proxies, rather than missiles, could also be used to deliver Iranian nuclear weapons. It follows, as Project Daniel had advised PM Sharon, that Israel must consider and codify appropriate preemption options. Under international law, these essential options are known as "anticipatory self-defense." For Israel, time is quickly running out. The Jewish state cannot fully depend upon its anti-ballistic missiles to defend against any future WMD attack from Iran any more than it can rely entirely upon nuclear deterrence. Even a near-perfect Arrow complemented by credible nuclear threats would not obviate Israel's preemption option. Israel has the right of all states to act in anticipatory self-defense when facing an existential assault. The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice even extends this right to the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in certain residual circumstances. These are "live or die" situations where the only expected alternatives to preemption would be unendurable assaults by enemy states or their surrogates. Israel certainly has no wish to act upon the 1996 ICJ Opinion. But it must continue to prepare for certain critical non-nuclear preemptions, and also to implement a maximally efficient missile interception capability. Should Iran somehow become nuclear, Israel would then have to significantly enhance the credibility of its nuclear deterrent (including a prompt end to the doctrine of nuclear ambiguity or "bomb in the basement"), and to deploy a suitable second-strike force. This recognizably invulnerable (hardened and dispersed) "countervalue" force would be fashioned to inflict a decisive retaliatory blow against selected Iranian cities. Whenever possible, Israel will continue to seek security by peaceful means. But under no circumstances will it allow Iran to imperil its citizens with nuclear harms.
Louis Rene Beres of Purdue University is a long-time expert in
international law. His articles have been published in Israel in
Nativ; Btzedek; Haaretz; The Jerusalem Post; The Jerusalem Letter;
Bulletin Of The Jerusalem Institute For Western Defence; and the
Policy Paper Series of the Ariel Center. Professor Beres is Strategic
and Military Affairs Analyst for The Jewish Press. He was Chair
of Project Daniel.
Contact Professor Beres by email at lberes@purdue.edu |
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FROM ISRAEL: INEXPLICABLE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, May 25, 2010. |
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Yesterday the IDF put out an announcement regarding "gestures" to the PA that are about to be instituted: removal of some 60 (no this is not a typo) dirt roadblocks, opening of a checkpoint near Hevron, and unrestricted movement for Palestinian Arabs on the Kedar Road south of Ma'aleh Adumim. As always, these "gestures" present security risks to Israeli civilians. But hey, the Palestinian Arabs have been so peaceful, so conciliatory in their outreach to us that they deserve this. Right? Those threats of violence, their boycott of our goods, their failure to even pretend to be negotiating in good faith — none of this matters. I titled this post "Inexplicable," but actually it might better be called "Disgusting." In point of fact, what has happened is quite explicable: We are not "negotiating" with the PA at all, and not doing this for them. We are negotiating with the US administration, and moving to keep Obama happy. This is clear. ~~~~~~~~~~ In fact, on Sunday Netanyahu actually complained that Mitchell is talking about different things to each side — allowing each side to raise the issues it wants. This means there is no give-and-take back and forth between the two sides, which is what"negotiations" are all about. It's a farce of considerable proportions. But, I am assuming, at some level this makes the man in the White House happy because he has "restarted" negotiations. ~~~~~~~~~~ In the course of his statement concerning "negotiations," Netanyahu denied that he discussed a land swap (which is what Abbas had claimed). In truth, we have no way to be certain, but if the two sides are talking about different things, maybe Abbas discussed this with Mitchell, and that's as far as it went. ~~~~~~~~~~ One of the so-called "gestures" that was advanced was permission for 50 licensed Israeli tour guides to bring groups into Jericho and Bethlehem, areas under the control of the PA. But the Israeli Tour Guide Association has put out a statement "forcefully" objecting to this and demanding the cancellation of this provision. Tour guides would be exposed to danger, the statement says. Besides which, they would be confronting additional competition, as a commensurate number of Palestinian Arab tour guides would be permitted to lead tours inside of Israel. Is anyone thinking, when these "gestures" are proposed? ~~~~~~~~~~ There is increased movement in the international community to make nice with Syria. French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has just called on Syrian president Bashar Assad. While German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, who visited two days ago, went on record as saying, "Whoever wishes to support the peace process in the Middle East must also seek talks with Syria." Considering Syria's role in smuggling weaponry to Hezbollah, this is a decidedly bad turn of events. And it is the US we have to thank for it. For it was a shift in US policy that took Syria out of diplomatic isolation. Among those visiting Syria in the last few days was Senator John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a strong proponent of engagement with Syria; this is his third visit since 2009. ~~~~~~~~~~ If you doubt that a shift in US policy has radically effected the situation vis-a-vis Syria, please consider Assad's words: In an interview with the Italian paper La Republica, yesterday, he said that Americans have lost their influence. Now he blames it on the fact that they "don't do anything for peace," but put more broadly, it means that Obama has pulled back, declining to be a strong force in this part of the world. Said Assad: "Out of this failure, what's emerging out of necessity is another alternative — a geostrategic map that aligns Syria, Turkey, Iran and Russia linked by politics, common interests and infrastructure." Scary stuff, and this is not about "peace" but power. Russia is eager to be a counterweight to US influence, while Syria is more closely allied with Iran than ever, and the Turks also see the handwriting on the wall. No "engagement" with Kerry is going to change this. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile we are engaged in our fourth annual nationwide civil defense drill — this simulates the situation we would have to deal with if attacked by Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas. Syria responded with unease to this, seeing in it a bit of saber-rattling. Netanyahu was quick to offer reassurance: "I would like to make it clear that it is not the result of any exceptional security development. On the contrary, Israel wants calm, stability and peace. But, said our prime minister, it was "important to bolster citizens' awareness vis-a-vis the protection issue..." ~~~~~~~~~~ Myself, I'm not adverse to a bit of muscle flexing — this seems to me part of deterrence. What is deplorable for me — and many others — is the sense of our being "sitting ducks," with Hezbollah acquiring those rockets and missiles in the north. Such acquisitions are not intended for peaceful purposes, we can be sure. Sooner or later... Material has come out on the Internet, some of which has been shared with me by deeply worried readers, indicating a possibility that we will get hit by Hezbollah — using non-conventional weapons — this summer. I've checked several sources, and all confirm my gut feeling on this, which is that such predictions are very "iffy." One knowledgeable source said that Iran wants things to remain quiet right now and is unlikely to stir up Hezbollah within the next few months. Bottom line for me here is that whatever intelligence has been acquired by sources predicting such attacks is also in the hands of our IDF — such intelligence and a great deal more. At the end of the day, nothing I can write, or encourage my readers to promote, will make an iota of difference with regard to this. It falls to the IDF and our intelligence services to stay on top of the situation and to respond with appropriate force when the time comes. I trust that they will. Would I like to see a pre-emptive attack on our part at the appropriate time? Oh yes! But, needless to say, this is not in my hands. Our leaders, our defense decision-makers, our intelligence brass, all have to do their utmost — with fierce determination to protect our people and our nation. But at the end of the day, it's in the hands of Heaven. ~~~~~~~~~~ A "Freedom Flotilla" of ships is in the Mediterranean headed toward the coast of Gaza, with the declared intention of breaking the (non-existent) "blockade" being maintained by Israel. I want to address this is some more detail tomorrow, for the PR being put out misleads severely. The goal of this project, very clearly, is political and not humanitarian. See this statement by Yigal Palmor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman: "Since the ceasefire in January 2009, well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel — that is almost a ton of aid for each man, woman and child in the Strip. "The land crossings remain the most efficient system to transfer goods to Gaza, and the flotilla organizers are well aware of this fact. The organizers also know that since December 2008, their ships have been denied permission to land. "Israel has invited the organizers of the flotilla to use the land crossings, in the same manner as all the reputable international organizations. "However, they are less interested in bringing in aid than in promoting their radical agenda, playing into the hands of Hamas provocations. While they have wrapped themselves in a humanitarian cloak, they are engaging in political propaganda and not in pro-Palestinian aid. If the organizers were truly interesting in providing humanitarian aid — as opposed to engaging in publicity stunts — they would use the proper channels to ensure delivery of any supplies."
~~~~~~~~~~ See also, with thanks to Jacob G., this link to a Palestinian magazine from December 2009, which shows some of the products in generous quantities, agricultural and otherwise, available to Gazans, who are said to be totally without:
~~~~~~~~~~ It's good news, and way past due, that we are likely to see a bill passed by the Knesset that would severely limit the perks provided to security prisoners (largely Hamas) in our prisons. What we offer them now — which is insane — far exceeds what is required by international law. There are different versions being proposed, but support for this is strong and whatever final version emerges is highly likely to pass, with three readings required. This is, to begin with, simply the right thing to do. There is no reason why Arabs who killed Jews or attempted to do so, or are allied with those who seek to do so, should be able to acquire degrees while in our prisons, or watch television, or have parties in their cells. Beyond this, the desire to secure the release of Gilad Shalit is motivating this legislation. The hope is that families of those in our prisons will pressure Hamas to let Shalit go, in order to secure more leniency in the conditions for their relatives. Keeping Shalit becomes, at least in theory, a liability. ~~~~~~~~~~ Astrophysicists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, and some of their associates abroad, have identified a new type of exploding star. Prior to this, two kinds of supernovae had been identified — hot, young giants that collapse under their own weight, and old, dense white dwarves that blow up. The newly discovered supernova fits a different pattern — with high levels of calcium and titanium being thrown out as the star explodes, suggesting a nuclear reaction involving helium. It is believed that this discovery may shed light on some previously unexplained phenomenon in the universe. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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WHY DIDN'T THIS MAN GET A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?
Posted by Brother Shane, May 25, 2010. |
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As a disturbed individual was randomly shooting his colleagues at Virginia Tech, a Jewish Holocaust survivor blocked a classroom door to protect his students from the shooter. This 77-year-old engineering professor heroically sacrificed his life on Holocaust Memorial Day by taking bullets the shooter meant for his students. Rest in peace, Liviu Librescu At least Romania knows how to honor their heroes... Librescu was posthumously awarded the Order of the Star of Romania, Romania's highest civilian honor.
From the looks of it, he should've gotten 2 or 3 Nobel Prizes... Life and career Liviu Librescu was born in 1930 to a Jewish family in the city of Ploieşti, Romania. After Romania allied with Nazi Germany in World War II, his father, Isidore Librescu, was deported to a labor camp in Transnistria, and later his family, along with thousands of other Jews, was deported to a ghetto in the Romanian city of Focani.[5][6] As a boy, Librescu was interned in a labor camp in Transnistria. He may also have spent time in a Soviet labor camp.[6] His wife, Marlena, who is also a Holocaust survivor, told Israeli Channel 10 TV the day after his death, "We were in Romania during the Second World War, and we were Jews there among the Germans, and among the anti-Semitic Romanians."[5] Dorothea Weisbuch, a cousin of Librescu living in Romania, said in an interview to Romanian newspaper Cotidianul: "He was an extraordinarily gifted person and very altruist. When he was little, he was very curious and knew everything, so that I thought he would become very conceited, but it did not happen so; he was of a rare modesty."[7] After surviving the Holocaust, Librescu was repatriated to Communist Romania.[5] He studied aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, graduating in 1952 and continuing with a Master's degree at the same university. He was awarded a Ph.D. in fluid mechanics in 1969 at the Academia de Ştiinţe din România.[8] From 1953 to 1975, he worked as a researcher at the Bucharest Institute of Applied Mechanics, and later at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Aerospace Constructions of the Academy of Science of Romania. His career stalled in the 1970s because he refused to swear allegiance to the Romanian Communist Party and was forced out of academia for his sympathies towards Israel.[5] When Librescu requested permission to immigrate to Israel, the Academy of Science of Romania fired him.[5][9] In 1976, a smuggled research manuscript that he had published in the Netherlands drew him international attention in the growing field of material dynamics.[10] After years of government refusal, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin personally intervened to get the Librescu family an emigration permit by directly asking Romanian President Nicolae Ceauşescu to let them go.[5][11] They moved to Israel in 1978. From 1979 to 1986, Librescu was Professor of Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering at Tel Aviv University and taught at the Technion in Haifa.[11] In 1985, he left on sabbatical for the United States, where he served as Professor at Virginia Tech in its Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, where he remained until his death.[11][12] He served as a member on the editorial board of seven scientific journals and was invited as a guest editor of special issues of five other journals.[13] Most recently, he was co-chair of the International Organizing Committee of the 7th International Congress on Thermal Stress, Taipei, Taiwan, June 4-7, 2007, for which he had been scheduled to give the keynote lecture.[4][13] According to his wife, no Virginia Tech professor has ever published more articles than Librescu.[11] Just an "average" Israeli citizen...
Contact Brother Shane by email at wisevirgin_777@yahoo.com
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STOP MEDIA BIAS. RECLAIMING LANGUAGE FROM THE LEFT
Posted by Susana K-M, May 25, 2010. |
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This was written by Caroline B. Glick.
Leftists, stop making money from Arab sources. Shame on you! |
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Over the past generation, the Left has inverted the terminology of human rights, freedom, morality, heroism, democracy and victimization Courtesy of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Thursday Israel will again be the target of a jihadist-leftist propaganda assault. A flotilla of nine ships which set sail for Gaza from Cyprus earlier this week is scheduled to arrive at our doorstep. The expressed aim of the flotilla's organizers is to unlawfully provide aid and comfort to Hamas — an illegal terrorist organization. Since it seized power in Gaza three years ago, Hamas, which is openly committed to the genocide of world Jewry and the physical eradication of Israel, has transformed the Gaza Strip into a hub of the global jihad. It has been illegally holding hostage Gilad Schalit incognito for four years. And it is continuously engaged in a massive, Iranian-financed arms buildup ahead of its next assault. Beyond providing aid to Hamas, the declared aim of the "Free Gaza" movement is to coerce Israel into providing Hamas with an outlet to the sea. This too is in contravention of international law which expressly prohibits states and non-state actors from providing any support to terrorist organizations.
IN SENDING out the latest group of ships, Turkey and its Irish, Greek and Swedish partners seek to appropriate the imagery of the Jewish pre-statehood struggle for independence from Britain. In a bid to appease Hamas's jihadist precursors, in 1939 Britain's Mandatory authorities broke international law and prohibited Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. The League of Nations' letter of mandate for Britain specifically enjoined the British to facilitate Jewish immigration to the land of Israel. Yet following the Arab terror war from 1936-1939, the British issued the White Paper that all but prohibited Jewish immigration. This move blocked the one place on Earth where European Jews were wanted from accepting them and so trapped 6 million Jews in Hitler's Europe. In the aftermath of the war, the British maintained their prohibition on Jewish immigration. To fight this British policy, the Zionist leadership in pre-state Israel organized the Aliya Bet program of illegal immigration. Jewish agents scoured the world for ships large enough to bring Europe's Jewish refugees to the land of Israel. The ship most emblematic of the era was the Exodus. The Exodus which set sail from France in July 1947 with 4,515 Jewish Holocaust survivors on board was the Zionist response to a new British policy to force illegal immigrant ships to return to Europe. The British rammed the Exodus in Haifa. They boarded and killed three Jewish defenders. They then forced its passengers to board British prison ships that would return them to Europe. French authorities denied the ships the right to land in France, so the British sailed on to Hamburg, Germany, where the refugees were forced to disembark. The international outcry against Britain in the wake of the Exodus affair shamed London into cancelling its new policy. It also paved the way for Israel's independence 10 months later. Now the Turkish, Greek, Swedish and Irish governments are colluding with Hamas to purloin the imagery of the Exodus and the heroism of the Jewish people in the years leading up to statehood and project that imagery onto a terrorist organization that seeks to complete Hitler's work. They further seek to invert reality by portraying Israel, which in accordance with international law is trying to contain and defeat Hamas, as a combination of the German Nazis and the British imperialists.
SO FAR, they are getting away with it. So far, for their efforts on behalf of a genocidal terrorist organization Erdogan and his ilk are being extolled as human rights champions. Barring any unexpected events, Israel will suffer yet another public relations disaster on Thursday when the ships approach Gaza. How has this happened? How is it that we have become so overwhelmed by the Left's propaganda that most of our political leaders and intellectual elite are incapable of even describing the evil that it being advanced against us? Over the past generation, the Left has commandeered our language. It has inverted the terminology of human rights, freedom, morality, heroism, democracy and victimization. Its perversion of language has made it nearly impossible for members of democratic, human rights respecting, moral societies to describe the threats they face from their human rights destroying, genocidal, tyrannical enemies. Thanks to the efforts of the international Left, the latter are championed as the victims of those they seek to annihilate. Two incidents in recent weeks make clear just how disastrous the Left's wholesale theft of language and through it, their inversion of reality has been for Israel. Last Monday, Noam Chomsky arrived at the Allenby Bridge and requested a visa to enter Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The police at the border refused his request. The radical leftist Israel-basher made a fuss and waited around for several hours before he went back to Jordan. Chomsky left Jordan at the end of the week and travelled to Lebanon. For the second time in four years, on Friday Chomsky toured southern Lebanon with a Hizbullah guide. Now an official guest of Hizbullah, Chomsky is scheduled to give an address in Beirut Tuesday to celebrate the IDF's pullout from south Lebanon 10 years ago. As David Hornik detailed in FrontPage Magazine on Friday, the leftist-dominated Israeli media went nuts when they discovered Chomsky had been turned away at the border. Yediot Aharonot and Haaretz heralded Chomsky as a great mind and proclaimed hysterically that the refusal to allow him to enter the country marked the end of Israeli democracy and the start of a slide into fascism. The Western media quickly piled on and within hours Israel's right to deny its avowed enemies entry was under assault. And Chomsky is Israel's enemy. As Hornik pointed out, Chomsky has repeatedly defended Holocaust deniers while accusing Israel of being the ideological heir of Nazi Germany. When he hasn't been too busy championing the Khmer Rouge and Josef Stalin, and attacking the US as the Great Satan, Chomsky has devoted much time and energy to calling for Israel's eradication and defending Palestinian and Hizbullah terrorists.
IT WAS the government's job to point this out. But instead, faced with the leftist onslaught against its right to control its borders, the government crumpled. Instead of explaining that Chomsky is an enemy of Israel and an abettor and defender of genocide, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev apologized for the unpleasant reception Chomsky received at the Allenby Bridge. Regev also promised that if Chomsky returns, he will be granted an entry visa. The government's cowardly handling of the Chomsky incident is testament to the Left's success at intimidating Western leaders to the point where instead of standing up to leftist propaganda and lies, they accept them as truth and even collaborate in disseminating them. Probably the PMO figured no one would listen if it told the truth about Chomsky. It probably felt that defending the decision to bar Chomsky from the country would only elicit a second barrage of media attacks. And perhaps they were right. But the fact that the Left would have remained unconvinced doesn't excuse the government's abject surrender of the truth about Chomsky to Israel's enemies on the Left who portray the MIT professor as a human rights activist and a great intellectual humanitarian. As David Horowitz and Peter Collier prove in their book The Anti-Chomsky Reader, there doesn't seem to be a tyrant that Chomsky hasn't championed or a victim that Chomsky hasn't demonized in the entire span of his 50-year career as a radical activist. The government is not alone in its fear of exposing and fighting the Left's campaign to demonize the country.
THE RADICAL left's ability to block voices of dissent from its anti-Israel and anti-freedom positions was similarly demonstrated two weeks ago at Tel Aviv University's annual Board of Governors meeting. For several years, a large, vocal group of tenured professors from the university have actively participated in the international campaign to boycott Israeli universities and academics while actively supporting Hamas and Hizbullah. That is, many Tel Aviv University professors, whose salaries are paid by university donors and Israeli taxpayers, have been using their university titles to undermine the university and to advance the cause of Israel's destruction. This year the university's Board of Governors bestowed an honorary doctorate on Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz. In his acceptance speech, Dershowitz called these professors out for their vile behavior and named three of the most vocal enemies of the university and Israel on the international stage: Profs. Anat Matar, Rachel Giora and Shlomo Sand. The university's tenured anti-Zionist activists were quick to retaliate. More than 80 professors signed a letter to university president Joseph Klaffter demanding that the university disassociate itself from Dershowitz's statements. Klaffter was quick to oblige. At the Board of Governors meeting, Klaffter silenced board member Mark Tanenbaum when he tried to put forward a resolution calling for disciplinary action against university professors who use their university titles to defame the university or Israel. Klaffter, who isn't even a member of the Board of Governors, reportedly grabbed the microphone away from Tanenbaum and adjourned the meeting. Klaffter justified his physical denial of Tanenbaum's freedom of speech by claiming that he was defending academic freedom. Like the Prime Minister's Office's apology to Noam Chomsky, Klaffter's action — aside from arguably being prohibited by his own university's constitution — was further proof of the Left's success in appropriating the language and imagery of freedom and tolerance in the service of forces that seek to destroy freedom and end tolerance.
ON THURSDAY Hamas's maritime enablers from Europe, Turkey and beyond will arrive at our doorstep. The navy will block their entry to Gaza. Israel will be demonized by terror-abettors disguised as human rights activists and journalists worldwide. And the story will pave the way for the next assault on Israel's right to exist. This endless circle of demonization and aggression will continue to widen and escalate until our political leaders and our intellectual elite reclaim our language from those on the terror-abetting Left. True, our reclamation of our language will not go unopposed. But if we do not reassert our right to describe objective reality, our inability to explain why we are right and our detractors serve evil will be our undoing. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
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RED LINES, NOT THE GREEN LINE
Posted by Michael Freund, May 25, 2010. |
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As Israel prepares to mark the anniversary of the June 1967 Six-Day War, it is time to recall what prompted the outbreak of the conflict, and the Palestinian terror and rejectionism which preceded it. Indeed, with Washington now laying heavy pressure on Israel to retreat to the "Green Line" and create a Palestinian entity alongside our borders, we need to remind the world that Israel did not occupy Judea and Samaria — we won them fair and square in an act of self-defense. As I suggest in the column below from the NY Jewish Press, it is time to stand firm and be strong, and declare once and for all that the "Green Line" has forever been replaced. In its stead we now have Red Lines, and chief among them is this: we will never, ever give up territory again. I would welcome your comments and feedback. thanks, Michael Freund May 21, 2010
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Next month marks the 43rd anniversary of the June 1967 Six Day War, when the Jewish state went from the brink of extinction to breathtaking victory. Few times in the modern era has the guiding hand of Divine providence been as plain and clear for all to see as it was during that heady period, when our Arab neighbors threatened to annihilate Israel and cast its citizenry into the waters of the Mediterranean. But the Jewish people turned the tables on our foes, and in less than a week, with G-d's help, we managed to reclaim the cradle of our civilization in the form of places such as Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. It was an emotional reunion, one that had taken more than 19 centuries to occur. But the love and the longing of the Jewish people for their G-d given land could not, and would not, be denied. Sadly, however, with the passage of time, memories tend to dim and emotions often fade. And so instead of celebrating this annual miracle with all the verve and joy that it deserves, many on Israel's left descend into a state of semi-mourning. In columns and editorials, they regularly bemoan the outcome of the war, grieving over the "occupation" of the territories and fantasizing about how good life would be without them. Indeed, it almost seems that many would have preferred that Israel had lost the battle rather than having emerged victorious with the blue-and-white flag flying over Hebron and Jerusalem. But what they conveniently ignore is everything that preceded the 1967 war: increased Palestinian terrorism, a large Arab military buildup, and the brazen threats by Arab leaders to exterminate the Jewish state. In effect, left-wing Israeli proponents of withdrawal have cast a fog over history, shifting the focus away from the "whys" of the 1967 war, and replacing them instead with "why us?" Most people forget, but two years prior to 1967, back when Israel was narrow and tiny and did not yet "occupy" anyone else's land, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol unveiled a peace plan that could have resolved the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all. Speaking in the Knesset on May 17, 1965, Eshkol proposed to open direct negotiations with the Arab states with the aim of turning the 1949 armistice agreements into full-fledged peace treaties. Pointing out that Israel's four Arab neighbors — Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon — together had 60 times the land area of the Jewish state, Eshkol suggested that the pursuit of war by the Arabs was a needless waste of human and material resources. Instead, he laid out a vision of peace that would have included open borders, freedom of transit and communications, bilateral trade and economic cooperation, as well as access to the holy sites of all religions. All he asked from the Arabs, said Eshkol, was "full respect for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the States in the region." It was a simple, yet compelling deal: peace for peace, with no strings attached. But Israel's offer was met two years later with a clear and unequivocal Arab response. Egypt and Syria mobilized their armies and vowed to destroy the Jewish state. Here is just a sampling of some of the Arab rhetoric at that time: On May 20, 1967, Hafez Assad, who was then serving as Syria's defense minister, said, "Our forces are now entirely ready to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." On May 26, Egyptian president Nasser declared in a speech to his nation, "Our basic aim will be to destroy Israel." At a press conference the following day, PLO founder Ahmad Shukeiry said, "D-Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation." And on May 30, Cairo Radio was even more explicit: "Israel has two choices, both of which are drenched with Israel's blood: Either it will be strangled by the Arab military and economic siege, or it will be killed by the bullets of the Arab armies surrounding it from the south, from the north and from the east." A week later, the war began. And a week after that, it had ended, leaving Israel in control of Jerusalem, along with Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights. Ever since, the world has been pressing us to go back to the pre-1967 frontiers and to give our foes the territory from which they sought to launch our destruction. As a matter of fact, Washington is now laying heavy pressure on Israel to retreat to the "Green Line" and create a Palestinian entity alongside our borders, as though our acquisition of these territories was somehow illicit from the start. But nothing could be further from the truth. Israel did not occupy Judea and Samaria — we won them fair and square in an act of self-defense, and we should have no regrets for doing so. The war of 1967 was one that Israel neither asked for nor initiated. And the time has come for us to stop apologizing for winning it. Instead, let's embrace the great gift that G-d has given us, by settling the land and filling it with Jews. Our ancestors walked these areas centuries before the advent of Islam, and thousands of years before the establishment of the PLO, and we need not apologize for returning to the heartland of our proud and ancient heritage. It is time for Israel to stand firm and be strong, and declare once and for all that the "Green Line" has forever been replaced. In its stead we now have Red Lines, and chief among them is this: we will never, ever give up territory again. Michael Freund is the founder and chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which assists Anousim in Spain, Portugal and South America to return to the Jewish people. |
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DERSHOWITZ CONTINUES SUPPORT FOR POLLARD
Posted by Hillel Fendel, May 25, 2010. |
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Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a former lawyer for Jonathan Pollard, says, "We must keep up the pressure regarding Pollard... he has served more than he should have." Winding up a nine-day visit to Israel, Dershowitz says the continued incarceration of Pollard, in his 25th year of a life sentence in the United States, "is a scandal — not only for Israel; it's a scandal for America. He was treated so unfairly. America broke its deal; [it] broke its promise with him." Pollard, in jail since 1985, was convicted on one count of releasing classified information to a U.S. ally — namely, Israel. The normal sentence for this crime is 2-4 years, whereas Pollard received a life sentence. In a message to the Yeshivat Hesder of Sderot in honor of its upcoming annual dinner, Dershowitz said, "We must keep up the pressure regarding Pollard. I wouldn't ask for a pardon — I would ask for a commutation. A pardon suggests that he didn't do wrong, [but] by American law standards, he did. A commutation suggests that he served more than he should have and at this point it's due to free him." "Cruel Hamas" Holding Shalit Dershowitz also spoke about Natan Sharansky and Gilad Shalit: "We took that attitude [requesting commutation] with Sharansky. I was Sharansky's lawyer and we got him free, as well as many of the leaders of Israel today who were Prisoners of Zion and served in prison. Sharansky left on his own terms. When they tried to take away his Book of Psalms that kept him so vibrant in prison, he refused to let them... He was strong, he stood up to them, he looked them in the eye — and I hope that Gilad Shalit is doing the same thing. We have to have all of our efforts behind him, a young boy missing out on his youth because of the cruel, cruel Hamas not allowing proof if he's alive, not allowing the family, not allowing the Red Cross [to visit him]..." "Goldstone Didn't Visit Him" Prof. Richard Goldstone, author of the controversial Goldstone Report accusing Israel of war crimes in defending itself against Hamas terrorism, once again did not escape Dershowitz's wrath. "Goldstone had an opportunity, when he was in Gaza, to ask to see [Shalit]," Dershowitz said, "or to do something about it — and he did nothing. I think we all have to keep up our efforts on behalf of Gilad Shalit [and] on behalf of Jonathan Pollard." The Affidavit: False Information "Weighed Heavily" in Life Sentence Prof. Dershowitz filed an affidavit in March 1990 in which he quoted former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg as having accused the Justice Department of improperly "pandering" to the racial sensitivities of Pollard's sentencing judge. The affidavit states that this was done by providing Judge Audrey Robinson, a black man, "with false, inflammatory, ex parte information" regarding allegations that Pollard had helped the South African apartheid regime with secret information on nuclear technology. "Justice Goldberg told me," Dershowitz stated in the affidavit, "that Judge Robinson had told him that the Pollard-South African connection had weighed heavily in his (Judge Robinson's) decision to impose a life sentence." As the JonathanPollard.org website states, "This allegation [that Jonathan Pollard spied for South Africa] is completely false... Jonathan Pollard was never indicted for spying for South Africa." US Apologized for Calling Pollard "Traitor" In addition, the U.S. Government was forced to apologize for allegations that Pollard is a "traitor" to the United States. The Pollard website states as follows: "Over the years American Government officials and other enemies of the case have falsely accused Jonathan Pollard of treason, and have referred to him as a 'traitor'. When challenged, they implausibly try to justify their use of this terminology by claiming that they intend the term 'traitor' according to some sort of popular usage and not in a legal sense. But even the Courts reject this kind of spurious rationalization, and they categorically reject the Government's attempts to slip-slide on this issue. During the oral arguments of September 1991, the Courts forced the US Government to apologize to Jonathan for falsely identifying him as a traitor in the Weinberger memo and in other statements. The Court notes the Government's apology in its 1992 decision." Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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US TRAINS PA FORCES FOR WAR AND PA THREATENS WAR;
>NEW ISRAEL FUND AND EU FINANCE CAMPAIGN TO DISSOLVE ISRAEL
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 25, 2010. |
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GUNMEN SABOTAGE UN CHILDREN'S CAMP IN GAZA 
About 20 armed men raided a children's camp that the UN is constructing in Gaza, and destroyed water tanks and other facilities. Hamas said it is investigating. Hamas runs rival summer camps. The Hamas camps teach Islam; UN camps feature painting, swimming, and singing. A Hamas legislator has called the UN summer program "a plan to spoil the growing generation of Gaza." (Isabel Kershner, Fares Akram, New York Times, 5/25/10, A10.) Connecting the dots, Hamas runs Gaza strictly and tightly, but implies it was unaware of the attack on camps that rival its own totalitarian program. Perhaps, but not likely. Dictatorships have thugs do their dirty work and then disavow it. Here, the UN is trying to do something decent, and Hamas is abusing childhood to serve its totalitarian and imperialist statelet. Just as there is very little international condemnation of Islamic oppression of women, there is even less international condemnation of Islamist abuse of children. The world pretends that the big threat to Gaza children is Israeli raids. The pretense includes willful blindness to the fact that in storing weapons in private houses and in firing alongside schools, Hamas commits war crimes. Therefore, under international law, Hamas is responsible for civilian casualties there. Unfortunately, the Goldstone Report ignored Hamas responsibility. Without evidence and contrary to Israeli military doctrine, it accused Israel of deliberately firing at schools, etc., in order to kill children. Then why not schools where no Hamas forces were engaged? By contrast with Israel not bringing the battle alongside UN schools, as Hamas did, and not trying to destroy UN facilities (I reported extensive IDF coordination with the UN to avoid that), Arab terrorists actually do attack UN facilities or rob humanitarian aid convoys. Isabel Kershner and Fares Akram of the New York Times report the same news as my prior article, but cast it in a different light. Fact: "The five-day exercise, designed to test the readiness of civilians, the emergency services, and the local authorities in the case of war, is taking place for the fourth consecutive year. It comes amid growing concern in Israel about the rocket and missile capabilities of militant groups on its borders and the potential threat of a nuclear Iran. Slant: The reporters describe Arab objections to the drills as a "rattling of nerves." (5/25/10, A10.) Is the drill causing a "rattling of nerves, or is the response an attempt to rattle nerves? The newspaper reports what people say, whether what they say is truthful or not. This gives the benefit of the doubt to Islamist ideologues whose code encourages deceit of the West, which deceit is further encouraged by the seemingly naïve reporting in the West. But I do not think that the reporting is naïve, considering the Times' traditional anti-Zionism. I think it is malign or politically correct. A realistic explanation is that the Lebanese response to Israeli drills is a combination of paranoia and propaganda. Arab propaganda is relentlessly aggressive, poses the Arabs as being the ones with grievances, and poses Israel as plotting against them. Actually, Iran is the puppeteer, pulling the strings in Iran and Gaza and plotting, having turned Hizbullah into an army. The notion that an annual, civilian drill, Israel's duty, and whose theme takes into account new military developments, is a plot for war, should be scoffed at. The Times treats the plot accusation with respect. Its readers will not understand much about the issues here.
NEW YORK HINDU LEADER: PART 5. ANTI-TERRORIST'S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR U.S. Naïve, democracy allows Islam to exploit it. Just as Islam creates fear and its people live in fear in Muslim countries, so, too, in the U.S.. America's careless immigration policy enables terrorists to draw upon a pool of violent sympathizers. American critics of jihad receive death threats. Some anti-terrorism experts, such as Steve Emerson, live practically in hiding. Some governments, such as Syria and Iran, operate secret enforcers abroad. Besides natural hesitancy in going to police, immigrant communities may be afraid of retribution from violent elements among them. The authorities move slowly if at all. The U.S. still has not grasped the fact that radical Muslims have a fanatical, religiously motivated, collective and international terrorist movement, Kataria laments. For example, over mere cartoons published in Denmark, Muslims murder Hindus and Japanese. "Since 9/11/2001, the followers of the so called 'religion of peace' have carried out 15,101 deadly terrorist attacks and killed more than 75,000 people. "Pakistan is the nursery of terrorism." That other U.S. "ally," Saudi Arabia, spent $100 billion in that three decades, spreading hatred. Kataria foresees that in 30-40 years, the U.S. will find itself in the same divided and besieged position that India does. People are getting cowed. The future is in doubt. Americans need to make distinctions, so that they are not against Islam but do oppose the totalitarians who want to take over here and everywhere, in the name of religion. "Take this advice from someone who has seen it happen in South-East Asia." Kataria urges Americans to "visualize a world of radical Muslim control. Do you want to have happen here, what occurred in Somalia, when Islamists closed radio stations?" "I believe in the survival of human civilization on planet earth and the protection of freedom and democracy. It is imperative that the major countries, like the U.S., Britain, Russia, Israel, India, Germany, and other victims of jihad formulate a concrete strategy to effectively end this serious threat to our very existence."
ISRAEL DAY CONCERT IN NEW YORK Sunday, the Israel Day parade overcame a forecast of rain, so that 20,000 people stayed on for a concert in Central Park. Sponsors thought it was the biggest ever. [It certainly was bigger than the ones I attended in the early years.] The theme of the speeches at the concert was the indivisibility of Jerusalem and halting concessions to the Palestinian Authority. One speaker was MK Danny Danon, described as one Israeli politician who does not talk right but turn left. Other speakers affirmed the Jewish people's right to settle throughout Judea-Samaria. The main speaker was Republican National Committee chair Michael Steel. He referred to American public opinion showing overwhelming American support for Israel in its struggle for survival. But he injected somewhat of a political note by criticizing President Obama for abusing PM Netanyahu and kid-gloving Iran. He said that the Palestinian Authority is not serious about peace and that Israel should keep Jerusalem united (Arutz-7, 5/24/10).
MISSTATING LEGALITY OF JEWISH TOWNS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA A prior article cited a source on the legality of Jewish towns in Judea-Samaria. In editorial remarks, I then explained further. Today, a source had another statement on that. This time, the towns were deemed legal, because neither the Geneva Conventions nor the Security Council Resolution 242 called them illegal united (I thought this was from Arutz-7, 5/24/10, but the e-mail disappeared, and I can't find the article on the web site) The statement fails the test of chronological order. First came Conventions and Resolution. Then came Jewish towns. One would not expect Conventions and Resolution to rule on the legality of towns before any were built. Based on international law and justice, I have reached the conclusion that the towns are legal. I reject poor arguments in behalf of their legality. I prefer accuracy and precise language.
P.A. AGAIN THREATENS WAR WHILE U.S. TRAINS ITS FORCES FOR WAR Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, reiterated Abbas' threat to resume armed struggle against Israel, if negotiations fail. The U.S. continues training Palestinian Authority (P.A.) military forces and continues ignoring military threats from P.A. ruling circles (IMRA, 5/23/10). The reality on the ground is that the U.S. is preparing the P.A. to make war on Israel. The antisemites in the clouds accuse the U.S. of "unstinting support for Israel" and only Israel. Do you think that with the vaunted "Jewish" control of the U.S. government, Israel could get that government to stop training the P.A. for a war is it far likelier to wage against Israel than against Hamas?
ISRAEL BREAKS UP TERRORIST RING SUBSIDIZING ARAB CONVICTS Working for Hamas, eight Jerusalem Arabs, an Israeli Arab, and a Gaza Arab were arrested for helping Hamas illegally subsidize terrorist prisoners in Israel. Apparently, attorney Shirin Isawai was the ringleader and go-between. Previously, Hamas used charitable fronts to continue paying imprisoned terrorist, until Israel and Jordan banned those fronts (Arutz-7, 5/24/10). An American attorney was convicted also for acting as go-between for an imprisoned terrorist and his followers outside.
ABBAS DEMANDS THAT NETANYAHU FULFILL OLMER'S OFFERT Palestinian Authority (P.A.) head Abbas demands that PM Netanyahu fulfill or start negotiating from the offers made by his predecessor, PM Olmert. Abbas wants U.S. support for this demand. Israelis rejected Olmert's offers as extravagant and foolish. They elected a rival politician, Netanyahu, to withdraw those offers. Abbas knows this. He also knows that a negotiating offer is not binding unless ratified by the Cabinet and signed by both sides. There was no signing and binding. Abbas' demands are childish. The U.S. should tell Abbas to negotiate responsibly (IMRA, 5/23/10). Those opinions came from my source. Some readers confuse my reporting sources' news with my own opinions appearing after I cite my sources. I do not think that Abbas is being childish but a cynical and relentlessly aggressive radical Muslim. I think that the U.S. government is cynical and unscrupulous. It does what it feels it can to favor the Arab side. Hence U.S. diplomats and opinion-makers have claimed that a successor Israeli Prime Minister must be held to the terms merely suggested in negotiating discussions by his failed predecessor. The idea here is not to be mature or to make peace, but to browbeat Israel. If Israel were intelligent about non-military aspects of total war,
it would show the impropriety of Abbas' demand and U.S. complicity or
silence about it. The U.S. keeps calling Israeli housing construction
a deterrent to successful negotiations, but the P.A. erects a series
of real deterrents without U.S. comment. That is neither constructive
nor fair.
NEW ISRAEL FUND AND EU FINANCE CAMPAIGN TO DISSOLVE ISRAEL The New Israel Fund (NIF) and EU finance the Israel Democracy Institute, which scheduled a conference on bi-nationalism for Israel, in other words, whether to end Jewish sovereignty. Almost all the speakers are far leftists, who approve of turning Israel into a bi-national state. Last year, most of those conferees were at a York University conclave, discussing alternatives to Israel's existence. The University of Haifa is having a panel of two Arabs and a leftist Jew discuss approvingly the Arab [non-]right of return, which would end Israel's existence as a Jewish state (Prof. Steven Plaut, 5/23/10). If millions of Arabs come in, millions of Jews would have to get out, if they would have anywhere to go and could live long enough to reach the ports. Bringing the Arab-Israel conflict from mostly external jihad to internal jihad, and calling that a solution, defies logic. We have seen the recent breakup of, or genocide in, multi-national states, such as Rwanda, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. The answer is not to make another multi-national state.
EGYPTIAN WAR GAMES IN SINAI TARGET ISRAELI Egypt held large-scale military maneuvers in the Sinai, using planes, helicopters, paratroopers, armored units, and special forces. The scenario was crossing the Suez Canal and penetrating deep into enemy territory. Most of the weapons are U.S.-made. The country on the other side of the Canal is Israel. Israel object to the war game, because of the peace treaty between the two countries (IMRA, 5/23/10). Hizbullah objected to Israel's defensive — civil defense — drill. What would it think of Egypt's offensive war game? Egypt's weapons are paid for by the U.S.. Many readers have complained about spending U.S. taxes on military aid to Israel, but have said nothing about U.S. military aid to Egypt and others, who repeatedly made war on Israel.
ISLAMISTS LOSING INFLUENCE IN JORDANIAN PROFESSIONAL UNION For about a decade, Islamists controlled the Jordanian professional associations. They just lost control of the Jordan Pharmacists Association to leftists and nationalists. They recently lost control of the Jordan Bar and Medical Associations, too (IMRA, 5/23/10).
JEWISH-ARAB DEMOGRAPHICS MISSTATED [A high Palestinian Authority (P.A.) official said that Israel would be wise to settle with the P.A. or be overwhelmed by Arab demographics. Those demographics are a myth. Arab population figures and growth are exaggerated, as they always have been, not that they once were not considerable. Israel's central bureau of Statistics long has over-estimated Arab fertility and under-estimated Jewish fertility, under-estimated Arab emigration and under-estimated Jewish immigration. In the 1950s, they predicted a Jewish population of 2.3 million Jews by 2000, but there were 5.8 million. They mistakenly had rejected Ben-Gurion's prediction of a million Jewish immigrants and later of another millions Soviet Jews. The current trend favors Jewish demography. In recent years, the Arab birth rate has stabilized, whereas the Jewish birth rate rose 50%. The population of Arabs in Judea-Samaria was inflated by 66%. The P.A. counts 400,000 overseas residents and 250,000 Jerusalem residents already included in Israeli statistics. According to the World Bank, the P.A. birth rate was inflated by 32%. There usually is a net Arab emigration from Judea-Samaria, reaching 20,000 last year. Why the reduced Arab birth rate? Birth control program, great reduction in teenage pregnancy and later marriage, urbanization, education, careers for women, and high divorce (IMRA, 5/23/10). http://www.imra.org.il/
SUPPOSE A NUCLEAR ATTACK ON ISRAEL BY UNKNOWN PARTIES? The BESA center for strategic studies studied what Israel should do if it suffers a nuclear attack by unknown assailants? The attack may be by a state, such as Iran, whose dominant ideology is to bring on Armageddon — suffer now, play later. The attack may be by a terrorist organization. [They are known to be seeking weapons of mass-destruction of some sort. They also may be given such weapons.] Israel needs a policy likeliest to deter such an attack. BESA suggests a policy of shoot first, ask questions later. Waiting and investigating would tempt others to finish Israel off. The analyst, Chuck Freilich, suggests that Israel make this policy known unofficially, as through leaks. A direct statement of intent would arouse opposition beforehand. Whom should Israel retaliate against, when it doesn't know who perpetrated the attack? BESA suggests the whole of Iran, al-Qaeda, and Islam's holiest sites (IMRA, 5/23/10). The problem with attacking al-Qaeda from a distance is finding it. The problem with vaporizing Iran is that many good people live there, themselves victims of a fanatical dictatorship. The study probably assumes that all the countries and organizations that care about the holy sites and other intended targets would strive to keep anyone from attacking Israel. On the other hand, letting it be known that Mecca would be destroyed may make them unite against Israel. The nuclear proliferation, that the UN seems more to preside over than to prevent, and that major powers assisted by disseminating nuclear knowledge, makes attacks, both accidental and deliberate, more likely. This spread of destructive power, combined with the increasing use of Israel as mankind's scapegoat, makes more than Iran a potential source of nuclear attack. One almost can predict a nuclear free-for-all. Is this the end of mankind? How will readers react to this analysis? Some will share in its dismay, but probably not comment. Others will probably would criticize Israel, without a word against great powers that taught and sold the means of nuclear proliferation, against Iran's ideology of seeking the "end of days" and the return of the hidden Mahdi, and of the terrorists who murder and oppress and threaten the world. The real issues are not only what should Israel do, but what should the world do to halt this nightmare. Can the world emerge from its fanatical, corrupt, and scapegoat mode and solve this and other problems constructively? Or will the primitive ideologies' access to modern technology destroy civilization. One feels like a Roman hearing of the approach of Alaric.
ARAB REACTION TO DESTRUCTION OF UNRWA CHILDREN'S CAMP The Palestinian Center for Human Rights defended UNRWA's help for its people and denounced those who interfere. Some group supported the attack on the grounds that UNRWA camps teach girls to swim and dance. [Not the place of females to enjoy life?] The Center "Emphasizes the importance of the rule of law and completely rejects the notion that any party can claim to be the guardian of morals and values of this people, and carries out whatever attacks it deems appropriate, as such actions constitute the epitome of security chaos and misuse of weapons." (IMRA, 5/23/10). The Center refers to Gaza as "occupied," but Israel has nothing to do with these problems and the Center's complaint is against the Arab rulers there and freelance terrorists. The rule of law is indeed important, but the whole Palestinian Authority lacks it. One of yesterday's articles mentioned a UN assessment that one cannot get a fair trial in Gaza. Arafat used to have 2-minute trials, before an almost automatic finding of guilty. The Communists and Nazis used to have show trials, when they had trials.
ISRAEL CRITICIZES GAZA BLOCKADE-RUNNERS The Foreign Ministry of Israel criticized the blockade-running flotilla for engaging in politics behind the guise of humanitarianism. Since January 2009, Israel has let through about 15,000 tons a week of humanitarian goods. That amounts to a million tons. That is almost a ton per person. The people there suffer no shortage of food, medicine, and clothing. International aid organizations and private groups in Gaza see to that.
EU RECONSIDERING AID TO P.A. Some EU diplomats are reconsidering their subsidy of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). The aid was given, they say, in preparation for statehood, which they see as the outcome of negotiations. If the negotiations do not make much progress, then what use is the aid? They may end it (IMRA, 5/24/10), They ask what use is their aid. I often have reported to what use their aid is put. A major result is defamation of Israel, in accordance with an anti-Israel political agenda that seeks its destruction. Another use to which their aid is put is to free funds for war. The regime they aid represses its own people, too. And they criticize the U.S. for subsidizing dictatorships? Let's ask what the purpose of negotiations is. Statehood? What is the use of that, if peace is not made, even if it is proclaimed for photo-ops? The purpose should be peace. But peace isn't created by negotiations, it is ratified and concluded by negotiations. There is no peace there to negotiate. The P.A. keeps inciting to terrorist violence and urging war. How could the EU imagine there can be peace while the P.A. indoctrinates its people in hatred of Jews and in feeling justified in killing them and taking their land? Sovereignty would better enable those terrorists to make war.
PRESIDENT OBAMA MEEETS WITH LEBANON PM HARIRI President Obama met with Lebanon's PM Hariri. This is the press release. Obama commends Hariri for carrying on his father's legacy [for independence from Syria], and supports the Special Tribunal for Lebanon [investigating the murder of the father probably at Syrian orders]. They both want to enforce the UN resolutions instead of allowing arms smuggling violations. Obama stressed getting Iran into compliance on nuclear proliferation. The U.S. wants to strengthen Lebanese institutions such as the Lebanese Armed Forces (IMRA, 5/25/10). PM Hariri has abandoned his father's legacy. Hizbullah is too strong, Israel failed to smash it, the U.S. did not follow through, and Obama is appeasing radical Islam. As a result, Lebanon brought Hamas into the government and Syria has resumed treating it as a province of Syria. Lebanon did not enforce the UN resolution against arms smuggling to Hizbullah. In fact, the Lebanese Armed Forces impeded any enforcement by UNIFIL. Not that UNIFIL was conscientious. It closed its eyes to the arms smuggling, and reports that it hasn't seen any.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION COMFORTS HIZBULLAH President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan said that Hizbullah is not a purely terrorist organization. Hizbullah official Mahmoud Qamati hailed the statement. Hizbullah also took comfort from something Obama told a visiting Lebanese official that he is tired of hearing about Hizbullah weapons smuggling. "Enough of this!" topic, said the U.S. President (IMRA, 5/25/10). Although beset by the third great totalitarian menace within a hundred years, the earlier ones being Nazism and Bolshevism, the U.S. is as slow to catch on to the new menace, radical Islam, as it was to the older ones that nearly engulfed it. In a futile way, the U.S. tried to use Nazis against the Soviets, and radical Muslims against the Soviets, and now, as does Britain, radical Muslims against radical Muslims. Britain and the U.S. consult radical Muslims on how to deal with radical Muslims. What kind of advice would you expect them to get? How does that line go about "giving aid and comfort to the enemy?" (For more on Obama adviser Brennan, goto:
ISRAEL ON CIVIL DEFENSE: UPDATE
Israel still is engaged in a massive civil defense exercise combining the efforts of government offices, local authorities, and civilian organizations.
Observers from 30 countries are attending, to learn what they can. Israel is glad to share its experience with them, and anticipates future cooperation. Among the countries represented are: Japan, China, Brazil, Ecuador, India, Colombia, Mexico, the USA, and European countries (IMRA, 5/25/10).
Will those countries echo complaints by Syria and Hizbullah that these civil defense efforts are a cover for war and a provocation? Hardly.
ISRAEL EXPLAINS GAZA PARTIAL BLOCKADE Already in this year, terrorists in Gaza have fired 140 rockets and mortars into Israel. Hamas keeps trying to build up its arsenal. It tries by smuggling tunnels or using fishing boats to bring in missiles, launchers, guns, explosives and materials for building them. Due to that war effort by Hamas, the IDF has to raid Gaza and restrict land and sea crossings into the Strip, for the protection of Israeli citizens. Nevertheless, Israel does allow frequent and routine transfer of goods and equipment and also "of people for medical, religious, welfare, business or diplomatic reasons." The news item provides the facts that refute "the claim of a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip." Much tonnage and many kinds of food and other materials are described in great detail (IMRA, 5/25/10).
HAMAS USES FARM ANIMALS TO SNEAK IN TERRORISM Terrorists in Gaza concealed an explosive in a donkey-cart, moving toward the Israeli security fence. Since the bomb went off prematurely, no Israelis were hurt. No word on the donkey. Last year, some terrorists, themselves wearing explosive vests, fitted explosive devices to five horses, put the horses in trucks, and drove them toward the security fence near a crossing into Israel. No word on the outcome, also not successful (IMRA, 5/25/10). Do people stop to realize how fiendish Islamist terrorists are?
SYRIA DENIES SMUGGLING SCUDS TO HIZBULLAH Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem denied that his country had transferred Scud missiles to Israel: 1. "The Assad regime will not act as a policeman for Israel." Syria has armed Hizbullah so heavily, that it almost is immaterial whether its shipments include Scuds. Scuds, however, could change the strategic balance, especially if Syria inserts into them some of its chemical weapons. That might require Israeli action. The UN should have been acting against illegal Hizbullah rearming, but feigns ignorance of it. "Policeman for Israel?" Nobody asks Syria to do anything untoward. Syria is expected to obey the Security Council resolution against rearming Hizbullah, at least south of the Litani River. A binding UN resolution, you know, like the unnamed ones the Arabs always pretend they are indignant at Israel for allegedly violating. Whether Israel stops arming or not is irrelevant. Hizbullah the terrorist organization was the aggressor; Israel fought back; therefore the UN got a ceasefire by banning Hizbullah rearmament and positioning south of the Litani River. What violence does Israel instigate? Israeli military maneuvers on its own territory, short of mobilizing huge forces at the border, are immaterial. The question here is illegal armament of Hizbullah. The UN, if it earned its expensive keep, would impose sanctions on Syria for violating the Resolution. Yes, Scuds are big. Perhaps that is the basis for Israel's claim to have detected them. On the other hand, Syria was reported to be training Hizbullah just inside the Syrian border, how to operate Scuds. That technically does not violate the Resolution, but the intent is to bring the Scuds a short distance into Lebanon when war is renewed. HOW MUCH U.S. AID TO EGYPT? This report comes from the Abu Dhabi National via Egypt Daily News. The annual U.S. military subsidy of Egypt is $1.3 billion. Total U.S. subsidy to Egypt, so far, amounts to $50 billion. The U.S. Congress is debating whether to give Egypt $4 billion more in economic aid in the next decade. Proponents of the gift contend that Egypt needs recompense for its "historic alliance with the U.S.." Opponents contend that the Egyptian dictatorship would interpret a boost in its subsidy as an endorsement or tolerance of its repression. If so, it would be less likely to reform (IMRA, 5/24/10). "Historical alliance?" That's a good one. Ally needs recompense? That's another good one. $50 billion and the Sinai are not sufficient? What recompense did the U.S. get? For the $50 billion, Egypt has an army that does the U.S. and Egyptian people no good, and that may fall into terrorist hands. Do U.S. officials never evaluate foreign aid? Do no members of Congress contend that the U.S. is running on check overdraft, and cannot afford most foreign aid? Our legislators and executives neither figure out what may go wrong with their proposals nor what has gone wrong with their implementation. They have neither foresight nor hindsight. They just have scapegoats. The popular scapegoats now are hedge funds, short-sellers, banks, and President Bush. It's easier than determining the many causes of recession over many years, and their own responsibility. P.S.: readers mention all sorts of figures for U.S. subsidy of Israel. A recent claim was $8 billion. The actual figure is about $3 billion, somewhat less than the total of U.S. aid to several Arab governments. Israel pays a considerable sum to the U.S., because earlier aid was in the form of loans when interest was at its peak. Egypt also had loans. The U.S. canceled Egypt's debt but not Israel's. I refer readers who oppose U.S. aid to Israel to my various articles also opposing it as poor policy all around. But the rationale for it had a certain sense, in that the U.S. then sold arms (not just gave them) to Israel's enemies, who repeatedly committed aggression against Israel.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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THE FRUITS OF WEAKNESS
Posted by Yaacov Levi, May 24, 2010. |
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This was written Charles Krauthammer and it appeared May 23, 2010 in The Washington Post. Last week's uranium deal maneuver between Iran, Brazil and Turkey demonstrates how traditional US allies have decided that there's no profit in lining up with a president given to apologies and appeasement. |
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It is perfectly obvious that Iran's latest uranium maneuver, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, is a ruse. Iran retains more than enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. And it continues enriching at an accelerated pace and to a greater purity (20 percent). Which is why the French Foreign Ministry immediately declared that the trumpeted temporary shipping of some Iranian uranium to Turkey will do nothing to halt Iran's nuclear program. It will, however, make meaningful sanctions more difficult. America's proposed Security Council resolution is already laughably weak — no blacklisting of Iran's central bank, no sanctions against Iran's oil and gas industry, no nonconsensual inspections on the high seas. Yet Turkey and Brazil — both current members of the Security Council — are so opposed to sanctions that they will not even discuss the resolution. And China will now have a new excuse to weaken it further. But the deeper meaning of the uranium-export stunt is the brazenness with which Brazil and Turkey gave cover to the mullahs' nuclear ambitions and deliberately undermined US efforts to curb Iran's program. The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.
THAT PICTURE — a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam — is a crushing verdict on President Barack Obama's foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there's no cost in lining up with America's enemies and no profit in lining up with a US president given to apologies and appeasement. They've watched Obama's humiliating attempts to appease Iran, as every rejected overture is met with abjectly renewed US negotiating offers. American acquiescence reached such a point that the president was late, hesitant and flaccid in expressing even rhetorical support for democracy demonstrators who were being brutally suppressed and whose call for regime change offered the potential for the most significant US strategic advance in the region in 30 years. They've watched America acquiesce to Russia's re-exerting sway over Eastern Europe, over Ukraine (pressured by Russia last month into extending for 25 years its lease of the Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol) and over Georgia (Russia's de facto annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is no longer an issue under the Obama "reset" policy). They've watched our appeasement of Syria, Iran's agent in the Arab Levant — sending our ambassador back to Syria even as it tightens its grip on Lebanon, supplies Hizbullah with Scuds and intensifies its role as the pivot of the Iran-Hizbullah-Hamas alliance. The price for this ostentatious flouting of the US and its interests? Ever more eager US "engagement." They've observed the administration's gratuitous slap at Britain over the Falklands, its contemptuous treatment of Israel, its undercutting of the Czech Republic and Poland and its indifference to Lebanon and Georgia. And in Latin America, they see not just US passivity as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez organizes his anti-American "Bolivarian" coalition while deepening military and commercial ties with Iran and Russia. They saw active US support in Honduras for a pro-Chavez would-be dictator seeking unconstitutional powers in defiance of the democratic institutions of that country. This is not just an America in decline. This is an America in retreat — accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum. Nor is this retreat by inadvertence. This is retreat by design and, indeed, on principle. It's the perfect fulfillment of Obama's adopted Third World narrative of American misdeeds, disrespect and domination from which he has come to redeem us and the world. Hence his foundational declaration at the UN General Assembly last September that "no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation" (guess who's been the dominant nation for the last two decades?) and his dismissal of any "world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another." (NATO? The West?) Given Obama's policies and principles, Turkey and Brazil are acting rationally. Why not give cover to Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions? As the US retreats in the face of Iran, China, Russia and Venezuela, why not hedge your bets? There's nothing to fear from Obama, and everything to gain by ingratiating yourself with America's rising adversaries. After all, they actually believe in helping one's friends and punishing one's enemies. Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
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A RACE UNIQUE
Posted by Betty Misheiker, May 24, 2010. | |
Contact Betty Misheiker by email at largo@netvision.net.il |
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ARAB WOMAN REPORTS ON WIFE-BEATING IN GAZA; LEGALITY OF JEWISH TOWNS
IN JUDEA-SAMARIA; NYC PSYCH CENTER ON JIHAD AND SOCIAL COHESION
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 24, 2010. |
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AMERICAN-BORN MUSLIM URGES U.S. MUSLIMS TO MURDER FELLOW GIS Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemenite Muslim born in the U.S. urges U.S. Muslim troops to murder fellow soldiers. He says this is to protect Muslims abroad. Awlaki boasts that Major Hassan, who did just that, by firing on unarmed troops who were more or less taking therapy from him, was heroic (Arutz-7, 5/23/10). Antisemites have raised questions of dual loyalty, the very question that caused the formerly Jewish owners of the New York Times to turn anti-Zionist and eventually convert to Christianity. It was a false issue. There is no conflict between the interests of the U.S. and of Israel, though some U.S. officials are anti-Israel against U.S. interests. Some of my articles have explained that. Jews, like other minorities, have been loyal and are glad to demonstrate it. Every ethnic group has some bad characters, out of character of their group. Usually, each group tries to assimilate. Eventually, it gets accepted. It may be different, now. For one thing, there is less of a process of Americanization, as the Left turns anti-American. More important, radical Muslims enter Western countries prejudiced. More and more of them sabotage their own host countries. Compounding the problem is the ease with which ordinary Muslims become radicalized. Another problem is that we have let radical imams convert felons, already prone to anti-social violence. Ironically, the very ways of life and code that force many Muslims to flee from their native cultures, may be brought in with them, reproducing anti-American sentiment and even action. How shall we distinguish between decent Muslims and ex-Muslims, such Ayaan Hirsi Ali (whom I recently extolled for her contributions in this area) and radical ones before they murder people over religion and to the detriment of our national security? We have to reform and strengthen our own society, that the Left is undermining, and not just complain about Awlaki and Hassan. NY HINDU LEADER: PART 4. PAKISTAN AND THE U.S. Pakistan has gotten U.S. technology and about $15 billion in subsidy, to fight terrorism. It only pretended to oppose terrorism [at least until recently, when it started, though very slowly, to fight back when terrorists turned on it]. Pretense is a frequent tactic within the code of jihad. Pakistan is major font of terrorism and Jihad. The combination of Saudi Arabian funds and Pakistani might is as great a danger to the world as is Iran, Narain Kataria warns. Pakistani troops are stationed in Saudi Arabia to guard its oil. That gives Pakistan leverage over Saudi Arabia. Pakistan controls many Saudi businesses, Kataria charges. Saudi Arabia probably financed Pakistan's nuclear development. The Saudis certainly finance the radical madrassas and mosques there and in many other countries that radicalize Muslims into jihadists against civilization. Every year 500,000 Taliban graduate from 11,000 madrassas in Pakistan. At least 10,000 graduates a year go all over the world to kill innocent people in the name of Allah, says Kataria. (While the U.S. tries to apprehend dozens of terrorists by law and order tactics, Saudi-subsidized Pakistan indoctrinates thousands.) Pakistani intelligence has directed jihad against India, primarily via Kashmir. The same groups encouraged the Taliban in Afghanistan against Pakistan's supposed ally, the U.S.. The U.S. did not catch on particularly, just pressed Pakistan for years to crack down on terrorism and close its border. Nevertheless, Pakistan keeps the bulk of its armed forces facing India, which has not attacked it except to prevent genocide. The U.S. alliance with Pakistan does not work.
ARAB WOMAN REPORTS ON MUSLIM WIFE-BEATING IN GAZA: EXCLUSIVE 
Here is a reader's comment: Entry: Violence against Arab women in Gaza increases? myriam — I BEATEN TO THE BONE FROM MY PALESTINIAN HUSBAND..WE LIVE IN gAZA CITY..THIS IS A JOKE TO BLAME IT ON "ISRAELI OCCUPATION"I'M EMBARESSED HOW MY PEOPLE ACT-THATS WHY ALLAH DOESNT HELP US OUT.THEY HURT US-ME-THEIR OWN KIND!DURING THE WAR,I BEGGED ALLAH TO KILL ME..HOW DARE THEY USE ISRAELI OCCUPATION AS AN EXCUSE-ISRAEL-THESE ARE CIVILIZED PEOPLE..IN GAZA&OTHER MUSLIM PLACES THEY BEAT THEIR WIVES AND IT'S "OK"..WHY SHOULD ALLAH HELP US OUT ANYWAY?OUR MEN WANT TO DO NOTHING BUT FIGHT-INSTEAD OF DEALING WITH THE FACT,THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE-AND TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF IT..ALLAH DOESN'T SEE US WORTHY.YET, I DONT BLAME HIM.THE MEN HERE HAVE FAILED ALLAHS TEST-OF BEHAVING "DECENT" AND "HUMANE"EVEN UNDER HORRIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES!INSTEAD OF FIGHTING&CAUSING PROBLEMS-THEY DO NOTHING TO DEAL WITH THE CARDS WE WERE GIVIN!I'M PAYING THE PRICE FOR MY HUSBAND BEING AN ANIMAL,NOT BECUZ "OCCUPATION"-BECUZ HE HAS NO "NATURAL" MANNERS,DECENCY-THIS IS WHAT ISLAM TEACHES HIM.IT'S SICK. Posted/Updated: 05/23/2010 04:59 PM My heart goes out to that Arab Muslim woman. Some time ago, I wrote about the Muslim cleric in France who wrote a book about how to beat one's wife and how to do it without non-Muslims authorities finding a mark. I also reported cases of Arabs beating servants not only in Saudi Arabia but also in the United States. This is a scandal little remarked upon. Why do you suppose that is? Innocent women should not suffer pain because of husbands' neurosis. Too bad those men do not realize the great joy of having wives in mutual, wholesome love and companionship! There may be another factor. Obesity and diabetes are raging, as I reported, in at least some Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. An early stage of diabetes is hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. One symptom of hypoglycemia is loss of temper. The abuse of Arab women and children produces sadism, hence torture of prisoners, too, riots, and probably wars. I challenge readers to rise to this occasion, and oppose Arab wife-beating, whether because of religion or bad temper, illness or immaturity. Arab women need your help, international investigation, and support. Wife-beating used to be more common in Western society. Maybe it will abate in Arab society, but that society remains traditional.
ON LEGALITY OF JEWISH TOWNS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA Many people have difficulty with chronological logic. They do not understand that: (1) First came Arab wars on Israel and formation of Fatah and the PLO to destroy Israel; (2) Then as a result of the third war, Israel acquired the Territories. Nevertheless, the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) claims it wars on Israel to get the Territories. Why the wars from 1947 to 1967, before Israel did not have the Territories? Now that chronological logic really wasn't difficult, was it? In behalf of its land claim, the P.A. emphasizes a legal claim that the Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria are illegal. The BBC and UN Secretary-General go along with that [perhaps because they would accept any argument against Israel]. They repeat the statement, that the "settlements" are illegal, without much explanation. Here is a statement of part of the case for legality. "In fact, however, the settlements are not illegal and do not violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, despite what the Arabs have charged of late. Adopted in 1949 in response to Nazi atrocities, the Convention governs the treatment of civilians during wartime, outlawing torture, collective punishment and the forced transfer of civilians to territory under its military control — but does not apply to territory gained as a result of a defensive war, as when Israel liberated Judea and Samaria in the Six-Day War of 1967. Neither do the Oslo Accords nor UN resolutions 242 and 338 outlaw the Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria." (Arutz-7, 5/23/10). Nor did Israel transfer civilians to the Territories forcibly. It was not punishment. If the Security Council thought that those towns were illegal, its resolution would have said Israel must withdraw totally. It did not. Recent sentiment to the contrary therefore is not based on law but on ideology. This ideology then distorts law in order to rationalize its position. People thus ignore what the law means and was meant to mean, and rationalize its literal wording, or take paragraphs out of context, to mean something in accord with their ideology. Not honest. Same is true of U.S. regimes. Previous Presidents called the Jewish communities legal. The incumbent does not. His radical ideology colors his policy. I've explained before, so will just restate a summary of it, that the Territories cannot be considered someone else's occupied land, because they did not belong to someone else. There was no sovereign power with title to the area. The area got its legal status from the Mandate. Who is the intended heir of the Mandate? The Jewish people. Read its emphasis on Jewish political rights and, in fact, Jewish settlement. Nothing has changed the legal status of the Territories from the Mandate's mandate for "close settlement of the Jews on the land." International law gives the Jewish people a second option for annexing the Territories. It authorizes countries that were the victims of aggression, as was Israel, to retain land it seized in self-defense, if needed for security from further attack. Since the Arabs attacked repeatedly, and since there ideology calls for further jihad, Israel is well within its rights to have annexed the Golan and land around Jerusalem. It would be entitled to annex more. Against that understanding, the same anti-Zionist ideology takes a misleading position. It states as a principle that countries should not profit from war by acquiring land from enemies. That is misleading and can be a foolish principle, if unqualified. The qualification is, a country should not profit by acquiring land by aggression. If it acquires land by self-defense, as did Israel, it punishes aggression and, more important, discourages both by that penalty becoming a deterrent to repeated aggression and by strengthening the borders of the victim of aggression. That is justice. Applying the misleading anti-Zionist interpretation would indemnify the aggressor against loss of territory and encourage further aggression, since there would be no territorial penalty and the victim's borders, if weak before, remain so. The U.S. peace process would leave Israel with weak borders, hence encourage aggression by enemies still bedeviled with a thirst for conquest and religious domination.
HIZBULLAH CALLS ISRAELI CIVIL DEFENSE DRILL A COVER FOR WAR Hizbullah accused Israel of holding its civil defense drill to camouflage war plans. It also called it an obstacle to peace negotiations. How can Israel be negotiating peace while holding military maneuvers? (Arutz-7, 5/22/10.) Civil defense is not military maneuvers. Should a country not have civil defense? What evidence has Hizbullah that Israel is planning war? Many times the Arabs have accused Israel of planning war, but there was no war. Israel absorbed rocket attacks for years, before massive retaliation. The accusations are false. Perhaps if the rest of the world wanted peace, it would tell the Arabs to cease their false accusations and give peace a chance. Hizbullah's logic has a double standard. The Arabs are arming and holding military maneuvers. Hizbullah does not question their dedication to peace.
JEWISH CANINE CORPS PROTECTING AGAINST ARABS SQUATTERS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA I had reported Yitzchak Hershkowitz' years of struggle, against deceitful Arab squatters, lax courts, and lazy police, to gain access to his property in Jerusalem. Finally, the squatters were removed. However, they threaten his access and life. In comes the Jewish Canine Legion. Members have guard dogs to
protect Jews' property. The Legion claims to have thwarted eight
intrusions in Elazar, ten minutes away. They may set up a training
base on Mr. Hershkowitz's property (Arutz-7, 5/22/10.)
I reported on this case some time ago. The government let the case drag on, with a series of contradictory Arab appeals, for so many appeals, the authorities and the squatters must have been counting on the owner to give up. The owner may have been wondering whether he would live long enough to get his property back. He did. Israel should penalize subversive officials and immediately reject frivolous suits.
IDF COUNTERS P.A. BOYCOTT OF JEWISH TOWNS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA The IDF gives demobilized soldiers job training for their return to civilian life. It had not included training in manual trades for years. Now it resumed training bricklaying, carpentry, tiling, plumbing, etc.. The resumption of manual training seems intended to fill the gap in the building trades that the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) is trying to leave by getting its men to boycott settlements, where they do much of the construction work (Arutz-7, 5/22/10.)
NEW YORK PSYCHOLOGICAL CENTER ON JIHAD AND SOCIAL COHESION The Philoctetes Center in New York runs programs of public import in the fields of psychology. On some Saturdays, they hold high-level panel discussions, free. Last Saturday's panel considered jihad and social cohesion over the centuries. Europeans in the Middle Ages enjoyed social cohesion. Their states compromised basically homogeneous people in practically hereditary classes in which each person's place was set. The modern market economy created wealth by productivity rather than by stealing other people's property. Until WWI, people, even in impoverished areas, felt optimistic that prosperity and peace were growing, and the future, promising. Modern economies, however, disrupted many older societies. So how is social cohesion maintained? Not by the UN. The UN has failed to hold countries together. Countries are groups, and group life is characterized by violence. Countries with conflicting ethnic or religious populations splinter. What determines whether the separation is violent, as with Yugoslavia, or peaceable, as with Czechoslovakia? For one thing, Yugoslavia was a confluence of three religious cultures. Countries need to put their own "houses" in order. The New Deal did that in the U.S., enabling it to take a leadership role when it entered WWII. At about that time, al-Bana founded Islamism, which is different from Islam. Islamism is a modern doctrine, more of a political movement, inspired by European totalitarianism. Although Sunni and Shia extremists have their differences and their rivalries, they were inspired by the same sources. A few decades after al-Bana, Said Kutb, founder of the Moslem Brotherhood, revised his theory. Kutb was writing radically before his trip to the U.S. The basis of his and similar ideologies is a meta-myth about "the people of God" facing annihilation by foreign forces and internal subversives. The subversives try to undermine their morality. For their defense, they need a sacred war. First they would suffer from the war, then they would triumph and inaugurate the rule of God for a thousand years. That was similar to: (1) The Gospel of John with Armageddon and ending evil; (2) Bolsheviks, with the proletariat versus internal bourgeoisie and external capitalists and imperialists, ending history; (3) Nazi Aryanism, beset by Jews internally and imperialists externally but to lead to the return of the Roman empire and a 1,000 year Reich ; (4) Muslim "community" under assault from within by Muslims and Jews and from without by imperialists. The Islamists plan to reconstitute the Muslim empire via jihad; (5) Some in the West thought themselves the chosen country. Which is cause and which is effect, ideology or conditions? The modern totalitarian or violent ideologies may have an origin in 19th century poetry. The poems were vague, but headed in the modern direction. Then the ideas turned political. After WWI deflated optimism in the steadiness of human progress, more evil ideologies emerged. How can we prevent forces of violence? Expose extremist doctrines as not reality but ideology based on old clichés. Then people can change their views. For example, Germans abandoned Nazism. Millions of Communists admitted having made a mistake. [Muslims are finding Islamism intolerable to them.] People's notions are psychological, cultural, or ideological. Cultural ones, running for thousands of years, are the most resistant to change. Many people are not educated about totalitarian movements and their meaning. For example, Israelis are anxious about Iran, but very few of their professors study Iran. [The West as a whole does not study totalitarian enemies.] The moderator asserted that religion is the basis of much xenophobia, nowadays. That seems inconsistent with his claim that there is a rising Islamophobia and a violent rise, at that. The jihadist drive to conquer the world produces a Western reaction, some war but more appeasement. I find the emphasis is on appeasement and on some self-defense but with society attempting to differentiate Islam from radical Islam. That is neither xenophobia nor any phobia.]
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him
at richardshulman5@aol.com and visit his website:
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THE BIG LIE
Posted by Truth Provider, May 24, 2010. |
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Dear friends, Here is an excellent article you should all read. It will prepare you to answer those of your friends who repeat the preposterous claim that Israel is to blame for America's problems in the Muslim world. Your Truth Provider,
This article
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'It's those damned Jews." That's the muffled message I hear when, pretending to represent our national interest, voices call for the abandonment of Israel. We've heard it from agenda-driven scholars who write that our alliance with Israel is responsible for our problems in the Middle East. More worrisome still, I've begun to hear it from a minority of military officers, as well as from Washington types. This latest, and sadly lasting, bout of moral cancer can be dated back to 2006 and the publication of an article that had sought a home for years, The Israeli Lobby And US Foreign Policy, by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. The book's assault on Israel was welcomed by figures including President Jimmy Carter's national-security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski — a hoary Israel detractor. With their Ivy League credentials, Mearsheimer and Walt made anti-Israeli diatribes (semi-)respectable. Their effect has been lasting. OK, let's get one thing straight: There is no evidence that if Israel disappeared tomorrow, the Middle East would suddenly blossom into a pro-American model of justice, hard work and progress. Nor is there any evidence that anti-American terrorism would slacken. In al Qaeda's list of complaints, Israel barely makes the top dozen. A US turn away from Israel would only encourage and empower terrorists, convincing them of our cowardice and folly. The grotesquely failed societies of the Middle East desperately need Israel and the US to blame for their self-wrought problems. Neither Washington nor Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are responsible for the Arab world's pervasive corruption, stagnation, oppression of women and lack of creativity or a work ethic. Neither the US nor Israel is to blame for the unprecedented squandering of wealth by Arab oil powers, for their failure to invest in human capital or productive infrastructure, for the absence of democracy and respect for human rights, or for the region's mockery of the rule of law. Given the vast homemade tragedy of the greater Middle East, it's inevitable that Israel's hated for its shining success amid the local squalor. Likewise, the US is hated for our might — and the seductiveness of our civilization. But if that explains why Arabs, Persians and others would relish, but not reward, our abandonment of Israel, it doesn't explain the American voices repeating Arab propaganda about devious Jews controlling our foreign policy. I divide the dump-Israel movement's leaders and fellow travelers into four groups: Old-fashioned anti-Semites: It's no longer socially acceptable to accuse Jews of sacrificing Christian infants. But it's quite fashionable to blame Israelis for the suffering of Palestinian children. One doesn't mention "Jews." But calumnies against "Israelis" are the new, politically correct blood libel. On one hand, extended first-hand experience of Arab culture has not filled our troops with respect for the same (any officer who had fairy-tale, Lawrence-of-Arabia notions about the region has had them extinguished, to put it mildly). Yet the daily drone of Arab complaints about Israel — blamed for every Arab misfortune back to the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols — has had a cumulative effect. Criticism takes the form of "A plague on both their houses." I ask the gripers categorized above for any evidence that our betrayal of Israel would have the slightest positive effect. The Saudis wouldn't even drop the price of oil for 24 hours. Go back to the bordello side of all this: Wealthy Arabs have bought a great deal of influence in Washington, lavishing money on think tanks, contracts on US firms and expensive gifts on individuals. (A few years back, one American "authority" on the Middle East delightedly told me that he'd been given five Rolexes.) In contrast to these ingratiating, deep-pocketed Arabs, Israelis are brusque and dismissive, relying on American Jews to smooth things over. Well, sorry, Israel needs to rediscover public relations. With the global media rabidly pro-Palestinian, Israel had better get back in the information fight. The recent attacks on Israel that masquerade as sober analysis boil down to the age-old anti-Semitic query: "Wouldn't we better off without those Jews?" My answer, as an American, is "No." Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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US CONSULATE STAFF INVOLVED IN JERUSALEM BEATING
Posted by Yaacov Levi, May 24, 2010. |
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A gang of American 'diplomats' reportedly attack young Israeli man, are
freed from custody due to 'diplomatic immunity'
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A young Israeli man who was brutally beaten in downtown Jerusalem earlier this month revealed to The Jerusalem Post that his assailants were apparently employees of the US Consulate in the Israeli capital. The young man, who identified himself only by his first name, Yishai, said the attack occurred as he and a friend stepped out of a downtown bar where they were celebrating another friend's birthday to buy some cigarettes. As they were returning to the party, the two Israelis were approached by a group of people speaking English. One of the larger of the English-speakers exchanged words with Yishai and then punched him in the face. The others proceeded to punch and kick Yishai, leaving him with multiple head and body injuries that required him being taken to a nearby hospital. Yishai's friend, who was also lightly injured, rushed back to the bar to let the rest of his friends know what happened to and to call the police. The group searched for the attackers and found them at another bar, to which they directed police. The assailants were arrested and taken to a downtown jail, but were shortly after released. When Yishai's friends demanded to know why those who had perpetrated an unprovoked and brutal attack were simply allowed to walk free, one officer revealed that the attackers were employees of the US Consulate, and so enjoy diplomatic immunity. Police officials later contacted by the Post refused to confirm or deny that the assailants were US diplomats. US Consulate staff insisted that they were cooperating fully with the Israeli police in the investigation. The US Consulate in Jerusalem has many Palestinian Arabs who possess US citizenship on its staff. They, together with other American employees of the mission, have on numerous occasions confronted both Israeli civilians and security personnel in a very hostile manner. One of the more recent incidents involved a consulate driver refusing to allow Israeli guards at a border crossing check his vehicle. He reportedly attempted to drive the car into one of the guards as the situation escalated. Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
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THE PRESIDENT AND "ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS"
Posted by Dave Alpern, May 24, 2010. |
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"My name is Daniel Pearl. I am a Jewish American from Encino, California, U.S.A." In this moving essay, Mark Steyn captures the puerile insipidness of President Obama. Read and grieve for America. Mark Steyn This article is archived at
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The president has become the latest Western liberal to try to hammer Daniel Pearl's box into a round hole. Barack Obama's remarkable powers of oratory are well known: In support of Chicago's Olympic bid, he flew into Copenhagen to give a heartwarming speech about himself, and they gave the games to Rio. He flew into Boston to support Martha Coakley's bid for the U.S. Senate, and Massachusetts voters gave Ted Kennedy's seat to a Republican. In the first year of his presidency, he gave a gazillion speeches on health care "reform" and drove support for his proposals to basement level, leaving Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to ram it down the throats of the American people through sheer parliamentary muscle. Like a lot of guys who've been told they're brilliant one time too often, President Obama gets a little lazy, and doesn't always choose his words with care. And so it was that he came to say a few words about Daniel Pearl, upon signing the "Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act." Pearl was decapitated on video by jihadist Muslims in Karachi on Feb. 1, 2002. That's how I'd put it. This is what the president of the United States said: "Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world's imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is." Now Obama's off the prompter, when his silver-tongued rhetoric invariably turns to sludge. But he's talking about a dead man here, a guy murdered in public for all the world to see. Furthermore, the deceased's family is standing all around him. And, even for a busy president, it's the work of moments to come up with a sentence that would be respectful, moving and true. Indeed, for Obama, it's the work of seconds, because he has a taxpayer-funded staff sitting around all day with nothing to do but provide him with that sentence. Instead, he delivered the one above. Which, in its clumsiness and insipidness, is most revealing. First of all, note the passivity: "The loss of Daniel Pearl." He wasn't "lost." He was kidnapped and beheaded. He was murdered on a snuff video. He was specifically targeted, seized as a trophy, a high-value scalp. And the circumstances of his "loss" merit some vigor in the prose. Yet Obama can muster none. Even if Americans don't get the message, the rest of the world does. This week's pictures of the leaders of Brazil and Turkey clasping hands with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are also monuments to American passivity. But what did the "loss" of Daniel Pearl mean? Well, says the president, it was "one of those moments that captured the world's imagination." Really? Evidently it never captured Obama's imagination, because, if it had, he could never have uttered anything so fatuous. He seems literally unable to imagine Pearl's fate, and so, cruising on autopilot, he reaches for the all-purpose bromides of therapeutic sedation: "one of those moments" — you know, like Princess Di's wedding, Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, whatever — "that captured the world's imagination." Notice how reflexively Obama lapses into sentimental one-worldism: Despite our many zip codes, we are one people, with a single imagination. In fact, the murder of Daniel Pearl teaches just the opposite — that we are many worlds, and worlds within worlds. Some of them don't even need an "imagination." Across the planet, the video of an American getting his head sawed off did brisk business in the bazaars and madrassas and Internet downloads. Excited young men e-mailed it to friends, from cell phone to cell phone, from Karachi to Jakarta to Khartoum to London to Toronto to Falls Church, Va. In the old days, you needed an "imagination" to conjure the juicy bits of a distant victory over the Great Satan. But in an age of high-tech barbarism, the sight of Pearl's severed head is a mere click away. And the rest of "the world"? Most gave a shrug of indifference. And far too many found the reality of Pearl's death too uncomfortable and chose to take refuge in the same kind of delusional pap as Obama. The president is only the latest Western liberal to try to hammer Daniel Pearl's box into a round hole. Before him, it was Michael Winterbottom in his film A Mighty Heart: As Pearl's longtime colleague Asra Nomani wrote, "Danny himself had been cut from his own story." Or, as Paramount's promotional department put it, "Nominate the most inspiring ordinary hero. Win a trip to the Bahamas!" Where you're highly unlikely to be kidnapped and beheaded! (Although, in the event that you are, please check the liability-waiver box at the foot of the entry form.) The latest appropriation is that his "loss" "reminded us of how valuable a free press is." It was nothing to do with "freedom of the press." By the standards of the Muslim world, Pakistan has a free-ish and very lively press. The problem is that some 80 percent of its people wish to live under the most extreme form of Sharia, and many of its youth are exported around the world in advance of that aim. The man convicted of Pearl's murder was Omar Sheikh, a British subject, a London School of Economics student, and, like many jihadists from Osama to the Pantybomber, a monument to the peculiar burdens of a non-deprived childhood in the Muslim world. The man who actually did the deed was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed in March 2007: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi." But Obama's not the kind to take "guilty" for an answer, so he's arranging a hugely expensive trial for KSM amid the bright lights of Broadway. Listen to his killer's words: "The American Jew Daniel Pearl." We hit the jackpot! And then we cut his head off. Before the body was found, The Independent's Robert Fisk offered a familiar argument to Pearl's kidnappers: Killing him would be "a major blunder . . . the best way of ensuring that the suffering" — of Kashmiris, Afghans, Palestinians — "goes unrecorded." Other journalists peddled a similar line: If you release Danny, he'll be able to tell your story, get your message out, "bridge the misconceptions." But the story did get out; the severed head is the message; the only misconception is that that's a misconception. Daniel Pearl was the prototype for a new kind of terror. In his wake came other victims from Kenneth Bigley, whose last words were that "Tony Blair has not done enough for me," to Fabrizzio Quattrocchi, who yanked off his hood, yelled "I will show you how an Italian dies!" and ruined the movie for his jihadist videographers. By that time, both men understood what it meant to be in a windowless room with a camera and a man holding a scimitar. But Daniel Pearl was the first, and in his calm, coherent final words understood why he was there: "My name is Daniel Pearl. I am a Jewish American from Encino, California, U.S.A." He didn't have a prompter. But he spoke the truth. That's all President Obama owed him — to do the same. I mentioned last week the attorney general's peculiar insistence that "radical Islam" was nothing to do with the Times Square bomber, the Pantybomber, the Fort Hood killer. Just a lot of moments "capturing the world's imagination." For now, the jihadists seem to have ceased cutting our heads off. Listening to Obama and Eric Holder, perhaps they've figured out there's nothing much up there anyway. Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
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FOR ISRAEL TO SURVIVE
Posted by Ari Bussel, May 23, 2010. |
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For Israel to survive she needs to change direction. First, she needs to admit that peace will not emerge from the current mistaken path of the last two decades. Further concessions only perpetuate the delusion on the Israeli side that peace is attainable and continue to weaken Israel's already inferior position vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Second, she needs to start responding to the blood libels against her, observe, deduct trends and act before the 12th hour. Refusing to act until it is almost too late to react only worsens Israel's position, and then we are asked with wonder: "How did Judge Goldstone reach his conclusions?" or soon "How did the Palestinians unilaterally declare a state and won overwhelming international support?!?" Third, Israel needs to face the fact that there is a new type of warfare against her. Decades ago it was ground offensive with tanks and artillery. Then it became a war of missiles against the civilian population, which necessitated the creation of a Home Front Command in the IDF. Sophistication ensued and missiles were augmented with various warheads and replaced with acts of terror such as homicide bombings. To these two fronts (the physical, outward boundaries and the physical, inside backbone of society) a third was added: the Public Relations front. Israel is yet to respond, thus she fails. To these three fronts, a new one will be added soon, using technology, such as computer accessibility or electric magnetic pulse to bring society to a standstill. Nations recognize the threat, yet are not advanced enough to provide a sufficient response. Fourth, Israel must strengthen herself, fight corruption at the highest levels, the violence against the elderly and overall crime that have escalated to heights previously unknown, eradicate hunger and focus on education (which has been deteriorating at the K-12 levels) and on instilling values (other than watching Big Brother or Israeli Idol) in future generations. Fifth, her people must unite and recognize their own rights: the right to their land, right to live in peace within secure borders, right to be an equal member among nation states with equal justice prevailing and applied to all. This very element cannot be achieved when some of Israel's harshest critics are Israelis and Jews, when there is no respect or loyalty even within one's own political party or religion, and when "unity" is easily expressed yet rarely practiced. Sixth, until a visionary emerges, to lead Israel toward acting once again rather than lagging behind and hardly reacting, Israel must react forcefully. When the Palestinians boycott Israeli goods and services and the Palestinian leadership burns Israeli products for the world to see, there must be a severe and immediate response. When self-declared humanitarians set sail to "end the blockade on Gaza," their efforts must be stopped at all costs. Likewise, when "anarchists" instigate trouble that threatens the lives and wellbeing of the security forces, they should be imprisoned or deported. When the enemy bombards the very electric plant that supplies electricity to Gaza, the flow of electricity must be stopped. If a rocket is launched against a civilian population, there must be a greater, not a proportionate, response. When a kidnapped Israeli soldier has not seen a soul other than his captors for the past four years, there must be a reaction. In the Middle East, the only discernible language is strength, great strength. Yet, Israel is embroiled in internal debate, led by the "Pro-Peace Pro-Israel" camp of J Street or the New Israel Fund and other Israel haters that undermine its national welfare. For Israel to survive, Israelis must change direction. No one can do it for them. Our own contributions should not be those to non-profit organizations, too numerous to count. Our sole contribution should be to alert Israel to what we witness with our eyes wide open, what she does not see, or prefers to subdue quietly. Israel is on a straight collision course and some see the existential impact coming. Yet our waves, shouts, rush to alert the driver and the occupants just seem to fall on deaf ears and blind eyes, deflected from the windows of a vehicle otherwise immune and oblivious to the outside world. We cannot want more for Israel than she wants for herself. Sadly, we are left to pray a leader will arise who will have the inner conviction of Israel's natural and historical rights, will not hesitate to sacrifice some of life's momentary conveniences for a better future and who will draw from Israel's Eternal Book, the binding bond, her core, for a modern day existence in peace and security. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
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AVOID OSTRICH SYNDROME
Posted by Babu Suseelan, May 23, 2010. |
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I saw a sign in front of McDonald: "One Billion Served.". There are more than one billion Jihadis are around the world still serving for the cause of invisible Allah. In their service to Allah, Jihadis have killed millions of people, caused enormous economic loses, and still serving Allah and creating problems for infidels. What we should do? Jihadi Imams and Jihadi terrorists have created enormous problems for us. There are many proven, effective ways to reduce or handle problems created by Muslims. DOING NOTHING IS NOT ONE OF THEM. Knowing the true nature of Islam is the first priority for all infidels. An informed infidel can challenge the criminal document called the Koran. Letting the hard issues pile up without even looking at them is not going to help us, the infidels. Islam is not a religion. It is a desert originated 6th century political dogma for invasion, plunder, looting, sexual exploitation of women and oppression. It is time to understand the criminal treatise called Koran and Haidth and past brutalities of Islam. It is time to face facts, whatever they are, and move forward. Muslims with Saudi Money is fast converting criminal population in America and Canada. Correctional inmates are in prison for their crimes. They are criminal thinkers and do heinous crimes without fear, shame, remorse or guilt. Islamic dogma encourages criminal activities and support criminals in their sex predatory behavior and provides opportunities for amplifying their deviant characteristics. Ninety five percent of criminal inmates will be released on parole. Once they are converted into Islam, they will act as hidden Jihadis in our communities. They will pose a potential danger to our community. Citizens need to work with nationalist groups and expose the hidden agenda of Imams. Ninety Nine percent of the Imams working in correctional institutions are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia. They have a vested interest in converting criminal population and make them Jihadis. Letting the Islamic conversion of criminals and other hard issues pile up without even looking at them is not going to help us. The fact is even the Ostriches do not really bury their heads in the sand. That would make them horribly vulnerable. Dr. Babu Suseelan is a professor of clinical psychology and the director of a drug and alcohol treatment program in Pennsylvania. A former Muslim, he writes on the subject of Islamic terrorism and its effect on Hindu society. |
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FROM ISRAEL: COUNTERING DISTORTION
Posted by Arlene Kushner, May 23, 2010. |
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My desire to set the record straight, when it's possible to do so, makes me a bit compulsive. Having worked on another project all day, I was not planning on posting today. And yet... this is important. The distortion I respond to today is not an Arab one, but from an Israeli official. Inadvertently or not, it covers up some harsh realities. ~~~~~~~~~~ Once again writing jointly, Khaled Abu Toameh and Herb Keinon reported in today's JPost that Fatah is warning of a return to "armed struggle" if the "proximity talks" fail. Abbas Zaki, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Fatah Central Committee, made threats during an interview with Al Ghad, a Jordanian newspaper. Besides keeping open the option of "armed struggle," Zaki said that the Palestinian Arabs might also demand the implementation of UN Resolution 181, of 1947, which called for the partition of Palestine, with Jerusalem (joined with Bethlehem) controlled internationally as a Corpus Separatum. The second threat can be dispensed with. For this resolution came from the General Assembly and is thus only a recommendation without force within international law; it cannot be "implemented." What is more, the Arabs rejected it in 1947. What concerns me is the first threat, of violence: "We shouldn't give Israel more time. We must start thinking of all forms of struggle and taking measures to make Israel pay a price for its aggressive practices." ~~~~~~~~~~ And here's where things get problematic: According to this report: "A senior Israeli official characterized Palestinian threats about a return to violence as a 'serious problem.' ~~~~~~~~~~ And I'm here to tell you that he's wrong. Sure the process was based on the illusion of a commitment by Arafat to renounce violence. Undoubtedly our leaders believed it at the start. Or so I assume. But it was never, ever Arafat's intention. And Israel continued to pretend it was, long after there was reason to know better. When should Israel have first begun to realize what was afoot? A mere ten days after the signing of the Gaza-Jericho First agreement that was a follow-up to the original accord. That is, until May 10, 1994. That's when Arafat went to Johannesburg, South Africa and gave a speech in a mosque, in English. He spoke off the record, but his talk was discreetly recorded by a South African journalist and then made public. Arafat said, famously: This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Muhammad and Quraysh... That should have rung some bells, somewhere. Islamic academics would have understood, and everyone else should have rushed to find out what it meant. The short of it is that in 628, Muhammad, who was not yet powerful, made a 10-year peace pact with the Quraysh tribe that controlled Mecca. Two years later, when he had garnered sufficient strength, he abrogated the treaty, attacked the (unsuspecting) Quraysh with overwhelming force and took Mecca. ~~~~~~~~~~ That, my friends, was the model for how Arafat viewed the Oslo Accords. This should be noted well, because Arafat set the tone for what is proceeding to this day. Understand: He was Mahmoud Abbas's mentor. They pretend peaceful intentions (although they're not even doing that very well today), but remain prepared to hit us whenever it suits them. As Dennis Ross, who was a special envoy to the Middle East for President Clinton, later wrote, Arafat never relinquished the "terrorism card." ~~~~~~~~~~ The lesson we refused to learn back in the mid-90s was that it was time to call a halt to Oslo as soon as it was clear the Arabs weren't sincere. But we kept moving along as if... "As if..." is very dangerous. It is not a luxury, or a foolishness, we can afford right now. ~~~~~~~~~~ And then there is the statement, from this Israeli official, that if the Palestinian Arabs return to violence it is taking us back to before Oslo. Now, perhaps he had no clue about the Quraysh. But he knows about what was called the "second intifada," and therefore, surely, he must know that his statement is in error. Briefly: In 2000, then prime minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat a deal, which, thank heaven, he rejected, even though it would have given the Arabs almost all of Judea and Samaria, all of Gaza, eastern Jerusalem and sharing of the holy sites, etc. Details are not relevant here, except to say that they weren't to Arafat's liking. So he didn't request further negotiations. He fell back to plan B: He resorted to violence. That's the pattern. The pretense was that this was a "spontaneous" uprising in response to the "provocation" of a visit to the Temple Mount (OUR Temple Mount, which they insist is theirs) by Ariel Sharon. In point of fact, and I have documentation, it was premeditated. Arafat had put out the word and they were simply waiting for the hook to hang it on, to make it "our" fault. Arafat surely intended to teach us a lesson. But instead, by 2002, as things got very ugly, he got hit with Operation Defensive Shield, which quieted matters down and took the IDF back into areas from which we had pulled out. ~~~~~~~~~~ The painful reality is that more Jews died from terror attacks AFTER Oslo than before. ~~~~~~~~~~ Now, have we learned nothing? Does our government not see that we're headed that way again? They'll pretend to negotiate, and break it off in discontent with protests about our unreasonableness, and they'll hit us again. We can squash them again, but be aware, good old General Dayton is in there, training PA "security forces." So they'll be better equipped this time. ~~~~~~~~~~ There was news last night and today about an ostensible agreement between Israel and the PA concerning the principle of a land trade (meaning we would keep some communities in Judea and Samaria and give them some land inside the Green Line). Abbas, who is the one who announced this, is not saying how much he would agree to swap, and Israel is saying that it's not good to talk publicly about what's being discussed. Which leaves us no where in terms of anything definitive. Maybe Abbas is making it up, maybe Netanyahu doesn't want it know what he's saying. I do not intend to belabor this here. ~~~~~~~~~~ Instead I will close with a good news item, as promised yesterday, and with thanks to Joel K., who shared this with me. You have here a link to footage from the Steven Spielberg film archives that shows incredible scenes from our pre-state history, our founding, and much more. Enjoy and share, as it is moving and stunning:
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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SOME UNPLEASANT OBSERVATIONS
Posted by Kaustav Chakrabarti, May 23, 2010. |
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Everywhere the free world seems to be on the run. Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in direct or indirect liason, an ambivalent US not willing to ruffle feathers in Islamic circles more for creating vote-banks than long term strategic interests, N.Korea brazenly firing torpedoes to sink a South Korean vessel, the Shiite groups gaining the upper hand in Iraq, the ongoing and seemingly endless war in the Af-Pak region and a steadily destabilizing Pakistan with the spectre of the Taliban and allied groups seizing control sooner or later and the Taliban taking on the US military at Bagram. Israel alone seems to be fighting and standing up to the devils. The international community (whatever it is) is bent on making another Masada of the Jewish state through its tacit support for the terrorist groups and their ideological/political cohorts. Moral bankruptcy and political correctness have reached ridiculous heights. Contact Kaustav Chakrabarti by email kaustav12000@yahoo.co.in |
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ASSOCIATE PRESS: ABBAS: PALESTINIANS READY TO SWAP LAND WITH ISRAEL
Posted by Paut Rotenberg |
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Assume this is true, Jaffo is on the table, what will happen when they get to discussing contiguity? Assume it is not true, why isn't Israel putting out statements as to what the PA is agreeing to, true or not, statements that promote the Israeli perspective. Like "The PA have agreed that all settlements will remain" or "The PA has agreed to accept the centrality of the Sanremo Accords as the basis for Israeli continued presence along the Jordan River" This is infuriating because it sets an expectation that is not being countered by the Israeli government. Have they no dignity, no spine, no self respect, no understanding of what they are doing and who they are dealing with. Paul This below is from the Mary 22, 2010 Associated Press and it is archived at
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RAMALLAH — The Palestinians are ready to swap some land with Israel, although differences remain over the amount of territory to be traded, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday after two rounds of U.S.-led indirect peace talks. The negotiations began earlier this month, with U.S. envoy George Mitchell shuttling between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Abbas' comments marked the first time a participant has provided details about the talks. Abbas said the first round dealt with borders and security arrangements between Israel and the state the Palestinians hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel wants to annex major Jewish settlements in the war-won West Bank and east Jerusalem. In previous negotiations, the two sides agreed that Israel would swap some of its territory to compensate the Palestinians, but gaps remained on the amount of land to be traded. Abbas dismissed recent media reports that the Palestinians are willing to trade more land than in the past, saying: "We did not agree about the land area, but we agreed on the principle of swapping land (equal) in quality and value." In 2008, the Palestinians offered to cede 1.9 per cent of the West Bank to Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert. Olmert sought a 6.5 per cent swap. It is not clear whether Netanyahu accepts the idea of a land swap, and if so, how much of the West Bank he wants to keep. Israel has moved nearly half a million of its citizens into dozens of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since capturing those territories in the 1967 Mideast War. Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev declined to comment on Abbas' remarks and would not say whether Netanyahu agreed to the principle of land swaps. "I cannot go into the content of the talks. If these talks are to succeed, and we hope that they do, they have to be done with discretion," Regev said. A land swap would be crucial to any final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Talks resumed in early May after a 17-month breakdown.
Paul Rotenberg lives in Toronto, Canada. Contact him at pdr@rogers.com
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A MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO?!?
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, May 23, 2010. |
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Why build a mosque at Ground Zero? Do Muslims want to convince America, the world, with such 'in your face' symbolism that Islam is not responsible for the horrific events of 09/11/2001? Might the sponsors of this proposal, presumably to support tolerance, unity, the antithesis of radical Islam, be willing to fly flags of all nations, including Israel, prominently, within the structure's courtyard? Better yet, would those sponsors be willing to more than symbolically denounce the dark side of Islam; the side that coerces women to wear head to toe garments thus not arouse the lust in men, the side that threatens to destroy the 'infidel'; from the pulpits of their mosque; as well as throughout the worldwide media? Specifically, would they be willing to confront Iran's president, Mahmoud AhMADinejad, harshly condemning his hateful Holocaust denial rhetoric, his threat to destroy Israel? Would they be willing to assert that when a suicide bomber blows him or herself up, or any Muslim plants/sets off an explosive, he also blows up the Koran? Would they be willing to conduct interfaith services within their mosque on occasion? Most essentially, would they be willing to erect a shrine honoring all those who perished when radical Islamic savages flew American planes into the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon; crashed over Pennsylvania? Unless sponsors of the project are willing to truly accept responsibility for the blasphemers of their faith; those who spit on civilization; proposing to build a mosque at Ground Zero reeks with arrogance. Remaining silent, distancing themselves, refusing to confront those who pervert peaceful tolerant Islam is unacceptable. Only aggressive acts of atonement for the heinous deeds of 9/11/2001 should allow them to be considered for the momentous honor of receiving permits to build on what is truly sacred ground; most desirably as part of a faith based mega-complex of structures representing Judaism, Christianity and other religions willing to participate! Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at larose@snip.net |
