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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL A FALL SCENE IN NORTHERN ISRAEL
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, October 31, 2008. |
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GOLD IN THE GALILEE — A fall scene in Northern Israel This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. Yehoshua Halevi writes: "HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Walking through the hills near my home earlier this week, I thought about how I find the visual clues that are the first sign of a good photo opportunity. Much of the visual hunting I do is simply honed instinct; I let my eyes wander and they come to rest at the place of greatest interest, usually a bright spot or an area with strong colors or patterns. When light and color and pattern come together, it's an easy task to merge them into a photographic whole. I stumbled onto this scene while hiking through a small forest in the
Galilee not far from Rosh Pina at the height of last fall's color
display. In the dark of the tree cover, a golden glow caught my eye
and aroused my curiosity because the colors seemed unnatural. Most of
the colors of fall are found in decaying leaves, such as the grape
vines seen in the foreground. The intense yellow of this barren field
is the result of the scattered remains of decomposing hay. Having
found the photo's subject, I climbed up a small hill to get a better
perspective and to add a strip of the orange vineyard, whose colors
provide a nice complement to the green and gold that dominate the rest
of the image.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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THE HOPE BETRAYED?
Posted by Victor Sharpe, October 31, 2008. |
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The continuing existence of the Jewish people during the 2,000 years of the post-biblical era is surely a miracle, an enigma, and an astonishing phenomenon. For all of those long years the Jews lived in almost perpetual danger of extinction because they were stateless and at the mercy and whims from those within whichever nation they could find refuge. Despite all oppression and misery, the People of the Book, defenseless and powerless, despised and persecuted, nevertheless survived in the fiery crucibles of Christian Europe and the Muslim Arab world. The two daughter religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, though meting out horrific slaughters upon the Jews, nevertheless could not exist were it not for Judaism or Israel. And the world, be it religious or secular, has been forever touched by Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Spinoza, Freud, Einstein, and by so many others who have sprung from this remarkable people. Yet another miracle occurred to the remnant of the Jewish folk who survived the Holocaust. They arose like a phoenix from what the European continent had become: one giant Jewish graveyard. They fought back against a cruel world and against incredible odds until the ancient 2,000-year-old dream of rebuilding and reconstituting the ancestral, biblical homeland in Israel became a reality. Yet with all the long and blood soaked history that the stateless Jews endured during their dispersion, there are Israeli Jews in leadership today who would give away yet more of the biblical homeland, which many of their parents and grandparents gave their lives to redeem. Binyamin Netanyahu, who is the leader of the Likud party in Israel, has stated that, "Today, in light of our abandonment of Gaza and the Hamas takeover there, it is clear to anyone who considers himself a 'State of Israel lover,' and not just a 'Land of Israel lover,' that if we give away more territory, it will be taken over by Iran and its appendages." Netanyahu was Israel's Prime Minister some ten years ago and at the time was responsible for giving to the Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, the city of Hebron, one of the four holy Jewish cities — the others being Tiberias, Safed and, the jewel in the Jewish crown, Jerusalem. Netanyahu nevertheless claims that unlike his abandonment of much of the ancient Jewish city, the present leadership of Ehud Olmert, and his possible successor as Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, are obsessed with a death wish of giving even pre-1967 land to the Palestinian Authority. Indeed they seem possessed of a psychotic need to bribe an insatiable enemy with any and all Jewish land, and for what? Peace? Never in a million years will the Arabs and the Muslim world accept peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state or any other state for that matter if it is not Muslim and Arab. Netanyahu, for his part, responds that the real debate between him and the Left, as represented in part by Olmert and Livni, is about " ... the little Land of Israel ... We're not talking now about annexing Ramallah, but rather the fate of the Jordan Valley ... about the abandonment of areas with no Palestinian presence." Netanyahu implies that Olmert and Livni, and so many Israelis who have lost their sense of Jewish history,"... want to give away as much of ancestral Israel as possible, and we want to retain as much as possible in areas that are saturated with both historic significance and security significance for us." For those in Israel and the Diaspora who have forgotten the bloodstained pages of Jewish history during the long night of Israel's dispersal, it would be instructive for them to be reminded of the price a people pays for statelessness. Those rushing to bribe and placate the relentless hatred and aggression of the Arab world by giving to them the reclaimed Jewish birthright in its ancestral homeland — including eternal Jerusalem — should read the following words from the searing passion of their ancestors. Kalonymos ben Yehuda wrote this poem about the first Crusade which took place in 1096, and about the slaughter of the defenseless Jews in Europe. "Yea, they slay us and they smite, vex our souls with sore affright; All the closer cleave we, Lord, to Thine everlasting Word; Not a line of all their Mass, shall our lips in homage pass; Though they curse and bind and kill, the living God is with us still; We still are Thine, though limbs are torn, better death than life foresworn; The fair and young lie down to die, in witness of Thy Unity; From dying lips the accents swell, Our G-d is One, O Israel."The French scholar, Peter Abelard, wrote in 1135 about the Jews: "No nation has ever undergone such sufferings for God. Scattered among all the nations, having neither king nor secular prince, the Jews are oppressed with heavy taxes as if they must buy their lives anew every day. Except for heaven, they have no safe refuge. When they wish to travel to the nearest town, they must pay large sums of money to buy their protection of the Christian princes who, in truth, desire their death in order to sieze their inheritance. The Jews are not permitted to own fields and vineyards because there is no one to guarantee their possession." Abelard remained a lone non-Jewish voice crying in the wilderness. He himself was persecuted by the Church for his outspoken compassion towards the staeless and ever suffering Jewish communities. Ephraim of Bonn wrote in 1190 about the second Crusade: "In the year 1146 the Jewish communities were terror stricken. The monk, Rudolph, who shamefully persecuted Israel (the name often given for the Jews of the Diaspora) arose against the people of God in order, like Haman of old, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish." In 1793, Isaac D'Israeli wrote about the slaughter of the Jews of York, England, in 1190: "When Richard 1 ascended the throne, the Jews brought their tributes to honor him. Many had hastened from remote parts of England and, appearing at Westminster, the Court and the mob imagined they leagued to bewitch His Majesty. A rumor spread rapidly that the Jews were to be massacred and the populace at once murdered the devoted Jews." Sadly, news traveled north to the city of York and the townsfolk soon imitated the people of London. A cruel multitude, united with the soldiery, forced the Jewish residents to seek shelter in York Castle. The Jews held out as long as they could against the fanatical mob that by now were roused to extremes of murder and plunder. But in the end, the survivors chose to die by their own hand rather than see their loved ones slaughtered before their eyes by the mob. Just as the Church did in its canon law, Islam instituted many prohibitions against members of other religions. Some of the Islamic restrictions resembled the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the Church throughout the Christian world. The severest punishments — usually death — were meted out to any who dared question the writings and sayings of Mohammed. With the decline of the Islamic empire in the medieval period through the ascent of Christian Europe, the Muslim masses turned upon the hapless Jews who were increasingly forced to live as dhimmis (inferior and third class citizens) among them. Periodic persecutions and slaughters took place against the Jews who were forced to wear distinctive clothing, often absurd and humiliating, and live in ghettoes (mellahs) similar to those they endured in Christian Europe. Though the ever present danger of Muslim fundamentalism could break out at any time (for example the 12th century Almohads) Islamic persecutions of the Jews paled against those they suffered at the hands of the Church. However, the yearning for relief from discrimination or worse, and the desire to return to Zion and the ancestral homeland, was as compelling for the Jews in Arab lands as it was for their brethren in Europe. On August 3rd, 1492, the ancient Jewish population of Spain was driven out in the infamous Expulsion. Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled, forced to leave all that their ancestors had built in Spain over centuries, and walk in a long trail of the dispossessed to the seaports. Here are a few lines from the long poem by Emma Lazarus called, The Exodus, written in 1883: "The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory pale, well nigh swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding feet. 'Mother, shall we soon be there?' Heinrich Heine wrote this poem in 1824 about Jewish suffering in Germany: "Break forth in lamentation, my agonizing song; That like a lava torrent, has boiled within me long; My song shall thrill each hearer, and none so deaf but hears; For the burden of my song, is the pain of a thousand years; It melts both gentle and simple, even hearts of stone are riven; Sets women and flowers weeping, they weep, the stars of heaven." This, from Solomon Shechter, 1903: "I remember when I came home from the religious school, bleeding and crying from the wounds inflicted upon me by the Christian boys, my father used to say: 'My child, we are in exile and we must submit to God's will.' And he made me understand that this was only a passing stage in history, as we Jews belong to Eternity, when God will comfort His people. However, my real suffering began later in life when I emigrated from Romania to so-called civilized countries and found there what I might call the higher anti-Semitism, which burns the soul though it leaves the body unhurt." Mary Antin wrote in 1911 about the horrors inflicted upon the Jews of Russia especially at Passover: "The Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from Egypt was the time our gentile neighbors chose to remind us that Russia was another Egypt. They made it a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that lie about murdering Christian children and the stupid peasants would get mad about it, fill themselves with vodka, and set out to murder the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs, and scythes and axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was a pogrom. Jews who escaped came with wounds on them and horrible stories of little babies torn limb from limb before their mother's eyes. People who saw such things never smiled again." In Russia, the Jews endured centuries of such pogroms. Lucien Wolfe wrote the following in 1912, titled, Under the Romanoffs: "The plaything of a heartless bureaucracy, the natural prey of all the savage elements in society, loaded with fetters in one place, and in another driven out like some wild beast, the Russian Jew finds that for him, at least, life is composed of little else than bitterness, suffering and degradation." In 1920, Nahum Sokolow wrote about the Massacres in the Ukraine: "For this cold murder of whole communities, not Heaven itself, nor all the mercy of the angels, could find palliation. There is no instance that shows so much as this, the ghastly descent of human character into primitive brutality and cannibalism. This is a deed, which in its horror and wicked purposelessness should have stunned the world." But these few examples of the many frightful persecutions and slaughters that the Jews experienced in their 2,000 year old exile are but a series of fearsome dress rehearsals before the great Destruction: the German Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. In the mid Twentieth century, perverted science and German efficiency, along with the age old evil that is Jew hatred, combined to systematically exterminate nearly all of European Jewry — reducing the world Jewish population from 18,000,000 to barely 12,000,000 in less than a decade. Now, in the first decade of the 21st century, a new Hitler is spewing the same familiar poison against the Jews, which the world has wallowed in for all the previous centuries. The Islamic Republic of Iran's Ahmadinejad is promising to murder yet another six million Jews; the Jewish population of Israel. He has declared that the Jewish state will be exterminated and is feverishly working towards that end with nuclear weapons. But it should also be understood that Ahmadinejad, speaking in late September, 2008 at the United Nations, exposed his belief that in time the United States would bow down to Iran. The megalomania of Iran's president should lie to rest any belief that what he says is just foolish posturing and babbling. A terrible mistake was made once before about a man who uttered similar rants. That man was the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. It is against the backdrop of the threats of this new Hitler of our time, and with the historical memories of the 2,000 years of unbearable suffering that the Jews experienced as stateless refugees, driven from one land only to be persecuted in another, that those Israelis who today plot to give away the one and only Jewish homeland should take note. Their foolish and prideful claims to speak for the Jewish and Israeli people in matters of security are invalid. Worse still, their betrayal and ignorance of Jewish history in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora is breathtaking in its enormity. Prime Minister Olmert, who still remains in office in a caretaker capacity, only a short while ago told his cabinet that he was willing to even give away the Jordan Valley itself to the Arabs. And rumors are rife of his desire to give away the Golan Heights, suffused as it is with immense Jewish biblical and post-biblical history. He and his supporters should be reminded of the great Zionist poem — The Watch on the Jordan. Here are a few selected lines from that epic written by N.H. Imber: "Like the crash of the thunder which splitteth asunder the flame of the cloud. On our ears ever falling, a voice is heard calling from Zion aloud. Let your spirits, desires, from the land of our sires, eternally burn. From the foe to deliver, Our own holy river. To Jordan return. "And in pride of our people we will fearlessly face the might of the world. When our trumpet is blown and our standard is flown, then set we our watch. Our watchword, The sword, of our land, and our Lord. By Jordan then set we our watch." Through heroic toil and immense sacrifice in blood, the sovereign and modern State of Israel was restored and Jewish patrimony once again brought alive in its ancestral land. Is it now to be thrown away in stages by an ignorant and fraudulent leadership who would thus consign the nation to yet another inevitable dark and tragic exile? Is it to experience once again an existence as a stateless people at the mercy of strangers? The words in Israel's national anthem, Hatikvah, the Hope, include the following: We have not lost our Hope, of two thousand years, to be a free people in our land, Land of Zion and Jerusalem. Let us hope that Israel's leaders, now and in the future, do not forget those words. Let us pray that they are reminded of the horrors of exile and, in so doing, never lose the hope of two thousand years to truly be a free and sovereign people in its own land: Zion and Jerusalem. Let us also pray that they forever resist betraying Hatikvah: The Hope. Victor Sharpe is the author of Politicide — The attempted murder of the Jewish state. This article was published 22 October 2008 by Israel Hasbara Committee — http://www.infoisrael.net |
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A SETTLER'S REPLY TO AMERICANS FOR PEACE NOW
Posted by Steve Kramer, October 31, 2008. |
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I read Alan Kligerman's letter to the editor of the Jewish Times (Oct. 17) with some alarm. I'm a "settler", as are my wife Michal, our two sons, and the rest of the 7,000 residents of our town, Alfe Menashe. We don't like being demonized by repeatedly being called Settlers with a capital S, as Mr. Kligerman wrote. There are about 500,000 so-called settlers living beyond the 1949 Armistice Line (the Green Line), who constitute 9% of the five and a half million Jewish Israelis. 200,000 live within Jerusalem city limits, 280,000 live in the West Bank, and 20,000 live in the Golan Heights. Among this large population, the firebrands number in the hundreds, a minuscule percentage — and some of those hooligans don't even live in settlements. It goes without saying that none of them are suicide bombers. Let's review where the word "settler" comes from. Communities in Israel are often called "yishuvim" in Hebrew, which comes from the verb "leshev": to sit. Yishuvim can be translated as "settlements", which makes the residents "settlers". Tel Aviv is the largest example of the hundreds of towns and cities in Israel built by settlers. But in mainstream mediaspeak about Israel, the terms settlements and settlers have been given a negative connotation. This is not the case when those terms are used in any other context, such as the settlement of Jamestown in 1607, the Dutch settlers who built New Amsterdam (later named Manhattan), or the settlers who opened the American West. What's Peace Now's beef with Jewish residents (a neutral name for Jewish settlers) anyway? Peace Now is one of several far-left Israeli-based organizations promoting Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders and the removal of all Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria. It's largely funded by foreign governments like Britain, Norway, and Finland. This is from their website: "Peace Now continues to view the illegal outposts and the settlements as major obstacles to ending the occupation and promoting an agreement, as well as an element that contradicts the Israeli national interest." In addition, Peace Now believes that Jews living anywhere beyond the Green Line are attempting "to derail peace negotiations and progress towards a peace agreement". Some Jews who live beyond the Green Line do so to build a Jewish presence while others are primarily interested in a better lifestyle, but all believe that Jews have a right to live anywhere in what the League of Nations designated as the "national home for the Jewish people". Jews who live beyond the Green Line aren't opposed to having peaceful relations with the Palestinians, but they disagree that their homes are an obstacle to peace. Unlike Peace Now adherents, almost all of these Israelis think peace is unattainable, so long as Arabs continue to use terror to deny Jews the right to live independently on either side of the Green Line. Members and supporters of Peace Now, who are mostly Jewish, diligently join in Arab efforts to deny Israelis a place in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan, which are clearly disputed territories. Any reading of history — except in Muslim history books — points out that Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish kingdom of Judea, while the Arabs, who ruled the area for hundreds of years, never made Jerusalem a capital of anything. Nor did the Ottoman Turks have a capital there after they usurped the Arabs in 1517 and established their control over the entire region bordering the eastern Mediterranean (Greater Syria). The Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judea, which devolved from King Solomon's kingdom thousands of years ago, were located primarily in today's disputed territories. The Romans renamed the area Palestine after defeating the Jews in the 2nd-century CE. Following the Arab conquest in the 7th-century, Palestine was most commonly considered part of Greater Syria. When the British defeated the Ottoman Turks in 1917 during WWI, ending 400 years of Ottoman sovereignty, they revived the name Palestine and kept control of the area until the dissolution of the Palestine Mandate in 1948. Ever since the Jews declared the independence of Israel and fought off the six invading Arab armies, the areas beyond the 1949 armistice lines have been disputed by Jews and Arabs. Lately, the Arabs have even begun to question Israel's territory within the armistice lines — that is, most of Israel — by belatedly "agreeing" to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which called for two separate states in Palestine — a larger one for the Arabs and a smaller one for the Jews, with Jerusalem to be internationalized. Peace Now folks agitate for Palestinian rights, but have little sympathy for Jewish rights. In and around Israel, Jews are fighting a continual battle to retain our independent state. The Arabs are implacable about their demand that the original hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees and their millions of descendants should settle inside Israel. Of course, this demographic flood would destroy Israel as a Jewish state. And despite protestations in English (but not in Arabic) that they're willing to live side by side in peace with Israel, the Palestinians continue to imbue their children with hatred against Jews, to glorify martyrdom against us, and to attempt to terrorize us. A logical but ignored target for Peace Now's complaints should be the Muslim states. These nations, especially the Arab ones, have little or no tolerance for Jews or other minorities in their own countries. While there is a tiny remnant of Jews in some Arab countries, they only highlight the huge expulsion of 800,000 Jews and the expropriation of their property in the two decades after 1948. Peace Now isn't interested in that or with the fact that Arab countries are Judenrein. Instead, their wrath is directed toward Israel, where 20% of the population are Arab citizens who have the democratic right to vote, attend Israeli public schools and universities, and participate in the work force. Peace Now concentrates on pressuring Israelis to further compromise "for peace", after Israel has already left Lebanon and Gaza "for peace". Because the Palestinians, as practitioners of Middle Eastern "bazaar diplomacy", will not compromise on their demands, extremists "for peace", such as Peace Now, have no one to badger except the more moderate Israelis. Israel is not "Goliath" fighting the Palestinian "David". Besides America and a few other English-speaking countries, the world lines up with the Arabs against Israel. One of the reasons for this is the huge contingent of Muslim and so-called non-aligned nations which automatically vote against Israel in the United Nations. Another reason is the Western wish to curry favor with the oil-rich Arabs. But most galling are the misguided efforts of Jews and others who are quick to condemn Israel for defending itself, and slow to recognize the growing Muslim threat to Israel and to all Western countries. Contact Steve Kramer at sjk1@jhu.edu |
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THE WISDOM OF THE PHONE BOOK
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 31, 2008. |
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This is from the desk of Paul Belien of the Brussels
Journal and this article is archived at
Paul Belien is the author of numerous articles, essays and books, including, most recently, A Throne in Brussels. He is the co-author — together with Lady Thatcher, Lord Tebbit, Philippe Seguin and others — Visions of Europe (Duckworth, 1994) and — with Harvard Business School's Prof. Regina Herzlinger — Consumer-Driven Health Care (Jossey-Bass, 2004). He has given lectures on European health care systems in various countries, including the U.S., Canada, Japan and Australia. |
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One will not likely find many people in the Boston phone book who would prefer to join the foreign army than their own in the event of a war between the United States and a foreign nation. In Europe, that certainty no longer exists. Last week, my good friend David Brooks reminded us of a famous saying of the late Bill Buckley. As Buckley said, he would rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. There is usually more common sense, indeed wisdom, in the opinions of the common man than in the theories of intellectuals and even of professional politicians. On opening the Brussels phone book and browsing through its first 2,000 names, however, one quickly realizes that to advocate Buckley's advice in contemporary Western Europe would lead to the installation of rulers with names reminiscent of Arabian Nights, names such as Aarab, Abbas, Abdel Kader, Abdellaoui, Al Mahi, Al Maghreb El Jadid, ... The face of the old continent is changing faster than many realize and the repercussions are already being felt in Europe's elections. In many countries the Muslim vote is on the brink of tipping or has already tipped the electoral balance. Most immigration into Europe has been welfare immigration. Hence, it is no wonder that the immigrant vote favors the Left. In the Netherlands, 70% of the immigrants participated in the 2006 Dutch general elections, with over 80% of them voting for the left. In the 2005 German general elections, 94% of the Germans of immigrant (mainly Turkish) origin voted for the parties of the left — Socialists, Greens or "Post"-Communists — who gained 51.1% of the national vote. In France, a country with over 10% Muslims, their electoral clout has become so important that even the far-right Front National tries to attract part of the Muslim vote. The new generation of immigrant politicians cater for their fellow Muslims. They have little in common with the former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born immigrant who was a Muslim apostate advocating anti-islamic legislation. Ms Hirsi Ali left the Dutch parliament in 2006 and moved to the United States. The newly elected immigrant politicians, on the contrary, represent a growing and demographically young electorate that insists on asserting its Muslim identity. Their loyalties lie more with their countries of origin than with the Dutch nation, which they look upon mainly as a welfare distributing Santa Claus. In Belgium, Ergün Top, a Turkish-born Muslim politician who ran for the Senate last year, admitted that he feels more loyalty towards Turkey than towards Belgium. He told an audience of Turkish-born Belgian voters that if there ever were a war between Belgium and Turkey, he would join the Turkish army and fight Belgium. This indicates that turning the tide of Islamization in Europe will be very difficult. So here is a new statement to replace Bill Buckley's famous words: If the first 2,000 names in the phone book sound more exotic than the university's faculty staff, elections are likely to be won by the Left and Sharia law is just around the corner. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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ISRAEL VS. RELIGION & ZIONISM; WHY U.S. RADAR IN NEGEV?; OBAMA PRAISED PLO BIG-WIG
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 31, 2008. |
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ANOTHER SUPPOSED MODERATE The former Fatah leader of Gaza, Dahlan, disparages the armed uprisings against Israel, because they didn't work out well. He does not condemn their terrorism. He has incorrectly been portrayed as "moderate." (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 9/29). The distinction between moderates and extremists usually is false. It is a ruse, a pretext for pretending there are some jihadists with whom Israel can deal and make concessions. ANTI-JEWISH RULE IN AN ISRAELI SCHOOL Three boys in an Israeli public school wanted to don phylacteries. They found an unoccupied room in which to do it. Eventually, other children joined them. All this was voluntary. When the principal found out about it, she forbad them. She said, ""What you are doing is religious coercion and missionary incitement. There are students in this school whose parents won't have them exposed to religious characteristics." The principal did not cite any coercion. Apparently the Left talks about pluralism but does not believe in it (IMRA, 10/1). Coercion is against freedom of religion, and so is prohibition of religious practice. OPPONENTS OF WITHDRAWAL NOT HEARD MUCH Mediocre professors, subsidized from abroad, advocate withdrawal. The media mostly ignores polls against withdrawal and arguments against it (IMRA, 10/2). ACCUSED SETTLER RELEASED A man from Yitzhar was arrested and held in jail, accused of firing in the air during a demonstration against the Arab village that harbors terrorists who repeatedly raid, burn, and stab in Yitzhar. The court criticized police and prosecutors for an illegal arrest (Arutz-7, 10/3). STATE DEPT. & LAWSUITS AGAINST THE P.A. Abbas asks the State Dept. to intervene in lawsuits against the P.A. and PLO for damages from their terrorism. The State Dept. successfully got the courts to see to it that victorious victims did not collect financial awards. Lately, the Dept. has been asking Abbas, instead, to respond to the courts promptly and to settle out-of-court if he thinks he won't like the court awards (Arutz-7, 10/1). SYRIA REBUILDING NUCLEAR PLANT Funded by Iran, N. Korean scientists are building more than one nuclear facility in Syria, to replace the one Israel bombed. Syria is not cooperating with the IAEA inspectors on this (IMRA, 10/3). QUESTIONS ABOUT U.S. RADAR IN THE NEGEV The U.S. set up a permanent military base in Israel, to detect Iranian launches of missiles at Israel. The US is not feeding its findings to Israel, and not letting Israelis at the monitor. It promises to inform Israel of a missile launch. Some Israelis wonder whether the radar gives the US an ability to spy on Israel. Dr. Aaron Lerner: "It isn't clear what 'secrets' about Israel the radar would supply considering that tiny Israel is already well within range of ship- board radar systems." (IMRA, 10/3.) PROPOSED DETERRENT STRATEGY Israel can't stand a Lebanese war of attrition. Israel should respond swiftly and disproportionately. It should destroy Hizbullah's military capability and punish Syrian centers of political and supportive civilian power with damage that would take years to repair, even if it misses a few missile launchers. Force a ceasefire upon the enemy and give their rulers reason not to try again (IMRA, 10/3). I agree. However, Israel should start now to explain to the reset of the world the need for disproportionate retaliation against such aggressors. At present, the rest of the world feigns indignation at any strong Israeli retaliation as "disproportionate." Phony ethics. Disproportionate retaliation is more ethical. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (A.I.) OBSESSION WITH ISRAEL A.I. boasted that it persists in monitoring the "suffering" in Gaza, even while most of the world was preoccupied with Russian aggression against Georgia, with its human rights abuse and suffering and much greater casualties. But the ceasefire in Gaza ended most IDF involvement there, and the big news, which A.I. ignored, was intra-Gaza fighting. Having little new to report, A.I. recycled old reports. It failed to report Israel's sanctuary to Fatah refugees from Hamas. "As NGO Monitor analysis has demonstrated, the (A.I.) report lacks evidence and credibility, largely ignores the context of terrorism, exploits international legal terminology, and presents data in a highly selective and distorted manner." A.I. did not condemn Russia! During the Lebanon War, it condemned Israel daily (IMRA, 10/3). Any excuse to bash Israel. CANDIDATES MISS OPPORTUNITY TO HELP Candidates often fight rear-guard action. Sen. Kerry ran against the Vietnam War of decades earlier. Sen. Obama is running against the Iraq War that is almost over and won. As far as I know, neither current candidate seized the opportunity to save the hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown at banks without purpose. As the pro-Democrat NY Times has pointed out and earlier warned against, the Treasury Dept. offered the banks hundreds of billions, ostensibly to keep credit liquid. Instead of lending the money to keep corporations and mortgages going, or to buy failing banks to salvage what they can, the banks are hoarding the money or save it to buy thriving banks so as to expand their market. That was not the purpose. It does not help the economy. It strains and drains the Treasury to no avail. The Administration was irresponsible not to specify the condition it ostensibly lent the money for. The candidates should demand that the condition be specified, especially for the half of the funds not already lent. Here was an opportunity for Sen. McCain to have differentiated himself from Pres. Bush. The Obama campaign showed itself flexible in replying almost instantly to every barb by Clinton with a barb of its own. It also shows nimbleness in finding an excuse for everything negative coming out about Obama or his policy of the day. But it missed the opportunity to play a constructive role in correcting a Bush error, if error it be. Our governments have a way of wasting money on corporations. OBAMA PRAISED PLO BIG-WIG The L.A. Times reported having a videotape of the 2003 farewell party for Rashid Khalidi, former spokesman for the PLO, listed as a terrorist organization. William Ayers was there. So was Sen. Obama. He praised Khalidi. Party goers condemned the US and Israel. The McCain campaign asked for the tape to be released. The newspaper claims that its source asked it not to (Arutz-7, 10/30). Why would a source give a newspaper a tape to report about, but ask it not to let the tape be screened? Doesn't make sense. Ayers and Obama, again. Obama keeps associating with enemies of our country, especially Islamists. [Then he claims to be pro-Israel.] He says don't vote for fear. McCain doesn't preach fear, but there is reason to fear Obama. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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OBAMA AND THE JEWISH DIVIDE
Posted by Barry Shaw, October 31, 2008. |
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With just days before the US Presidential elections it appears that Barack Hussein Obama will be declared the 44th President of the United States. Gaps are narrowing in most polls and it is likely that certain swing states will be crucial in deciding the outcome of the election campaign. Pundits have expressed opinions as to the voting patterns of ethnic groups such as African-Americans, Hispanics, and the Jewish vote. With the sensitivity of political correctness little has been said about the power of the Arab-American vote. This is so solidly behind Obama that it rarely comes up for discussion. Some will vote for him as a reject vote against the foreign policy of the Bush Administration. Others identify Obama as having a shared background and, therefore, common interests. It is not presumptive to assume that a large number of Arab-American voters choose Obama in the expectation that he will enforce a different and more favourable policy in the Middle East and the Arab world. But what of the Jewish vote? All indicators show that a large majority will go for Obama. Though they will vote for a candidate out of personal and national interests, many selected their candidate as one who will be good for Israel and help bring peace to the region. Liberal Jews express a keen opinion that Barack Obama will stand firmly with Israel, but on what is this judgment based? The enigma is that Obama's foreign policy is an empty page on to which the American electorate are writing their personal wish list. Liberal Jews are chanting the mantra that Obama 'will be good for Israel' without pointing to any convincing evidence to support that view. On the contrary, there is clear proof that Obama has politically surrounded himself with people who are radically opposed to anything that will be good for Israel. When faced with Obama's intimate contacts with characters such as Rashid Khalidi and Khalid al-Mansour, Liberal Jews dismiss this as 'mud-slinging' and irrelevant to a future Administration's policy towards the Jewish state. Even before Obama and Joe Biden enter the White House they both were two of a minority of Senators who opposed a congressional resolution calling for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be named a terrorist organisation. The vote did pass, but with no credit to either the potential incoming President and Vice President. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been training and arming both Hizbollah and Hamas terrorists. Both terror organsiations have avowed, and are acting towards, the destruction of Israel. When it came to the vote neither Obama or Biden placed themselves in support of the motion. This is seen in Israel as the opening blow in the future deteriorating relationship between Israel and the United States. In America, people such as Jesse Jackson, General Tony McPeak, and Zbigniew Brzezinski are gleefully rejoicing over what they see as the impending end of the 'Zionist lobby' and Jewish influence on American foreign policy with an incoming Obama Administration. Voices in Israel express concern that the new American Administration will impose sanctions on Israel — due to Israel's settlement policy — before they will impose sanctions on Iran. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that exit polls, conducted by the non-partisan VotefromIsrael.org., of early American voters in Israel show a distinct preference for John McCain. A huge 76% of those polled said they had voted for McCain. One interesting statistic in Israel was that 46% of registered Democrats voted for McCain with only 2% of Republican going for Obama. Israel has the third largest group of American voters after Canada and Britain but the vote in Israel was strongly influenced by deep personal concerns for security and the safety of its citizens. This was a vote of no confidence in an Obama Administration when it comes to Israel. In America, the numbers of the Jewish vote is expected to be reversed with around 70% voting for Obama. This exposes a clear misunderstanding of the issues by one of the electoral groups — Americans in Israel against Jews in America. This threatens to lead to a harmful rift between the two communities should Obama foreign policy impose strictures on Israel that are perceived here as having the potential to weaken and isolate the Jewish state. The View from Here articles are written by Barry Shaw Contact him at netre@matav.net.il |
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MANDATE AND THE MAN: RICHARD FALK AT THE U.N.
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 31, 2008. |
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This letter was written by Hillel Neuer and published in today's
Jerusalem Post
Hillel Neuer is Executive Director, UN Watch, based in Geneva. |
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Sir, The latest condemnation of Israel by Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council's "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," requires some context ("UN: Israel violated Geneva Conventions," October 25). First, Falk's UN title is deliberately deceptive. The actual terms of his mandate do not address the overall "situation of human rights" in the area concerned. Rather, the Arab-controlled council decided in 1993 to investigate only "Israel's violations of the principles and bases of international law." That means Hamas brutality against Israelis and Palestinians alike is entirely excluded. Falk's is the only UN mandate that is inherently one-sided, presumptive of guilt and immune from regular review. What kind of person would accept such a biased mandate? One with the moral compass to argue, as Falk did in 2002, that suicide bombings were the "only means still available by which to inflict sufficient harm on Israel so that the (Palestinian) struggle could go on." One with the political judgment to write, in a 1979 New York Times op-ed, that Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution "may yet provide us with a desperately-needed model of humane governance for a third-world country." One with the good sense to support — as Falk has done openly and repeatedly — conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001 attacks. In March 2008, he told a radio interviewer that there are "a lot of grounds for suspicion" that the attacks were an inside job. In June, he called for an investigation into whether "some sort of controlled explosion from within" destroyed the Twin Towers. Finally, Falk praised "the patience, the fortitude, the courage, and the intelligence" of conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin, to whose 2006 book, 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, Falk contributed a chapter. How tragic that in the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN's representative figures have gone from luminaries like René Cassin and Eleanor Roosevelt to loonies like Richard Falk. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
Posted by Ari Bussel, October 31, 2008. |
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Those of us immersed in the battle for public perception realize we are in the middle of a fierce war, one like no other before. It would be a mistake to try and understand today in the context of even twenty years ago, not because the communication means are vastly different, but because the enemy continuously reinvents itself. We, on the other hand, seem to lag behind. An effort by theory specialists in the academia to provide models for a systematic, empirical analysis of public diplomacy looks at processes rather than a particular point of time. For practitioners in the foreign ministry to join forces with the academics is a worthy endeavor. Apparently, a consensus exists within that Israel is in a crisis and that public diplomacy is a national asset which must be protected and utilized to its fullest potential, although neither side has the courage necessary to look at itself and admit — first and foremost to itself — that it is part of the problem. Such a lofty effort must start with a present day case study, an actual example that will provide, by its hands-on nature, a mechanism to focus the attention, define the problem and provide for practical solutions. Analysis done from a distance has its value, yet there is nothing more conducive for a real analysis to take place than a true understanding of the nature and the extent of the problem. For many years I was teaching Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). I would tell the students — many health care professionals including MDs — what they need to do and the mistakes they need to avoid. Everything was well understood until I asked the first person to practice on a mannequin. The same mistakes I warned against were repeated time and time again. When one tries to understand the influence of today's internet and the vast fields of beyond-ordinary-imagination activities it offers, one would often consult a kid. Youth at the high school level might be considered "too old." Likewise, this group of very well respected professionals and leading academicians should have invited a Dr. Daryl Temkin of the Beverly Hills-based Israel Institute to start and end the two day conference about Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century that just ended in Tel Aviv Israel. The closing remarks pointed out that nothing we do will provide an equal response to a picture of an ambulance trying to stop a tank or of a young kid raising his hands looking at the tall soldier pointing a gun at him. [The latter is also a not-so-subtle reminder of the picture of a child raising his hands with the Nazi war machine not shown but understood to be the setting.] Dr. Temkin would have started the conference by saying that to tell a lie takes a fraction of a second, to refute a lie will take so much time and effort rendering the mission close to impossible. The way to fight it is not by responding to a web of lies, trying to explain, analyze or rebuff, but be our creative, tenacious, inventive and spirited self. Dr. Temkin, unabashed, often goes to Muslim gatherings, to anti-Israel and virally-anti-West demonstrations or lectures and calmly stands up to offer a voice of reason, a single light in this darkness threatening to engulf us. Dr. Temkin represents all of us, a small light that dares to flicker — like a candle in the wind. He combines an ability of an orator, the knowledge of ancient and recent history as well as current events, the usage of the Bible and the clarity of the path he chooses. He often does so at a risk to his life. Like Dr. Temkin, student members of ZOA, American Jewish Congress, Stand With Us, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other organizations do wonders on the (US) campuses where they study. They are the soldiers on the front line, they participate in the ongoing battle for public perception. Not only do they serve as beacons of light, they have amassed personal, first hand knowledge of the war on public opinion. But Dr. Temkin was not here, nor were the Israeli representatives of any of the above or other organizations whose mission is to promote Israel, defend it and fight the war in the arena of public opinion. In war, much like in life, we must be proactive. Being reactive puts us at a disadvantage. Israel used to be smart, full of energy, daring, innovative, creative. In the area of public diplomacy Israel seems to have lost it edge and the enemy continues to gain strength and have the upper hand. Thus, when discussing Public Diplomacy, it would have behooved the researchers and practitioners to have invited those on the front line to participate. First, they could offer invaluable insight as to what is happening today on the ground. Second, they could have learned as well from history and experience amassed by the collective of those in attendance over many decades of collaborative, methodological work in their respective fields. The synergies could have been many. Recognizing "The Conflict" Other than two or three comments-in-passing, there was no mention throughout the sessions of the conference on Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century of the elements and substance of "The Conflict." Let one make no mistake — this is a group of very opinionated leaders, very well respected in their respective fields, and yet they all purposely avoided the subject as if afraid of fire. The silence was deafening. "Israel Beyond the Conflict" was the buzz-phrase used constantly. "'Branding Israel' will take us in the right direction," we were told. Branding Israel, its many achievements and all its has to offer is a marketing tool whose place is in the Ministry of Tourism. Funding has been granted and the benefits will spill over, but this is not what would make public diplomacy. Indeed, "The Conflict" is the battlefield where we should all be. We must first define to ourselves this is not a conflict but a war to destroy us in a greater war to end the Western dominance and establish Sha'aria Law in a worldwide Caliphate. Israelis have internalized this notion (as evident from the fact that so many otherwise-competing egos were gathered in one place working as a team toward a mutual goal) but are still too busy arguing with themselves if they are on the "Right" or the "Left" (or avoiding this discussion altogether). We need to face the thing we dread most: Define to ourselves who we are and what is important for us. We must first be sure we have a right to exist, that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish Homeland, a sovereign country, right in the Promised Land. Only then will we be able to fight, for we will know what it is we are fighting to achieve. Let us be very clear, it is a fight, an existential war, and we must find the thread, the tiniest of fibers which is the least — not the widest — common denominator. We are a society whose strengths are its diversity and openness and the numerous freedoms it affords. But we have gone astray due to the blinding force of the arguments and propaganda against us. For those of have not noticed, or possibly did not pay attention, the "Occupation" argument used against us has already turned into "Israel is a Nazi-regime" and the latter is gaining strength. (This is a very interesting notion on its own merits, since the same propagators of this argument deny there was ever a Holocaust although they are willing to admit the Zionists have invented it as a ruse to gain sympathy in order to claim a land not theirs.) Like fiber optics that can transmit enormous amounts of data at an amazing speed yet are hardly visible to the eye, so is this crucial understanding of who we are, what are we fighting for, and the conscientious disengagement from being the blame. Blaming ourselves for a phenomenal marketing creation of our enemies' imagination simply falls into the hands of the enemy and the trap it has set up methodologically not too many decades ago, waiting for us to walk like a lamb ready to be slaughtered. Public Diplomacy starts right here at home. The systematic evaluation of the history or our failures has its merits, but we will not find the energy to bring about the change, the single atoms that when colliding will create an atomic blast, the fiber optics infrastructure connecting us enabling communication to take place at ever increasing speeds, until we look inward and resolve our differences. Presenting a united front does not mean we given in or give up. It means we have recognized the threat and realize the way to confront it. When we realize that an "end to the Occupation" will not resolve "The Conflict," we will be able to create the tools, utilize the best technologies (many not yet invented) and fight the war for public opinion. We have no other choice. The real wakeup call is to bridge the gap that currently divides Israel over the abyss between "Right" and "Left." It is exactly the one obstacle we must overcome to be able to continue. If one thinks of an obstacle course, with the world community as spectators on the sides, one must realize these are active participants, firing at us, using live ammunition, hand grenades and other lethal weaponry. The only possibility for the soldiers under fire and under close scrutiny to succeed is to work as a team. Israel knows this but is yet to externalize and implement its knowledge. Israel has the will, conviction and ability to survive, but to have a chance to continue in this struggle, we must unite. Israel is a miracle, a blessing unto the Nations, and it is our one and only homeland. It is incumbent upon us to take the necessary steps to ensure it continued survival, its growth and prosperity. The time to reinvent ourselves is now. Reporting from Israel,
Contact Ari Bussel at aribussel@gmail.com |
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WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IS THERE A MORAL BONE LEFT IN YOU?
Posted by Jonas S. Lieberman, October 31, 2008. |
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Sent to members of the media |
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I have written to all of you numerous times. If you look back on the e-mails that I have forwarded you, it will verify that I am genuinely concerned about the election and foremost that I am not a kook. Barack Hussein Obama the PREACHER that has bullied and intimidated and mesmerized the voters and the media, will probably be the NEXT PRESIDENT of the most powerful country in the world. And you are all letting a newspaper to withhold a video tape that could change the perspective of presidential race. The Democrats want to re-institute the "Fairness Doctrine", however they only want it to work one way, for their benefit only. I find it very difficult to believe that none of you are concerned about these implications. If Obama becomes the next president this video will be destroyed and so will Freedom of Speech & Freedom of the Press. Please one of you must have a few moral bones left in your body. You will let this country elect an American hater who will give away this country to only his own people! These are facts that each of you know are true but are too scared to discuss because you will be called a racist. What about a black racist, they don't exist? WAKE UP G-D DAMN IT, WAKE UP! Is it really about race or is it really intimidation by the left? You have the power to make the truth known, a member for 20 years with a spew hating Reverend wright and he remembers nothing. Would you believe that a 20 year old growing up in the same household remembers nothing? He remembers nothing he learned in school, he remembers nothing his parents taught him? How dare you believe such a liar! HOW DARE THIS MAN LIE! When he is PRESIDENT DO YOU EXPECT HIM TO SUDDENLY TELL THE TRUTH? Do any of you realize the danger we will face from a man that is lying to all of us now and once he is president. Has John McCain ever been caught lying. From the beginning of the campaign to the present he has never deviated, he never hated the United States, he does not hate the Jews, he does not hate the black people. How far do you think John McCain would get if he was accused of any of this? And if there was anything to accuse him of the Democrats would have used it months ago! Jonas S. Lieberman
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TELL THE ISRAELI AMBASSADOR YOU ARE DISGUSTED BY ISRAEL'S TREATMENT
OF THE FEDERMAN FAMILY
Posted by Buddy Macy, October 31, 2008. | |
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Dear Fellow Activists, Last Sunday morning, the Israeli Government ordered the execution of appalling actions against two Jewish families in Kiryat Arba. (Click the link to learn the details directly from one of the victims: http://www.hebron.com/english/) I urge you to send a fax (202-364-5423) and postal letter of any length, to Sallai Meridor, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States. And, please forward this email to everyone on your list. Here is my letter, for your reference:
EDITOR'S NOTE: Also see David Wilder's account
below
Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com
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MARXIST 'MENTOR' SOLD DRUGS WITH OBAMA
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 30, 2008. |
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The late Marxist activist Frank Marshall Davis, frequently accompanied by young Barack Obama and his grandfather Stanley Armour Dunham, sold marijuana and cocaine from a "Chicago style" hot dog cart Davis operated near his home on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki in the early 1970s, World Net Daily (WND) has established. This was written by Jerome R. Corsi and it appeared in WND http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=79467 Jerome Corsi is author of "The Obama Nation." |
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HONOLULU, Hawaii — The late Marxist activist Frank Marshall Davis, frequently accompanied by young Barack Obama and his grandfather Stanley Armour Dunham, sold marijuana and cocaine from a "Chicago style" hot dog cart Davis operated near his home on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki in the early 1970s, WND has established. A credible source, a well-known resident of Honolulu who spoke at length with WND on condition he not be named, disclosed that Davis was the source of drugs consumed by Obama. Davis was also the author of an autobiographical novel boasting of "swinging" and sex with minors, a copy of which WND obtained from Andrew Walden, a resident of the Hawaiian island of Hilo and publisher of the Hawaii Free Press. Obama, in his autobiographical book "Dreams from My Father," discloses that he used both marijuana and cocaine as a high school student living with his grandparents in their Honolulu apartment. The source said that on more than a dozen occasions he purchased "8-balls" consisting of approximately 3.6 grams of cocaine from Davis at the hot dog stand when Obama was presen "Obama was a young kid, about 14 or 15 years old," the source told WND. "I was told his name was Barry, and there was no doubt Barry knew Davis was selling marijuana and cocaine as well as hot dogs from the stand." "Barry was also there with an older white gentleman I'm told was Stanley," the source said. "I thought Stanley was Barry's father." WND has established that Stanley was Stanley Armour Dunham, Obama's grandfather. "I bought cocaine from Davis at the hot dog stand," the source said. "The first purchase I made was in 1975. In total, I bought 14 purchases of cocaine from Davis. I bought what Davis called an '8-ball' that consisted of about 3.6 grams of cocaine. An '8-ball' cost $300." As was established in "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," Obama lived with his mother and his Indonesian Muslim stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, in Jakarta from 1967 to 1970, when Obama was approximately 6 to 10 years old. Obama's mother sent him back to Hawaii alone in 1970 to live with his grandparents while she and Obama's sister, Maya, remained in Indonesia to continue living with Soetoro. Ann Dunham subsequently divorced Soetoro and returned to Hawaii to continue pursuing a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Hawaii. For a period of three years, Obama lived in what he described as "a small apartment a block away from Punahou," his high school. Obama's mother returned with Maya to Indonesia to complete her anthropology field work in Indonesia. Obama reports in his autobiography that he refused to go back to Indonesia to attend the international school there, preferring instead to remain in Hawaii and live with his grandparents in their apartment. Obama reported that his grandfather at this time had a number of black male friends who "were mostly poker and bridge partners," describing them as "neatly dressed men with hoarse voices and clothes that smelled of cigars, the kind of men for whom everything has its place and who figure they've seen enough not to waste a lot of time talking about it." Obama then reports that an exception was "a poet named Frank who lived in a dilapidated house in a run-down section of Waikiki." The WND source confirmed this description matched Frank Marshall Davis's residence on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki. In "Unfit for Publication," the 40-page rebuttal the Obama campaign submitted to "The Obama Nation," the Obama campaign admitted for the first time, on page 9, that Frank Marshall Davis was the man Obama had identified in his autobiography as "Frank." "Unfit for Publication" says under the heading "Reality" that Obama's memoir characterized Davis as a figure from his youth who "fell short" and whose view of race was "incurable," attempting to rebut the charge in "The Obama Nation" that Davis was a mentor to Obama during Obama's teenage years at Punahou. In "Dreams from My Father," Obama admits his grandfather drank alcohol with Davis, "sharing whiskey with Gramps out of an emptied jelly jar." Obama also admits in the autobiography that his grandfather took him "downtown to one of his favorite bars, in Honolulu's red-light district." Both Walden and the WND source on Davis' drug-selling both affirmed that the bar involved was one of several then located in the largely black red-light district on Smith Street, at that time located near Honolulu's Chinatown. Obama also admits drinking whiskey with Davis, describing in his autobiography that he drove to Waikiki to visit Davis and drink whiskey with him out of plastic cups. On that evening Obama had become upset learning that a black panhandler had approached his mother and scared her at a bus stop while she was waiting to go to work. In the incident, Obama reports "reaching for the bottle, this time pouring my own," while listening to Davis explain that Obama's grandmother was "right to be scared." Davis told Obama, "She understands that black people have a reason to hate." In response, Obama said, "The earth shook under my feet, ready to crack open at any moment. I stopped, trying to steady myself, and knew for the first time that I was utterly alone." Obama also admitted in his autobiography that in his first two years in college at Occidental he was involved with drugs: "I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it." Obama has never disclosed his source for purchasing drugs. The Telegraph of London reported in August that Davis and Stanley Dunham smoked marijuana together and that Obama was first introduced to Davis by Dunham in 1970, when Obama returned from Indonesia. Hard core The Telegraph also documented that Davis was the author of "the hard-core pornographic autobiography published in San Diego in 1968 by Greenleaf Classics under the pseudonym Bob Green." WND received independent confirmation that Davis was the author of "Sex Rebel: Black (Memoirs of a Gash Gourmet), from an established academic expert on Davis, who wished to remain anonymous. In a forward to "Sex Rebel," Davis openly discussed that he lived the life of a sexual swinger, writing: "I admit, however, that my sex syndrome may be more complex than that of many swingers and swappers." He continued to disclose, "Under certain circumstances I am bi-sexual." After enumerating various unusual and scatological sexual techniques he liked, Davis added: "I'm also a voyeur and exhibitionist. Occasionally I am mildly interested in sado-masochism." Writing as Green, Davis admitted in the foreword that he "often wished" he had two male sex organs to double his sexual pleasure: "As you see, I partake of many of the variations that our Puritans label 'perversions' — a term which to me carries moral judgment and therefore has no place in my erotic vocabulary." According to Walden, a typical passage beginning on page 274 of "Sex Rebel" describes Davis in November 1958 stalking Kapiolani Park in Waikiki. Davis, writing as Greene, "soon encounters two tourists — a Seattle couple he calls 'Dot' and 'Lloyd.'" "Lloyd brags to the complete stranger [Davis] about Dot's figure," Walden explained. "After a few minutes of small talk to establish their mutual interest in 'swinging' ... Davis then devotes almost all of Chapter 27 to a graphic and detailed description of their three-way sexual encounters over the next few days." Although "Sex Rebels" is openly discussed as autobiography, Walden notes Davis/Greene frequently changes names and identities, even though Davis/Greene confirms that "all incidents I have described here have been taken from actual experiences." Madelyn and Stanley Dunham came to Hawaii from Seattle, but there is no way in what is admittedly a fictional book to establish that "Dot" and "Lloyd" from Seattle were the Dunhams. "Sex Rebels" also describes sexual encounters the fictional Greene and his wife had with underage children of both sexes, again without any possibility of reliably identifying the children who may have been involved. Soviet activity On Dec. 5, 1956, Davis appeared in executive session before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee investigating "the scope of Soviet activity in the United States," one of the McCarthy-era committees seeking to expose communists considered to be a security threat. Invoking his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, Davis refused to answer a direct question asking if he was then a communist. A year earlier, in 1955, a Commission on Subversive Activities organized by the government of the Territory of Hawaii identified Davis as a member of the Communist Party USA. The committee singled out for criticism several articles Davis published in the "Communist Honolulu Record" that were critical of the commission. The commission also found objectionable a 1951 story Davis published, entitled "Hawaii's Plain People Fight White Supremacy," in the November 1951 issue of a New York City communist tabloid. The two African-American writers Obama mentions to give "Frank" some context both had communist connections as well. Langston Hughes and Richard Wright were the two African-American writers most identified with the Communist Party USA in the 1930s. Hughes, a prolific writer who was best known for his 1921 poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953 that he had been a communist sympathizer. Hughes further testified there was a period of his life when he believed in the Soviet Union's form of government and that books he authored were written to follow the communist line. Wright, best known for his 1940 novel "Native Son," was the Harlem editor of the communist newspaper Daily Worker in 1937. John Edgar Tidwell, a professor of English at the University of Kansas who produced an anthology of Davis' poems also confirms Davis joined the Communist Party. Tidwell argued Davis' radical poetry and newspaper articles "put him on a collision course" with the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI. In his autobiography, "Livin' the Blues," Davis himself tells of being pursued by the U.S. government, saying it did not bother him. Openly, he wrote, "I knew I would be described as a Communist, but frankly I had reached the stage where I didn't give a damn. Too many people I respected as Freedom Fighters were listed as Red for me to fear name calling." Davis wrote, "The genuine Communists I knew as well as others so labeled had one principle in common: to use any and every means to abolish racism." Davis said he wrote to give "the widest possible publicity to the many instances of racism and the dissatisfaction of Afro-American with the status quo." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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"RELIGION OF PEACE" ... BEHEADING BLACK CHRISTIANS IN AFRICA"
Posted by Michael Travis, October 30, 2008. |
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This comes from Debbie Schlussel's website, posted yesterday |
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Muslims persecuting, torturing, gang-raping, and murdering Black Christians in Africa is nothing new to me. My late father crusaded against this going on in Sudan for over two decades. It's a reason why there are basically almost no Christians left in Sudan. And it's also the reason, as I've noted before, that liberals — especially celebrity liberals like Oprah who refused to acknowledge Sudanese genocide against Black Christians for decades — have suddenly become vocal, in recent years, about Darfur, Sudan . . . because they care only about Black Muslims who are now being persecuted, and not the Black Christians, who were under brutal attack for decades. Here's the latest of many such "peaceful" "Religion of Peace" acts of "tolerance" 
Muslims Behead Christian Convert Mansuur Mohammed This was written by James White and it appeared October 28, 2008 on the
Alpha & Omega Ministries Apologetics Blog.
NAIROBI, Kenya, October 27 (Compass Direct News) — Among at least 24 aid workers killed in Somalia this year was one who was beheaded last month specifically for converting from Islam to Christianity, among other charges, according to an eyewitness. Why are Alpha & Omega Ministries and a couple of foreign Christian websites the only ones covering this? Well, we know why. It shows the real Islam in action. And we can't have that. Nor can we have any condemnations from CAIR, ISNA, MPAC, ADC, MAS, and the rest of the usual suspects in the halal alphabet soup of Islamic violence's apologists throughout America. All we can hear are the chorus of chirps from Jiminy Cricket and
his cousins in the newsrooms and mosques all over America.
Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com
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BEIT HASHALOM, HEBRON: DRAMATIC NEW EVIDENCE PROVING PURCHASE OF THE BUILDING
Posted by Jewish Community of Hebron, October 30, 2008. |
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View (Hebrew-Arabic) conversation of admission by Arab seller Beit HaShalom: The Hebron Jewish Community presents new dramatic evidence: An audio cassette which recorded the Arab admit he sold the building and renovated the property for the buyer. Yesterday the Supreme Court discussed Beit HaShalom in Hebron. The discussion focused on the question of purchase and possession. This, following presentation of a report authored by an expert, testifying for the community, which contradicted the state's claim concerning validity of the purchase documents. The judges stressed throughout the discussion that even if the building was legally purchased, it is still possible to issue an expulsion order because the building was still in the possession of the Arab seller, Rajbi. For example, the judge Procatzia said, "I am struck, by the evidence presented concerning the beginning of the process and the conclusion of the process, an issue concerning purchase." Possession, according to the judges, is expressed by the fact that the seller continued renovations in the building. Hebron claims that these renovations were implemented for them and paid for by them. However the judges did not accept this claim and informed them, at the conclusion of the discussion, that they would probably order that the Hebron residents be expelled from the building. The building would then remain empty until the question of ownership was decided in a Jerusalem District court. The Hebron community was given 24 hours to decide if they would agree to voluntarily leave the building. The ultimatum was due to expire at twelve noon today. However, the community surprised the Supreme Court and prosecution with new dramatic evidence: An audio cassette which documents the seller, Rajbi, in a friendly conversation with a friend, saying: 1. that he sold Beit HaShalom to Eiub Jabber and received the full amount for the building. Some quotes from the conversation on the cassette: Faiz Rajbi: (on the story of the building) ...by Allah I didn't know...
Attorney Nadav HaEtzni sent this material to the State and the court and pointed out that this new evidence should put an end to the argument focusing on the purchase, renovations and possession and should prove once and for all that we have evidence which is the admission of the seller himself. The cassette was transferred, together with the statement signed yesterday in Attorney HaEtzni's office by the person who recorded the conversation. Concurrently the material was transferred to some of the others involved in the case but not all, and to the court. In addition Attorney HaEtzni requested that the court order the identity of the signatory sealed and that any and all details concerning his identity be so sealed, for two reasons: 1. A suspicion that his life could be put in danger Of all of the versions Rajbi has given concerning the building (3 versions till now), this is the first one which was given in an open, heart-to-heart conversation with a friend, without any fear and this is the first one which is compatible with facts presented in the documents and the report of the criminal police identity squad (ignoring the twisted significances given by the prosecutor's office), this is the authentic version. According to this version, Rajbi implemented the renovations in the building for Eiub, as a representative of Eiub, and in return we received payment from him. If the act of renovation is an act of his own possession, as was expressed yesterday in court by the president of the Supreme Court Bainish, "your claim is that Mr. Rajbi held the building for you in the form of a contractor, and he claims that he renovated for himself" — this question has now been fully answered. As stated, this serves as admission by the person in question, and this should serve to finalize the entire case. So writes Attorney HaEtzni to the State attorney, "and in conclusion, in light of the above findings, you are hereby requested to express your agreement to halt the clarifications of the petition under your consideration, until a renewed investigation and a determination of your position concerning this order, as a result of the new admission by Rajbi."
You can contribute directly in Israel to The Jewish Community of
Hebron, POB105, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, email: hebron@hebron.org.il
or phone: 972-52-431-7055. In USA, write to The Hebron Fund, 1760
Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, email: hebronfund@aol.com or phone:
718 677 6886.
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OBAMA AT KHALIDI BASH: ISRAELIS COMMIT "GENOCIDE", HAVE "NO GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO OCCUPY PALESTINE"
Posted by Chuck Brooks, October 30, 2008. |
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This comes from Israel Insider
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Award-winning blogger Doug Ross reports that a reliable source has provided an eyewitness account of what he saw on the videotape of the Rashid Khalidi farewell bash that the LA Times is suppressing. The paper used the tape as the basis for its watered-down story about the event and has been suppressing ever since, despite massive appeals — including an official request by the McCain campaign — to release indisputably newsworthy evidence that could inform voters about where Barack Hussein Obama really stands. The eyewitness source, who Ross calls "a person who has provided useful, accurate and unique data from LA before" writes: Saw a clip from the tape. Reason we can't release it is because statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying "Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine" plus there's been "genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis." The eyewitness' use of the word "we" suggests that he is a Times staffer. In a separate development, a European financier, cited by the Atlas Shrugs blog, has offered a $150,000 reward for provision of the tape. After four days of hemming and hawing, and trying out other excuses for the suppression, the LA Times' editor Russ Stanton came up with the following "reason": "The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it." Ross retorts: "How frickin' stupid do they think we are?" Someone gave the Times a videotape so it wouldn't be released? And they can't publish a transcript?" Now we may know why not. At the very least, the leak of the quotes may compel the paper to release a transcript, or the Obama campaign to confirm or deny their veracity. Contact Chuck Brooks at chetz18@aol.com |
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SHAPES 'N THINGS
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, October 30, 2008. |
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EHUD BARAK: SOFT ON TERROR — TOUGH ON JEWS
Posted by Moshe Feiglin, October 30, 2008. |
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Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated this week that he will use an "iron hand" to destroy the settlers of Judea and Samaria. (Since Jews have settled the entire state of Israel, it stands to reason that Barak is using his "iron hand" against the entire nation.) Barak's disgraceful statement stands in stark contrast to the words of the great Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky who stated that the Jews must build an "iron wall" to defend themselves from the Arab enemy. In Jabotinsky's time, even the leftist, socialist anti-Jewish predecessors to Barak, Olmert, Livni, et al. cared about the Land of Israel. David Ben-Gurion went so far as to say that "no Jew has the right to give away any of the Land of Israel". While the successors to Jabotinsky remain true to our Land, the successors to Ben-Gurion only remain true to keeping their stranglehold on the levers of power. The Jews who live in Judea and Samaria are the most patriotic and nationalistic sector of the entire nation, and they are well over-represented in the Israel Defense Forces. Their simple existence in these areas that were won in the 67 War protects the lives of the rest of the Israelis, as they provide a human shield in front of the enemy. However, Barak, Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni, et al wish to evict 100,000 of these great Jews from their homes and hand our biblical heartland over to the Arab enemy. Barak's wish is to move Israel back to what the dovish Abba Eban called "Israel's Auschwitz borders". So now we are faced with a renewed campaign to systematically demonize those Jews who remain loyal to G-d, the Land of Israel and their fellow Jews. If the Israeli leaders can successfully show those Jews who they condescendingly call "settlers" to be the cause of all of Israel's problems, then — it is reasoned — it will be easier to destroy their communities and evict them from their homes in Judea and Samaria. Defense Minister Ehud Barak implied this week that most Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are dangerous to the state when he said that "not all Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are a threat to law and order." He also advocated using an undemocratic pre-state British law which calls for "administrative detention" against settlers who protest the destruction of their houses. Administrative detention means that a person is jailed indefinitely without hearing any charges against them, and without being able to defend themselves. While Barak is tough on Jews, he's soft on terror. As Prime Minister he was a complete failure. In 2000, Barak ordered the IDF to hurriedly retreat from Southern Lebanon. Since then, PLO and Hamas leaders look at the Barak "unilateral retreat" as the example of what "prizes" they can get from Israel for staying steadfast in their opposition to accepting any Israeli sovereignty. Barak then offered Arafat almost all of Judea and Samaria, parts of Jerusalem, and even control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — Judaism's holiest site. A few months later, in September of 2000, Arafat turned down the offer, and commenced the new intifada with the goal of Israeli retreat from Judea and Samaria without conditions, just as Israel had left Lebanon without conditions. This war left almost 1,500 Jews dead, and thousands more maimed. As described by Moshe Feiglin, the real war in Israel is being fought between the Ehud Baraks (who consider themselves "Israelis") and the people who consider their primary identity to be Jewish. Sadly, many Jews in Israel are unaware that this is even a war and that contrary to what they are lead to believe by the Baraks, "peace" with the Arabs will only lead to more catastrophe instead of preventing their children from dying. Barak's war is much more deadly as it not only empowers the Arab enemy, but it leads to the loss of belief in the justice of our cause on the part of many Jews in Israel and worldwide. Ariel Sharon destroyed 25 Jewish towns in 2005, Ehud Olmert ordered the brutal beating of 325 Jews in Amona the next year, and now Barak destroyed the Federman home in Hebron this week. These and countless other examples show the true goals of the Israeli leadership — namely to rid Israel of its Jewish connection. In order to achieve this, The Israeli government has also been an active partner to the Arab enemies' attempts to destroy the roots of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. In an attempt to rewrite history and remove its own Jewish heritage, Israel allowed the Arabs to build a new mosque on the Temple Mount. Additionally, the Israeli government still refuses to allow Jews to pray there. Last week a Jew — Rabbi Yehuda Glick was even arrested because the police simply thought he was going to pray. Without a past, a people has no future. It is one of the saddest stories in all of humanity that the leaders of the Jewish people are actively trying to destroy our own unique, amazing and holy history. 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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ACORN 'SHOCK TROOPS' TIED TO ELECTION CRIMES. FACING FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 30, 2008. |
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This was written by Bob Unruh and it appeared today in World
Net Daily
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Facing fraud investigations, prosecutions, over aggressive 'voter registration' drives 
Acorn "shock troops" have been linked to or convicted of perjury, forgery, identity theft and election fraud in recent years, and now are facing investigation for alleged violations of federal election law in 12 states, according to a new report from Matthew Vadum, a senior editor for the Capital Research Center. Vadum, whose work with the Research Center includes studies of non-profit organizations, has released a report titled, "ACORN: Who Funds the Weather Underground's Little Brother?" documenting the troubled past and current problems facing the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The organization for which Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama at one point trained activists and to which he directed grants while aboard the management of the Woods Fund has established a reputation for doing pretty much as it pleases, the report said. "In 1995, ACORN sued the state of California seeking an exemption from the law that requires that it pay its own employees a minimum wage. ACORN, which argued that keeping its employees in poverty helps to boost their zeal to help the poor, lost," according to the report. The group, described by one critic as a "hydra" for its many interconnected boards, foundations, groups and organizations, essentially has created its own economy, with the tens of millions of dollars that are donated by foundations or paid by the government being directed to whatever cause or course of action ACORN officials deem worthy, the report said. The "30-year-old radical left-wing activist group" has taken in a minimum of $126.4 million in donations and tax dollars since 1993, the report said. That has been used for its manifesto, which states: "Enough is enough. We will wait no longer for the crumbs at America's door. We will not be meek, but mighty. We will not starve on past promises, but feast on future dreams," Vadum wrote. While the election 2008 controversies over electoral fraud efforts "have been indelibly imprinted in the public consciousness," Vadum said, that work is only a "smidgen of what ACORN actually does." This year, it boasted of registering 1.3 million new voters but had to backtrack and admit only a few hundred thousand registrations actually were valid. Some of the other "activities" cited by Vadum: * Having 500 activists storm the Washington Hilton and forcing then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich to cancel a speech. The report also cited ACORN's refusal to follow basic civil rights laws or pay required taxes. "Even though it supports the continued imposition of equal employment opportunity laws on the rest of America, it argued it shouldn't have to comply with those same laws. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had to sue ACORN to force it [to] comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," the report said. "Ironically, ACORN and its affiliates, all reliable cheerleaders for higher taxes, are longtime tax deadbeats. A search of public records found more than 200 federal, state, and local tax liens adding up to more than $3.7 million that are associated with groups that share ACORN's address on Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans," the report continued. According to the report, John Fund, a vote fraud expert, attributes ACORN's rising level of aggressiveness to its "desperation." "He argues that ACORN had to join with unions and other left-wing groups in an all-out push for an Obama victory in the hope that the scandals would all get swept under the rug," the report said. There also have been racketeering allegations about ACORN, officials said. "ACORN officials 'bill themselves as nonpartisan community organizers merely interested in giving a voice to minorities and the poor,' notes the Wall Street Journal, but that façade is fading fast," Vadum said. "In reality, the organization is 'a union-backed, multimillion-dollar outfit that uses intimidation and other tactics' to advance a 'highly partisan agenda.' Its community organizers 'are best understood as shock troops of the AFL-CIO and even the Democratic Party,'" he said. ACORN has become an issue in the 2008 presidential race because of Obama's ties to the group as well as its own admission that more than 400,000 of the 1.3 million voter registrations it claims to have collected were not valid. Obama has been trying to disassociate himself from the group. "The only involvement I've had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs," Obama declared in one of the presidential debates. "Now, with respect to ACORN, ACORN is a community organization. Apparently what they've done is they were paying people to go out and register folks, and apparently some of the people who were out there didn't really register people, they just filled out a bunch of names," Obama said. But Obama's 1995 suit on behalf of ACORN, in which the state of Illinois was compelled to implement the federal "motor-voter" bill, was just a sampling of Obama's association. Among other involvements, Obama trained ACORN activists and while working on the board of the Woods Fund, channeled millions of dollars to ACORN. Vadum told WND ACORN had a major role in the meltdown of the stock market by lobbying for programs to loan massive amounts of money for questionable mortgages to people who probably never had the resources to repay the loans. "It is also implicated in vote fraud schemes from coast to coast," his report added. "With an FBI probe under way, millions of dollars in back taxes owing, and a racketeering lawsuit pending, it may finally have to answer for its many misdeeds," he wrote. 
Of course, with a friend in the White House, answering for misdeeds could be easier. According to the report, during the primary season, the Obama campaign paid $832,598 to an ACORN affiliate for get-out-the-vote activities, and Obama has said, "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drives in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it." A WND call to ACORN offices in Louisiana was referred to a "spokesman" at another office, who did not return a WND message left there. Obama also has promised to consult with ACORN even before taking office to establish priorities. In an address only a year ago, he told an ACORN forum that, "Before I even get inaugurated, during the transition, we're going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda. We're going to be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America." Vadum said the activities also represent the organization's foundations. He cites the socialist New Party, "which served as ACORN's electoral arm, endorsed Obama, who was one of its members, when he ran for the Illinois state senate in the mid-1990s." But he said ACORN's foundations can be traced to the 1962 Port Huron Statement, "a manifesto of radical students disillusioned with America." The statement was written largely by famed anti-war activist Tom Hayden, who claimed America was "hopelessly racist, militaristic, and soulless," The result was the formation of the Students for a Democratic Society, perhaps the pre-eminent group in the New Left movement in the 1960s, a group that later broke apart. One faction became the Weathermen Underground, for which Obama's friend Bill Ayers was a leader. Another leader was Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn. They were described by Vadum as "would-be mass murderers ... who would later become members of the faculties of, respectively, the University of Illinois, Chicago and the Northwestern University School of Law." In recent interviews, Ayers has shown no regret for his active radical days when he participated in several bombings, saying he only wished he could have done more. Another faction, which rejected terrorist violence, was led by Wade Rathke, who had worked as a draft resistance organizer for SDS. He believed, according to Vadum, in "welfare rights" and in 1970 founded ACORN to carry out his agenda of attacking society through ever-increasing burdens on its social systems. Not only did Ayers host a fundraiser in 1995 to launch Obama's political career, Hayden also has endorsed Obama, as have other former SDS members, including Michael and Susan Klonsky, Fred Klonsky, Carl Davidson and Marilyn Katz. Vadum told WND that the organization simply does what it wants, even to the point of ignoring ordinary laws that are binding on the rest of America. Wade Rathke, the report explained, "failed to notify policed when
he discovered in 2000 that his brother Dale, ACORN's chief financial
officer, had embezzled $948,000 from the group. Instead, Wade Rathke
engineered a cover-up for his brother and allowed him to leave the
payroll of Citizens Consulting Inc., the ACORN affiliate that handles
its financial affairs, and go to work as his $38,000 a year
'assistant' at ACORN headquarters. The missing money was disguised as
a loan to an officer of the ledgers of Citizens Consulting."
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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POLICE RELEASE SETTLER WHO INCITED AGAINST SOLDIERS
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 30. 2008. |
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"Settler who said he hopes soldiers get harmed arrested:"
See below. The article was written by Efrat Weiss
and it appeared in Ynet News
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3615353,00.html The number of Arab leaders and Jewish leftists who have been arrested for cheering terrorist atrocities against Jews and suicide bombings remains zero! |
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Shmuel Ben-Yishai released under court restrictions after police complete interrogation. Qiryat Arba resident arrested for saying he wished IDF troops 'kidnapped, slaughtered' following evacuation of illegal Hebron outpost 
The police decided to release Qiryat Arba settler Shmuel Ben-Yishai from custody on Thursday afternoon, after completing his interrogation. Ben-Yishai was arrested earlier in the day for inciting against IDF soldiers following Saturday night's evacuation of an illegal outpost in the West Bank city of Hebron. He was released to his home under court restrictions. Ben-Yishai told Army Radio after security forces cleared and then demolished the home of extreme right-wing activist Noam Federman "we hope they (soldiers) are defeated by their enemies, we hope that they all become (kidnapped soldier) Gilad Shalit, that they are all killed and that they are all slaughtered, because that's what they deserve." Ben-Yishai was summoned by police for an interrogation on Tuesday and Wednesday, but he failed to appear on both dates. Consequently, police asked the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court to issue a warrant for his arrest. A few days after making the inflammatory remarks, Ben-Yishai said his outburst was aimed only at security personnel who participated in the evacuation. In a statement published Monday the settler said, "Upon witnessing the brutality of the police officers during the evacuation, the abuse of the Federman family's women and children while the police offices were gloating, I was overcome with emotions, it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. "I do not have to explain what a person feels when he sees soldiers and police officers snatching babies away from his friend's mother and throwing a family out of its home," the statement read.
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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BUSH SINKS ETHICALLY; OLMERT IS TRUTH-CHALLENGED; THE UNDEMOCRATIC LEFT; ISRAEL'S RULING CLASS ANTI-SETTLER BIAS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 30, 2008. |
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BUSH SINKS ETHICALLY Abbas visited Pres. Bush. Bush welcomed him as "my friend." (IMRA, 9/28.) Abbas is a lifelong terrorist, who still praises terrorists and whose propaganda is antisemitic and anti-US. But he is the stand-in for getting Israel to emasculate itself territorially and culturally in behalf of the common Muslim Arab enemy and so Bush can pretend that he attained something worthwhile when a phony peace treaty of appeasement is signed. WHAT OLMERT IS TRYING TO GIVE AWAY MK Netanyahu said that PM Olmert is trying to give away as much land to the enemy as possible. This includes areas of significance to Israel historically and for security. He even wants to cede areas of insignificant Arab presence. I think that includes the Jordan Valley. The last give-away was the abandonment of Gaza. Iran's proxies took it over. Whatever land Israel gives away would come under Iranian influence or control. Netanyahu learned that; Olmert has not. Netanyahu challenged the notion that existing Arab towns may develop in Judea-Samaria but Jewish ones may not. If he becomes Prime Minister, he said, he would resume settlement activity. He made a deal giving the P.A. some control in Hebron, but did not cause any Jews to be dispossessed. However, he is allowing prominent leftists into Likud. "Peace is made with an enemy," he said... but he must stop being your enemy — and even then, the negotiations must be handled with firmness. Today we have no partner who will obligate himself to take action. The other side must recognize not only Israel's existence, but also our right to exist, and must impose this recognition on his countrymen. These conditions do not currently exist..." (Arutz- 7 & IMRA, 9/29). ANOTHER FALSE DISTINCTION A false distinction used to be made between the military and the political wings of Hamas. That distinction implied that we could hope for a resolution, that not all the Hamas terrorists were the same. Now a false distinction is being made between the military and political wings of Fatah. This implies that we can make peace with the military wing, if the politicians don't launch another Intifada, as they are considering doing. If they did, the military wing would join them (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 9/29). INTERVIEWING OLMERT Yediot Ahronot interviewed PM Olmert more like cheerleaders than like reporters. They asked no challenging follow-up questions. Neither did they ask him about the corruption charge of triple-charging charities for the same expense. Do you think that these statements of his should have been left without challenge? He said, We must reach an agreement to withdraw from almost all of the Territories. [Why?] He admits he doesn't know what will happen in the P.A.. He doesn't believe in taking drastic risks, only risks that can bring dramatic change. [Since the Arabs haven't changed before the concessions, why should they after getting them?] He claims that reserve generals who criticize him haven't learned that controlling territory is useless, the real danger is from missiles, whose range keeps increasing. [Then get the terrorists out of the Territories and out of southern Lebanon, if not get the Arabs out of the Territories.] Israel doesn't know better than the big powers how to handle Iran, and Israel should leave the problem of Iran up to the international system. [The international system is not handling Iran. The lesson of the Holocaust is that the Jews must defend themselves.] The Lebanon war showed that classical military warfare no longer exists. More Israeli troops would have produced more Israeli casualties without different results. [He didn't let the IDF fight in the classical way. With the powerful effort that the IDF wanted, and sufficient time, Israel could have destroyed Hizbullah, freed Lebanon, and not sign a ceasefire that left border security up to a proven misfit, UNIFIL (IMRA, 9/29). Do Israel's rulers do anything that rebuts Barry Chamish's theory that they want to get Israel destroyed? ATTORNEY-GENERAL TRIES TO SLOW REGIME DOWN Attorney-General Mazuz said that PM Olmert's resignation has turned his regime into an interim government. Therefore, it should not be deciding major issues without consulting him, it should act just as a caretaker (IMRA, 9/29). Why him? Foreign Min. Livni, now head of Kadima, said she is continuing fateful negotiations. She is not pulling back. AS ISRAELI DEMOCRACY FALLS, VIOLENCE RISES? Evelyn Gordon claims that a growing minority of settlers are attacking soldiers and Arabs regularly, now. She this this is because the Left does not follow the rules of democracy and subverts popular mandates. She cites these examples of repression, none of the alleged attacks: Rabin won election by promising no negotiations, but signed Oslo in 1993. Terrorism soared, so people lobbied MKs to defeat Rabin and Oslo 2 in 1995, but Rabin illegally bought two MKs, enough to pass Oslo 2, and then got the bought majority to authorize his illegal means. Leftist MKs, journalists, academics approve overwhelmingly his conniving. A month later, violence was directed at Rabin. [It was by the Left, one of its dirty tricks Gordon forgot to mention.] Barak won in 1999, promising withdrawals, and withdrew from Lebanon [so precipitously as to put Israel into its present strategic disadvantage]. [He did not promise withdrawals. He promised security and mentioned withdrawals in such a muted way as not to impinge on people's consciousness.] Hence there was no violence. The Knesset forced new elections, which his party lost. [The election was won by Netanyahu, who promised security, but who used some obscure or ambiguous language that allowed for concessions. When he granted concessions, and his supporters were dismayed, he pointed to that deceptive language.] Promising not to withdraw, Sharon won election by a landslide. Within a year, he adopted withdrawal. As a concession, he did promise to abide by a party referendum on the proposal. He lost 60:40. He ignored his promise. He refused to hold a national referendum [after having promised that, too]. The Right protested by blocking roads. This is illegal, but when unions [and students] did it, punishment was mild. When the Right did it, police arrested many of them and jailed them for a long time. The Right has learned that the Left does not follow the rules of democracy. It may as well become violent. The Left must restore a fair political culture and put in a law requiring a big majority to alienate territory (IMRA, 9/29). The Left always has been violent and undemocratic. Israel is not a democracy. Its rulers have a defeatist, psychotic ideology. They are striving now to recycle the MKs with whom the people are disillusioned, to avoid another election. The Left almost monopolizes the media. Likud and Shas really are leftist. The Left is plotting withdrawals sure to bring a holocaust. Violence may not be efficacious, but it is not unethical. HOW TO END "HONOR KILLING" IN MUSLIM STATES If Muslims stopped thinking of derived principles of Islam as divine but saw them as fallible human deductions, they might perceive and end the horror of "honor killings" (MEFNews, 9/29). The brief's original wording was confused. Relatives "honor"-murder "loved ones," without evidence, even for minor "sins." They think differently from us. Our policy makers ought to study that. CAR BOMBING INVESTIGATED IN SYRIA Syria traced the suicide bomber to a terrorist organization and his car's entry via a "neighboring" Arab state (IMRA, 9/29). Syria can run and publicize a professional criminal investigation? Usually it just blamed Israel for intra-Muslim violence. THE ARABS ADMIT MEDIA BIAS P.A. Journalists were polled about their media's reporting on the Fatah-Hamas conflict. Most of them thought that their media is largely biased (IMRA, 9/29). Well of course they are biased. Their media is totalitarian and factional. What's the NY Times excuse? What would the Arab journalists admit their media is biased on jihad? ISRAELI RULING CLASS BIAS It happened again. An Arab shepherd was killed violently in the P.A.. Israel's ruling elite did not wait for an investigation. It immediately accused "settlers." Unnamed settlers, of whom there are hundreds of thousands. Then the leftist media, politicians, and academicians tried to link his death to the pipe bomb attack on Prof. Sternhell by an unknown assailant, whom they also assume to be right wing, even though Sternhell had enemies elsewhere [and the government plays dirty tricks in order to bring out leftist prejudice against the Right]. By accusing settlers, the fools enabled world public opinion to think less of Israel as a whole. No matter, they dislike Israel, too. They will do anything to defame the settlers, who thwart the Left's ideology of appeasement. They think that if they make concessionss to Islamo-fascists, the Islamo-fascists will be nice back to them. Guess they never heard of the Holocaust.] An autopsy was made. The shepherd had picked up a stray grenade. It exploded. No crime, no criminals. Just defamation. I'm waiting for the Left's apology. Usually the Left does not apologize. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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ARCHEOLOGISTS FIND HEBREW TEXT IN ANCIENT TOWN
Posted by Avodah, October 30, 2008. |
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This comes from the International Herald Tribune
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An Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, a find that could provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at the time of the Bible. The five lines of faded characters written 3,000 years ago, and the ruins of the fortified settlement where they were found, are indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed at the time of the Old Testament's King David, says Yossi Garfinkel, the Hebrew University archaeologist in charge of the new dig at Hirbet Qeiyafa. Other scholars are hesitant to embrace Garfinkel's interpretation of the finds, made public on Thursday. The discoveries are already being wielded in a vigorous and ongoing argument over whether the Bible's account of events and geography is meant to be taken literally. Hirbet Qeiyafa sits near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean foothills, an area that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines. The site overlooks the Elah Valley, said to be the scene of the slingshot showdown between David and the Philistine giant Goliath, and lies near the ruins of Goliath's hometown in the Philistine metropolis of Gath. A teenage volunteer found the curved pottery shard, 6 inches by 6 inches (15 centimeters by 15 centimeters), in July near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home. It was later discovered to bear five lines of characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet. Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site dated them to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of David's rule in Jerusalem. Scholars have identified other, smaller Hebrew fragments from the 10th century B.C., but the script, which Garfinkel suggests might be part of a letter, predates the next significant Hebrew inscription by between 100 and 200 years. History's best-known Hebrew texts, the Dead Sea scrolls, were penned on parchment beginning 850 years later. The shard is now kept in a university safe while philologists translate it, a task expected to take months. But several words have already been tentatively identified, including ones meaning "judge," "slave" and "king." The Israelites were not the only ones using proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult — perhaps impossible — to conclude the text is Hebrew and not a related tongue spoken in the area at the time. Garfinkel bases his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning "to do," a word he said existed only in Hebrew. "That leads us to believe that this is Hebrew, and that this is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found," he said. Other prominent Biblical archaeologists warned against jumping to conclusions. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription was "very important," as it is the longest proto-Canaanite text ever found. But he suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. "It's proto-Canaanite," he said. "The differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear." Some scholars and archeologists argue that the Bible's account of David's time inflates his importance and that of his kingdom, and is essentially myth, perhaps rooted in a shred of fact. But if Garfinkel's claim is borne out, it would bolster the case for the Bible's accuracy by indicating the Israelites could record events as they happened, transmitting the history that was later written down in the Old Testament several hundred years later. It also would mean that the settlement — a fortified town with a 30-foot-wide (10-meter-wide) monumental gate, a central fortress and a wall running 770 yards (700 meters) in circumference — was probably inhabited by Israelites. The finds have not yet established who the residents were, says Aren Maier, a Bar Ilan University archaeologist who is digging at nearby Gath. It will become more clear if, for example, evidence of the local diet is found, he said: Excavations have shown that Philistines ate dogs and pigs, while Israelites did not. The nature of the ceramic shards found at the site suggest residents might have been neither Israelites nor Philistines but members of a third, forgotten people, he said. If the inscription is Hebrew, it would indicate a connection to the Israelites and make the text "one of the most important texts, without a doubt, in the corpus of Hebrew inscriptions," Maier said. But it has great importance whatever the language turns out to be, he added. Saar Ganor, an Israel Antiquities Authority ranger, noticed the unusual scale of the walls while patrolling the area in 2003. Three years later he interested Garfinkel, and after a preliminary dig they began work in earnest this summer. They have excavated only 4 percent of the six-acre settlement so far. Archaeology has turned up only scant finds from David's time in the early 10th century B.C., leading some scholars to suggest his kingdom may have been little more than a small chiefdom or that he might not have existed at all. Garfinkel believes building fortifications like those at Hirbet Qeiyafa could not have been a local initiative: The walls would have required moving 200,000 tons of stone, a task too big for the 500 or so people who lived there. Instead, it would have required an organized kingdom like the one the Bible says David ruled. Modern Zionism has traditionally seen archaeology as a way of strengthening the Jewish claim to Israel and regarded David's kingdom as the glorious ancestor of the new Jewish state. So finding evidence of his rule has importance beyond its interest to scholars. The dig is partially funded by Foundation Stone, a Jewish educational organization, which hopes to bring volunteers to work there as a way of teaching them a national and historical lesson. "When I stand here, I understand that I'm on the front lines of the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines," said Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan, the group's director. "I open my Bible and read about David and Goliath, and I understand that I'm in the Biblical context." While the site could be useful to scholars, archaeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University urged adhering to the strict boundaries of science. Finkelstein, who has not visited the dig but attended a presentation of the findings, warned against what he said was a "revival in the belief that what's written in the Bible is accurate like a newspaper." That style of archaeology was favored by 19th century European diggers who trolled the Holy Land for physical traces of Biblical stories, their motivation and methods more romantic than scientific. "This can be seen as part of this phenomenon," Finkelstein said. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website:
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MCCAIN GAVE FUNDS TO GROUP CO-FOUNDED BY KHALIDI
Posted by M. Sliwa Public Relations, October 30, 2008. |
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This was written by Aaron Klein and it appeared in WorldNetDaily http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=79441 |
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But this organization is pro-Western, while Obama supported the professor's anti-Israel efforts JERUSALEM — Sen. John McCain chaired an organization that granted substantial funding to a Palestinian research group co-chaired by Mideast professor Rashid Khalidi, a harsh critic of Israel and apologist for Palestinian terror. The report — first carried by the Huffington Post website — comes amid harsh criticism from McCain's campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for his personal and financial ties to Khalidi. The website documented how in the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several documented grants, including one worth about half a million dollars, to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, or CPRS, a West Bank organization associated with Khalidi. Unreported by the Huffington Post is that the CPRS, with which Khalidi was for a time moderately involved, is pro-Western and can be characterized as pro-Israel. Its work has been condemned by the Palestinian leadership and by local terror groups as "Zionist propaganda." In contrast, the Khalidi organization Obama helped fund as a board member for a nonprofit, alongside domestic terrorist William Ayers, has taken a flagrantly anti-Israel line. Khalidi's Arab American Action Network has hosted scores of Israel-bashing events, including at least one reportedly attended by Obama. JERUSALEM — Sen. John McCain chaired an organization that granted substantial funding to a Palestinian research group co-chaired by Mideast professor Rashid Khalidi, a harsh critic of Israel and apologist for Palestinian terror. The report — first carried by the Huffington Post website — comes amid harsh criticism from McCain's campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for his personal and financial ties to Khalidi. The website documented how in the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several documented grants, including one worth about half a million dollars, to the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, or CPRS, a West Bank organization associated with Khalidi. Unreported by the Huffington Post is that the CPRS, with which Khalidi was for a time moderately involved, is pro-Western and can be characterized as pro-Israel. Its work has been condemned by the Palestinian leadership and by local terror groups as "Zionist propaganda." In contrast, the Khalidi organization Obama helped fund as a board member for a nonprofit, alongside domestic terrorist William Ayers, has taken a flagrantly anti-Israel line. Khalidi's Arab American Action Network has hosted scores of Israel-bashing events, including at least one reportedly attended by Obama. A 1998 tax filing published by the Huffington Post found the McCain-led IRI group granted $448,873 to the CPRS. Also in 1993, seven months after McCain became IRI's chairman, his group funded several extensive CPRS studies, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes." The CPRS, which bills itself as an independent Palestinian think tank, was founded in 1993 by seven Palestinian activists, including Khalidi and Khalil Shakaki, who for a time was a visiting professor at several U.S. universities. Khalidi several years later terminated his involvement with the organization while Shakaki became CPRS chairman. The group has conducted scores of polls that drew the ire of the Palestinian leadership, including in 1993 when it was tasked by McCain's group. One 1993 poll reviewed by WND showed most Palestinians were not fully confident in the fairness of elections that then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had pledged to hold. Another 1993 survey found most Palestinians wanted independent Arafat opposition groups to have more ability to freely express themselves. A number of other polls showed the Palestinians were unhappy with their leaders. A particularly dramatic recent poll that contradicted years of Palestinian claims showed the vast majority of Arabs living in so-called refugee camps would accept compensation instead of "returning" to Israel. This issue is particularly visceral since the Khalidi organization funded by Obama's nonprofit took the opposition position. While Obama served on the Woods Fund with Ayers, the group in 2001 provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002. The AAAN, headquartered in the heart of Chicago's Palestinian immigrant community, describes itself as working to "empower Chicago-area Arab immigrants and Arab Americans through the combined strategies of community organizing, advocacy, education and social services, leadership development, and forging productive relationships with other communities." The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit, titled "The Subject of Palestine," that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948. According to the widely discredited Nakba narrative, Jews in 1948 forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands — some Palestinians claim over 1 million — Arabs from their homes and then took over the territory. Historically, about 600,000 Arabs fled Israel after surrounding Arab countries warned they would destroy the Jewish state in 1948. Some Arabs also were driven out by Jewish forces while they were trying to push back invading Arab armies. At the same time, over 800,000 Jews were expelled or left Arab countries under threat after Israel was founded. The theme of AAAN's Nakba art exhibit, held at DePaul University in 2005, was "the compelling and continuing tragedy of Palestinian life ... under [Israeli] occupation ... home demolition ... statelessness ... bereavement ... martyrdom, and ... the heroic struggle for life, for safety, and for freedom." Another AAAN initiative, titled, "Al Nakba 1948 as experienced by Chicago Palestinians," seeks documents related to the "catastrophe" of Israel's founding. A post on the AAAN site asked users: "Do you have photos, letters or other memories you could share about Al-Nakba-1948?" That posting was recently removed. The AAAN website currently states the entire site is under construction. The AAAN reportedly sponsored a farewell dinner for Khalidi in 2003, when he was leaving his post at the University of Chicago for a new teaching position at Columbia University. Obama attended the event and reportedly offered a glowing testimonial for Khalidi amid multiple anti-Israel speeches. An article last April in the Los Angeles Times documents how at the Khalidi farewell dinner one young Palestinian American recited a poem in Obama's presence that accused the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticized U.S. support of Israel. Another speaker, who reportedly talked while Obama was present, compared "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, the Times reported. Obama himself said his talks with the Khalidis served as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. ... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world." In the piece, the L.A. Times reported it obtained a copy a videotape of the dinner, but it has refused to release the video, stating it was obtained by a source who asked that it not be made public. McCain's campaign had accused the Times of intentionally suppressing the video. "A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb. Obama and Khalidi closely tied Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel. He has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group. During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a destructive "racist" state. He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings a response to "Israeli aggression." He dedicated his 1986 book, "Under Siege," to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon." Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism. While McCain's known association with Khalidi apparently is limited to helping fund the CPRC, Obama has close ties to the professor. According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003, while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004. Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi. Speaking in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor radio show, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama. "I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician," Khalidi stated. Khalidi said he supports Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause." Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians." In 2001 and 2002 the Woods Fund provided the grants to Khalidi's wife's anti-Israel group. Obama borrowed phrase from Khalidi? In May, WND noted Obama termed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a "constant sore" in an interview just five days after Khalidi wrote an opinion piece in the Nation magazine in which he called the "Palestinian question" a "running sore." In his piece, "Palestine: Liberation Deferred," Khalidi suggests Israel carried out "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians; writes Western powers backed Israel's establishment due to guilt of the Holocaust; laments the Palestinian Authority's stated acceptance of a Palestinian state "only" in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem; and argues Israel should be dissolved and instead a bi-national, cantonal system should be set up in which Jews and Arabs reside. Contact M. Sliwa Public Relations at media@msliwa.com |
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A POEM ON THE OCCASION OF THE RETIREMENT OF YOSSI BEILIN FROM POLITICS
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 29, 2008. |
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In honor of the retirement of Yossi Beilin from treason, er, I mean, from his political career, I thought the time apt for reprinting this: |
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THE BRAT WITH NO HAT
The sun did not shine. 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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ORATORY — OR HYPNOTIC INDUCTION?
Posted by Avodah, October 29, 2008. |
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This is an article that was published October 25, 2008 by the Association of
American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc., A Voice for Private Physicians
Since 1943 |
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Is Barack Obama a brilliant orator, captivating millions through his eloquence? Or is he deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis developed by Milton Erickson, M.D.? A fundamental tool of "conversational hypnosis" is pacing and leading — a way for the hypnotist to bypass the listener's critical faculty by associating repeated statements that are unquestionably accurate with the message he wants to convey. In his Denver acceptance speech, Obama used the phrases "that's why I stand here tonight," "now is the time," and "this moment" 14 times. Paces are connected to the lead by words such as "and," "as," "because," or "that is why." For example, "we need change" (who could disagree?)...and...that is why I will be your next President." Techniques of trance induction include extra slow speech, rhythm, tonalities, vagueness, visual imagery, metaphor, and raising of emotion. Hypnotists often have patients count. In a speech after the primaries closed, Obama said: "Sixteen months have passed (paused)...Thousands (pause) of miles...(pause)...Millions of voices...." Hypnotists call this a distraction technique: sending the dominant hemisphere on an assignment involving linguistic processes, thus opening the nondominant hemisphere to suggestion. Hand gestures can be used as hypnotic anchors, or to aid in hypnotic command implantation. They can be difficult to distinguish from innocent gestures used for emphasis. Obama, however, uses some gestures extraordinarily often and for very specific words such as "believe" and "chose." His characteristic thumb-and-forefinger gesture looks like a hand holding a pencil — as if you were in a voting booth. The gesture of pointing sends the subconscious message that a person in authority is giving a command. Obama actually said at one time: "a light will shine down from somewhere, it will light upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will say to yourself, 'I have to vote for Barack.'" You will not choose to vote for Barack: you will "have to." It is not a logical choice, but rather one directed by a mystical (subconscious) force. What purpose would a politician have for making such a statement? Obama used it only once. Perhaps he stopped either because he realized it was too obvious or because Hillary Clinton and John McCain ridiculed him for it. Obama's logo is noteworthy. It is always there, a small one in the middle of the podium, providing a point of visual fixation. Unlike other presidential logos, one looks through it, not at it. It might just be the letter "O," but it also resembles a crystal ball, a favorite of hypnotists. Obama is clearly having a powerful effect on people, especially young people and highly educated people—both considered to be especially susceptible to hypnosis. It is also interesting that many Jews are supporting a candidate who is endorsed by Hamas, Farakhan, Khalidi, and Iran. While some believe that hypnosis is not real, others believe that it is very powerful, and very dangerous in the wrong hands. Dr. Erickson, father of modern hypnosis, was adamant that his techniques should only be used by physicians. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Leyra v. Denno that a confession obtained using hypnosis could not be used against the suspect in court. A 66-page, extensively footnoted but unsigned article "An
Examination of Obama's Use of Hidden Hypnosis Techniques in His
Speeches" is available at:
The discussion should have broad applicability in analyzing political speech in general. Comments by those with knowledge of hypnotic techniques are especially welcome. Additional information: * Is Obama Constitutionally qualified to serve as President? Interview with Democratic lawyer Philip J. Berg, who has filed a lawsuit claiming that Obama is not a natural born citizen. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website:
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FROM ISRAEL: DOES THIS MATTER?
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 29, 2008. |
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To me it matters a lot: It's being reported that French president Nicholas Sarkozy thinks Obama's position on Iran is "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content." Sarkozy hasn't said so publicly, only in closed forum, but as these things go, his words have been carried and are being reported here in Israel, notably by Haaretz. Sarkozy is no right-winger, and the fact that he's this disturbed carries weight. At least in private forum, if reports are accurate, he's mincing no words. This ought, at very least, to give serious pause. According to the senior Israeli source cited by Haaretz,
Sarkozy fears that Obama might "arrogantly" ignore the other members
of [the united front against Iran] and open a direct dialogue with
Iran without preconditions. Sarkozy met with Obama in July and
expressed disappointment that Obama's policies on Iran were "not
crystallized, and therefore many issues remain open." Apparently
Sarkozy advisors who participated in meetings came away with the same
impression.
(I will add here, by the way, that Haaretz is a far left paper, undoubtedly with an Obama tilt, and would never carry something like this for anti-Obama propaganda value.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Some foolish policies can be rectified after the fact. A tax plan isn't working? It's possible to present a new tax plan. But where Iran is concerned, there may be no way to rectify a bad move, and that bad move might be disastrous. It thus seems to me essential to be confident that Obama's got what it takes before voting him into office. I confess readily enough on a person level that my concern about this is keeping me up at night. If this information about Sarkozy also puts knots of fear in your stomach, share his words with others, please! The American people need to understand the implications of Obama's positions. ~~~~~~~~~~ Actually, an enormous amount of material comes into my in-box with regard to Obama. Much I pass by because it feels too "far out" even if perhaps it is true. I aim to be taken seriously. But there is much that merits serious consideration. Michael Freund has just done a piece entitled: "Look Who's Rooting for Obama." It begins: "What do Iran's ayatollahs, Hamas terrorists, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi have in common? They are all pulling for Barack Obama to win the US presidential election. When Israel's disparate foes manage to rally behind a single candidate, it should set off alarm bells for anyone who cares about the Jewish state." Assuring his readers that this is not simply Republican "scaremongering," he provides evidence for each name he cites. For example, Freund reports that "Last week, Ali Larijani, the hard-line speaker of the Iranian parliament, told a press conference in Bahrain, that 'we re leaning more in favor of Barack Obama because he is more flexible and rational.'" More flexible?
~~~~~~~~~~ Lastly here I cite Daniel Pipes, who is director of the Middle East Forum — and very much an academic and a serious man. He has just done a piece in Front Page Magazine entitled, "Would Obama Pass a Standard Security Clearance?" After detailing Obama's connection with a host of unsavory individuals with a distinctly anti-American bias, Pipes concludes: "...Obama's multiple links to anti-Americans and subversives mean he would fail the standard security clearance process for Federal employees. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID= 01834F74-53EA-4A20-BA9B-F9F845F663D2 ~~~~~~~~~~ On now to politics here in Israel... The date that seems to be coalescing as the one for our national elections is February 10, although this is not written in stone. Apparently, the Knesset is not going to be dissolved yet. It has been reported that some members of Labor suggested that Labor and Kadima join forces before the election in the hopes of garnering jointly more seats than Likud. Makes sense that this would come from Labor, which is expected to take a major hit in the elections. Kadima has rejected the bid. ~~~~~~~~~~ I'd like to share the highlights of opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu's speech in the Knesset yesterday. He says a government he headed would support: — Defensible borders with the Jordan River as Israel's eastern border. ~~~~~~~~~~ These are major long-term positions with vast ramifications. For example, he's looking, I would say, at some autonomy for the Palestinians that falls short of a full state (that's what he once told me he favored when I questioned him on this) and some cooperation or federation of the Palestinian autonomous enclaves with Egypt in Gaza and Jordan in Judea and Samaria. The Jordan River as our eastern border rules out a Palestinian state. Dear G-d, he should really mean it, stand by it, and win soundly so that he has the opportunity to show us what he can do. That's asking a lot, but it beats by many-fold what we've got now. There is solid reason to believe that the coalition negotiations between Kadima and Shas collapsed because Shas was demanding a promise that there will be no negotiations on Jerusalem, and Tzipi said she could not promise this. Her position is premised on moving in the direction of dividing Jerusalem, which is why chief PA negotiator Ahmed Qurei says he trusts her. ~~~~~~~~~~ MK Yossi Beilin, former head of the left wing Meretz, has announced that he is retiring from politics and going into business. ~~~~~~~~~~ A court decision today I thought I'd never see: right-wing activists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel have been granted permission to hold a protest march with Israeli flags (and nothing other than flags) in the Israeli Arab city of Umm El-Fahm, in the north, which is the stronghold of the more radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement of Israel. Said Marzel: "We will teach democracy to the Arabs of Umm el-Fahm, and we will mainly teach them that in this country it is permissible to march with Israeli flags everywhere." The march, which will take place after November 11 municipal elections; even though permission was given to march in the center of the city, it will be done in the suburbs. Fully do I understand the motivation for this. The Islamic Movement of Israel is blatantly anti-Israel. One gets very weary of the attempts of these Israeli citizens to build their own enclaves from within which they seek to undermine the State of Israel. Just recently the Islamic Movement's office was shut down because of Hamas affiliations. And yet I recognize that those marching in Umm el-Fahm will be taking their lives in their hands. Said the Islamic Movement attorney: "...the Arab sector will not bear responsibility for the consequences, whatever they may be." ~~~~~~~~~~ Earlier this week, IDF personnel at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza found military fatigues intended for a Hamas terror operation hidden among humanitarian supplies on a truck that Israel had given permission to pass. Unfortunately, such stunts are not unusual. While Palestinians rant at us for not allowing sufficient supplies into Gaza (a fallacious charge), they make use of our gestures for their purposes. Similar to this is the issue of concrete, which UNRWA insisted it needed in Gaza some while ago, in order to do construction of schools or whatever. Some of it has found its way (what a surprise!) into Hamas hands and is being used now for building rocket bunkers, Hezbollah-style. ~~~~~~~~~~ With all of the worrisome happenings we face these days, it was a pleasure this morning to actually hear some good news. This was from Dr. Mitchell Bard, Executive Director of the nonprofit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE)and director of the Jewish Virtual Library, including on-line Myths and Facts. (It pays to see and utilize this at: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org:80/.) Dr. Bard, speaking at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, described successful efforts at combating ignorance about Israel and anti-Israel bias (often promoted by Saudi Arabia, which endows chairs in Middle Eastern studies). Some 27 chairs in major US universities are now endowed for Israeli studies, and in other universities visiting Israeli professors are teaching. All of this is making a difference in the university climate. Incredibly, on many campuses there are no classes on Israel offered at all. The attempt is to not only deal honestly with the political and defense issues, but to show Israel as a proud and well-rounded nation in which we foster literature and dance and much more. ~~~~~~~~~~ Other good news: It's pouring as I write this. The second day of rain we've had. This is no small matter in this drought-ridden country, and it seems we're beginning the rainy season vigorously. This is a bracha, a blessing. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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SOLDIERS WERE TRICKED INTO GUARDING KIRYAT ARBA DESTRUCTION
Posted by Hillel Fendel, October 29, 2008. |
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(IsraelNN.com) How did it happen that yeshiva students in the Givati Brigade took part in the military operation to destroy the Federman-Tor farm and homes three nights ago? Very simple: Senior security commanders lied to them and told them they were participating in a mission to help catch a terrorist. Ro'i Sharon, reporter for the Maariv daily newspaper, revealed that it was feared that the young soldiers would refuse to take part in the mission if they knew it was not military but rather one of destroying Jewish homes. A member of Hevron's emergency alert team, which generally works closely with the army, was quoted as saying: "This creates mistrust between echelons in the military framework, and is liable to cost human life. In the next security incident, the residents won't believe the security forces, and the soldiers won't believe their commanders." "It is sad that for the purpose of destroying two Jewish homes, they cause such harm to the delicate security relations here," the man said. Border Guard officials confirmed that the soldiers had been tricked. "The sensitivity of the incident required us to maintain high secrecy," a Border Guard source told Maariv. The incident in question was the bulldozing of two Jewish homes in Kiryat Arba in the middle of the night, in which the occupants of the two buildings were given five and zero minutes, respectively, to get dressed and pack some belongings. The forces arrived in three rings: Special black-uniformed Yassam policemen in the inner ring, doing the actual destruction, including breaking windows, hitting the occupants (at least one woman and some children), throwing and trampling books and clothing, and bulldozing the buildings; policemen to protect them and ensure that Jewish neighbors not come close; and soldiers at street intersections to prevent Jews from entering the area. The soldiers were some 40 yeshiva hesder soldiers whose job it was to man the entrances to the area. They told residents who wished to enter the area to fight the destruction that a terrorist had been sighted in the area. In some cases, they had to fight with Jews who tried to enter despite the warnings. Thanks to the soldiers' work, the Federman and Tor homes were practically empty of Jews, and their destruction proceeded without interruption. One soldier told reporter Sharon afterwards, "I still cannot believe that I had a part in this eviction. I am a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, not a policeman, and there is no reason that they should take me on missions that have nothing to do with protecting Jews. I almost cried when I found out." Though the Border Guard confirmed the deception, the IDF claimed that a terrorist had in fact been sighted near the Machpelah Cave, some three kilometers away. Hevron's Jews said they received no word of any such incident. Brief Description of the Violent Eviction and Razing The destruction, as described by Hevron spokesman David Wilder, happened like this: "The troops broke the home's windows and climbed in through them. They quickly made their way to the children's bedrooms where they shook awake the kids, dragged them from their beds, beating some of them, and forcefully expelling them from their home, still in pajamas. Some of the kids went via the door; others via the window... Once everyone was out, the bulldozer started plowing down the houses and other structures on the property. It didn't take too much time, as the families were not allowed to remove any of their belongings. Down came the houses, on top of everything that was inside." Noam Federman, owner of one of the two homes flattened by the police forces, told IsraelNationalNews on Wednesday morning, "The rebuilding is continuing. The army arrived with a small force last night and tried to close off the area with concrete blocks, but they did not succeed... Right now there are dozens of people continuing to work on clearing the spot and rebuilding — if only to have some shelter for the chickens, horses and other animals of our farm. Interesting, I didn't hear anyone from the Animal Rights Society protesting or offering to help..." "We, too, are fortunate that only 'bricks and stones' were damaged — and with G-d's help we will rebuild them!" "We are now collecting money for several projects: To rebuild something in which a family can live, to replace the equipment that was wantonly destroyed, and to help us live day-to-day; even the money that we had in our home has not been found as of yet..." Federman has successfully sued the police on several occasions for their harrassment of him. He said that in this case, there was a legal order for the home's destruction, "but not with all the property in it, and not to purposefully destroy our computer, refrigerator, washing machine, cameras, and the like. I plan to sue the police for that, when the time comes." "But all in all, we are fortunate that none of us were hurt; we are all healthy and whole. I feel like King David, who was told that he could not construct the Holy Temple — but the reason was not, as many people think, because he had killed in war, but because he had been so successful in war that G-d said that a Holy Temple built by him would be invincible, and that if G-d had to punish Israel, He would have to harm the Jews themselves. Instead, the Holy Temple was built by someone else, and when it came time for punishment, the Temple itself was destroyed, while the Jewish People themselves were left relatively safe. We, too, are fortunate that only 'bricks and stones' were damaged — and with G-d's help we will rebuild them!" See photos of the destruction
at http://www.hebron.org.il/hebrew/gallery.php?id=319&thumbs=1
and a video at
http://www.hebron.com/english/show.php?id=105
View an interview with 12-year-old Oved Federman and with his mother
Elisheva, both in Hebrew, at
To help The Jewish Community of Hebron rebuild, you can contribute
directly in Israel to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB105, Kiryat
Arba-Hebron 90100, email: hebron@hebron.org.il or phone:
972-52-431-7055. In USA, write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave.,
Brooklyn, NY 11230, email: hebronfund@aol.com or phone: 718 677 6886.
Hillel Fendel is senior new editor at Arutz-7. This article
appeared today in Arutz Sheva |
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PALESTINIANS CLAIM TO BE JEWISH, SAY MUSLIMS FORCED THEM TO CONVERT
Posted by Dan Calic, October 29, 2008. |
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This was written by Nadav Shragai and it appeared today in
Haaretz
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Four Palestinians from the Hebron Hills contacted a group of rabbis on Tuesday and claimed to be the descendents of Jews who were forced to convert to Islam. The Palestinians were accompanied by Zvi Mesini, a researcher who wrote a book on the subject and assisted them in learning more about Judaism. According to the Palestinians, their families had removed mezuzahs from their doors in order to avoid harassment by their neighbors. One of the Palestinians said he kept a tefillin he received from his father's uncle and another told the rabbis that his family had once secretly lit candles on the Sabbath and for Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Mesini told the rabbis, members of a group called the New Sanhedrin, that he believes hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are descended from Jews. "Such evidence renders the conflict redundant," Mesini said. "It proves that Judea and Samaria belongs to both the recognized Jews and the unrecognized Jews." Mesini accused authorities of being indifferent to his findings. The New Sanhedrin is known as a right-wing organization that claims to be the rightful successors of the supreme Jewish court of antiquity. Its goal is to create a state based upon Jewish law that will replace the current State of Israel. Contact Dan Calic at calic@comcast.net |
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FLEETING FREEDOM: THE INDECENT ASSAULT ON BROADCASTERS
Posted by Don Watkins, October 29, 2008. |
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The fleeting expletive case before the Supreme Court is about more than broadcasters' ability to air dirty words — it's about whether "community standards" should be allowed to override free speech. |
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As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments Nov. 4 in the so-called fleeting expletive case, Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, it's clear that much more hinges on its outcome than broadcasters' ability to air dirty words. The FCC has had the power to fine broadcasters for "indecent" speech for decades. But following Janet Jackson's infamous Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction in 2004, the government declared all-out war on indecency. Congress increased the maximum penalty per infraction tenfold, from $32,500 to $325,000; the FCC started issuing fines left and right; and Congressman James Sensenbrenner went so far as to recommend jail time for broadcasters who violated "indecency" guidelines. At the same time, the FCC began issuing fines for fleeting expletives. Suddenly a star's offhand comment on live TV could cost broadcasters hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the midst of all this, one question never got answered: just what is "indecency"? The Supreme Court had defined it as speech that "depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities and organs in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards." But which Americans count (and don't count) as part of the community? Why are they king? And how are broadcasters to divine their supposedly shared standards? In response to these unanswerable questions, the FCC issued a hodgepodge of rulings in specific cases and told broadcasters, in effect, "You figure it out." Multiple uses of expletives in Martin Scorsese's PBS documentary The Blues? Indecent, said the FCC. Multiple uses of those same expletives in the movie Saving Private Ryan? Not indecent. Suggestion of teenage sexual activity on CBS's Without a Trace? Indecent. Graphic discussion of teen sexual practices on Oprah? Not indecent. Bono's use of the "F-word" during the 2003 Golden Globe awards? Even the FCC wasn't sure about that one. Initially it said the word was not indecent, but later changed its mind and started handing out the fleeting expletive fines at issue in FCC v. Fox Television. So what is a broadcaster to do? Engage in self-censorship, cutting any material that regulators might declare indecent. Defenders of the war on indecency admit that the FCC's regulations are murky. But without such restrictions, they say, Americans will be helpless against the stream of offensive programming pumped into their homes: either we allow the government to wield arbitrary power over broadcasters, or we give broadcasters arbitrary power to subject us to filth. What this argument ignores is that broadcasters' power is not arbitrary. They must earn their market by offering programming Americans choose to consume. We choose to buy a TV (or not). We choose to pay for cable (or not). We choose which channels we and our children watch. Broadcasters can't force us to watch offensive programming any more than an author can force us to read an offensive book. This is the meaning of free speech: people have the right to say whatever they want, no matter how offensive — and we remain free to listen or not. We don't have to abide by the opinions, prejudices, and errors of our neighbors, but can judge for ourselves whether something is true or false, art or trash, insightful or indecent. But once the government becomes the enforcer of "community standards," no speech is safe. How long until, say, the Bible Belt declares that the theory of evolution is offensive, corrupts young minds, undermines community values, and must be suppressed? This question is not academic. Bolstered by the indecency precedent, efforts are already underway to regulate "excessively violent" broadcasts. And if the government can suppress speech "the community" allegedly deems offensive, then why can't it force broadcasters to engage in speech "the community" allegedly regards as good? In fact, it already does so: Univision was recently fined $24 million for failing to air a sufficient amount of educational children's programming. On the anti-indecency movement's premises, judging the value of programming is not the prerogative of broadcasters, who decide what to air, or viewers, who decide what to watch — it's the prerogative of "the community" (and its self-appointed spokesmen). This is what is at stake in FCC v. Fox Television. The question is not whether fleeting expletives are indecent, an issue that individuals have a First Amendment right to decide for themselves. It's whether the Constitution grants government the power to trample on freedom of speech, using non-objective laws to dictate what we can say and hear on the airwaves. The Supreme Court should take this opportunity to respond with an emphatic "No!" Anything less would be indecent. Don Watkins is a writer and research specialist at the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand — best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism. |
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OBAMA'S NEFARIOUS FRIENDS AND ADVISORS
Posted by Janet Lehr, October 29, 2008. |
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Sadly, BHO has misguided, perfectly respectable (many Jewish) friends and advisors, But The Worst Friends Easily trump the pack: Brzezinski, Lake, Wright, Farrakhan, Rezko, Auchi... Brzezinski as been disseminating vitriol about Israel for three
decades and recently publicly defended the Walt-Mearsheimer study
which concluded that US policy towards Israel was the result of Jewish
pressure and inconsistent with American interests. More recently
Brzezinski called for the US to initiate dialogue with Hamas,
described Israel's action in the Second Lebanon War as a killing
campaign against civilian hostages [(the hostages being Lebanese
caught in the battles). During the Carter years, "Just north of Pakistan, Zbigniew Brzezinski funded, armed and created the Taliban — headed by bin Laden — to offset expected aggression by Soviet forces into Afghanistan in 1979 while Brzezinski was National Security Adviser to President Carter — proving directly the U.S. link to bin Laden." "Brzezinski is also a past attendee and presenter at several conferences of the Bilderberger group — a non-partisan affiliation of the wealthiest and most powerful families and corporations on the planet." Brzezinski's son, Mark, is also on Obama's foreign policy team. Evidently the apple does not fall far from the tree. Mark recently co-wrote an op-ed advocating that America forge ties with Iran. Mika, his daughter is co-host of MSNBC's morning show, the most biased, pro-Obama, show on TV. It's wise that Obama has kept Brzezinski out of the limelight before the election. Anthony Lake is stupid, venal and/or self serving. He does not deserve a place in US Foreign policy. Please read the following: Anthony Lake and China-Gate along with Enron were all facilitated by Obama's choice for planning foreign and military policy. None of these deals, Enron, Hughes, or Loral, could have happened without the approval and assistance of Anthony Lake. Below is an article written by Charles R. Smith and entitled "Meet
Anthony Lake, Obama'S Choice For Designing Us Foreign And Military
Policies". It appeared yesterday as a Washington Post Blog |
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How about a poor choice for his top national security advisor? Ex-Clinton National Security chief Anthony Lake. Lake is currently charged with drawing up Obama's future foreign and military policies. Yet, Lake has a long history of repeated errors, dangerous mistakes, and poor judgement. Lake was once nominated to head the CIA but withdrew only days before hearings were to start on Capitol Hill. Lake cited bitter-infighting over his record as National Security adviser as the sole reason for his withdrawal. Lake is well documented in helping Enron win an exclusive energy deal with Mozambique. Allegedly, Lake strong-armed the Mozambique government into accepting Enron's bid for the vast Pande gas fields by shutting off humanitarian aid and threatening the president of Mozambique. While ending food aid for starving African children in a vile effort for an Enron contract may not effect the African-American support for Lake's boss, it certainly should give cannon fire to his opponents who cite that Obama says one thing but does another behind closed doors. The blood thirsty support for the now defunct Enron by Lake should at least give voters cause to wonder about Obama. Still, national security folks can take great joy in the efforts put forth by Anthony Lake during the Clinton years. Lake oversaw the largest sell out of the century by working with Hughes. In 1995, Tony Lake, received a letter from then-CEO of Hughes, C. Michael Armstrong. "The USG [U.S. government] does not require congressional approval to remove commercial satellites from the United States Munitions List (USML), which is under State Department jurisdiction, and placing them on the Commerce Control List (CCL), which is under Commerce Department jurisdiction," wrote Armstrong. "It is my understanding that State has resisted vigorously Commerce attempts to do just that. For the national good, this situation must change. A commercial communications satellite is not a defense item. State Department control of satellites is not required for national security. Continued State Department control is damaging to the U.S. satellite industry and is not warranted." The Hughes document concluded that control over the export of advanced U.S. satellite technology should be moved to the Commerce Department. Apparently Lake agreed and Clinton signed off on the transfer. The U.S. technology sent to China included the entire list of items sought by Hughes: anti-jam capability, advanced antennas, cross links, baseband processing, encryption devices, radiation hardening, and perigee kick motors. Of course, all of these items were developed for military applications and China simply could not resist, sending all this technology into the development of nuclear warheads now aimed at America. Moreover, Armstrong's contention that "a commercial communications satellite is not a defense item" is simply false. In fact, Hughes executives admitted that the satellites sold to China were military items. Ironically, the admission came when the company tried to sell Asiasat-3, a former Chinese satellite, to the U.S. military. Asiasat-3 was placed into an incorrect orbit by a Russian Proton booster rocket launched from Baikonur in 1997. In 1998, space insurance companies paid off the satellite loss and transferred ownership to Hughes. AsiaSat-3, a "commercial" satellite sold to China, was more than just a $220 million piece of orbiting junk. Hughes recovered the satellite, using a special lunar orbit technique to bring it back into a useable position around the earth. Hughes then offered the recovered ex-Chinese satellite to the U.S. Navy for military purposes. Mark J. Schwene, Hughes Global Services vice president, was quoted in Aviation Week and Space Technology making the offer. Another secret 1996 White House memo to Lake shows that Loral requested that President Clinton sign a waiver for a satellite export at the same time that Loral was under investigation by the FBI for sending advanced satellite technology to China without a waiver. According to the July 1, 1996 action memo for Presidential National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, "In mid-June, Globalstar's parent company, Loral requested that we temporarily delay evaluation of their request for a national interest waiver for this project. The company has now asked us to resume processing of their application, and State has confirmed its support for approval of the license." "The Dept. of State, with the concurrence of the Departments of Commerce and Defense and the Officer of Science and Technology Policy, recommends that the President report to Congress that it is in the national interest to waive the Tiananmen Square sanctions in order to allow the licensing of communications satellites and related equipment for export to China," states the memo. In July 1996, President Clinton followed Lake's recommendation and signed the waiver for Loral. Clinton's waiver gave Loral enough cover to claim that any previous transfers of advanced missile technology were approved. The result was that the FBI had to close the investigation. When the Chinagate scandal broke, Loral went down in flames, cited for a long list of illegal exports to the Chinese military. The result was that Loral went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and to this day it is struggling to survive. In addition, Hughes was charged with 123 counts of violating national security. Hughes pleaded no contest to the 123 charges filed by the U.S. State Department, paid a record fine and then was sold outright to Boeing. None of these deals, Enron, Hughes, or Loral, could have happened without the approval of Anthony Lake. Lake was not only in the loop — he made the loop happen. Today, Lake is drawing up Senator Obama's national security policies. One can only wonder why Obama keeps Lake on as his national security adviser unless to cut him loose now would prove to be a major scandal. Unmentioned during the last stage of the contest but surely relevant are Wright, Faharakan, Soros. Janet Lehr is editor/publisher of a daily e-mail called "Israel Lives." She can be contacted at janetlehr@veredart.com |
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OBAMA'S 'CIVILIAN NATIONAL SECURITY FORCE'
Posted by Avodah, October 29, 2008. |
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This is from Little Green Footballs
Among the many promises and pledges in Barack Obama's multi-million dollar infomercial, one statement really stood out: he announced that he will "rebuild the military." But somehow, at the same time, he's planning a "civilian national security force" that is as powerful and well-funded as the US military: Obama outlines plan for national service. "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," he said Wednesday. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." The Department of Defense's current base budget is close to $500 billion. So if he meant that promise, he plans on a total defense budget of about a trillion dollars. What exactly is Obama planning to do with a "civilian force" with such an astronomical level of funding? Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website:
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ALIYA GETS A STEP UP
Posted by Shaul Ceder, October 29, 2008. |
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This was written by Ruth Eglash and it comes from the
October 27, 2008 Jerusalem Post
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Tehillah Hessler can count on the fingers of one hand the disasters she experienced since moving here three months ago. "It took us about two months to get our son, Yisrael, finally settled in a suitable school," she recounts. "And we've been traipsing across town to try to sort out our driving licenses, which was quite a challenge, but apart from that it's been pretty smooth." Originally from Cleveland, Hessler, who now resides in Ma'aleh Adumim, has encountered only in small doses the classic Israeli bureaucracy that so infuriated previous immigrants. "We have an aliya coordinator in Ma'aleh Adumim," says Hessler, who came with her husband Michael and Yisrael, but left five grown children behind. "Between her and Nefesh B'Nefesh [which facilitated the family's aliya] the bureaucracy has been cut to a minimum." With the exception of the Education Ministry, which the aliya coordinator tackled on their behalf, the family's interaction with the other government offices has been fairly straightforward. "We went to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry to fill out our paperwork so that we could receive our aliya benefits. The people there spoke to us in English, they were very helpful and we were out of there in 15 minutes," she recalls. "I was very impressed with the Immigrant Absorption Ministry's service," says former Australian Paul Vesely, who is currently studying at Ulpan Etzion. "The first time I went there, I had to lie my way in, because apparently you need an appointment, but once I was inside the people were very helpful and explained everything I needed to do in English." According to Vesely, who lives at the Young Judaea-run Mercaz Hamagshimim in Jerusalem, "I was given a contact in the ministry who said I could call her if I had any questions or problems during my aliya process. So far I have not needed to get in touch with her." Both Hessler's and Vesely's hassle-free immigration procedures are a far cry from anyone who arrived in the country up until about five years ago. Of course, Nefesh B'Nefesh has certainly streamlined the process, and the dwindling numbers of olim from communities in distress, such as the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, has also served to ease the pressure on the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, the Jewish Agency for Israel and other immigrant services. However, according to aliya experts and the official line from the ministry, this ease of starting up a new life here is part of a concerted effort by the government to iron out the kinks in the process and make those first few months memorable for reasons outside of the impossible bureaucracy. "THERE has been a change in our office over the past two years," says ministry Director-General Erez Halfon, who took over in September 2006. "We obviously want to do our best for all new immigrants, but we also know that certain groups already receive a lot of support and enrichment programs from the government. "English-speaking olim are a little bit different, in most cases they are not as needy, and we want to try to tailor our services to suit each group." Among the changes that have benefited Anglo olim is the ministry's recent success in repealing a 2003 regulation that had forced new immigrants to declare all their earnings and assets abroad to the Income Tax Authority, a move that all aliya experts claim will entice more Western immigrants. In addition, the ministry is in the process of increasing the number of native English-speakers in its offices, especially in cities where there are large numbers of Anglos, such as Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Modi'in and Ra'anana. There has also been an easing of the process for professional retraining or licensing. The ministry has also been happy to outsource its work to organizations such as Nefesh B'Nefesh, which since last November has received one-third of its funding from it. Halfon also talks about a push for community-based aliya. "Over the past few years more than 1,600 new English-speaking olim have arrived in Jerusalem and we see that as a core aliya," he says. "Because of that we have increased the services here for new olim, providing a special ulpan for both children and the adults and offering cultural programs and even a kindergarten in their native language." These changes notwithstanding, Halfon talks about the ministry's outlook for the future. Refusing to go into too much detail, he hints at a new program currently being developed to encourage aliya from South Africa, where there are more than 60,000 people eligible to immigrate under the Law of Return, and a flexible aliya program in which young families and students can spend a year investigating their prospects here. Halfon insists that all these plans and programs mark a sharp change in policy, which in the past urged all new immigrants to join the "melting pot" and just get on with life the Israeli way. "Today we see that every community has its own specific needs, and we want to be able to give them the tools to succeed here," he states.
ACCORDING to aliya experts, Halfon's assertions are not just the talk of a smooth politician. The changeover in the government's taxation policy for new immigrants was two years and much haranguing in the making, say various English-speaking aliya facilitators who helped the ministry to draft the change. "It is a huge benefit for new immigrants," says one expert. "The whole process today is hugely different to how it was in the past. Even the basket of aliya benefits was just a dream when I made aliya in 1975. It only existed for those who came from countries of distress." Part of the changes, he claims, come from improved technology enabling those about to make aliya to be processed in their native country and have much of the fine details of their immigration worked out beforehand. "Anyone who arrives today can go straight to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry's office in the airport and receive their ID card and immigration ID before they even pick up their luggage," he says. "All that's left for the immigrant to do is to go to the ministry's offices to give them their new bank account details and to receive a voucher for ulpan."
BUT FOR Shira Friedman, who arrived from Melbourne in February, the sabras' initially prickly approach was not the problem. "It was just disorganized," she complains, as she begins to describe how it took her several months and numerous visits to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry before she was even assigned to a suitable ulpan program. "I just would have appreciated some kind of aliya counselor to help me coordinate the visits to each office and to guide me on what to do next." She finally managed to secure a place at a pre-university ulpan through the Student Authority. "I was living in Beit Canada, which was an excellent place to live and I was supposed to participate in the ulpan there," she recalls. "However, every time I went to ask the head of the ulpan if I could take the entrance test, she told me that it was not available yet. I believe they just did not have a suitable level for me." Giving up on the classes at Beit Canada, Friedman tried to get some answers from the Immigrant Absorption Ministry about alternative Hebrew classes. She made the required appointment to meet with an aliya counselor, but when she arrived she was told that she only had 10 minutes. "It was very frustrating and certainly not enough time to have all my questions answered," she says, adding that she pretty much had to navigate her own way through the Interior Ministry and track down details for driver's license registration. "I found out most of what I needed to know from other new immigrants. The ironic thing was that I was the most informed of all my friends because I my sister made aliya a few years ago." For Max and Chantal Castiel, who arrived from Los Angeles with the help of Nefesh B'Nefesh a year ago, the bumpy transition to their new life was somewhat different, but no less unsettling. "Nefesh representatives were certainly there to help us with certain information and advice," admits Max, whose four children range in age from two to 15. "However, they were not hands-on in a practical way." He says that "in terms of getting all our rights in order, that was fairly smooth"; however, both he and Chantal are still struggling to find employment. "I'm not exactly sure what the role of the Immigrant Absorption Ministry is, but I think it needs to be much more active in the lives of new immigrants during their first year in Israel," he says, adding that he participated in a recent private seminar to aid job seekers which was extremely helpful. "Among the thousands of new immigrants that we help every year, there are always going to be those who end up falling through the cracks," says Halfon, pointing out that aliya counselors are usually assigned to new olim. He believes that in the future contact between the counselors, who are meant to be in touch with the immigrants for up to a year and a half, will be via e-mail and other programs on the Internet. "We have to change our procedures to tailor them to preferences of the English-speaking community who like to use Facebook and other social networking tools."
WHILE day-to-day contact certainly seems to be on Halfon's agenda, Danny Oberman, executive vice president of Israel operations for Nefesh B'Nefesh, says the ministry's role in the lives of English-speaking immigrants is also significant on a macro level. "We work very closely with the ministry advising it on issues concerning Anglo olim," he says. "I believe the fact that it decided to outsource work to us shows that it recognizes that Western olim need slightly different handling than other groups." In addition, Oberman sees the ministry's role as one that will lobby for immigrant rights in government circles and points again to the changes in the taxation laws, which now allow new immigrants the right not to declare holdings or assets abroad for their first 10 years in the country. "Halfon is in a tough position; he is constantly faced with changing ministers," Oberman says, referring to the recent changeover from Ya'acov Edri to Eli Aflafo. Another authoritative source on aliya also points to recent changes in the procedure for returning minors and returning Israelis, both reforms that have happened in the last year or so. "Returning minors account for roughly 25 percent of new immigrants from North America," he says. "These are usually children of former immigrants or Israelis, who did not grow up here but want to make aliya. In the past, the Jewish Agency for Israel could not guarantee these people their aliya basket benefits. That could only be done when they arrived here and presented themselves at the Immigrant Absorption Ministry. We managed to convince the government that these people also needed to feel a degree of certainty that they would get the help they needed and not leave it all to chance when they arrived." The ministry agreed to make the change. Over the past year, the ministry has decided to take on the task of helping former citizens who live abroad to return. It has managed to find a way around the huge health tax imposed on returning Israelis and offer a basket of benefits competitive to the basic aliya package. Of course, the source adds, even with all the efforts made over the past few years to improve the aliya service, "there is still always room for improvement. There has to be much more follow-up with individual immigrants and the ministry's customer services needs somewhat of an overall to make staffers friendlier and more helpful." Contact Shaul and Aviva Ceder at ceder@netvision.net.il |
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RABBIS FOR OBAMA EXPOSED AS FRONT GROUP FOR RADICAL HAMAS APPEASEMENT SUPPORTERS
Posted by Sultan Knish, October 29, 2008. |
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When Rabbis for Obama was announced with great fanfare it was meant to reassure worried Jewish voters. The 300 Rabbis who signed on to the letter which stated that Barack Obama had "longstanding, stalwart support for Israel" and claimed that "Senator Obama is in the best position to restore faith in America as a leader in the fight against serious threats to Israel." But when you mix Obama and clergy together, the one thing you can count on is that they'll be left wing radicals who are anti-American and anti-Israel... and the Rabbis for Obama signers don't disappoint. In fact a better name for "Rabbis for Obama" would be "Rabbis for Hamas". Does that sound like I'm exagerating, not at all. Because there is a surprising amount of overlap between the Rabbis who joined up with Rabbis for Obama and the Rabbis who signed the infamous Brit Tzedek V'Shalom letter urging Bush to keep an open mind on Hamas for the purposes of "constructive engagement" with the new Hamas government. How much overlap? Five of the Vice Chairs of Rabbis for Obama were among the Hamas Rabbis, as well as 133 of the signatories to the Rabbis for Obama letter. That's nearly half the membership of Rabbis for Obama who signed on to a letter calling for Bush to keep an open door for dealings with Hamas. (see below for a full list) Since then Brit Tzedek V'Shalom has authored a second letter to whoever wins the Presidential election that repeatedly condemns Israel for fighting terrorism, e.g. ("In 2001, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flatly rejected President Bush's demands that a massive Israeli military operation on the West Bank be suspended "as quickly as possible"), takes the Palestinian Arab side on the negotiations ("The Palestinians rejected Olmert's offer as soon as it was made public as it did not adequately address most of the issues that are most important to the Palestinians") and once again calls for recognizing and dealing with Hamas; The fact that Hamas rules the Gaza Strip is undeniably problematic, however; any agreement Abbas achieves with Israel will only be successful if the majority of the Palestinian people stand behind it. If the nation is, in fact, split into two geographical and ideological camps, this won't be possible... However, some members of the Hamas leadership have indicated a certain openness to a peace deal with Israel; they would accept an agreement, if approved in a national referendum... Bottom line, for peace talks to succeed, the U.S. will also have to work to close the gap between Fatah, the movement headed by Abbas, and Hamas. This time around three more of the Vice Chairs of Rabbis for Obama as well as many other Rabbis for Obama members signed on to the second Brit Tzedek V'Shalom pro-Hamas letter. The original letter by the Hamas Rabbis was a project of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom aka Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, an extremist left wing group, which has condemned Israeli action against Hamas, defended the ISM terrorist solidarity group and coordinated pro-terrorist propaganda with figures involved in terrorism. And Brit Tzedek V'Shalom is funded by the same far left daddies too. Here's a sample. The group gets financial support from other anti-American and anti-Zionist organizations, too, including Noam Chomsky's Resist, Inc. and the Ford Foundation. he board of Noam Chomsky's group is littered with admitted socialists, anti-Zionist activists, and even includes Yasir Arafat's former economic adviser Leila Farsakh. The New York-based Ford Foundation supports far-ranging efforts in globalization, internationalism and other internationalist leftist programs. Founded by industrialist Henry Ford, an admirer and supporter of Adolf Hitler, the Ford Foundation today continues to display anti-Jewish bias. Ford funded anti-Jewish agitprop at the UN conference in Durban and supports Al Mezan, ISM, New Israel Fund, and other anti-Zionist groups. Rabbi John Friedman who chairs the Rabbinic Cabinet of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and who was one of the Hamas Rabbis, is also one of the Obama Rabbis. And when you begin to examine the signatories to Brit V'Tzedek's letters and the list of Rabbinic board members for Brit Tzedek V'Shalom and Rabbis for Obama you come away with the impression that Rabbis for Obama is nothing more than a front for Brit V'Tzedek. And a left wing group that calls for dealing with Hamas and which is funded by extremist groups that include figures such as Noam Chomsky, is in the worst possible position to reassure Jews that Obama meets their standard for protecting Israel and America's security. Not when that group itself is far too friendly with terrorists and blatantly hostile to Israel and America. Two of the Hamas Rabbis even appear front and center on the Rabbis for Obama testimonials section, a limited list of a handful of Rabbis influential in the group. Both of their endorsements for Obama carry coded statements calling for pressure on Israel and appeasement for terrorism. Rabbi Richard Levy (Los Angeles, CA) "I believe this country needs to return to a policy of respect for other nations, to pursue energetically all opportunities for peace in the Middle East and around the world." Rabbi Elliot Dorff (Los Angeles, CA) "He has pursued the wrong war that is responsible for thousands of American deaths and hundreds of thousands of Americans maimed physically or psychologically — and now the Taliban inhabit Iraq, where they never used to be... Obama, by contrast, offers us intelligence, caring, individual rights, well-thought-out programs for improvement in education and health care — and, yes, wise and firm support for Israel and for peace in the Middle East." Besides being a terrorist dupe, Rabbi Elliot Dorff is additionally an idiot who's under the impression that the Taliban are now in Iraq. And over several months none of the wise men of Rabbis for Obama have noticed anything wrong either. Additionally prominent names among Rabbis for Obama include Rabbi Rolando Matalon who is on the Rabbinic board of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, is also on the board of the radical left wing New Israel Fund and Americans for Peace Now. There is Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, a Vice Chair of Rabbis for Obama and an Honorary Board member of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, who is personally acquainted with Obama and wrote a widely reproduced article "My Neighbor, Barack". Somewhat less famously Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf is a left wing Anti-Israel radical who during the 2006 Second Lebanon War who served as the "Rabbinic Ally" for a letter condemning Israel's self-defense "We urge the Union to likewise condemn the Israeli Defense Force's killing of unarmed Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, as well as its premeditated targeting of civilian infrastructure, which has put additional lives at risk and hampered relief efforts." There's Rabbi Elliot Dorff who is a Vice Chair of Rabbis for Obama, a signatory to both the Hamas letters and on the board of J Street, which successfully sabotaged the Anti-Ahmadinejad rally, and has made it its mission to insure that no military action will be taken against Iran. There are hundreds of signatures of left wing Anti-Israel figures just like these there and they form the tapestry of both the Hamas letters and Rabbis for Obama. Rabbis for Obama claims to reassure Jewish voters about Obama's commitment to Israel, but that reassurance is coming from extremists who champion legitimizing Hamas and condemn and abuse Israel at every turn. Their voices make it clear once again what Obama and his supporters really stand for when it comes to Israel. (A final note, these people may call themselves Rabbis but they're liberal clergy who rarely hold any actual belief in G-d or the Bible. Some like Rabbi Rachel Cowan are not actually Jews. Many are simply left wing figures who find a Rabbinical title convenient.) [Below is the list of names overlapping between the Hamas letter and Rabbis for Obama. Draw your own conclusions as to whether there's any real difference between Brit Tzedek V'Shalom and Rabbis for Obama.] Vice Chairs Rabbi Laura Geller, Los Angeles, CA
133 Members
Rabbi Ron Segal (Atlanta, GA)
Sultan Knish blogs at http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ |
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PETER WALLSTEN'S ORIGINAL STORY IN APRIL OF OBAMA AND KHALIDI AT ARAB CELEBRATION
Posted by NCUL, October 29, 2008. |
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"Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama"
CHICAGO — It was a celebration of Palestinian culture — a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York. A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking. His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world." Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years. And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say. Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed. At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace." One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology." Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than either of his opponents for the White House. "I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates," said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine, referring to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began after the 1967 war. More than his rivals for the White House, Ibish said, Obama sees a "moral imperative" in resolving the conflict and is most likely to apply pressure to both sides to make concessions. "That's my personal opinion," Ibish said, "and I think it for a very large number of circumstantial reasons, and what he's said." Aides say that Obama's friendships with Palestinian Americans reflect only his ability to interact with a wide diversity of people, and that his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been consistent. Obama has called himself a "stalwart" supporter of the Jewish state and its security needs. He believes in an eventual two-state solution in which Jewish and Palestinian nations exist in peace, which is consistent with current U.S. policy. Obama also calls for the U.S. to talk to such declared enemies as Iran, Syria and Cuba. But he argues that the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, is an exception, calling it a terrorist group that should renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist before dialogue begins. That viewpoint, which also matches current U.S. policy, clashes with that of many Palestinian advocates who urge the United States and Israel to treat Hamas as a partner in negotiations. "Barack's belief is that it's important to understand other points of view, even if you can't agree with them," said his longtime political strategist, David Axelrod. Obama "can disagree without shunning or demonizing those with other views," he said. "That's far different than the suggestion that he somehow tailors his view." Looking for clues But because Obama is relatively new on the national political scene, and new to foreign policy questions such as the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have been looking closely for clues to what role he would play in that dispute. And both sides, on certain issues, have interpreted Obama's remarks as supporting their point of view. Last year, for example, Obama was quoted saying that "nobody's suffering more than the Palestinian people." The candidate later said the remark had been taken out of context, and that he meant that the Palestinians were suffering "from the failure of the Palestinian leadership [in Gaza] to recognize Israel" and to renounce violence. Jewish leaders were satisfied with Obama's explanation, but some Palestinian leaders, including Ibish, took the original quotation as a sign of the candidate's empathy for their plight. Obama's willingness to befriend Palestinian Americans and to hear their views also impressed, and even excited, a community that says it does not often have the ear of the political establishment. Among other community events, Obama in 1998 attended a speech by Edward Said, the late Columbia University professor and a leading intellectual in the Palestinian movement. According to a news account of the speech, Said called that day for a nonviolent campaign "against settlements, against Israeli apartheid." The use of such language to describe Israel's policies has drawn vehement objection from Israel's defenders in the United States. A photo on the pro-Palestinian website the Electronic Intifada shows Obama and his wife, Michelle, engaged in conversation at the dinner table with Said, and later listening to Said's keynote address. Obama had taken an English class from Said as an undergraduate at Columbia University. Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, said that he met Obama several times at Palestinian and Arab American community events. At one, a 2000 fundraiser at a private home, Obama called for the U.S. to take an "even-handed" approach toward Israel, Abunimah wrote in an article on the website last year. He did not cite Obama's specific criticisms. Abunimah, in a Times interview and on his website, said Obama seemed sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but more circumspect as he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. At a dinner gathering that year, Abunimah said, Obama greeted him warmly and said privately that he needed to speak cautiously about the Middle East. Abunimah quoted Obama as saying that he was sorry he wasn't talking more about the Palestinian cause, but that his primary campaign had constrained what he could say. Obama, through his aide Axelrod, denied he ever said those words, and Abunimah's account could not be independently verified. "In no way did he take a position privately that he hasn't taken publicly and consistently," Axelrod said of Obama. "He always had expressed solicitude for the Palestinian people, who have been ill-served and have suffered greatly from the refusal of their leaders to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist." In Chicago, one of Obama's friends was Khalidi, a highly visible figure in the Arab American community. In the 1970s, when Khalidi taught at a university in Beirut, he often spoke to reporters on behalf of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. In the early 1990s, he advised the Palestinian delegation during peace negotiations. Khalidi now occupies a prestigious professorship of Arab studies at Columbia. He is seen as a moderate in Palestinian circles, having decried suicide bombings against civilians as a "war crime" and criticized the conduct of Hamas and other Palestinian leaders. Still, many of Khalidi's opinions are troubling to pro-Israel activists, such as his defense of Palestinians' right to resist Israeli occupation and his critique of U.S. policy as biased toward Israel. While teaching at the University of Chicago, Khalidi and his wife lived in the Hyde Park neighborhood near the Obamas. The families became friends and dinner companions. In 2000, the Khalidis held a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, a social service group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from a local charity, the Woods Fund of Chicago, when Obama served on the fund's board of directors. At Khalidi's going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. "You will not have a better senator under any circumstances," Khalidi said. The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times. Though Khalidi has seen little of Sen. Obama in recent years, Michelle Obama attended a party several months ago celebrating the marriage of the Khalidis' daughter. In interviews with The Times, Khalidi declined to discuss specifics of private talks over the years with Obama. He did not begrudge his friend for being out of touch, or for focusing more these days on his support for Israel — a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S., just as wooing Chicago's large Arab American community was important for winning local elections. Khalidi added that he strongly disagrees with Obama's current views on Israel, and often disagreed with him during their talks over the years. But he added that Obama, because of his unusual background, with family ties to Kenya and Indonesia, would be more understanding of the Palestinian experience than typical American politicians. "He has family literally all over the world," Khalidi said. "I feel a kindred spirit from that." Ties with Israel Even as he won support in Chicago's Palestinian community, Obama tried to forge ties with advocates for Israel. In 2000, he submitted a policy paper to CityPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee, that among other things supported a unified Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a position far out of step from that of his Palestinian friends. The PAC concluded that Obama's position paper "suggests he is strongly pro-Israel on all of the major issues." In 2002, as a rash of suicide bombings struck Israel, Obama sought out a Jewish colleague in the state Senate and asked whether he could sign onto a measure calling on Palestinian leaders to denounce violence. "He came to me and said, 'I want to have my name next to yours,' " said his former state Senate colleague Ira Silverstein, an observant Jew. As a presidential candidate, Obama has won support from such prominent Chicago Jewish leaders as Penny Pritzker, a member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, and who is now his campaign finance chair, and from Lee Rosenberg, a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Nationally, Obama continues to face skepticism from some Jewish leaders who are wary of his long association with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who had made racially incendiary comments during several sermons that recently became widely known. Questions have persisted about Wright in part because of the recent revelation that his church bulletin reprinted a Times op-ed written by a leader of Hamas. One Jewish leader said he viewed Obama's outreach to Palestinian activists, such as Said, in the light of his relationship to Wright. "In the context of spending 20 years in a church where now it is clear the anti-Israel rhetoric was there, was repeated, . . . that's what makes his presence at an Arab American event with a Said a greater concern," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director for the Anti-Defamation League. peter.wallsten@latimes.com |
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Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 29, 2008. |
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FACTS & FANTASIES Some Arabs attacked Jews near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron (IMRA, 9/27). Such attacks and attacks on the soldiers guarding the Cave occur almost daily (Arutz-7, 9/28). It was just for being non-Muslim. The fact is that the Muslim Arabs are intolerant and violent. The fantasy is that Jews initiate attacks on Arabs. (Occasionally a paid, Israeli government provocateur attacks Arabs in the name of the Jews, so that the Jews seem worse than previous defamtion or the government gets a pretext for giving the Arabs another concession.) On the Internet, the constant and fabricated and distorted messages defaming Israel and the Jewish people encourage Muslim attacks. It doesn't help that despite so many such attacks, the media still depicts the Jews as the violent ones and the US government still paints Islam as a religion of peace. There isn't much evidence, in the face of all its war-mongering, or peaceful intent there. QUARTET TRYING TO DICTATE TO ISRAEL Commenting on Israel-P.A. negotiations, the Quartet "noted the significance of this process and the importance of confidentiality in order to preserve its integrity." What it means is that Israeli democracy be damned, the government need not reveal its negotiating points to the people, that may be about to elect a new government to deal with Arab-Israel relations. Vote in the dark. Again, "The Quartet underlined its commitment to the irreversibility of the negotiations." This means that a new government may not declare the previous [crooked and treasonous] regime to have offered too much (IMRA, 9/27). Now what was that Pres. Bush said about the US spreading democracy? His State Dept. and the EU does what they can to squelch democracy in Israel and to maintain and expand the terrorist dictatorship over the P.A.. The EU does it largely by financing subversive organizations in Israel, pretending to favor human rights. U.S. IMPROVES ISRAELI ANTI-MISSILE DEFENSE The US is installing advanced radar in Israel. It would enable Israel to fire ant-missile missiles a few minutes sooner at rockets coming from Iran (IMRA, 9/27). That's nice. Unfortunately, Iran might find other ways to attack Israel with nuclear weapons. Perhaps the enemy would fire tens of thousands of rockets at about the same time, overwhelming the anti-missile defense. ISRAELI POLICE: CRIME & TERRORISM Israel's police chief has transferred some forces from anti-terrorism to crime-fighting. He seeks to destroy the crime organizations and to stop criminal enterprises and big businesses from controlling legitimate business and subverting government agencies to commit large-scale corruption. He considers that corruption a national threat. He accused Cabinet Ministers who were investigated of using their positions to impugn the police outside of trial (IMRA, 9/28). ISRAELI LEFT'S NOTION OF DEMOCRACY When Rabin was assassinated, the "...Left in Israel insisted then that anyone who had disagreed with Rabin's Oslo initiative was collectively guilty of his murder. The Leftist theory of jurisprudence insisted that every Israeli non-leftist was collectively guilty of murder unless he or she could be proven innocent... The episode demonstrated how shallow is the understanding of and commitment to democracy in large swaths of the Israeli political arena." The attack on Prof Sternhell is being used to condemn without evidence the whole Right. Sternhell had other enemies besides the Right. [MK Netanyahu condemns both political violence and wholesale defamation (IMRA, 9/29) The views of Sternhell, who sympathizes with Muslim terrorism, remain odious. The attempt to smear the whole Right does not excuse the Far Left's treason. Suppose a follower of Meir Kahane did it. Consider decriminalizing the Kahane movement. "The Kahanists and ONLY the Kahanists have been criminalized in Israel, banned, denied freedom of speech, and declared racists and terrorists. Yet not a single far-Leftist "Post Zionist" nor a single Arab fascist or Stalinist group has been similarly criminalized and none were officially declared "racists," even when calling for mass murder of Jews or denying the Holocaust." Sometimes repressed people turn to violence." (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/28.) ISRAEL TRAINED CHINESE POLICE Israeli police trained Chinese police in how to handle terrorist attacks during the Olympics and also mass civil demonstrations (IMRA, 9/28). China's police themselves are terrorist. Mass civil demonstrations there might be for good causes. I think Israel should not have helped China. Let Israel do better against terrorist attacks against civilians and its soldiers in Judea-Samaria. There are very few arrests of Muslim attackers there, little resort to guns. GAZA ARABS CAMPAIGN FOR OBAMA Using free Internet telephone, they randomly call Americans to persuade them to vote for Obama. They believe he will not stand by Israel (Arutz-7, 10/28). Do they know something that Democratic voters don't? B'Tselem is no human rights organization but part of the inhumane war on Israel. Although the minor media have exposed it, the biased major media quote it. FINANCIAL CRISIS, THE "SURGE," THE MIDEAST None of the usual liberal critics had letters in Commentary disputing Joshua Muravchik's prior evidence of Obama being a radical and covering it up. The current issue led off with John Steele Gordon's history of modern financial disasters. He shows that politicians of both parties deliberately eased protective regulations. Now the Party outside the Presidency tries to blame solely the President and in general terms. (If they understood the issue, or thought we would, they would cite specifics.) Perhaps he will offer Congress a solution. Then Peter Webner analyzed the "surge" in Iraq. He shows that liberals were mistaken about it when it was proposed, as it was being tried and making progress, and even after the additional troops were withdrawn after having accomplished their purpose. Instead of celebrating our country's success and drawing a lesson about capabilities and remedies, Democrats continued to oppose the surge. They did not want to admit having been wrong; they were stuck in their rut of hating Pres. Bush. Lest we become complacent, Amir Taheri has a memo to the incoming President about the Mideast. Originally, the West tried to keep foreign rivals out of the Mideast. Then trouble originated within the Mideast. The West then sought stability. By supporting existing governments, instability accelerated. Bush switched to supporting democracy. Democracy became the subject of great debate in the Mideast. Mr. Taheri cites a number of steps towards democracy. I think he has exaggerated the importance of some of them; they may be formalities meant to give the appearance of democracy; the Arabs are old hands at this. He failed to note that Bush withdrew that policy. He wrote only of elections, which should be the last step to democracy, preceded by a free press and other institutions. Some of the countries having free elections are infiltrated by Iranian sleeper cells. The US has great challenges ahead, he writes. Why not also the EU? PALIN VS. BIDEN Sen. Biden's campaigns get significant funds from lobbyists supporting the government of Iran. Biden encourages them and talks about harmonizing with Iran. He criticized Pres. Bush for calling Iran a part of the evil axis. By contrast, Gov. Palin's speech, the one that Democrats successfully stifled, said that Iran must be stopped (Jewish Political Chronicle, Fall 2008). I prefer Palin to Biden on foreign policy. His loyalty may have been bought. She makes more sense than he does. OBAMA VS. MCCAIN The Jewish Political Chronicle compared their statements on several aspects of the Arab-Israel conflict (Op. Cit.). Obama was more theoretical, less supportive, suspiciously vague, and evasive, McCain more down to earth and forthright. [Conclusion: Obama has no credibility, but no politician can be trusted much.] Both said that they would let the [appeasement-minded] government of Israel make its own decisions. McCain trusts that government to shepherd its own interests. [It hasn't done that in years, didn't he notice?] McCain had said that negotiations with the P.A. are important and he would monitor them. His advisor now says they aren't important like other issues. [Which is it?] Obama would have a special envoy, suggesting Tony Blair [known for his pro-Arab position]. Obama said that "Jordan has gone a long way" to find an "accommodation between Islam and a modern economy, globalization, diversity of cultures..." [Jordan's people largely support the Islamists and don't tolerate Israel.] Obama said, "I think that Israel should abide by previous agreements and commitments that have been made, and aggressive settlement construction would seem to violate the spirit at least, if not the letter, of agreements that have been made previously." McCain asked how can he be an honest broker to the Arabs replied by affirming the special relationship with Israel but said he'd be happy to partner with Fatah if they were committed to peace (Ibid.) What is the "spirit" of agreements? Why should Israel abide by agreements made by Quisling regimes under US pressure in behalf of Arabs who abide by none of them? Obama would be dangerous for Israel. McCain was critical of the National Intelligence Estimate that undermined action against Iran. [Good for him!] He said EU banks are shoring up Iran. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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OBAMA DONOR ORDERED BIG BROTHER PROBE OF JOE THE PLUMBER
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 29, 2008. |
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As William R. Mann has written "It is a very telling story about the charged atmosphere in which we live. It seems that some government genius in Toledo decided to check "Joe the Plumber" for license, wants, and warrants some short time after he had asked Barack Obama an embarrassing question. Is this the kind of "transformation" that Obama and his supporters represent? Is this the kind of America we want? Are these simply the actions of an overzealous bureaucrat trying to impress his/her Boss? Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, or Franco's Spain [if you prefer] were full of these kinds of "helpful" bureaucrats. Joe Wurzelburger was just a guy in a Toledo suburb asking a question. Obama answered it with revealing honesty in an unguarded moment. Is this what happens when you complain about Obama in Ohio these days? For the state and local government to check up on this Joe seems rather like Police State kind of behavior... in of all places, Toledo Ohio! This is where I grew up, for crying out loud! |
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State agency director authorizes child-support check on senator's critic Following the third presidential debate, a state agency director and maximum donor to the Barack Obama presidential campaign immediately authorized a government background check of Joe the Plumber's child-support records. Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and a $2,300 contributor to the Obama campaign, permitted state employees to conduct a check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Now Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles is seeking to determine whether at least four probes on state computers were legal. Jones-Kelley denies the Support Enforcement Tracking System search was politically motivated and claims the check was ordered to verify that Wurzelbacher was not behind on child-support payments. While the state agency director would not share information about Joe the Plumber's record with the Dispatch, Wurzelbacher reportedly lives with his 13-year-old boy, and it is uncertain whether he has ever been ordered to pay child support. Jones-Kelley said such background checks are not unusual. "Our practice is when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight, we often take a look," she said. "Our practice is to basically look at what is coming our way." Ohio's Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland told the Dispatch his appointee, Jones-Kelly, did not authorize the check for political purposes. "Based on what we know to this point, we don't have any reason to believe the information was improperly accessed or disclosed by a state employee," his press secretary told the paper. Name searches on Joe the Plumber were also conducted at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, where his registration and driving records were pulled. The State Highway Patrol has seized a government computer at the Ohio Department of Insurance as evidence. A separate search was conducted in the Toledo Police Department's criminal database. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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PLO ACKNOWLEDGES: STILL AT WAR WITH ISRAEL
Posted by Dave Nathan, October 28, 2008. |
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This was written by Daniel Pipes and is archived at
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Yasir Arafat may have shaken Yitzhak Rabin's hand in 1993 and signed solemn declarations about ending the war to eliminate Israel, but late last month, in a New York City courtroom, the Palestine Liberation Organization formally confirmed that it still sees terrorism against Israelis as legitimate acts of war. The lawsuit, Sokolow v The Palestine Liberation Organization, brought by the intrepid David Strachman, alleges that the PLO carried out two machine-gun and five bombing attacks in the Jerusalem area between January 2001 and February 2004. The plaintiffs allege, in the words of U.S. District Judge George Daniels, that the PLO did so "intending to terrorize, intimidate, and coerce the civilian population of Israel into acquiescing to defendants' political goals and demands, and to influence the policy of the United States and Israeli governments in favor of accepting defendants' political goals and demands." The attacks killed 33 and wounded many more, some of them U.S. citizens; the victims and their families are seeking up to US$3 billion in damages from the PLO. To this, the PLO, represented in part by none other than the appalling Ramsey Clark (who in a distant age, 1967-69, was attorney general of the United States), replied that the attacks were acts of war rather than terrorism. As Daniels summarizes the PLO argument: "defendants argue that subject matter jurisdiction is lacking because this action is premised on acts of war, which is barred under the ATA [Antiterrorism Act of 1991], and further is based on conduct which does not meet the statutory definition of 'international terrorism'." This response is noteworthy for two reasons: (1) Fifteen years after Oslo supposedly ended the state of war, four years after Mahmoud Abbas took over and supposedly improved on Arafat's abysmal record, the PLO publicly maintains it remains at war with Israel. (2) The PLO argues, even in the context of an American law court, that blatant, cruel, inhumane, and atrocious acts of murder constitute legitimate acts of warfare. Judge Daniels rightly slammed the PLO's argument: "the Court finds that the attacks, as alleged to have occurred in the amended complaint, do not constitute acts of war nor do they, as a matter of law, fall outside the statutory definition of 'international terrorism'." He went on to point out that civilians, not soldiers were the intended victims of these assaults: There has been no showing that the situs of the attacks were in any combat or militarized zone, or were otherwise targeted at military or governmental personnel or interests. Rather, plaintiffs allege that the attacks were intentionally targeted at the civilian population. They were purportedly carried out at locations where non-combatants citizens would be known to congregate, such as in the cafeteria on the Hebrew University campus and on a commercial passenger bus. Daniels went on, rising to an eloquence not frequently heard in district court decisions: Additionally, the use of bombs, under such circumstances, is indicative of an intent to cause far-reaching devastation upon the masses. The "benefit" of such weaponry is its merciless capability of indiscriminately killing and maiming untold numbers in heavily populated civilian areas. Such claimed violent attacks upon non-combatant civilians, who were allegedly simply going about their everyday lives, do not constitute acts of war. That the PLO justifies "merciless capability of indiscriminately killing and maiming untold numbers" suggests it remains the terrorist organization it has always been since its founding in 1964. When will the diplomatic bright lights in Jerusalem and Washington figure this out? Contact Dave Nathan at DaveNathan@aol.com |
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ISRAEL COURT REMANDS JEWISH DISSIDENT TO COMMUNITY ARREST AMID GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN ON SETTLERS
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, October 28, 2008. |
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This is from www.Israeljustice.com and was posted October 5, 2008 |
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KFAR SABA — An Israeli court ordered a Jewish 'dissident', charged with assaulting a police officer, to be held under community arrest and post a bond of $1,145 until the start of her trial, as part of a government crackdown on Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Kfar Saba Magistrate David Gadol rejected the demand by the police prosecution that Daniella Weiss, former mayor of the Jewish community of Kedumim, be remanded in custody until the end of judicial proceedings. [OUTRAGEOUS in this writer's opinion.EW] "You have until Oct. 12 to investigate her," Gadol admonished police prosecutor Shir Laufer, who said she would appeal the decision. "After Oct. 12 [the start of the trial], she [Weiss] will be free on bail." Weiss was arrested outside her home in Kedumim on Oct. 2, following the destruction of the nearby Jewish outpost of Shvut Ami. The police prosecutor's office rushed through an indictment on charges of assaulting a police officer and interfering with the police. "In the passed few weeks I have noticed that the attitude of the police and the army towards the settlers became much tougher, even brutal," Weiss said. "As far as my arrest was concerned, I noticed a very aggressive approach [on the part of the police]. While I was being interrogated, Samaria Police Commander Albert Ohayun flung open the door and aggressively threatened me. 'Don't worry. It's not just you we are going to take care of. We are going to arrest your husband as well.'" The arrests of Weiss, 62, her 57 year-old former aide Shoshana Shilo and six others, followed the evacuation and destruction by security forces of the two temporary structures at Shvut Ami outpost, established last year by the Land of Israel Faithful group. After the evacuation, police said settlers torched fields near the Palestinian village of Kadum. Police said they saw a car driving away from the blaze, which they then found parked near Weiss's home. According to police, when officers approached the home, Weiss and Shilo came out of the house and attempted to stop police from coming inside. Police then raided the Weiss home and arrested two suspects inside as well as Weiss's husband, Amnon, who was later released. Shilo, who said she had worked with Weiss for 11 years when Weiss was mayor, said she heard about the destruction of Shvut Ami and came to help. "They [police] were dragging her [Weiss] on the ground," Shilo said. "They pushed her and pulled off her head covering and pulled up her shirt. I asked for female police officers but they just mocked me." Weiss said that at least 10 policemen raided her home on Oct. 2 without a search warrant and arrested two suspects. "They burst into my home, flying passed my daughter who just gave birth two weeks ago and arrested my husband," Weiss said. "I understand that if they had pursued the suspects from the scene, then they could enter my home without a search warrant but this was not the case. They entered illegally." Weiss said that Samaria Police Chief Detective Gil Desher, who was dressed in civilian clothes, flashed his identification tag in front of her face and asked for permission to search the house when he was interrogating her after her arrest but when she refused, he told her that they had arrested people in her home. "It's so aggressive," Weiss said. "Last night police raided a Yeshiva high school [Yeshivat Dorshei Yechudecha] in the Jewish community of Yitzhar, known for its dissident community. They came in the middle of the night, turned everything upside down and made 15 year-olds stand with their faces towards the wall." Over the passed few months, the Israel Army has launched an offensive against Jewish dissidents in the West Bank. Military sources said the army's Central Command has been ordered to dismantle unauthorized Jewish outposts and arrest organizers in the West Bank. The sources said the military has assessed that Jewish opponents of the government would try to accelerate construction and settlement amid the expected departure of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "They [the police] have a license to act above the law," Weiss said. "The general atmosphere from the government and the ministry of defense is to go ahead with putting an end to the settlers' activities, especially to crush their spirit, especially with the new outposts." 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
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WHY WOULD THE STATE DEPARTMENT ASSIST OBAMA BY ENABLING FOREIGN MONEY
TO FLOW TO OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN?
Posted by Emanuel A Winston, October 28, 2008. |
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If you had any doubt before about Israel's current, retired but still standing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Kadima gang adopting the methods of totalitarian government like the Soviet Union, put your doubts away. This horribly corrupt and unjust government is an incurable cancer that is metastasizing and spreading poison every day. Olmert, the Leftist tyrant gives the orders and his hand-picked thugs, seeded into the valiant, upstanding Israeli Police and IDF — as well as the Courts click their heels and say the equivalent of: "Yes, Sir!" |
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Let's start from some time back? A few years? We all recall the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) Report published December 3, 2007, which created a false impression to the effect that Iran had ceased all efforts to produce nuclear fuel to make nuclear weapons. Later information leaked out that the State Department had transferred three of its employees into various U.S. Intelligence Services to manipulate actual intelligence to their point of view. Some would call this a "rolling coup d'etat" as the State Department and certain powerful individuals moved to take control of government policy as a "shadow government". This could turn the American people into a Third World population working for new masters. This is not the first time the American public has been manipulated and fleeced by a "shadow government" run by self-serving controllers. Recall the Savings and Loan Crash and Bailout of the mid and late 1980s under James Baker III as Secretary of Treasury? For the record, 1,169 savings and loans in the United States failed. Texas, the epi-center, had the most failures, 237. In 2000, the FDIC said that the S&L disaster cost taxpayers some $124 billion. But that sum does not reflect the entire bill. In order to pay for the S&L bailout, the federal government sold bonds. By the time those bonds are finally retired in 2020 or so, the total cost of the S&L mess will likely be some $300 billion. Secretary of Treasury James Baker, took no action on the emerging savings & loan crisis. Today's current Crash may be the result of the oil manipulation between the multi-national oil companies and the Muslim and Arab oil nations — with 'we, the people' paying for this swindle. All of this is overseen by the U.S. State Department and Washington. The eventual cost to American tax-payers will be astronomical and is, as yet, hidden.
THE MIS-INFORMATION BY THE 2007 NIE REPORT WAS EXPOSED by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. The manipulated NIE Report was designed to stop President Bush from ordering an American attack on Iran's nuclear facilities which are now scattered throughout Iran's countryside. Later the head of the CIA apologized for the Report and its erroneous information but, nevertheless, the well-planned insider propaganda halted any American plans to destroy Iran's burgeoning nuclear facilities. The Leftist Media crawled all over the false NIE Report, practically cheering what turned out to be a phony Report. The State Department wasn't the only participant, as several top ranking officers of the American military were quietly relieved of duty for their participation in the false NIE Report.
British and Israeli Intelligence were furious over this planted mis-information that Iran had ceased its operations when, in fact, they had actually accelerated production of their fissile nuclear material. One could consult with Senator Joe Biden as to why, over the years, he has always leaned toward Iran in his voting and deliberations among his colleagues.
WHY DOES THIS COLLABORATION BY STATE AND OTHER INTEL/MILITARY AGENCIES WANT A PACIFIST like Barack Obama for President? They knew they could not appeal to or trust John McCain and Sarah Palin to go along with the plan to stop a preventative invasion against Iran's nuclear facilities. Compromising America's security or that of our ally, Israel, is a betrayal of a greater magnitude. Barack Obama, given his history of "hanging around the neighborhood" with self-declared anarchists and generally considered far Left-of-Center, could be easily guided by the likes of Colin Powell and Zbigniew Brzezinski to not either pre-emptively attack Iran as necessary or mount a second strike even after Iran attacked any American city or interest. Obama has said he would rather talk than act. But first, Obama needed to be made President and that would cost huge sums. That meant he could not opt to take limited official Government funding as did John McCain. Obama needed far larger funds and that could not come from primarily normal contributions. It needed to come from deep, deep pockets — like those in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, the Gulf Oil States. But, those campaign contributions could not come to Obama in huge traceable gifts, thereby calling attention from government agencies for illegal funding. The money had to be split into very small sums — like $200 per gift through millions of new donors. Of course, Obama's fund raisers refused to release those names to check their origins as McCain chose to do. Other U.S. gifts to Obama in excess of legal limitations which were caught by outside observers, were generally returned — in part — but, even then — not all and not always. Who knew about this massive cash flow officially, unofficially or merely by well-founded rumors in the Intel community? The State Department, the FBI, CIA, NSA and any number of our 16 Intelligence Agencies knew. But, just as no one stopped the false NIE Reports which caused the loss of American resolve to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons' capability, no one stopped the buying of America by the huge, global campaign contributions. The Scam was that high up. Buying a Presidential Election would be a well kept secret not unlike "the magic bullet" and "the shooter on the grassy knoll in Dallas". Was the fix in? It was puzzling when $150 Million Dollars came into Obama's campaign in one month — not to mention the already accumulated "windfall" of close to $450 Million Dollars raised before. The $150 Million Dollars influx in September led to a grand total of $600 Million Dollars for Obama to spend, snowing the American public to cover his record and propagate his rhetoric. Generally, that kind of money floats around drug cartels or oil deals between the Arab Muslim countries and the multinational oil companies. Clearly, if Iran (and Iran's oil) were to be protected — along with its future potential for oil contracts, Obama would be a better, even vital, choice as a malleable President than a stubborn, experienced military man like McCain.
IF THE PRESIDENCY WAS TO BE OWNED AND CONTROLLED BY THE MULTI-NATIONALS AND OIL COUNTRIES, they needed a President like Obama — a stooge. The "controllers" also needed a replacement VP who was known to be more than accommodating to Iran and, thus: Joe Biden. The Media never really questioned this extraordinary cash flow but, instead expressed happy astonishment that a Left Liberal was receiving such approval by way of donations. Of course, no one in government stepped in and said: "Wait a minute". No State Department, no FBI, no CIA, no Justice Department, no Intel Agencies, no watchdog Media....No Nothing! IF Obama's money is coming primarily from the Middle East, then this is a matter of National Security at its highest level — because America is in hock, in thrall, in debt to the tune of Billions of Dollars of deficit — and rising. Clearly, the elections should be put on an extraordinary hold until these unusual questions hanging over Obama's head are answered. A breach of security of this magnitude cannot be covered over or considered trivial just because the plotters need deniability.
WE ALL SHOULD HAVE KNOWN SOMETHING WAS SERIOUSLY WRONG WHEN Obama refused to produce an original birth certificate that could prove he was a natural-born American as required for a Presidential Candidate under Constitutional law. A suit was filed in federal court Philadelphia, requiring Obama to produce his birth certificate but, the Courts dragged their feet, seeming not to want to force the production of such evidence of American birth. Obama is presently visiting Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother. Would you be surprised if he comes back with a Hawaiian birth certificate which, like counterfeit money, has been skillfully aged? Both the Judge and Obama, could go to prison if they colluded to insure the matter would not be adjudicated before the elections on November 4th. Because the suit was filed in Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell, as well as the Attorney General of the Justice Department should have been all over this matter — as a matter of America's national security. If we have a President loyal to the Saudis and other foreign supporters for funding his election win and under the control of the State Department and those who fabricated the false NIE Report, then the matter of treason must be raised. The elections must be delayed while the investigation of Obama's riches from foreign contributions is implemented. This is vital to America's future as a free nation. We in these United States cannot exist as a Democratic country under a "Shadow Government" even if it is controlled by past and/or present State Department plotters. ### 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
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THE FENCE, REVISITED
Posted by Jack L., October 28, 2008. | |
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This was written by Moshe Arens and it appeared today in
Haaretz
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Is it out of habit or mental lassitude that we continue to build the fence, which was begun many years ago? It continues on its weary way, meter by meter, costing billions, causing anguish to many, damaging private property, keeping the High Court of Justice occupied with the complaints it arouses, stirring demonstrations against it, and keeping the Israel Defense Forces busy. Does anyone still remember what the original purpose was of this physical obstacle, hundreds of kilometers long, stringing across the country? Who is taking a second look to see whether it really serves its intended purpose? Many of us prefer to forget those terrible days when Palestinian suicide bombers were roaming through our cities and murdering Israeli citizens daily. It was in those stressful days that the cry went out: "Keep them out! Build a fence, no matter what it costs! The fence around the Gaza Strip works, and we need a fence like it around Judea and Samaria!" Then-Shin Bet head Avi Dichter said we needed such a fence, and Haim Ramon accused those who opposed it of being dinosaurs prepared to endanger human lives for the sake of their outworn ideologies. No politician could withstand this pressure. A human life is worth everything, and if it took hundreds of kilometers of fence to save one, so be it. Besides, this fence was supposed to separate Israelis from Palestinians once and for all. So this humongous, unprecedented project began, and it has continued on its not-so-merry way, winding over hill and dale, ever since. Palestinian terrorism from Judea and Samaria has in the meantime been defeated, our streets and buses have become safe again, but the fence project seems to have assumed a life of its own. Billions are still being spent, our beautiful country is being defaced, great anguish is being caused to tens of thousands living in the vicinity of the fence, and it is high time that we ask ourselves whether this fence serves any useful purpose. Is it the fence, far from completed, that is keeping terrorism out of our cities, or is it the presence of the IDF in Judea and Samaria? There is good reason to believe that it was the IDF's entry into Judea and Samaria, after the Park Hotel massacre in Netanya on the night of the 2002 seder, that largely ended the terror, and that the IDF's continued presence in Judea and Samaria is still Israel's primary defense. Without that presence, surrendering to terrorism would be striking cities in central Israel. If that is the case, the fence is worse than useless. It is no more than the product of momentary hysteria and a Maginot-line mentality that seized some of our politicians, who deluded themselves into thinking that terrorism could be "fenced out." But what happens when the IDF's presence in Judea and Samaria is no longer necessary? Will we need the fence then, and should we therefore continue building it for that eventuality? That hardly seems a reasonable course of action. The IDF will not withdraw from the area until the danger of Palestinian terror has passed, and then no fence will be necessary. Continuing to build the fence is a waste of time and money, and only breeds anger and hostility. In this case, the fence does not make for good neighbors. But some will argue that the fence around the Gaza Strip works. Well, hardly. The terrorists have found ways of outwitting our politicians. Terror is coming over and under the fence. That fence did not stop the Qassam and Katyusha rockets from raining on Israel's citizens in the south. The fence did not keep the Olmert government from finally this terror and agreeing to a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza. And the same thing will happen if the IDF withdraws from Judea and Samaria before the terrorists there finally have been uprooted. The fence will not keep terror away. If not controlled on the ground, it will return to Israel's cities — it will come over and under the fence. Some of us want the fence not in order to keep terrorists out, but to keep Jews in.[emphasis added] Or, in other words, in order to keep Jews out of Judea and Samaria ("the occupied territories"). But that will not work. The British tried to keep Jews out when they blockaded Mandate Palestine's shores and pursued the MacDonald White Paper policy to prevent Jews from purchasing land here. It didn't work. Nor will the fence. The time has come to take a good look at this outlandish project. Does it make any sense to continue building it? And maybe we should begin considering dismantling what has already been built. Do our politicians have the courage to admit they made a mistake?
Contact Jack L by email at yakovdov1@yahoo.com |
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EHUD BARAK'S DODO BOLSHEVISM
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 28, 2008. |
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One of the more amusing developments in pre-election Israel is the sudden adoption of the slogan "piggish capitalism." Most of Israel's chattering classes still dream of seeing a bolshevik system of state planning of the economy imposed upon what is already a Scandinavian style welfare state in Israel. The dodo bird, the new Labor Party join-mascot, alongside the lemming. Things escalated when airhead Shelly Yachimovitz, a backbencher from the Labor Party, started tossing out comments about how "piggish capitalism" was what had to be suppressed. Shelly, whose qualifications for sitting in the Knesset were that she had hosted a chat show on a state-owned radio station, claimed that the crashing stock markets prove that capitalism is dead and that the new enlightened era of bolshevik planning will rescue the planet. Never mind that capitalism is the only system capable of generating any wealth at all that ordinary people can have at risk in the stock market in the first place. It was a bit amusing, but the only paper that told off Silly Shelly was Haaretz, whose business section is the most free-market medium in Israel. Now Ehud Barak, the fella who single-handedly rained 4000 Katyusha
rockets down on northern Israel when he ordered the cowardly
unilateral capitulation to the Hezbollah in 2000, has picked up the
nonsense term from Little Shelly. Barak yesterday also spoke out
against piggish capitalism, although in the news report in the
English Haaretz they prettify what Barak said and call it "greedy
capitalism" of the "Right"
So now Barak, who is heading the Israeli Labor Party, is getting about 10% of the support of the public in pre-election polls. He is trying to save his McClellenist backside by pouting against "Piggish Capitalism." In other words, Barak is now the national champion of Dodo Bolshevism. You may recall that the Dodo bird became extinct because it was too stupid to respond or defend itself when it was being stalked by other animals seeking to devour it. 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
This was published as a Arutz-Sheva blog item
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ISRAELI P.R. ABSENT, AS HOLOCAUST LOOMS; COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT OF JEWS; DEMOCRAT MYTH ABOUT DE-REGULATION
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 28, 2008. |
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CONTAINING IRAN US policy is to contain Iran. Unfortunately, US forces in the region are tied down in combat, sometimes with proxies of Iran. US bases increasingly are subject to foreign control or confiscated. The states there are no match for Iran (Michael Rubin, MEFNews, 9/25). Iran is containing the US. AHMADINEJAD APPLAUDED FOR THREATENING GENOCIDE At the UNO, Pres. Ahmadinejad vowed to destroy Israel, as a public service to Europe, which he claims Israel manipulates. [Did Israel manipulate them into favoring the Arabs?] The speech was applauded warmly. [Some organization, the UNO, that our liberals suggest the US get more in line with!] The government of Israel didn't respond and won't. Its UNO ambassador doesn't take Iran seriously. She rationalizes that the UNO leaders merely were polite to Ahmadinejad. She says her job is to correct false impressions her people have about it and to defend Israel in the UNO. [The UNO always been anti-Israel. Even the partition resolution would have led to an untenable state.] The ambassador's line follows Foreign Min. Livni's. Livni tells Israelis that the UNO, the EU, and the Palestinian Arabs are friends of Israel and that such foreign powers will protect Israel. Livni is trying to become Prime Minister without having to face a contested election [and who became party head by crooked means, and whose policy destabilizes the region]. She claims to be the right person for the job and who would provide continuity and therefore stability. She answers Iran only by urging diplomats not to let Iran onto the Security Council. She doesn't think Iran is a big problem for Israel. She thinks the biggest problem is not handing Israeli territory to Palestinian Arabs and giving them a state they don't want. She doesn't know or admit that they want Israel. When she claimed to have made progress towards that urgent goal, the P.A. negotiator treated her contemptuously and threatened war. She didn't respond. Her sense of urgency gives the Arabs the impression that Israel is desperate or collapsing. They are right. Israel's ruling elite has collapsed morally (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 9/26). ISRAELI PUBLIC RELATIONS SUPERFICIAL Israel urges its media to show that Israel has girls in bikinis, is high tech, and is good for homosexuals. The Left defames Israel on policy matters, creating indignation, without government opposition. The Left accuses Israel of imposing "humiliating" security measures against P.A. Arabs, and makes unworkable [and unjust] demands that Israel "give peace a chance" and withdraw from all land acquired in 1948 and bring in the vengeful Arab families that fled (IMRA, 9/25). HAMAS & FATAH USE SAME HATE-TV Both repeatedly use the same film clip that denies there were ancient Jewish temples in Jerusalem. Archeological and historical evidence and the findings of Muslim scholars affirm that there were. (So does the Christian Testament.) The film also incites fear and hatred against Israel by claiming that it seeks to destroy the Muslim mosque on the Temple Mount. It calls for another Saladdin, who once conquered Jerusalem (Arutz-7, 9/26). Slandering the Jews as seeking to destroy the mosque is an old, demagogic, Muslim tactic there. The Muslim people never have caught on to their constant manipulation by unscrupulous leaders. Nor have the Jewish people and their government versed their own people in this kind of Jewish history. Neither has the government of Israel worked to bring an understanding of this bigotry to the rest of the world. Instead, the government pretends that Fatah is moderate. COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT OF JEWS IN SAMARIA The local IDF commander stopped providing army escorts and permission for Jews to visit Joseph's tomb. His explanation — he was punishing them because the leaders of the town of Yitzhar did not reprimand the men there who raided the Arab village that harbors terrorists who burned Yitzhar's crops, burned a house down, and stabbed a boy. The Jewish pilgrims consider the commander's ban more than collective punishment but irrelevant and therefore nasty. The real question is, why didn't the Army protect Yitzhar, itself (Arutz-7, 9/26). WHAT TO MAKE OF BOMBING OF ISRAELI LEFTIST? Extreme anti-Israeli Prof. Sternhall was injured by a pipe bomb. Nearby was found a leaflet offering a bounty for killing members of Peace Now. Police immediately suspected right-wingers. The Left again tarred the Right and melodramatically lamented this threat to democracy. Haaretz quoted only a right-wing extremist, who denied complicity but did not condemn the attack. Dr. Aaron Lerner thinks that there may have been someone on the Right so stupid as to have set the bomb. The result offset complaints about real police oppression of Jews, in Hebron. The Right should have been more sophisticated about this and condemned the attack as unproductive, the way Abbas does about terrorism. They should point out that it hurts their reputation. Dr. Lerner does not think that this was a police dirty trick (IMRA, 9/26). I do. The police uttered a conclusion too fast. The leaflet was too convenient. How can someone pay a million shekels for murder, without getting caught? HAMAS & FATAH USE SAME HATE-TV Both repeatedly use the same film clip that denies there were ancient Jewish temples in Jerusalem. Archeological and historical evidence and the findings of Muslim scholars affirm that there were. (So does the Christian Testament.) The film also incites fear and hatred against Israel by claiming that it seeks to destroy the Muslim mosque on the Temple Mount. It calls for another Saladdin, who once conquered Jerusalem (Arutz-7, 9/26). Slandering the Jews as seeking to destroy the mosque is an old, demagogic, Muslim tactic there. The Muslim people never have caught on to their constant manipulation by unscrupulous leaders. Nor have the Jewish people and their government versed their own people in this kind of Jewish history. Neither has the government of Israel worked to bring an understanding of this bigotry to the rest of the world. Instead, the government pretends that Fatah is moderate. COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT OF JEWS IN SAMARIA The local IDF commander stopped providing army escorts and permission for Jews to visit Joseph's tomb. His explanation — he was punishing them because the leaders of the town of Yitzhar did not reprimand the men there who raided the Arab village that harbors terrorists who burned Yitzhar's crops, burned a house down, and stabbed a boy. The Jewish pilgrims consider the commander's ban more than collective punishment but irrelevant and therefore nasty. The real question is, why didn't the Army protect Yitzhar, itself (Arutz-7, 9/26). WHAT TO MAKE OF BOMBING OF ISRAELI LEFTIST? Extreme anti-Israeli Prof. Sternhall was injured by a pipe bomb. Nearby was found a leaflet offering a bounty for killing members of Peace Now. Police immediately suspected right-wingers. The Left again tarred the Right and melodramatically lamented this threat to democracy. Haaretz quoted only a right-wing extremist, who denied complicity but did not condemn the attack. Dr. Aaron Lerner thinks that there may have been someone on the Right so stupid as to have set the bomb. The result offset complaints about real police oppression of Jews, in Hebron. The Right should have been more sophisticated about this and condemned the attack as unproductive, the way Abbas does about terrorism. They should point out that it hurts their reputation. Dr. Lerner does not think that this was a police dirty trick (IMRA, 9/26). I do. The police uttered a conclusion too fast. The leaflet was too convenient. How can someone pay a million shekels for murder, without getting caught? DEMOCRAT MYTH ABOUT DE-REGULATION Democrats claim that de-regulation allowed the financial crisis to erupt, though they don't seem able to specify which de-regulation. McCain pointed out that some regulation remained. It was legislated by Congress. Supposedly humanitarian, it required mortgages to be given to people of inadequate means. That started the crisis. Elimination of one significant piece of regulation may have facilitated the crisis. The separation of banking from other industries ended a certain prudence that one industry exerted towards the other. I opposed that de-regulation. It went through, because in America, legislation is put over by lobbies, not by thought. As for other regulation, nothing stopped Congress from introducing a few, simple but critical rules, such as reasonable requirements that investors not buy on high margin. Congress didn't. Now it blames the Bush administration for the whole problem. Maybe just put a sign over lenders' offices, A fool and his money are soon parted." The crisis came by surprise. It took a long time to be understood. The cry that de-regulation created the whole problem makes no sense. What regulations would the government foolish enough to have encouraged sub-prime lending in the first place, have imposed before new business structures were formed and before it knew there was a problem? By government, one must include the Senate Banking Committee, on which Democrats have a majority. It has taken months for partial solutions to be devised even after the crisis struck. Will new regulations be wise or will they reflect special interests? Government usually fouls up. An argument by the NY Times sounds logical, but is specious. The Times pointed out that the regulation encouraging easy-to-get mortgages was enacted a few years before most of the sub-prime mortgages were distributed. There often is a lag in time and circumstances for a baleful law to take its toll. First, people need time to catch on. Second, the era of prosperity gave people the impression of being unending. Third, the real estate boom raised hope and roused customers. Already used to buying on credit, people felt they could take out equity loans buoyed by a rising market. They didn' t question their getting something for nothing. Fourth, the mortgage lenders devised the bundling method, whose lack of transparency and ease of corrupting rating services was not recognized, not by the Administration and not by its critics. After the crisis became apparent, the critics became very smart. They complain that Pres. Bush didn't stop the sub-priming. Where had they been? They were enjoying the apparent prosperity while, as part of their election campaign, they were dishonestly complaining that the economy was poor when unemployment and inflation were at record lows. Since the NY Times can be dishonest about that, be skeptical of whatever else they claim. This was written before the current Commentary magazine explained the history of financial regulation, which confirms what I reckoned. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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OBAMA: CONSTITUTION IS 'DEEPLY FLAWED'
Posted by Avodah, October 28, 2008. |
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This was written by David A. Patten and it appeared
yesterday on
Fox News
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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama described the U.S. Constitution as having "deep flaws" during a September 2001 Chicago public radio program, adding that the country's Founding Fathers had "an enormous blind spot" when they wrote it. Obama also remarked that the Constitution "reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day." Obama's statements came during a panel discussion that aired on Chicago's WBEZ-FM on Sept. 6, 2001, titled "Slavery and the Constitution." The discussion that led to the statements took place on the now-defunct Odyssey program, which also aired statements by Obama bemoaning the fact that the Civil Rights movement had failed to bring about an economic redistribution of wealth in America. Obama's remarks came toward the end of a somewhat professorial, academic discussion on the Constitution and the evolution of Civil Rights. The panelists were discussing the compromise struck by the Founding Fathers to avoid a direct confrontation over slavery, as well as the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments after the Civil War. Those amendments outlawed slavery, required "equal protection" under the law, and stated that African-Americans must be provided the right to vote. Prior to Obama's statement, Richard R. John, a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that slavery had been a significant issue for the Founding Fathers. But it was not, John stated, a matter of central importance to them. John said it was easy to second-guess America's Founding Fathers for establishing a government that allowed slavery to continue. "I think it's easy to be very hard on the Founders, and to be very hard on our governing institutions," John said. "But I just wish we'd think about what the alternatives were, what the practical alternatives [were], and not some possible, counterfactual dreams we might have." At that point, the moderator of the program, Gretchen Helfrich, turned to Obama. "Barack Obama, what are your thoughts on the Declaration and Constitution?" "I-I-I think it's a remarkable document — " he began haltingly. "Which one?" Helfrich interjected. "The original Constitution as well as the Civil War Amendments," he replied. "But I think it is an imperfect document, and I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture, the Colonial culture nascent at that time. "African-Americans were not — first of all they weren't African-Americans — the Africans at the time were not considered as part of the polity that was of concern to the Framers. I think that as Richard said it was a 'nagging problem' in the same way that these days we might think of environmental issues, or some other problem where you have to balance cost-benefits, as opposed to seeing it as a moral problem involving persons of moral worth. "And in that sense," Obama continued, "I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day, and that the Framers had that same blind spot. I don't think the two views are contradictory, to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now, and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day." Obama did not elaborate on the "fundamental flaw" that persists. Conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh pounced on Obama's remarks during his Monday radio program. "Good Lord, ladies and gentlemen! I don't see how he can take the oath of office, which is this: 'I do solemly swear, or affirm, that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Said Limbaugh, "He has rejected the Constitution." Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website:
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THE SACRIFICE OF TRUTH TO POWER
Posted by Avodah, October 28, 2008. |
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This was written
Melanie Phillips, and it appeared October 26, 2008 in The Spectator
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What's happening in this terrifying, Orwellian US presidential race is the flip side of the madness that's been on display since 9/11 itself, when swathes of the UK population decided that 'America had it coming to it' because it supported Israel, and that George W Bush was the most dangerous man on the planet. After the Iraq war started this irrationality swelled into pathological proportions on both sides of the Atlantic, when the 'Bush lied, people died' narrative fuelled a hatred of Bush and 'the neocons' exceeded in its hallucinatory and murderous venom only by the truly deranged way in which the media and intelligentsia systematically either ignored evidence that did not fit this narrative or, even more astoundingly, reported it in such a way that it delivered the opposite of what was actually happening or being said. In this way not only has history been rewritten, not only have Britain and America been to a greater or lesser extent turned against themselves and demoralised by the propaganda of their mortal enemies recycled as truth by our fifth-column Big Media, but they have been incited to an ugly and dangerous level of irrationality, hatred and hysteria which history tells us presages the twilight of freedom. It is that media class which, in refusing to tell the public what it needs to know about Barack Obama, may now finally install in the White House the man who personifies the repudiation of the American power and western values that the media and left-wing intelligentsia (of which the media is the mouthpiece) have themselves spared no effort to destroy these past seven years Michael Malone protests: What I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side — or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.... So much indeed. That's why, as Mark Steyn observes, the media has had a feeding frenzy over Sarah Palin's clothes allowance while all but ignoring the evidence of criminal fundraising for the Obama campaign being facilitated by the Obama campaign : The gentleman who started the ball rolling made four donations under the names 'John Galt', 'Saddam Hussein', 'Osama bin Laden', and 'William Ayers', all using the same credit card number. He wrote this morning to say that all four donations have been charged to his card and the money has now left his account. Again, it's worth pointing out: in order to enable the most basic card fraud of all — multiple names using a single credit card number — the Obama campaign had to manually disable all the default security checks provided by their merchant processor. Now look at this. Back in April, the LA Times ran this story reporting on the going-away party for Rashid Khalidi, Obama's close friend, who justifies Palestinian violence against Israel and who was leaving for a job in New York. Khalidi is a deeply troubling individual, a former PLO operative and close friend of unreprentant former Weatherman terrorist William Ayers. As I have reported before, in 2000 Khalidi and his wife Mona held a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, an Arab group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from the Woods Fund of Chicago when Obama was on the fund's board of directors. Obama has said that his many talks with the Khalidis had been consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table, but around this entire world.' The LA Times reported: During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, 'then you will never see a day of peace.' One speaker likened 'Zionist settlers on the West Bank' to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been 'blinded by ideology.' The paper reported that not only had Obama been present at the party but had praised Khalidi — and it actually had obtained a videotape of the whole event. Yet it has refused to make this video public — even though it would be of great interest, to put it mildly, to see who else was there. Indeed, as the now defunct New York Sun reported: In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the Arab American Action Network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada, and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers (my emphasis).As Gateway Pundit comments: It's hard to imagine that the LA Times would hold onto a video of Sarah Palin praising an antisemitic radical and former PLO operative...But, that is today's mainstream media. But now look at what happens when the media does begin to do its job properly. As the Orlando Sentinel reported: WFTV-Channel 9's Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn't being a Marxist with the 'spreading the wealth' comment. 'Are you joking?' said Biden, who is Obama's running mate. 'No,' West said. West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America's days as the world's leading power were over. 'I don't know who's writing your questions,' Biden shot back. Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign cancelled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife. In that interview, Biden also flatly denied that the Obama campaign was funding corrupt Acorn to deliver voter registration. But as the Investor's Business Daily has reported, it did — and then tried to hide it: Obama paid ACORN, which has endorsed him for president, $800,000 to register new voters, payments his campaign failed to accurately report. (They were disguised in his FEC disclosure as payments to a front group called Citizen Services Inc. for 'advance work.') At NRO Mark Levin identifies a terrifying historical echo when he shudders that, such is the tide of irrationality running in this campaign, the American public appears to be falling under the cult-like spell of an authoritarian demagogue. He is surely correct. For all Obama's laid-back, attractive appearance this election is being fought in an atmosphere of menace. Menace in the way ACORN is intimidating voters into multiple registrations. Menace in the way criminal donations to the Obama campaign have been institutionalised. Menace in the serial lies being told by Obama, Biden and the campaign rebuttal team. Menace in the way the few remaining proper journalists such as Stanley Kurtz are finding sources of information shut down and themselves shut out when they attempt to probe Obama's deeply dubious associations. Menace in the smears and hysterical abuse directed at anyone who questions The One. Menace in the threat of violence if Obama doesn't win. Menace in the pre-emptive smear that the only thing that could bring about an Obama defeat is the inherent racism of the American voters — a smear that potentially identifies all those who vote against him as public enemies. Over the past seven years, the media has created the Big Lie that America is the biggest rogue state in the world, with Israel its proxy. Now it is ensuring that a man who will act on that very premise to crush America and destroy Israel will be placed in the White House to do so. It is not just that the west's Big Media can no longer be trusted. It has become the most important weapon in the arsenal of the enemies of the free world. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website:
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TAX RETURNS SHOW OBAMA'S EDUCATION GROUPS FUNDED CONTROVERSIAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE '90S
Posted by Avodah, October 28, 2008. |
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Barack Obama's boards gave tens of thousands to ACORN and more than $1 million to racially charged organizations, a study of tax returns shows. This was written by Maxim Lott and it appeared yesterday on Fox News. |
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The Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund of Chicago funded numerous controversial groups while Barack Obama served on their boards between 1995 and 2002, an analysis of their tax returns shows. In 2001, when Obama was a part-time director of The Woods Fund of Chicago, it gave $75,000 to ACORN, the voter registration group now under investigation for voter fraud in 12 states. The Woods Fund also gave $6,000 to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama attended. The reason for the donation to the church is unclear — it is simply listed as "for special purposes" in the group's IRS tax form. It gave a further $60,000 to the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University, which was founded and run by Bernardine Dohrn, the wife of domestic terrorist William Ayers and, with her husband, a former member of the 1960s radical group the Weather Underground. Other controversial donations that year included $50,000 to the Small Schools Network — which was founded by Ayers and run by Michael Klonsky, a friend of Ayers' and the former chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), an offshoot of the 1960s radical group Students for a Democratic Society — and $40,000 to the Arab American Action Network, which critics have accused of being anti-Semitic. The Woods Fund did not respond to questions about the funding. When Obama co-chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which calls itself "a public-private partnership improving education for 1.5 million urban and rural public school students," it gave to some of the same groups — partnering with ACORN to manage funding for schools and giving over $1 million to the Small Schools Network. It also gave nearly $1 million to a group called the South Shore African Village Collaborative, whose goals, according to Annenberg's archived Web site, are "to develop more collegial relationships between teachers and principals. Professional development topics include school leadership, team building, parent and community involvement, developing thematic units, instructional strategies, strategic planning, and distance learning and teleconferencing." But the group mentions other goals in its grant application to the Annenberg Challenge: "Our children need to understand the historical context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us," one page of the application reads. Click here to see the application. Stanley Kurtz, a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, found the collaborative's original application when going through Annenberg's archives. Asked to comment, Yvonne Williams-Kinnison, executive director of the collaborative's parent group, the Coalition for Improved Education in South Shore said, "I don't want to put more fuel on the fire. You can call us back after the election.... I don't want to compromise the position." Late Afrocentrist scholars Jacob Carruthers and Asa Hilliard were both invited to give SSAVC teachers a training session, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge noted in a report, adding that the "consciousness raising session ... received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey session." But Carruthers has been a controversial figure because of inflammatory statements he made in writing. "The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy," Carruthers wrote in his 1999 book, "Intellectual Warfare." "Some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our disrupted ancestral culture." In the book, he compared the process of blacks assimilating into American culture with rape. "We may not be able to get our virginity back after the rape, but we do not have to marry the rapist," Carruthers said. Hilliard has come under fire for advocating what many consider an extreme Afrocentric curriculum. He selected the articles for the "African-American Baseline Essays" published in 1987 and first used in the Portland, Ore., school district. The essays have been criticized for claiming, among other things, that ancient Egyptians were the first to discover manned flight and the theory of evolution. An Obama spokesman called investigation of these ties "pathetic." "This is another pathetic attempt by FOX News to distract voters from the economic challenges facing this nation by patching together tenuous links to smear Barack Obama," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com. "The Annenberg Challenge was a bipartisan organization dedicated to improving the performance of students and teachers in Chicago Public Schools that was funded by a Republican philanthropist who was friends with President Reagan and launched by Republican Gov. Jim Edgar." But Kurtz says those founders of the Annenberg Challenge would not have known the details about to whom their Chicago office — one of 18 around the country — was giving money. "If you read Ayers' proposal to Annenberg, it doesn't sound radical. But if you actually read Ayers' education writings, they are very radical indeed," Kurtz said. "Ayers, like so many other savvy professors, knows enough not to state his actual views frankly when applying for money. But you can find the truth in his writings." The controversial donations make up only a small portion of the overall amount doled out by the Annenberg and Woods funds. The Woods Fund gave over $3.5 million to 115 different groups in 2001, and the Annenberg Chellenge dispensed nearly $11 million to 63 groups at its height in 1999. Most of the groups are mainstream and well respected, ranging from the Jazz Institute of Chicago to the Successful Schools Project. But Kurtz says that this should not obscure what he describes as controversial donations. "If John McCain had given to white supremacist groups and people said, 'Hey, the majority of funding didn't go to supremacist groups' — that wouldn't even cut the ice," Kurtz said. "I feel certain [Obama] knew about these radical groups," Kurtz said. "We know that he read the applications because he made statements about the quality of proposals."
Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website:
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PROFESSOR WALDEN IN THE SERVICE OF ISRAEL-DEMONIZATION
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 28, 2008. |
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1. By now, everyone knows about the infamous "Mohammed a-Dura" incident. This was the event in which a French television crew staged a fake death of a Palestinian boy, pretending to be shot by Israeli gunfire in a firefight with terrorists, dying in his father's lap like a Palestinian Pieta figure taken down from the cross. He became the overnight symbol of Palestinian "martyrdom," a child gunned down by Israel. The Iranians made him a state icon and Arab students at Israeli universities display him in their pro-terrorism campus activities. Of course, in the sense that it was all fake, a-Dura really WAS indeed the appropriate symbol for Palestinian "martyrdom." The entire a-Dura Gaza incident was staged and faked by the France
2 television crew, as the media later proved and as a French court
officially declared. Among those helping to expose the lies was a
young French Jew named Phillippe Karsenty. He was then sued by the
French TV station for "libel' but eventually won in court.
This did not stop the usual Jewish leftists from denouncing Karsenty. Leftist Larry Derfner from the Jerusalem Post said that Karsenty and people like him are mentally ill and are equivalent to the 911 "deniers," those who say the US government itself blew up the WTC buildings. Derfner did not issue an apology after the French court declared Karsenty was entirely correct. By now, numerous excellent articles have exposed the whole story.
In French, the best may be this:
But there is one aspect of the case that has NOT been widely
exposed. That is the collaboration by Prof. Raphael Walden with the
French television station's fraud and cover-up. Walden is a
far-leftist anti-Zionist medical doctor with specialty in surgery, at
Tel Hashomer hospital. He is active in the pro-terror anti-Israel
propaganda group "Doctors for Human Rights," a group once run by
anti-Semite Neve Gordon and which does not believe that Jews should be
entitled to any human rights. He is also the son-in-law of Shimon
Peres and often described in the press as Shimon Peres' personal
physician. He signs all the usual leftist proclamations
Ben-Dror Yemini this week described the role of Walden in the French forgery in his weekly column (http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/801/996.html). Walden prepared a professional medical report that backed the lies and fabrications of the French TV station and the attempt to "prove" the Arab propaganda version of the a-Dura shooting, based on the injuries to a-Dura's father. Only problem is that the good doctor never examined the a-Dura father and based his expert conclusions on some paperwork he got from a Jordanian office. A different Israeli doctor who DID examine the poppa, Dr. Yehuda David, discovered that all the injuries the father was claiming to have suffered when his son was pretending to be shot were in fact injuries from at least 8 years earlier. More about Walden's toadying for the French TV station and his
attempt to defend the lies about the a-Dura "killing" can be read
here, by an Arab propaganda news service:
2. One of the more amusing developments in pre-election Israel is the sudden adoption of the slogan "piggish capitalism." Most of Israel's chattering classes still dream of seeing a bolshevik system of state planning of the economy imposed upon what is already a Scandinavian style welfare state in Israel. Things escalated when airhead Shelly Yachimovitz, a backbencher from the Labor Party, started tossing out comments about how "piggish capitalism" was what had to be suppressed. Shelly, whose qualifications for sitting in the Knesset were that she had hosted a chat show on a state-owned radio station, claimed that the crashing stock markets prove that capitalism is dead and that the new enlightened era of bolshevik planning will rescue the planet. Never mind that capitalism is the only system capable of generating any wealth at all that ordinary people can have at risk in the stock market in the first place. It was a bit amusing, but the only paper that told off Ssilly Shelly was Haaretz, whose business section is the most free-market medium in Israel. Now Ehud Barak, the fella who single-handedly rained 4000 Katyusha
rockets down on northern Israel when he ordered the cowardly
unilateral capitulation to the Hezbollah in 2000, has picked up the
nonsense term from Little Shelly. Barak yesterday also spoke out
against piggish capitalism, although in the news report in the English
Haaretz they prettify what Barak said and call it "greedy
capitalism" of the "Right" So now Barak, who is heading the Israeli Labor Party, is getting
about 10% of the support of the public in pre-election polls. He is
trying to save his McClellenist backside by pouting against "Piggish
Capitalism." In other words, Barak is now the national champion of
Dodo Bolshevism. You may recall that the Dodo bird became extinct
because it was too stupid to respond or defend itself when it was
being stalked by other animals seeking to devour it. It joins the
lemming as the new Labor Party co-mascot. 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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DENIAL RUNS THROUGH AMERICAN JEWRY
Posted by GWY, October 28, 2008. |
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This was written by Mona Charen and it appeared today in
Jewish World Review
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From the Palestinian Authority Daily: "Twenty-three-year old Ibrahim Abu Jayyab sits by the computer in the Nusairat refugee camp (in the Gaza Strip) trying to call American citizens in order to convince them to vote for the Democratic candidate for president, Barack Obama..." Like many Palestinians, Abu Jayyab is excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency. (By the way, the Gaza Strip is completely under the control of Hamas. Why then do they persist in speaking of "refugee camps"? But of course, we know why.) If Abu Jayyab and many others in the Palestinian areas are delighted, why are so many American Jewish voters feeling the same way? One side or the other has the wrong man. Which is it? I've heard from some American Jews that they do not believe Obama is sincere in his leftism. They believe/hope that the anti-Israel sentiments and associations of his past were purely opportunistic; that once in the White House he will shed them like yesterday's fashions. That's quite a leap of faith. Many politicians have distanced themselves from positions and associations of their youths. But in Obama's case, he is distancing himself from positions staked out as recently as 2003. The Los Angeles Times is apparently sitting on a videotape showing Obama's remarks at a farewell dinner that year for Rashid Khalidi, the one-time PLO spokesman who now heads the Middle East Studies Department at Columbia. (Columbia University's shame is a subject for another column.) Khalidi is not distancing himself from his past. Consistent with what you'd expect from someone who justified PLO attacks on civilians in Israel and Lebanon from 1976 to 1982, Khalidi routinely refers to Israel as a "racist" and "apartheid" state, and professes to believe in a "one-state" solution to the conflict. Guess which country would have to disappear for that "one" state to come into existence? The Khalidis and Obamas were good friends. In his capacity as a director of the Woods Fund, Obama in 2001 and 2002 steered $75,000 to the Arab American Action Network, the brainchild of Rashid and Mona Khalidi. According to an L.A. Times account of the dinner, Obama mentioned that he and Michelle had been frequent dinner guests at the Khalidi home (just another guy in the neighborhood?) and that the Khalidis had even baby-sat for the Obama girls. Like William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, the Khalidis held a fundraiser for Obama in their living room when he unsuccessfully sought a House seat. At the farewell dinner, according to the L.A. Times, Obama apparently related fondly his "many talks" with the Khalidis. Perhaps that's where he learned, as he told the Des Moines Register that "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people." Obama told the crowd that those talks with the Khalidis had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots ... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table" but around "this entire world." Even less attention has been paid to the man Obama appointed as his emissary to the Muslim community in the U.S., Mazen Asbahi. Asbahi, it turned out, had ties to the Islamic Society of North America, which in turn was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. The Holy Land Foundation was accused of being a front group for Hamas. When news of these associations became public, Asbahi resigned from the campaign to "avoid distracting from Barack Obama's message of change." And don't forget hope! Many American Jews preparing to pull the lever for Obama have never heard of Asbahi. But they surely know about Jeremiah Wright. They know that he gave a "lifetime achievement" award to Louis Farrakhan; that he supported efforts to get U.S. businesses to divest from Israel; that he gave space in the Trinity Church bulletin to Hamas; and that he has accused Israel of "genocide" against the Palestinians. They are preparing to vote for a man who tamely tolerated all of that (and more) for 20 years. Someone is making a big mistake — and it isn't Abu Jayyab.
Editor's Note: Of added interest — Jayab's home sure
doesn't look like the tent with sand flooring that we've been taught
is the sorry home of the Arab refugees.
Contact GWY at gwy123@aol.com
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KOSOVO: LOST TO SERBIA AND TO THE WEST
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 28, 2008. |
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This was written by John Laughland and it appeared in the
Brussels Journal
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A few days spent in Belgrade feels like an age. Although I have been here more times than I can remember (albeit not for five years or so) the country remains almost insuperably foreign. There is something radically different about the Balkans, with respect to the rest of Europe, and there are few more quintessentially Balkan states than Serbia. Where else, for instance, would you meet a man with the wonderful name of Slobodan Despot who smiles and hands you a copy of "The Road to Revolution" by Thomas Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber? Mr. Despot is a publisher previously worked for a conservative pro-Serb publishing house in Paris and the other titles in his own list now include a consolidated calendar of Orthodox and Western saints, and the memoirs of a woman who opened a sex shop in Paris in the early 1970s. And where else would you find yourself on a sofa sipping wine and talking to a civilised young professor of medicine who was himself ethnically cleansed from his home town of Urosevac in Kosovo in June 1999, as NATO guards transported Albanian guerrillas in their Hummers across the province to commit their vicious and systematic arson, murder and rape? Where else — especially in Europe — would you meet a monk whose 25 parishioners (in one of the main towns of Kosovo) have to run the gauntlet every Sunday in order to avoid getting killed on the way to Mass? All these things happened to me — and much more — in the space of a very short stay last week. Ever since the United Nations took over Kosovo in 1999, indeed, the province's endemic corruption has exploded, as I was able to confirm by talking to two American policemen who work for the international administration there. "Every level of society is corrupt," one of them said. "Every single aspect of the society is criminal." This is largely because the Kosovo Liberation Army, the US-backed Contra-style guerrilla force which runs the province and which controls the government, the army and the police, is also notorious for its role as a powerful organisation running drugs, guns and sex slaves to Western Europe. If organised crime is a way of life in Kosovo, so is the systematic destruction of churches: more than 150 churches and monasteries have been blown up on the UN's watch in the last nine years, as Albanians seek not only to expel all Serbs from the province but also to eradicate any physical record of their ever having been their in the first place. Kosovo, one should never forget, is the original heartland of medieval Serbia, the Serbs having migrated North to Belgrade and the Pannonian plane beyond as a result of the Turkish invasions. Images of an angry mob pulling down crosses and stamping on them, such as were filmed on 17 March 2004, have not been seen since the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia; just under a century later they are now, once again, part of Europe's present. In spite of these atrocities, which include the pogrom conducted against Serbs in March 2004 — a killing spree which went largely unreported in the West and which is now completely forgotten about — the European Union and the United States have pushed Kosovo to proclaim its own independence unilaterally, even though international law clearly forbids such a step. In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Quebec's right unilaterally to secede from Canada, on the grounds that the inhabitants of Quebec had full civil and political rights within Canada. Since Kosovo has been governed by the UN since 1999, their proclamation of independence now can only mean that they did not have full political and civil rights under that administration — the very body thrust onto Serbia by the "international community" in the name of human rights and democracy. In the remaining months of this year, the Western powers (the EU and the US) will try to finesse a way of transferring power from the UN administration to one run by the European Union. The main obstacle comes from Russia which has a veto in the UN Security Council, the only body which can relinquish authority over the province. For the time being, the Belgrade government says that it opposes EULEX because EULEX was created as a vehicle for the independence of Kosovo, and Russia has said it will support Serbia. In private, however, Serb ministers admit that they will do anything to get into the EU, including accepting the amputation of 15% of their state territory. However the circle is squared, the likely fudge of authority between the EU and the UN will cause what little government there is in Kosovo to break down completely. As one of the American policemen said to me, "How can you arrest someone if the lines of authority are unclear?" This unclarity will of course again further benefit the gangsters, pimps and drug-runners who currently constitute the government of Kosovo, and who have been the West's allies since 1998. Kosovo is therefore now decisively lost to the Serbs, and therefore to Christian civilisation. A war waged in the name of human rights in 1999 has led to nothing less than genocide — the wholesale eradication both of the Serb population of Kosovo since then (the few remaining Serbs live in ghettos) and of the historical memory of that population. In 1999, to justify the attack on Yugoslavia, the US State Department published a document called "Erasing History" which documented the alleged genocide against the Albanians. Now we know that the bulk of that document was war propaganda, its claims unproven despite years spent trying to prove them at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Yet "erasing history" is precisely what the Albanians have done in Kosovo since NATO occupied the province, and on its watch. They have also erased democracy, human rights, and all the basic tenets of common human decency. The history of the last ten years in Kosovo is nothing but tragedy and hypocrisy blended into one — a true death of the West and all it stands for. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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A GREEN NEGEV
Posted by Ari Bussel, October 27, 2008. |
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Sitting at Lehavim-Rahat train station at eight O'clock in the morning, in the middle of the desert, I was reminded of the story about a lawyer who died and was given a choice between Heaven and Hell. He asked for two days to observe before making up his mind. In Heaven he saw men in black, Rabbis and Clergymen, sitting and studying Holy Scriptures. In Hell he saw green pastures, grass and trees, and chose to go there. It did not quite reconcile with the image he had of Hell — fire and misery, torture and unpleasantness. This was indeed once the case, it was explained to him, until the Israelis moved in. Lehavim, a town just outside Beer Sheva — the capital of the Negev, is a community of single family homes. The streets names of the first phase are flowers. This is the "old section." The second, newer phase has street names of birds, all alphabetized. City planning at its best: Lehavim is a mini "Beverly Hills" in the middle of the desert, only with home values about one tenth. It was originally built along with other satellite neighboring towns surrounding Beer Sheva to strengthen the city. At that time, people had to be incentivized to move here. Lehavim is now a flourishing suburb where home values have skyrocketed. A main contributor to this development was the opening of a train station just outside the town. It is less than an hour's ride by train — with only two stops — to Tel Aviv, so many high-tech employees work at the center in Israel and live in a very upscale neighborhood where the kids roam safely and freely, the air quality is outstanding, a place to which so many of us would yearn to retire. Much like in many other municipalities throughout Israel today, weeks before an upcoming local election, Lehavim is "under construction." Roads are being improved, trees planted, buildings painted. A city of 1,700 families in the midst of an election. The banners on people's yards are enormous, some calling for the reelection of the current mayor, other proposing change. Here is a place that should receive delegations from Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and other cities to observe and later implement some of the most advanced systems of environmental sustainability. Along the paths of the trees, shrubbery and grass there are miles of purple plastic hoses, long and thin, and signs warning: Reclaimed water. Be warned — do not drink! Lehavim is a city in the desert, where the shade offered by the trees creates microclimates which cause a breeze, making it nice and comfortable even when it is searing hot outside. There is a center for recycling: paper, plastic bottles, hazardous materials, used clothing, etc. And people drive there, on the way to drop the kids for a swimming lesson, class or the local Scouts, with huge plastic bags of things that otherwise would be thrown to the trash: Live by example and educate the kids. Everything else is sorted right at home (rather than rely on post-recycling). I am used to a single trash can, here I found a complex made of four parts, each for different type of "trash." What a wonderful experiment that teaches the meaning of environmental sustainability, right from the most harsh of conditions — the desert. This "paradise" is not without its problems. The area is surrounded by Bedouin. Once a completely nomad society that wondered through the Arabian Peninsula, many have now chosen to live a stationary life (tent-structures with a new car nearby). A man can have many wives. Multiple kids with each wife guarantee a steady income from the State. The money often is not used for the kids, and Israel is now considering reallocation of funds: Once the monthly allotment grew exponentially from the third child onward. Now it is meant to be a straight multiplication (i.e. each child entitles the father to X NIS per month, so four children would generate four times X and not more). There is extreme poverty and illiteracy among the Bedouin. They often marry within the extended families, so there are diseases more common than would be found elsewhere. Their main occupation: theft and offering "protection." They are expert liars where it is impossible to detect — even with a lie detector — if they are telling the truth or not anymore. Progress is fought against. An activist recently recognized by Israel for her work to advance the conditions of the Bedouin had her car or home set on fire. The Bedouin were once loyal to Israel. Many served in special units of Israel Defense Forces for there are very few who can follow traces and track progress in the ever changing desert. It is said that even drug trade was allowed or tolerated by Israel, as it benefited Israel by providing much needed intelligence information. More recently, Al Quaeda and other forms of Muslim extremism found their way to within the Bedouin society. Many do not serve, and loyalties seem to shift. Some of the routes thru the Arabian Peninsula now serve for passage of ammunition, sophisticated weaponry and trained personnel coming from Iran and elsewhere. There is no need for "smuggling," it is more or less free passage to an area that is otherwise portrayed to be "under siege." The Bedouin have become a threat from within: On the one hand they feed from Israel, yet they start biting into the same hand, most viscously at times. Let us remember the Bedouin population of the south, as we will return to it as I continue my journeys throughout Israel. Through the train windows the scenery outside is of the end of summer — everything is beige-brown, earth, almost dust. Then, all too often and in the least expected places, green areas — tree groves, vineyards, green fields, agriculture in the middle of the desert, even a beehive cluster. Unbelievable miracles happen in Israel — now thirsty for rain in this coming Fall and Winter — where a desert is turned green and the unimaginable becomes reality. Reporting from this unique land, I remain, With deep friendship, Ari Bussel
Contact Ari Bussel at aribussel@gmail.com |
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ROLL OUT THE BARRELS
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, October 27, 2008. |
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NETANYAHU: JERUSALEM IS NOT UP FOR NEGOTIATION
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 27, 2008. |
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This was written
by Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent. It appeared today at
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Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu declared Monday, at the opening of the Knesset's winter session, that Israel must not negotiate over the division of Jerusalem or the absorption of Palestinian refugees. Netanyahu, who in the last two years has been the clear front-runner in polls which asked prospective voters their choice for prime minister, spoke just after President Shimon Peres announced that Israel was headed for early election. Netanyahu told Knesset that if he becomes prime minister, he will seek peace with the surrounding Arab countries, but said Israel must not give up Golan Heights, large parts of the West Bank or any of Jerusalem. Peres, formally setting into motion procedures for a national ballot, told the Knesset after consultations with political parties that there was no chance of reaching a deal now to form a new coalition government. "This is the time for Israel's Knesset and political system to do some deep soul-searching," he urged lawmakers. "It is never too late to fix mistakes." Following Peres' announcement, Knesset has up to three weeks to dissolve itself and set an election date, widely expected to be scheduled for January or February. "In the coming days, Israel will be entering into a decisive electoral period. This is the first and immediate test set before you — the choice of the people," he said. As the polticial system enters these elections, said the president, lawmakers must remain focus on Israel's strength in the face of its enemies. "Israel must stand strong and if sentenced to fight, must be able to be victorious over every enemy that comes our way," he said. Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in his remarks to the Knesset, just after Peres' announcement, that he appreciated Livni's efforts to form a coalition and regretted the political circumstances that had made it impossible. He added that he intended to remain committed as premier until the elections and to carry it out "with the same responsibility, care and professionalism with which I have acted until now." Shas chief brands Livni allies 'racist, phony, condescending' In an unprecedented attack on Kadima leader Tzipi Livni's team in coalition talks, Eli Yishai, chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Shas party, Monday branded the members of the team "phony, racist and condescending." Yishai was speaking to his party faction ahead of the Monday afternoon opening of the Knesset's winter session, likely to be cut short by the early elections. The Shas leader's remarks came in response to Kadima official's characterization of the ultra-Orthodox party's demands as "extortion." "It's interesting that they didn't call the Labor Party, which received NIS 1.5 billion under the coalition agreement,m extortionists," Yishai told the Shas MKs. "We are speaking here of racism and condescension." Yishai went on to voice thanks to Kadima, saying that its actions would only expand Shas' Knesset strength in the coming election. "If he who helps ailing children is called an extortionist, then I am an extortionist," Yishai said, adding that the Kadima attacks would "boomerang on the attackers." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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THE ANTI HUMAN 'PALESTINIAN' ARABS USE OF 'HUMAN RIGHTS' ORGANIZATIONS
Posted by American, October 27, 2008. |
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One of the propaganda tools the Arab "Palestinians" have been using to further its goals of eradicating the mostly non-Muslim / non-Arab entity Israel, was/is the use of international "human rights" organizations. The demonization of Israel that dares to fight for its survival as a 'bad guy' has been since the 1970's well oil-ed by Saudi Arabia and other filthy rich Arab tycoons that never seem to have an iota of sympathy for the Arab 'Palestinian' brethren and their situation, instead they rather shed its billions to destructive anti Israel propaganda. Using the image of a "weak" people vs a "mighty" Israel, they have psychologically gained the upper hand, as it looks pretty convincing and even more convenient for an Amnesty or HRW personnel to side with the supposed "victim". Even though the real source of Arab 'Palestinian' misery, which was always largely due to its 1) mass corruption, 2) oppression, stepping all over human rights of its people & 3) culture of hatred of Israel substituting for all "love" for its own population. HRW does not disclose its private donors identity, one can only imagine the Arab oil lobby connection here. Israel as a whole and Israelis are always edgy from Arab attackers, ever since 1920's massacres on the Jews in Israel/Palestine. As Israel is and always was under threat upon its existence, it mobilizes force, understandably, to the gullible eye it might look like the goliath is Israel, when it's never the case in reality. An inhumane Arab bomber hiding under its kids' shoulders presents a far greater danger than the restrained Israeli hesitating to fire if a non-combatant is able to get hurt, this explains why the casualties are not in the thousands each time humane Israel conducts an anti terror-war operation. The famous fact of terrorizing journalists by Arab "Palestinians" have forced all that are in [or all those wishing to gain access to] their area to be biased. And so, Arabs, as the real Goliath, masked as poor-poor people have been managing the HRW organizations to report in a total Arabist way, condemning Israel based on unreliable sources, hardly condemning the Arabs for their constant real human rights abuse upon it's kids and on Israeli victims of Arab terror. The NGO Monitor article January 15, 2005 points out that"The Human
Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch 2005 Annual Report
Israeli-Palestinian Section" Lacks Credibility and Reflects Political
Bias.
Google HRW and NGO Watch to read about the NGO Watch monitoring
of HRW and reporting on their bias and double standards.
The NGO Monitor's 2007 Report on HRW
The following analysis demonstrates that HRW's own activities related to Israel continue to fall short of this basic standard of universality Summary: * Analysis of Human Rights Watch's use of the rhetoric of international law and other terminology shows continued double standards and misleading or false claims. The Red Cross Ambulance Incident: HRW issued dramatic pictures purportedly of damage to a Red Cross
ambulance by a Israeli missile. When it was shown that the dramatic
picture of damaged Red Cross ambulance was a hoax Angela Bertz in her article "Amnesty is a Travesty" in Arutz-7
One would have thought that after so many heinous acts, Amnesty International, which claims to be "Protecting Human Rights Around the World", would have issued 16 reports condemning each and every one of these terrible acts of Palestinian terrorism. In fact, AI issued only one report and even though it pertained to the Park Hotel slaughter, the heading "Deliberate Killing of Civilians is Never Justified" was pretty benign and totally belied the atrocity of this appalling act. The three short paragraphs was almost non-committal. While apparently recognizing the massacre as "a grave breach of the fundamental principle of international humanitarian law", Amnesty then refuse to call Hamas a terrorist organization, but made a pathetic plea to "armed Palestinian groups" to cease killing civilians. Volokh Conspiracy The NGO report, February 23, 2003 called
"An Analysis of Amnesty International's Reporting of Human Rights
Issues in the Arab-Israeli Conflict"
The report does not make use of the latest research on what happened in Jenin (accepted by the UN, the vast majority of the international press and governments) and does not define its terms when talking about international law. Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan has been quoted on numerous occasions talking of 'war crimes'... To sprinkle the vocabulary of 'war crimes' in reports is misleading and reveals an ideological bias... HRW's and AI's partisanship has become one-sided pro-Palestinian
advocacy rather than a neutral monitoring of human rights abuse. It
has not resulted in a better life for their Palestinian clients. This
essay entitled "Gaza Anomalies Blow PCP's Circuits: Result — The
Sounds of Silence" was posted August 4, 2008 on the Augean
Stables website A few friends of mine went to a party in Jerusalem that was primarily made up Anglophone reporters, people who work for NGOs and UN agencies. What amazed them was the pervasive sense of the people they met and spoke with that Israel was the greatest human rights violator in the world and that the dismantling of Israel would be a great step forward for global human rights. |
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TO GENOCIDE OR NOT TO GENOCIDE?
Posted by Seth J. Frantzman, October 27, 2008. |
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In the world there exist two types of countries: those that have committed genocides and the ethnic-cleansing of minorities in the last 100 years and those that have not. The question is whether or not it has been better from a historical and modern perspective, and even a moral perspective, to commit genocide or not. Judging by the way in which the former genocidaires have been treated by the international community, by leftist activists and by the academy one can only judge that it has been better to commit genocide and those countries that have not done so have lost out in a variety of ways. Those people who have been the victims of genocide have lost out the most for they have not only been victims but they have also then become, according to the modern western narrative, the 'new Nazis'. Let us consider just a few cases. The Jews suffered the Holocaust, but today's Jewish state is considered a Nazi country by those progressive voices in the West. Europeans and westerners volunteer throughout the Palestinian territories. Yet their ancestors never volunteered to help Jews. Their moral judgement is clear: the Jews are the Nazis. The actual Nazi country, Germany, todays sends millions of Euros in donations to various 'human rights' organizations that condemn Israel as 'fascist' and 'apartheid' and compare its policies to those of Nazi Germany. Germans volunteer in organizations that help build homes for Palestinians. Yet Germans did not rebuild the homes of the Jews who were destroyed in Europe. Today's Germany is a model European democracy, a wealthy country full of technology and industry. Yet its victims are today 'Nazis'. Other countries in Europe are no different. The children of French members of the Vichy regime are today able to pose as progressive leftistis and journey to help Palestinians or burn the Israeli flag at their campuses in France. But the irony of Israel protrayed as a 'Nazi' country by good western wealthy leftist intellectuals and Germany portrayed as a model country is not the only example of where those who commit the genocide have been rewarded while the victims have been termed the 'new Nazis'. The Serbs were, after the Jews and Russians, the main victims of the Nazis. Ten percent of their people were murdered. And yet today Serbia is the pariah and Germany is at the heart of the EU. Serbia must beg to join even as Germans serve in Bosnia and Albania and help continue the ethnic-cleansing of Serbs that was begun by the German allied Ustace Croatian regime. Croatia, a Nazi ally who was the only country in Europe to run its own concentration camp and murder it own Jews without SS help, is a European tourist destination and a 'good' country. It is wealthy and clean and celebrated internationally. Yet the victims of its home grown Nazi Ustache regime, the Serbs, are not only considered 'the new Nazis', but it is Serbs who sit in the dock at the European run International Court of Justice. In the 1990s the Croats continued their cleansing and murder of Serbs throughout Croatia, reducing them to a mere 2% of the population from some 20%, while the West, including Germany and former collaborationist regimes, helped them. Thus the former Nazis helped continue their legacy of murder and all the while the press and academics and 'good leftists' termed the Serbs the 'new Nazis'. Had Serbis chosen differently in 1941 and sided with the Nazis they would have been better off today. But its not the only example. Turkey committed the Armenian Genocide. Today Armenia is a small poor landlocked country whose women are sold as sex slaves in Turkey and across the Middle East and Europe. Turkey, the genocidal regime, is a modern western state who may be granted entrance to the EU. It is in Nato. It is wealthy and considered a 'good' country. To even mention the Armenian genocide in Turkey is illegal, let alone to question the fate of the Ponitc Greeks or the other Greek minorities destroyed in 1922 when Turkey expelled them in the 'population exchange'. Yet Turkey has not stopped there. After its invasion of Cyrpus in the 1970s it cleansed the Greek inhabitants of its part of that island and settled Turks in their place. And today the EU and leftist Cypriots back a plan to allow the Turks to return to Greek Cyprus but not trhe Greeks to return to their former homes. In Rhodes, Crete and other Greek islands the memory of the Turks is preserved in their minarets and mosques and small Muslim communities remain. Yet in places such as Smyrna (Izmir) the Greek churches are gone and their crosses destroyed. Yet in Rhodes a Swedish politician is present researching 'human rights' for the local Muslim community which has recently been allowed to raise a giant minaret above the old city's skyline, a minaret that not coincidentally towers over the local Greek-Orthodox church (just as in Ottoman times when it was illegal for a Christian structure to be taller than a Muslim minaret). Leftist researchers such as Ruth Mandel have been convinced by the Turkish lobby in the U.S which supports pro-Turkish scholarship in the U.S to term the Greeks an 'invented' people whose identity only exists 'against the Turkish Other.' The genocidal regime becomes the positive 'other' and those that were colonized, the Greeks, are said to have no culture. So those who cleansed the Greeks are wealthy and clean and the Greeks must build mosques for them, while in Turkey there is no reciprocal action of preserving the Christian heritage of Anatolia. Everywhere in the world it has been the same. The Cambodian genocidaires were never prosecuted and they were in fact supported by western leftists who claimed the gneocide had been inflated by 'right wing anti-communists.' In Rwanda during the 1994 genocide the French and the world press was tricked the world for months into beleiving that it was the French allied Hutus who were the victims rather than the perpetrators. Westerners, unable to distinguish one black tribe from another, despite their obvious differences, simply believed the reports. Only later when the UN troops under French guidance were actually encouraged to intervene to prevent a 'Tutsi genocide of Hutus' did they realize it was 800,000 Tutsis who had been murdered, rather than the other way around. The Hutu genocidaires escaped to the Congo where the UN settled them in refugee camps. They were allowed to rearm and subsequently started another mini-genocide against Tutsi tribesmen in the Congo. When those Tutsis subsequently formed their own army under General Nkunda the International Court of Justice in Europe and the UN accused him of 'war crimes.' The big Hutu leaders were allowed to settle in the West, in Europe and in the USA. Meanwhile in Rwanda the UN and France has attempted to accuse the Tutusi leadership and its president Paul Kagame of 'war crimes' during the genocide. Not one Hutu has ever been put on trial by the West. During the Indian partition of 1948 the Pakistani Muslims cleansed all the Hindus and Sikhs from what is now Pakistan. Yet India allowed millions of Muslims to remain so that they now form 20% of India. Today all the human rights organizations and other NGOs such as Minority Rights International only care about the Muslims in India. They are said to be poor and discriminated against. In Pakistan there are no Hindus to discriminate against because they are all gone. In Singapore one must also read about discrimination against the Malay Muslim minority, yet in neighbouring Malaysia the Chinese minority suffers official discrimination under the country's 'Malays First' law which gives the majority preference in jobs and education. No NGO or human rights organization has ever voiced any interest in this. The world and its victims have learned the hard way, it is always better to genocide than to be genocided. It is better to cleanse than to be cleansed. The world community appears to voice its opposition to genocide and ethnic-cleansing and 'war crimes'. But history shows us something different. Every country that has successfully done away with its minorities has suceeded in the end in becoming wealthy and accepted. Saudi Arabia and Iran, countries that suppress non-Muslims and in one case won't even allow them to drive on certain roads or construct houses of worship, are darlings of the international community with sympathizers throughout the world, especially at the highest levels of western educational institutions. Their ideologies of Islamism are widely loved in the west with philosophers such as the late Michael Faucault embracing them and modern oped writers such as Bradley Burston declaring 'this year, this Jew is supporting Jihad'. Of course this Jihad is positive, it is an 'inner struggle' and one that does not permit the "murder of women, children or the elderly." Of course it does permit their enslavement and the murder of the men, but no matter. It is better to Jihad than not to Jihad. It is better to be Islamist Iran than those who oppose Islamist Iran. It is better to be Saudi than to be those who are the victims of Saudi. It is better to be Turkey than Armenia and Croatia than Serbia, at least if one measures 'better' by wealth, tourism and international acceptance and historical narrative. The European, whose ancestors collaborated, tells the Serbs to forget the 14th century and join the 21st. But can they join the 21st before they receive an apology for what was done to them in the 20th. No. The message is always: forget the past. Europeans want us to forget the past, because it is one filled with their misdeeds. They want a present where the Jews and Serbs are the 'Nazis' and a German or Frenchmen or Englishwoman can be a Protest Tourist in Hebron helping with the Palestinian olive harvest. Every nation and people should learn from history. Genocide is preferable. Jihad is preferable. Minorities are the shackles around a nation's neck. They are forever used to condemn the nation. Those countries that successfully did away with their minorities, as almost all Muslim countries have done, are more successful, wealthy, and loved in the international arena. For those that say 'never again' and 'now we have learned from our past' one must only look to Sudan for the evidence of this lie. Here is a nation where the genocide continues. And yet the world does nothing. Sudan is widely loved in its region. It is even invited to help with such conferences as the Durban conference against racism and invited to join the UN Human Rights Council. Is it better to be Sudan or Israel? Sudan receives the oil revenues and as the Economist informs us, the per capita income of Arab Khartoum is quite high. Europeans even go their to volunteer, not to help the black victims of the genocide, but to give the wealthy Arabs a free education. Has a European ever volunteered in Israel to help a victim of terror? Except for those few reviled European evangelicals, those 'kooks', No. One can learn from this story that the pragmatic thing to do is to always be the first to genocide, the first to cleanse. One should have collaborated with the Nazis, those nations that did so are today ten times wealthier today than those that did not. Those that did are members of the EU, those that resisted are not. The western academy tells us today to join the Jihad. But morally we know that the blood of the Nazis and their European collaborators can never be removed. The blood of the Jihad never comes off. The soul of the nations that engage in such behavoir can never be cleansed: secularism soon follows and with it low birth rates and decline of civilization. The victory of Nazism is only temporary. It has resulted in the creation of 'New Jews' in Europe, the Muslim immigrants who raise minarets above European cities. The genocider wants us to forget history. Of course. Those descendants of SS officers would prefer we concentrate on destroyed Palestinian homes rather than the former Jewish homes that their families today reside in. Is it a coincidence that all the victims of Nazism have become the 'new Nazis'. Surely not. What is more perverse than for the Nazi to transfer the guilt to his victims, turning them into the perpetrators? But the evidence that this model of liberalism and secularism, this model of genocide does not work, is the Muslim immigration to Europe. For in seeking to transform the victims into the Nazis and the Nazis into respectible members of modern society the Europeans have inadvertently made themselves wealthy and their victims poor, but now that promises to backfire as that wealth has attracted other genocidaires, the best experts at genocide: Islamism and Jihad. So the best thing for Armenia, Serbia and Israel and other victims, such as the Hindus, to do is to watch as the two genocidal peoples work things out among themselves. They say 'forget the past'. But they are deep in the past and it is catching up day by day. Those Europeans who see the actual history and see the Jews, Serbs and Armenians as victims, are the same ones who see the threat of Islamism and are the same ones who see the evils of Nazism and collaboration. But those Europeans are few, just as it was only a few who saw that the Tutsis were the victims and the Hutus the murders. To remove the scourge of collaboration with genocide, the first thing is to remove the UN and the ICJ, two organizations who collaborated with genocide and were built on its gas chambers. Removing these shackles, placed around humanity, may not be possible, for it goes hand in hand with removing the dictatotrship of moral relativism and 'human rights' (which always seems to support the murder of people or nationalism and terrorism) activists and 'anti-racism' (which, in the case of the Durban conference, is usually racist) activists that plague society. Contact Seth J. Frantzman at sfrantzman@hotmail.com and visit his website: http://journalterraincognita.blogspot.com This essay appeared on his website October 21, 2008. |
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ALL ROADS LEAD TO JERUSALEM
Posted by Eleazar ben Yair, October 27, 2008. |
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Caroline Glick writes on the centrality of
Jerusalem.The article appeared today in the
Jerusalem Post
Contact Caroline Glick by email at caroline@carolineglick.com |
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Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's failure to form a government proved that all roads do in fact lead to Jerusalem. It was the issue of Jerusalem that deadlocked and ultimately scuttled Livni's coalition negotiations with Shas, which demanded that she pledge not to negotiate the partition of the city with the Palestinians. Livni refused to make such a pledge. And so the negotiations failed and new elections will soon be called. In refusing to agree to Shas's demand, Livni made clear that partitioning the city — that is, giving the Palestinians sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the Arab neighborhoods — is so central to her preferred foreign policy that she could not budge on the issue despite her obvious desire to take up residence in the Prime Minister's Office. Moreover, it showed that she believes that the bulk of her potential voters hail from the post-Zionist Left. To win their support, she had to make clear that she is one of them. In making Jerusalem, rather than welfare payments the wedge issue in their negotiations with Livni, Shas's leaders demonstrated their recognition of the fact that defending Israeli sovereignty over the capital city is more important to their voters than increasing welfare. Had they entered a Livni government without securing a pledge to defend Jerusalem, Shas would have been hard pressed to compete with the Likud in the coming elections. Due to the centrality of Jerusalem in Livni's failed negotiations with Shas, it is apparent that maintaining or ending sovereignty over united Jerusalem will be the central issue of the coming elections. If the Left can convince a sufficient number of voters that a united Jerusalem is a drain on the country's resources or that it is impossible to enforce Israeli law among an increasingly lawless and irredentist Arab population, then it will have a fighting chance of winning the elections. If the Right is able to demonstrate that the problems that afflict
Jerusalem are little different from those suffered by mixed
Jewish-Arab cities throughout the country and are a consequence of
government and municipal mismanagement and are therefore manageable,
then it will win the elections.
TODAY THE problems that Jerusalem faces stem from its unique demographic character, municipal mismanagement and the clear if previously unstated intention of successive leftist governments to eventually withdraw from the Temple Mount and from the city's Arab neighborhoods. Jerusalem's ranking today as the poorest city in the country redounds to the fact that that the majority of its residents are Arab and haredi. These two sectors by and large do not work and do not pay municipal taxes. As a consequence, the municipal tax burden falls on the plurality of Jerusalemites who work and pay taxes — mainly religious Zionists and non-observant Jews. Due to the unfair tax burden, recent years have seen a steady stream of the city's productive residents migrating to surrounding communities where the tax burden is more evenly distributed and municipal services are consequently better. Beyond the chronic problem of under-collection of taxes, Jerusalem suffers from problems of lawlessness among its Arab residents not unlike the problems that affect all cities with mixed Jewish and Arab populations. This Arab lawlessness is facilitated on a national level by the government's refusal to order the police and the State Attorney's Office to enforce and apply the law equally to Arab citizens. Jerusalem also suffers from unique problems with lawlessness and underdevelopment. These problems have been created by successive governments that have silently encouraged the partition of the city by both enabling the PA to field militiamen in the city's Arab neighborhoods and discouraging and indeed prohibiting Jewish building in areas the government foresees being transferred to Palestinian sovereignty. These manufactured problems have retarded development and expansion plans. They have also artificially raised housing prices for the city's Jewish residents. One of the chief responsibilities of Palestinian militia that operate in the city has been to enforce the PA's anti-Semitic law which defines the sale of land to Jews as a capital offense. Since 1994, dozens of Arab Jerusalemites have been executed by these men and their Fatah masters in Ramallah and Jericho for the "crime" of selling land to Jews. The government has made little effort to prosecute the offenders. Since 2004, when prime minister Ariel Sharon forced internal security minister Uzi Landau to resign due to Landau's opposition to Sharon's sharp turn to the left, the police have not been ordered to rein in the activities of the militia. Largely as a consequence of this state of affairs, Jews are prevented from living in half of the city. The scarcity of housing options for Jews is what has caused an artificial increase in housing prices that has compelled young families to migrate out of the city. Another factor contributing to the scarcity of land for Jewish building is the government's refusal to permit the building of new neighborhoods in areas like E-1 near Mount Scopus. Commerce is stifled, among other reasons, because the government has refrained from ordering the IDF to reassert control over Atarot municipal airport and industrial zone after the Palestinians began murdering businessmen, shooting passing motorists and threatening air traffic in 2000. In essence, as the building of the separation fence within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries shows clearly, the government has been effectively enacting the partition of the city for the past several years without ever acknowledging this fact. The government's effective support for partition is perhaps nowhere more
obvious than on the Temple Mount. There, the Islamic Wakf not only incites
for jihad with impunity, it is also systematically destroying the remains of
the Second Temple with impunity. The abject abandonment of Judaism's
holiest
site by successive governments has facilitated not only the radicalization
of Jerusalem Arabs from surrounding neighborhoods, like Silwan, it has also
emboldened global jihadists to believe that Jerusalem — and Israel with it —
will soon fall into their hands.
IN LIGHT of these difficult realities, it is a relief that Jerusalemites are likely to elect Nir Barkat as their new mayor on November 11. While the mayor of Jerusalem has only a limited capacity to solve the unique, politically-driven maladies endangering the city, he does have considerable power to solve the problems that are similar to those impacting other cities nationwide. He can compel residents to pay their municipal taxes. He can enforce building codes. And he can use his power and influence to facilitate new building while improving municipal infrastructure to encourage economic growth and population expansion. Barkat is a 48-year-old Jerusalemite. He served as a company commander in the paratroopers, and then went on to make a fortune in the hi-tech sector. In 1999, he and his wife became active philanthropists supporting various Zionist educational causes related to the city. In 2003 he retired from his business ventures to run for mayor. His party, Yerushalayim Tatzliah (Jerusalem will succeed), won 43 percent of the vote. Barkat has served for five years as the head of the opposition in the city council. In 2005, he joined Kadima. Last year, he broke with Kadima when he discovered that the government was conducting negotiations on the partition of Jerusalem with Fatah leaders. Emerging as a staunch defender of the city's unity, he was one of the prominent leaders of the national opposition movement which arose to demand that the government end its negotiations on the issue. As a mayoral candidate, Barkat has assembled a candidates list for his party comprised of members of the Likud, the Gil Pensioners Party, the Green Party and Labor. They have committed themselves to a common platform pledged to defend and facilitate continued Israeli sovereignty over the entire city. In a recent conversation, Barkat explained to me that enforcing law and order in the Arab neighborhoods while encouraging local, non-jihadist neighborhood councils to take a leadership role in their communities is one of his primary goals. "Today we have a crazy situation in which the number of municipal inspectors assigned to a neighborhood is inversely proportional to the degree of building code violations. We have four times more municipal inspectors assigned to Jewish neighborhoods than to Arab neighborhoods which have four times more building violations.[emphasis added] I will reverse this situation as mayor." Barkat also intends to push hard to build a new neighborhood for young people in E-1. To date, building in E-1 has been blocked by the government which as bowed to US pressure not to build in the strategically critical area that connects Jerusalem to Ma'aleh Adumim. Barkat also intends to encourage economic growth in the city by developing its tourist sector. He correctly identifies projects like the City of David as sites with massive tourist potential. He believes that the proper way to achieve his goal of bringing 10 million tourists a year is to develop tourist attractions that link the Old City to surrounding areas like Gush Etzion. Barkat has a vision of setting up a council of metropolitan Jerusalem that will involve the heads of the Jewish communities around the city in its overall development plans. This he believes will encourage business growth and lead to more rational long-term urban planning and infrastructure development. Barkat's headquarters bustle with campaign workers. Most of them are in their early 20s. They hail from both non-observant and national religious backgrounds. Their enthusiasm for his candidacy is a product of his chairmanship of the non-profit Ruah Hadasha (new spirit) organization that helps students find post-university job opportunities in Jerusalem and encourages student involvement in the city. Yakir Segev, who founded and directs Ruah Hadasha, is one of the senior members of Barkat's party. There is no guarantee, of course, that Barkat will be able to succeed in contending with the daunting challenges facing the city. But there is no doubt that if elected, he will bring a new integrity and commitment to the office and a welcome vision for Jerusalem that is both attractive and eminently achievable. Indeed, it is the success of Barkat's vision that will put paid the notion that united Jerusalem is ungovernable. If as the polls indicate, Barkat wins the mayoral race in two weeks, the overwhelming majority of Israelis who are committed to safeguarding Israeli sovereignty over the eternal capital of the Jewish people will find a formidable ally in city hall. Contact Eleazar ben Yair by email at Eleazar_benyair@yahoo.it |
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OBAMA ADVISOR PRAISES IRAN
Posted by Family Security Matters (FSM), October 27, 2008. |
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Well, is it that hard to believe in this day and age that a major American newspaper offers up an op-ed filled with praise for Iran? This would be Friday's Boston Globe in an op-ed written by Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley, both of whom work for the liberal minded Center for American Progress. By the way, the fact that Korb has been identified as a key foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama is completely unmentioned — a major journalistic lapse but not a surprising one by the New York Times-owned Boston Globe. Korb and Conley look upon Iranian efforts to help topple the Taliban as proof of the potential for Iran to work with America in bringing about some sort of Pax Persia in the region. This is a fallacy. Iran opposed the Taliban because the Taliban — a Sunni extremist group — hated the Shiite Persians that were on its border and hated the Shiites within Afghanistan. The Taliban murdered Iranian regime officials. The downfall of the Taliban was in the interest of the regime and their help when America sought to oust the Taliban was based strictly on self-interest. In the diplomatic realm, nations don't have permanent friends, they have permanent interests. The interests of the Iranian regime is regional hegemony and the acquisition of nuclear bombs. Korb and Conley blame Bush for failure to reach out to the Iranians. This argument falls flat. In fact, various Bush officials have sought to reach out to the regime (as even the op-ed mentions in passing) but have been rebuffed — as have a long line of other Presidents who have tried to establish relations with the Iranians. This is a fact that the op-ed ignores. The op-ed also seems to blame Bush for the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. This is absurd. The program did not start under Bush (and was actually temporarily put on hold in the wake of our invasion of Iraq) but had its origins going back to the 1980s. The program has progressed apace — under Democrat and Republican Presidents. We have sought, along with the United Nations and our European allies, to work with the Iranians to curb their nuclear program in return for various "carrots" offered to them. The result? Rebuff after rebuff, as the centrifuges spin away. What is especially striking in this op-ed is the complete silence regarding the nature of the Iranian regime. One would hope that a foreign policy expert close to Barack Obama would at least recognize how important it is to consider the nature of a regime when advocating diplomatic outreach. Where is the recognition that the regime is — and has long been — designated as the number one terror-sponsoring nation in the world (as Bill Clinton so designated Iran)? Where is the recognition that Iran has been helping kill Americans in Iraq and has done so in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, or the awareness that Iranian proxies have killed innocent Argentineans, Lebanese, Israelis and for that matter Iranians (a regime that hangs children and gays and brutalizes women wins praise from Korb and Conley?). That little matter of denying the Holocaust while openly boasting of plans to bring about another one? The theological and apocalyptic musings of its leaders (not just President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the talk of halos and apocalypse spoken by Ahmadinejad from the podium of the United Nations to bring about the return of the missing Imam? Sheer piffle, not worth mentioning. We will see more of these efforts to burnish Iran in the days ahead. The Iran lobby is stepping up efforts in Washington. The Persian red carpet is being rolled out. Welcome to the future of our foreign relations under Barack Obama. Much like his campaign, it involves dreams and fantasy. This was written by Ed Lasky news editor for American Thinker. It appeared today in Family Security Mattershttp://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1585/pub_detail.asp The original article has live links to additional material. |
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HIGHLIGHTS OF HAMAS CHARTER & OBAMA'S SANCTION
Posted by Dan Calic, October 27, 2008. |
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Many people are of the belief the best way to resolve the conflict should include negotiations with Hamas and land concessions by Israel. This presumes Hamas is willing to [1] agree to negotiations, [2] accept territorial concessions by Israel and [3] recognize the right of Israel to exist. Below are excerpts from the Hamas Charter. I would invite anyone who believes negotiations designed to bring about a land for peace settlement pay particular attention to the sections of the Hamas charter that are enclosed in double stars and square brackets ([** ... **]). If you've never actually read the Hamas charter, hopefully now you may realize the futility of a negotiated settlement with this terrorist organization, which is uncompromisingly committed to liquidate the Jewish people from every inch of the land of Israel. The Hamas Charter,
"The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)", 18 August
1988 is available as a MidEast Web Historical Document at
HAMAS CHARTER Article Eight: [**Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes**] Strategies of the Islamic Resistance Movement: Palestine Is Isalmic aqf: Article Eleven: [**The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.** Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day? **This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.**] Peaceful Solutions, Initiatives and International Conferences: Article Thirteen: [**Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.** Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know." **Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question.**] Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. ** These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?** "But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow — verse 120). [**There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.**] Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith: "The people of Syria are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation." The Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine is an Individual Duty: Article Fifteen: [**The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.**] To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters. It is necessary that scientists, educators and teachers, information and media people, as well as the educated masses, especially the youth and sheikhs of the Islamic movements, should take part in the operation of awakening (the masses). It is important that basic changes be made in the school curriculum, to cleanse it of the traces of ideological invasion that affected it as a result of the orientalists and missionaries who infiltrated the region following the defeat of the Crusaders at the hands of Salah el-Din (Saladin). The Crusaders realised that it was impossible to defeat the Moslems without first having ideological invasion pave the way by upsetting their thoughts, disfiguring their heritage and violating their ideals. Only then could they invade with soldiers. This, in its turn, paved the way for the imperialistic invasion that made Allenby declare on entering Jerusalem: "Only now have the Crusades ended." General Guru stood at Salah el-Din's grave and said: "We have returned, O Salah el-Din." Imperialism has helped towards the strengthening of ideological invasion, deepening, and still does, its roots. All this has paved the way towards the loss of Palestine. [**It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.**] Palestine contains Islamic holy sites. In it there is al- Aqsa Mosque which is bound to the great Mosque in Mecca in an inseparable bond as long as heaven and earth speak of Isra` (Mohammed's midnight journey to the seven heavens) and Mi'raj (Mohammed's ascension to the seven heavens from Jerusalem). "The bond of one day for the sake of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it. The place of one's whip in Paradise is far better than the world and whatever there is on it. A worshipper's going and coming in the service of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it." (As related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, al-Tarmdhi and Ibn Maja). [**"I swear by the holder of Mohammed's soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed." (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).**] And now take a look at a quote from Barrack Obama in a NY Times interview: The U.S. needs a foreign policy that "looks at the root causes of problems and dangers." Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims." "Legitimate claims??!!" Would a true friend of Israel say such a thing ? Contact Dan Calic at calic@comcast.net |
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FROM ISRAEL: DAYS OF TURMOIL
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 27, 2008. |
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Well, President Peres has told the Knesset, which is beginning its winter session, that we will be going to elections. Part of the process down the road will involve dissolving the current Knesset. Several factions are urging that elections proceed as speedily as possible, for the nation's sake. Analysts project a two-way contest between Livni and Netanyahu, with Barak of Labor falling so far behind as to be pretty much out of the picture — which is a good place for him. For the first time, polls have been released that show Livni ahead of Netanyahu by 2 or 3 seats. I figure that this is a result of her claiming the high ground in refusing to cave to Shas's demands. It is not necessarily a stable figure.; there's no such thing as a stable predictive figure three months before an election. But I guess it won't be a shoo-in for Netanyahu, which is how it seemed for some time. ~~~~~~~~~~ Olmert made a statement to the Knesset in the course of this discussion: "The threats on the security of the people of Israel will not wait for political procedures. [Concern about] terror cannot be postponed because some of us are busy with the election process." He's right. Responses to terror, actions to protect national security, may be necessary between now and the time his successor takes over. But this doesn't provide him with the latitude to continue negotiations with the PA. ~~~~~~~~~~ Actually, because of the political uncertainty Abbas has cancelled a meeting with Olmert that had been scheduled. Whether it will be rescheduled is not clear. It shouldn't be. The PA is terribly unhappy about the current state of affairs and the likelihood that the Israeli elections will make progress in the "peace" process impossible. What a shame... What they are most worried about is the possibility that Livni might lose the elections: "If Netanyahu becomes the next prime minister, we will have to declare the peace process dead." Fact is, Abbas is about to face enormous political turmoil come January in terms of his fight with Hamas regarding when his term ends. He's in no shape to advance "peace" either. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday, Home Front Commander Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan, addressing a National Security Institute conference, said that Israel faces greater threat of missile attacks down the road. "In the next five years, our enemies may fire 200-300 tons of explosive's worth in rockets on Israel." During the Second Lebanon War the rockets fired at Israel amounted to 30 tons of explosives. Golan was reassuring, however: "The numbers may seem high but this isn't a catastrophe in waiting. We are more than capable of handling it." Let's pray so, as it's not simply a matter of more explosives, but also more sophisticated and accurate equipment. The conference was told that Home Front readiness is being revolutionized. But I have another thought, another concern: Are we going to sit here and wait for those explosives to start flying — from Hezbollah or from Hamas? Will there be no pre-emptive actions, even though we know full well that arsenals are being strengthened?? ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday, Defense Minister Barak complained to the head of UNIFIL regarding the continuing smuggling of arms by Hezbollah over the Syrian border. A whole lot of good this will do. Declaring that the IDF has been watching the situation closely and has seen the strengthening of Hezbollah (a re-arming the UNIFIL says they see no evidence of), Barak protested that, "The repeated violation of 1701 could lead us to upset of the delicate balance that exists in Lebanon..." I confess: I have no idea what "delicate balance" Barak has in mind. Hezbollah already has the upper hand, as far as I can see. ~~~~~~~~~~ A US Special Forces operation moved about 4 to 5 miles inside Syria yesterday, as part of an action to secure the Syrian border with Iraq, via which about 90% of foreign fighters — as well as cash for Al Qaida and weapons — enter Iraq. Eight people were killed in the helicopter raid, including, according to a US official cited by Fox News, the main target of the operation, the Al Qaida coordinator of foreign fighters stationed in Syria. Good move. The Syrians, who have not been particularly cooperative with regard to sealing their border (any more than they seal their border with Lebanon), are decidedly not happy. ~~~~~~~~~~ This past Shabbat, close to 600 PA special forces troops, US-trained, were deployed in Hevron. This is ostensibly to give the PA a stronger hand in combating Hamas, as Hevron is a Hamas stronghold. But this follows the deployment of PA troops some months earlier, first in Nablus (Shechem) and then in Jenin. And there is great unease in some quarters here in Israel that this is part of a process of turning Judea and Samaria over to PA security, one step at a time, as a prelude to pushing out Jewish settlement. It remains to be seen how the forces in Hevron will conduct themselves. In Nablus and Jenin it was reported that they helped restore calm on the streets and did things such as arrest car thieves, but did not actively take on Hamas — this was left for the IDF to handle. A first operation of some sort, that rounded up "criminals and Hamas loyalists" is being reported in the media. ~~~~~~~~~~ For a number of reasons, the beleaguered Jewish community of Hevron fiercely protested this move, which could have been stopped by the IDF. Terrorists have on numerous occasions been incorporated into the PA security forces, and thus there is no reason to trust them. The PA-controlled area around the Jewish area of Hevron includes high points from which it is possible for snipers to shoot at Jews. This is not idle speculation, as this is what happened in 2001 to 10-month old Shalhevet Pass, who was deliberately shot dead by a sniper standing on a hill near the Avraham Aveinu neighborhood and aiming directly at her head. ~~~~~~~~~~ What is more, the speculation that the deployment of these forces is a prelude to pushing out Jewish settlement gained considerable traction in the small hours of Sunday morning as Israeli forces (police, army and more) demolished the home of Noam Federman and his family: The Federman farm is located outside of Kiryat Arba, not far from Hevron. Noam, his wife Elisheva, and their nine children, had lived in a house there for two years. In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, they were awaked without prior warning and removed forcibly from their house — which was totally demolished with contents inside. The reason given: It was "illegally constructed." One is struck by the difference between this action and the deferential treatment afforded by the government to the families of terrorists who are resident in eastern Jerusalem — treatment that makes Israeli officials move only very reluctantly with regard to demolishing their homes. It is Jewish Israelis, the "settlers," the residents of Judea and Samaria, who have become the enemy, the roadblock to official intentions to accommodate the Palestinians. ~~~~~~~~~~ At the farm, as the home was being demolished, some few of the Jews present (for the word went out and people gathered) made injudicious remarks regarding the IDF. Apologies have since been offered for what was said, but a great deal is being made of this. I would offer here the words of Hevron spokesman David Wilder: "There is a saying in Hebrew that a person should not be held responsible for his words when his loved ones are still lying dead in front of him. That is how I relate to the...remarks [made]. The expulsion from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria are all still much too fresh and the fate of those expelled still hurting much too much. It is no secret that this administration has plans to implement further expulsions..." ~~~~~~~~~~ Arutz Sheva reports that the municipality of Kiryat Arba has decided officially to rebuild the home that was demolished on the Federman farm, using city equipment and calling upon Jews across Israel to help. It is felt important that the site not be permitted to remain desolate of a Jewish presence. The Jews of Judea and Samaria are tired of being the scapegoats and tired of the treatment accorded them, and they are angry. It is my own opinion that their resolve and their courage will be the salvation of our nation. ~~~~~~~~~~ A stunning analysis of the Obama campaign — "The Obama Temptation" by Mark R. Levin — has come to my attention. Says Levin: "...I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places...even some conservatives are caught in the moment as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are unpersuasive and even illogical...[people with] significant public policy and real world experiences...find Obama alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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COMMEMORATION OF MUNICH MASSACRE "MAY OFFEND MUSLIMS"
Posted by Simon McIlwaine, October 27, 2008. | |
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This is an excerpt from
Specialist advice is being given to Scotland Yard on how to reduce tensions between police and Muslims during the London Olympics because of growing concerns about the Games clashing with the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the day, The Times has learnt.
Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk |
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OBAMA CAMP LASHES OUT AT FOX NEWS OVER COVERAGE OF 2001 RADIO INTERVIEW
Posted by NCUL, October 27, 2008. | |
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In a radio interview in 2001, Barack Obama said the civil rights movement failed when it became so dependent on the Supreme Court that it never got around to working toward redistributing income. This is an article from www.FOXNews.com | |
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Barack Obama's campaign is firing back against criticism over a seven-year-old radio interview in which Obama discussed wealth redistribution, specifically blaming FOX News for drawing attention to the issue. In the interview, conducted by Chicago Public Radio in 2001 while Obama was an Illinois state senator and a law professor at the University of Chicago, Obama discusses the failure of the Supreme Court to rule on redistributing wealth in its civil rights decisions. The unearthed conversations gave fresh ammunition to critics who say the Democratic presidential candidate has a socialist agenda. But Obama spokesman Bill Burton on Monday accused FOX News of pushing a "fake news controversy" to further an agenda. Though FOX News played the audio tape for its viewers and did not just recap Republican criticism, Burton suggested FOX News was conspiring with the McCain campaign and the Drudge Report, which posted the material on its Web site. "This is a fake news controversy drummed up by the all too common alliance of FOX News, the Drudge Report and John McCain, who apparently decided to close out his campaign with the same false, desperate attacks that have failed for months," Burton said in a written statement Monday. "In this seven-year-old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all." In a heated interview later on FOX News, Burton accused the channel of giving McCain advertising "for free every single day," and trying to "continually trump up these fake controversies and have folks on to talk about things that don't have anything to do with the issues that are important to the American people." "This was indeed an issue that has been driven by the FOX News Channel," Burton said. "And so this notion that somehow FOX News has been fair on these points, it just does not hold up to the reality of sort of the coverage that it's been getting. And I think ... it is rarely so crystal clear when FOX News in and of itself is driving its own specific agenda helping John McCain frankly more than John McCain sometimes helps himself." However, the 2001 interview evoked recent questioning by Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher, the Ohio man who asked Obama about his proposal to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000. Obama told Wurzelbacher he wants to hike taxes on the wealthy so that the government can spread the wealth. In the radio interview, Obama delved into whether the civil rights movement should have gone further than it did, so that when "dispossessed peoples" appealed to the high court on the right to sit at the lunch counter, they should have also appealed for the right to have someone else pay for the meal. Obama said the civil rights movement was victorious in some regards, but failed to create a "redistributive change" in its appeals to the Supreme Court, led at the time by Chief Justice Earl Warren. He suggested that such change should occur at the state legislature level, since the courts did not interpret the U.S. Constitution to permit such change. "The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society, and to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical," Obama said in the interview, a recording of which surfaced on the Internet over the weekend. "It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted. "And the Warren court interpreted it generally in the same way — that the Constitution is a document of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted. "And I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that," Obama said. Burton said Monday the comments on the tape have "nothing to do with Obama's economic plan or his plan to give the middle class a tax cut." "Here are the facts. In the interview, Obama went into extensive detail to explain why the courts should not get into that business of 'redistributing' wealth. Obama's point — and what he called a tragedy — was that legal victories in the civil rights led too many people to rely on the courts to change society for the better. That view is shared by conservative judges and legal scholars across the country," Burton said. "And so Obama's point was simply that if we want to improve economic conditions for people in this country, we should do so by bringing people together at the community level and getting everyone involved in our democratic process," Burton continued.
John McCain's campaign said the tape proves that Obama is too liberal for the White House. "Now we know that the slogans 'change you can believe in' and 'change we need' are code words for Barack Obama's ultimate goal: 'redistributive change,'" said McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin. "Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn't been more 'radical' and described as a 'tragedy' the court's refusal to take up 'the issues of redistribution of wealth.' No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench," Holtz-Eakin continued. National Review reporter Byron York, a FOX News contributor, said the U.S. government already has a progressive tax system that gives money earned by one group to another group, but it's a matter of degree. He added that Obama's outlook on that system hasn't changed. "It seems clear from listening to this that the Obama of 2001 and probably the Obama of today feels that the government doesn't do that enough, and I think that's probably the big point in this tape," York said. "You've got to take him at his word," York added. "It seems to me that the tape shows that this is simply a goal he has had for a long time." In a speech in Cleveland on Monday, McCain said the Obama interview is just another indication that the Democrat wants to increase sharply the amount of government spending. "Today, he claims he will only tax the rich. But we've seen in the past that he's willing to support taxes that hit people squarely in the middle class, and with a trillion dollars in new spending, the most likely outcome is that everyone who pays taxes will be paying for his spending," McCain said. Obama Bombshell: 'Redistribution of Wealth' Audio Uncovered
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EVERYDAY JIHAD — A BOOK REVIEW
Posted by Tsvi November, October 27, 2008. |
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Rougier, Bernard
Everyday Jihad focuses on the constantly growing power of various Islamic fundamentalist groups active in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. The camps are officially run by UNRWA, the UN's single purpose agency charged with assisting Palestinian refugees. UNRWA, created in 1951, operates the camps and also provides educational and health care services to residents. The fact that UNRWA's budget is heavily dependent on US taxpayers is not mentioned by the author who estimates that there are over 300,000 Palestinians in Lebanon and their camps enjoy extraterritorial status. Lebanese authority is not exercised over the camps and the Lebanese army does not go in unless threatened by armed insurgents, significant numbers of whom live in the camps. Palestinians are legally barred from most occupations in Lebanon but can get work permits for menial jobs. In the 1950s the Palestinian Christians were granted citizenship and equal rights but the vast majority of Palestinians are Sunni Moslems who do not enjoy equal access to amenities and facilities in the country. This text is a political anthropological survey/description of the interaction of the numerous forces competing with one another to lead the Palestinians. The activists involved are profoundly influenced by current turmoil throughout the Islamic world and also strive to play an important role in fundamentalist expansion in Lebanon, the Middle East, the Moslem world and beyond. Rougier conducted his research primarily in the two largest camps of Ain al-Helweh near Beirut and Nahr al-Barid north of Tripoli over a four year period through the auspices of CEMAM (Centre d'Etude sur le monde Arabe) in Geneva and CERMOC (Centre d'Etude et de Recherché sur le moyen-Orient Contemp) in Beirut. What I found so fascinating about this survey is the large number of organizations at work and sometimes at war with one another. To call the Lebanese political configuration that Rougier describes in detail as complicated is a gross understatement. Therefore, I will try to simply list the actors and their orientation toward other militants, established governments, political parties, divergent ideologies and their perceived enemies (i.e. Israel, the US, Christianity and the West in general). We can begin with the proto-state PLO which is a secular nationalist movement that consists of several fighting groups, the most influential being Fatah. Both the PLO (as a roof organization) and Fatah are split into two camps; those who support the Oslo process and negotiating with Israel and those who object to it. The latter see Arafat, his successor Abu Mazzen and the negotiators as traitors. Other groups such as the PFLP and the DFLP compete with Fatah in carrying out terror attacks euphemistically referred to as "resistance". However, the secular nationalists have, for the most part, been superseded by Hamas which is the Palestinian equivalent of the Moslem Brotherhood founded in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood, now active in many Arab countries, is essentially a political movement that wants to replace secular Arab governments that imitate the despised West with Islamic regimes (not unlike the one in Iran) that will rule according to the Koran and Shari'a law. Most observers think that Hamas has supplanted Fatah and the PLO. Hamas considers all of Palestine (i.e. Israel) holy Moslem land and, therefore, non-negotiable. Hamas is not a member of the PLO but did win the last (2006) PA (Palestinian Authority) elections and has taken over (2007) the Gaza strip by force. Since the 1980s, as a consequence of the Islamic revolution in Iran and the success of the Islamic guerrillas who drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, Islamic radicals are now well-entrenched in Pakistan and the Palestinian camps in Lebanon as well. Over the past two decades fundamentalists, some of whom fought and/or studied in Afghanistan or Peshawar, have taken over the camps. They have replaced the PLO and Hamas and now dominate Palestinian thinking and orientation. The fundamentalists have weakened nationalistic ambitions and encourage transnational jihad instead. These Salafists (all men because women are excluded from their masculine, religious milieu) want to re-create the original Moslem community Mohammad set up in 7th century Arabia. These radicals refuse to participate in modern political institutions or processes. Their only legitimate constitution is the Koran and the values that guided the Prophet and his followers. Western political thinking about freedom, democracy, man-made legislation and political institutions are rejected outright. Consequently, these Salafists also oppose Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood because they (Hamas and the Brotherhood) willingly take part in elections and agree to work within the frame of secular governments. In addition, the Salafists follow the battles being fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Algeria, Somalia and elsewhere. They even volunteer to go on jihad to fight infidels wherever they may be. Some Palestinian Salafist groups are funded by Iran while others are supported by Saudi Arabia. Libya's Muammar also contributes to seminars that teach Salafi principles. Money is also raised in Arab communities abroad. Two Lebanese Salafist organizations, Jama'a Islamiyya and al-Ahbash (literally 'Ethiopians') are more "moderate" and work openly in Lebanese society. But Usbat al-Ansar (Partisans' League) and al-Haraka al-Islamiya al Mujahida (Combatant Islamic Movement) operate clandestently in the camps and are violent. They attack churches, night clubs, liquor stores and Lebanese government agencies including the police and army. They wage holy war against what they call 'the enemies of Islam' of which there are many. However, these Salafists do not attack Syrian representatives or installations. Bashar al-Asad's regime, even though it is a secular Ba'thist/socialist dictatorship and far from Islam, is not criticized openly. The Syrians maintain a pervading omnipresence in Lebanon. Their intelligence service (Mukhabara) has offices in strategic locations and seems to know everything. Even before the start of Lebanon's civil war in 1976 (which Rougier believes was incited by the PLO), the Syrians dominated Lebanese politics. In fact, Syria has until now considered Lebanon to be part of Syria. [In October 2008 I read that the Syrians and Lebanese have decided to establish diplomatic relations for the first time.] The Syrians have their own Palestine liberation organization, al-Saika and over the decades have consistently opposed the PLO. Rougier does not, however, analyze the conflicts of interests between these two parties. The Syrians are very good at manipulating the many antagonistic groups extant in Lebanon. During the civil war (1976-1990) they supported the Christian militias against the Palestinians. More recently, the Syrians have aligned themselves with Iran and provide extensive military support to Hizbullah which, in effect, has control over southern Lebanon. Like the Iranians, Hizbullah is Shi'ite. Indeed, the Shi'ites are the largest of Lebanon's forty officially recognized confessional groups. It is the Shi'ite Hizbullah that carries out attacks on Israel and does not allow Palestinian (Sunni) units to operate in its territory. The Lebanese army is essentially impotent and, at any rate, is now largely Shi'ite because many Maronite Christians, especially from tension-filled Tripoli, have emigrated westward. [I read somewhere that more Lebanese live outside the country than in it.] Rougier notes that Bashar al-Asad and the ruling clique in Syria belong to the Alawite sect which is related to the Shi'ite branch of Islam. This helps explain Asad's friendship with Iran. The Sunni-Shi'ite mutual disgust and distrust is played out in Lebanon whereas in Syria itself the Syrian Liberation Party (Hizb al-Tahrir), a Moslem Brotherhood group is outlawed; its revolt was brutally crushed in Hama in 1982. Membership in this organization carries the death penalty. But the Syrians have no problem backing Sunni groups in Lebanon if this serves their interests. Other ethnic forces that have an impact on Lebanese life and politics include the Druze, moderate (i.e. modern, non-jihadi) Sunnis, the various Christian churches and foreign governments too. Both the US and France support secular moderates (Christian and Sunni Moslem alike) while the Druze led by Walid Jumblatt (a dedicated socialist) are currently sidelined. It is the Iranians working through Hizbullah who now seem to have gained the upper hand in Lebanese affairs. The UN's UNIFIL peace keeping force in south Lebanon is ineffective because it patrols only in open areas and not in the towns and villages where Hizbullah has installed its rockets and weaponry. The UN soldiers are, naturally enough, interested in their monthly pay checks and returning safely home to their families in France and Italy. The Syrians, Salafists, Hizbullah, Palestinians and other 'activists' don't hesitate to assassinate competitors, all of whom are united only in their hatred of Jews and Israel. To my surprise, Rougier's concluding remarks blame Israel for most, if not all, of Lebanon's problems. It is the Israelis, in the author's opinion, who refuse to make peace with the Palestinians. He claims that Israel can solve the Palestinian problem and thus alleviate Lebanon's torment. This unfounded conclusion contradicts everything the writer has carefully documented. Over some 260 pages, Rougier meticulously describes all the radical jihadi terror organizations and their uncompromising Moslem fanaticism, Syrian, Saudi and Iranian machinations and manipulations as well as the Sunni-Shi'ite mutual hatred. None of these murderous forces are found guilty of anything so the author plays it politically safe and puts the blame on Israel. Contact Tsvi November at tsvinov@gmail.com |
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IF YOU MUST VOTE FOR OBAMA; OBAMA'S NUMEROUS ISLAMIST CONNECTIONS; BIDEN DISQUALIFIES OBAMA
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 27, 2008. |
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PUT LIMITS ON BLOOMBERG SKULLDUGGERY The NY Times endorsed Mayor Bloomberg's bid for a third term. It contends that the people, who like him, should have another opportunity to vote for him. It admits that the people twice voted to limit him and others to their two terms in New York, and still prefer such limits. He pledged to accept their decision. Now he is reneging. Just another demagogue, undeserving of office? The Times also admits that Bloomberg drafted recipients of his charity to endorse his bid (10/23). Would the charities risk his withholding future donations, if they didn't? He is corrupt. Should he be arrested and imprisoned for it? He originally was a Democrat, bought the GOP nomination, spurned Republicans, and then called himself independent. He has a secret taxpayer slush fund, to buy support. He let contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars without public bidding. When public outcry forced public another bid, it was double what Bloomberg would have accepted. All his big projects failed. How competent was he, whose pretext for a third term is that we need him to shepherd our funds through this financial crisis that he left us in bad shape for? Then there is his constant, false claim of educational achievement. He used statistical deceit. Also, he paid principals for favorable results; they ordered cheating. Some columnists exposed the misuse of statistics, but he continues to claim improvement that federal tests prove do not exist. He mostly has been anti-environment. Like our other mayors, he has no long-range plan for sustainable trash and sewage disposal, from which we could recycle energy. He tried to set up a Madrassa! What upholds his reputation? Even if he were honest and competent, it would not justify overturning referenda. IF YOU MUST VOTE FOR OBAMA Start taking anti-radiation pills. (While he talks with Iran.) THE EPITOME OF NAIVETE Israeli leaders are considering whether they can trust Assad to keep the peace if they sacrifice a part of their country and homeland that now affords Israel a secure border and a third of its water. Can they trust him to end his alliance with Iran? Probably he would demand US arms, the way Egypt did. Egypt now has a powerful air force and ground force and a navy stronger than Israel's. Imagine if Syria were armed likewise? Then together with Egypt, Syria could realize the Islamic dream of conquering Israel, that they tried before. Those Israeli leaders are the epitome of naivete. They may cause Israel's conquest. OBAMA'S NUMEROUS ISLAMIST CONNECTIONS The Democrats have been covering up (several) key questions about candidate Obama, including his connections to Islam and its radicals. Former Sec. Colin Powell just lied about Obama always having been a Christian. There was enough evidence before to disprove that. It just came out that Obama was registered in his school in Indonesia as a Muslim. How did Obama pay for Harvard Law School? Former Manhattan Borough Pres. Percy Sutton said that Khalid al-Mansour raised money for the it. Al-Mansour was an advisor to Saudi Prince al-Walid Bin Talal, the biggest donor to CAIR, listed by the US as an unindicted co-conspirator in Hamas fund-raising. Al-Mansour has Islamist views, such as denying Sudan sponsorship of slavery and claims that the Jews have no tie to Jerusalem. Al-Mansour and Obama deny Sutton's allegation. Kenneth Gamble cut the ribbon in his building in Philadelphia, serving as an Obama headquarters. Gamble buys Philadelphia real estate to carve out a Muslims-only residential area in that city. (That not only means discrimination and segregation, it also allows Muslims to indoctrinate against American society.) Gamble has links to Islamist organizations, including the Muslim Alliance In N. America, one of whose leaders is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Obama's first Muslim outreach coordinator had to resign when he was discovered (by the campaign or outsiders?) to have served on the board of the Saudi-sponsored N. American Islamic Trust with another unindicted co-conspirator and has ties to CAIR and to another unindicted co-conspirator, the United Islamic Society of N. America. As soon as appointed, Obama's second Muslim outreach coordinator met with a group of Muslims that included some notorious proponents of terrorism. Obama's Chicago associate, Rezko, was a partner for almost 30 years with Jabir Herbert Muhammad, a son of the Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Rezko says he gave that family millions of dollars. Obama's pastor, Rev. Wright, had belonged to the Nation of Islam and mor than once praised the current leader, Louis Farrakhan as a giant and great among black religious figures. How fit is Obama to serve as our commander-in-chief? He couldn't pass a security check (Daniel Pipes, #874, 10/23). The NY Times editorial of 10/24 endorsing Obama denounced claims that Obama is a Muslim as lies. But the editorial wasn't just opinion, it lied or exaggerated the facts. It ignored the above. BIDEN DISQUALIFIES OBAMA America's enemies are pleased with Obama's candidacy. Sen. Biden warned that if Obama is elected, our enemies will test him right away. They will generate a crisis. It won't be apparent initially that we are in the right. Campaign sympathizers rationalized that all new presidents are tested. Not true. Eisenhower was not. Reagan was appeased by Iran. This means that the enemies will test Obama because they consider him naïve and weak. Biden doesn't have much faith in Obama, because he thinks Obama would let it become a crisis and won't know how to show we are right. The world will see him as a failure. Obama is weak. He said he would meet with the head of Iran without pre-conditions [though, he modified his remark, after criticism, as he always does, leaving discerning observers wondering which is the real Obma]. Iran said it wouldn't meet with him, without pre-conditions. Those pre-conditions are to end support for Israel and remove US troops from the Mideast [so Iran can take over]. Obama said he would remove US troops from Iraq, before we can consolidate victory there. [His chief foreign policy advisor, Byrzezinsky, is anti-Israel.] Iran expects Obama to cave in, and offered Obama a rationale for doing so by asserting that Iran would attack Israel but not the US. [Would Obama believe Iran?] Iran favors Obama's election because it considers him more "flexible and rational." [That is, it considers him irrational and therefore flaccid.] So does Jesse Jackson, who expects Obama to end "Zionist control" of US foreign policy. What does Obama do to disabuse Iran of their expectations? Nothing. He rejects the use of force, claiming that the US hasn't the means. [It can bomb the nuclear plants and other military facilities]. If the US lacks the means, would he boost US military power? No, he wants to reduce it. He'd cut anti-missile defense and nuclear weaponry (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 10/24) just when the enemy is building missiles and nuclear weapons. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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A LETTER TO BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Posted by Jenny Grigg, October 27, 2008. |
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I don't know who Mark Gregg is but this is too well written not to pass along. |
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Dear Mr. Obama, It is August 30, 2008. My name is Mark Gregg. I am a 50 something conservative white male. I have followed your campaign closely, including the speeches you and others made at the democratic national convention. I am respectfully providing you with seven simple (probably shallow) reasons why I could never vote for you. I believe my opinion is shared by many people. While there may not be quite enough to prevent you from becoming president of this nation, I do think there is an awakening to the fact that you are not a (the) messiah that the media and liberal Hollywood entertainers are trying to portray you. 1. I hear your mantra of change, change, change. Yet, you picked a long term, liberal, Washington insider (Joe Biden) to be your running mate. This is NOT change. It is a move that hypocritically refutes the very thing you supposedly stand for. Your campaign then slammed McCain for picking Sarah Palin, apparently, because she is NOT a Washington insider. She is a maverick who cleaned-up Alaska's quagmire of political scandals. Which way is it, Barack? Is it okay for you to pick a Washington insider under the mantra of 'change', but not okay for John McCain to pick a smart, aggressive, reformer? 2. You have the single most liberal voting record in the senate. This indicates to me and others like me that you may very well be an angry black man seeking to punish our country for sins of a different generation. I am not racist. I have some biases just like you and every other human alive. Unlike the democratic party who claims to be for the minority (but their record heavily refutes this), I will give any person who truly needs help, help. I married a 'minority' girl 35 years ago (she is Hispanic) and have seen the evils of prejudice first hand. However, I have also seen my wife and my children and others in her family throw off the veil of self imposed prejudicial bondage and move ahead. They love our country and do not view themselves any different than I view myself as a citizen of this country. Your lovely wife so disappointed people like me during this campaign when she stated it was the first time she had ever been proud of this country. She apparently never noticed the massive aid we give dozens of other countries. She apparently never noticed the sacrifice of literally millions of veterans who helped make this country a free nation and helped liberate other nations from brutal dictators such as Adolf Hitler. She apparently does not remember that she attended Ivy League universities with scholarship money that ultimately (at least some of it) was paid for by our taxes. This troubles me more than you know. She is an angry black woman who appears to not like her country very much. I don't want her representing me to the rest of the world. 3. You claim Christianity but apparently do not realize that the Bible teaches that he who does not work, does not eat. The Bible does not say or even suggest that he who CANNOT work, should not eat. Yet, your liberal policies reward people who are capable of working, but choose to not do so. This bothers me. I know that if you are elected our taxes will spiral upwards. You should heed the words of Winston Churchill : 'We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.' If I like anything about you, it is your campaign promise to balance the federal budget. Unfortunately, we have heard this a huge number of times from a number of different politicians and we realize that when you energize the very liberal Nancy Pelosi, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, etc., etc, and the many other democrats like them, a balanced budget will never, ever happen on your watch. 4. During your question and answer session with Rick Warren of Saddleback Church your answer concerning the question of where does life begin, stunned me: 'Above your pay grade?' Does this mean when something bad happens as President of this nation that you are going to look at your salary to determine if you can respond? I am sorry, but this was the most serious gaffe I have seen you make. Frankly, it shows me that you are pandering in the most obvious manner. You will choose your words not from your heart, but from an agenda that I believe is still hidden from the American people. 5. If anything stands out about you it is probably your appeasement mentality. In this era of rampant, radical Islamic extremism and with the latest stunt pulled by the re-energized Russian government, I am not sure appeasement is healthy. I again revert to the words of Winston Churchill: 'An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.' 6. You and your party tacitly believe that a 13 or 14 year old girl must have the parents approval to have the school nurse provide them with a Tylenol when they have a headache at school. Yet, this same girl can become pregnant and the school can skirt her off to a clinic and abort the child in her body without the parents knowing or being notified. This scares the hell out of me. You have two little girls. Would you be upset if this happened to them and you were not informed? Then why do you stand for this? It makes no sense to me. 7. My seventh and final point (for now) is your supporters. I have watched the Hollywood entertainers that support you, systematically embrace Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and others like him. I see the continuous smut and garbage produced by Hollywood, the very people who promote you the most vigorously. It is not a positive point to me and others like me to see these over-paid, bizarre, poor examples of human existence fawn over you and push you and your liberal agenda as hard as they do. The way I see it: When we see who your supporters and allies are/have been, we should seriously examine our own consciences and vote accordingly. In closing, I just want you to know that you scare me. I cannot vote for you. It is not because of your skin color.
Respectfully,
Contact Jenny Grigg at jennygrigg@gmail.com |
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ATTACK ON FAMILY WITH 9 CHILDREN BY OLMERT THUGS
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, October 26, 2008. |
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Israel's current Prime Minister, (resigned but still present as PM), Ehud Olmert and his Kadima thugs ordered the pathologically twisted Yassam troops to violently attack a family with 9 children, including a months-old baby, break their windows, throw them outside in their pajamas and bulldoze their home — which has been standing for at least 10 years. This violent attack by Jews against Jews prove that Olmert is merely a dictatorial tyrant who is dedicated to physically attacking Jews who live productively in the territories of Judea and Samaria. Olmert seems to have used the propaganda accusing the settlers of being the provocateurs. The famous psychiatrist Carl Jung analyzed this phenomenon by pointing out that aggressors often justify their own aggression by claiming their intended victims were preparing to attack the aggressor. The Olmert government had his Yassam troopers storm into the sleeping home of Elisheva and Noam Federman and their 9 children. Olmert and Yassam have been building up to a major attack against the pioneering settlers by brainwashing the people with false accusations (about once a week) so the government can mount a full scale war against the Jews in Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. No Jew will be safe once the Yassam thugs are fully unleashed to destroy, beat, trample and falsely arrest — as they did in Amona. Adolph Hitler started his dehumanizing campaign with his brown shirts before he deployed his Gestapo. Josef Stalin used his KGB, along with ruthless Russian troops to evacuate villages of Jews, many of whom were deported to the Gulag. Is that why Jews returned to their ancient homeland in Israel? So that dictatorial un-Jews could attack their fellow Jews to accommodate the Arabists of the Bush, Rice and Baker mind-set who are bribing America and Israeli hating Saudis, with the full cooperation of the thuggish regime of Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres regime. The article below was written by Hillel Fendel, senior new
editor at Arutz-7 and it appeared today
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Jews who saw the "wanton and cruel destruction" in Kiryat Arba this past midnight cursed perpetrators, while media and government attack the victims. The events of the night in Kiryat Arba, in brief: Special Yassam anti-riot forces arrive at 1:30 AM to destroy family home in unauthorized Kiryat Arba outpost — breaking windows over sleeping children, punching mother and children, destroying property, throwing books, yelling, and separating baby from mother in the process. Hysterical eyewitnesses are recorded cursing perpetrators of destruction. Radio and internet sites headline reports with news of the eyewitnesses' "incitement." Government convenes, condemns Kiryat Arba residents; Prime Minister Olmert says, "We are sick of this verbal incitement which leads to violence. I expect to hear from the Defense Minister and Justice Minister what is to be done against these people." Elisheva Federman, who experienced the brunt of the police violence in her home this past night, told Arutz-7's Shimon Cohen what happened: "As on every Saturday night, we go to sleep late. At 1:25 AM, I received a call from friends who said that they heard that security forces are on their way over to us, and they fear that they intend to destroy our farm. It was strange; there had been no prior warning, so we hesitated to call friends for help. While we were deciding, we hear dogs outside. I look outside and I see a 'black river' [of Yassam forces] streaming towards our house." At that point, Elisheva asked her 12-year-old son to take his two little brothers, aged 6 and 8, who were very scared, to the closest houses in nearby Kiryat Arba, and to ask the neighbors to have the children's grandmother come and help with the little children. Elisheva wished to leave, but the children insist on remaining, so she decides to remain with them and with her months-old baby. Elisheva and the children stay in an inner room, leaving the door open just enough for them to watch their house being turned into a pile of ruins. "I saw the Yassamnikim breaking cabinets, throwing stuff around, breaking beds, throwing books and clothing and everything else onto the floor. After they finished their destruction, the only thing left was the room we were in. They forcefully took us out, while hitting us and using extreme violence. I heard them giving each other coded instructions, and suddenly I found myself with my hands twisted behind me, and within seconds, my head was turned backward. They hit me and the children systematically. I am now totally bruised up, but nothing in my body was broken — and the same with the children. I am not sure if my daughter's hand was not broken." The police car in which Elisheva was riding broke down, and after a 90-minute delay, they finally arrived at a nearby police station. "I had nothing with me — not baby formula, not diapers, not clothes." At 4 AM, she was released and taken back to what had been her home. "I looked through the ruins, and somehow found my car keys; they hadn't destroyed the car." She drove to her sister's home, and later in the morning returned to the ruins: "I tried to rummage through the destruction to find clothes and coats and other things for the children. 18 years of marriage are buried in the ruins..." The general media reported on the "evacuation of an illegal outpost in Kiryat Arba," omitting the details described above — but highlighted the angry words of two of the Jews who saw the destruction. A man was heard saying that he hopes the perpetrators of the destruction fall or are captured in battle. Agent-Provocateur? The speaker has not been identified, and many people close to the Yesha (Judea and Samaria) settlement enterprise surmised that he might be an agent-provocateur, sent to stir up public opinion against the Jewish pioneers. Alternatively, some have said that he was speaking out of frustration, and that these sentiments are not representative of the populace of Yesha. Politicians were quick to respond to the media reports and issued sharp condemnations of the residents of Judea and Samaria. Cabinet ministers said that the "inciters" must be put behind bars. Prime Minister Olmert related to the incident at the beginning of the Sunday morning Cabinet meeting, discussing not the apparently illegal destruction, but the angry words expressed afterwards: "This morning in Hevron, there were calls for security forces to be harmed. I have instructed the Ministers of Defense and Public Security to take action against this. We are sick of all this violence, verbal violence that brings to physical violence... I expect to hear from the Defense Minister and Justice Minister what is to be done against these people... Whoever expresses himself that way must be put in jail." Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann said, "I am disgusted by the incitement expressed by extremist elements in the territories against IDF soldiers and security forces. We will act firmly to uproot this phenomenon. I call on the Attorney General and Israel Police to use all necessary means to deal with this." Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, "I want to emphasize the gravity of the words and actions of the extreme right-wing in the territories. I am of the opinion that the punishments in this matter are too soft, and the law enforcement and legal bodies must [rectify this]." Yesha Council head Danny Dayan and MK Aryeh Eldad also condemned the remarks. Dayan said, "I have many complaints against the security forces and against the Government of Israel for their activity in Hevron over the weekend, but this does not in the least cancel out the gravity of the words that were said afterwards." Media: Ignoring the Real News One Kiryat Arba resident said, "Instead of dealing with the destruction of a home, the media concentrates on a couple of crazies... Instead of interviewing Elisheva Federman about how her children were thrown out of their home in the middle of the night and their house destroyed, they look for an extremist speaking against the IDF." Journalists and cameramen were not permitted to enter the site of the destruction until around 7 AM. MK Uri Ariel had sharp words against this decision: "It is not coincidental that when journalists are not allowed in, complaints of severe police violence, unauthorized evictions, and acts of cruelty by the forces start streaming in." Ariel said that Defense Minister Barak must find out who was responsible for this decision and to ensure that journalists are allowed everywhere unless there are clear security needs otherwise. What now for the Federmans? "We will return and build it again. This is our land, and we believe with our entire essence that G-d wants us to be there. We will return at any cost, even if we have to live in a tent." 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
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US ATTACKS SYRIA, NINE KILLED NEAR IRAQI BORDER
Posted by Avodah, October 26, 2008. |
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This was written
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu and it appeared in Arutz-7
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128087 |
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Two to four United States helicopters attacked Syria, near the Iraqi border, Sunday evening, killing at least nine people. The site was near the target Israel bombed last year. Foreign media reported that residents in the village of Al-Sukkariya, approximately 300 miles northeast of Damascus and about 10 miles inside Syrian territory and near the main border crossing from Syria into Iraq. Syrian government news agencies confirmed the attack, and a private Syrian television channel reported that nine men died and 14 were wounded. Two of the helicopters reportedly landed in the village, where eight American soldiers jumped out and carried out the operation. The soldiers quickly returned to the helicopters, and all of the craft left the scene. It was the first time the U.S. has attacked on Syrian land. American military spokesperson Sergeant Brooke Murphy said officials are investigating the report. The targets reportedly were construction workers and were civilians, including five people from one family, local residents reported to news agencies. Terrorists have used the nearby border crossing to transport weapons, money and guerillas to help Sunni opposition to the Iraqi government, backed by the U.S. The Bush administration has charged Syria with not preventing Al Qaeda terrorists from infiltrating into Iraq. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website:
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FROM ISRAEL: WELL, OK!
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 26, 2008. |
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Tzipi Livni, head of the Kadima party, informed President Peres late this afternoon that she could not form a coalition. Theoretically, Peres has the latitude to pick another faction head to see if someone else can put together a government. But this won't happen...we're going to elections. The talk now is that they would be held in about three months. This is not the absolute answer to all of our problems, but in my opinion it's a very necessary step in the right direction. It's a sort of cleaning house that would not have taken place if Kadima had continued in power — especially as there seems to have been some "funny business" with regard to how Livni won the recent Kadima primary. As I indicated recently, unless there's some great change in the situation, Likud, headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, is likely to garner the most mandates (seats) next time, with Netanyahu putting together a coalition. We're going to have to watch this play out. ~~~~~~~~~~ The down side of what's going to happen now is that Olmert (who's been extraordinarily quiet of late) gets to stay as head of the caretaker government until those elections take place. It must be hoped that he does a minimum of damage in that time. ~~~~~~~~~~ Shin Bet and the IDF have released the information that they foiled a plan by Hamas to kidnap soldiers last month. When Jamal Abu Duabeh of Rafah infiltrated into Israel from the Sinai recently he was caught. Under interrogation he admitted he had been sent as part of a plan to anaesthetize Israeli soldiers and bring them to Gaza. He had been trained and financed by Hamas. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Israeli navy has announced deployment of a new sophisticated missile defense system that protects ships from missiles all 360 degrees around the ship. ~~~~~~~~~~ Daniel R. Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana, and Charles S. Robb, a former Democratic senator from Virginia, are co-chairmen of the Bipartisan Policy Center's national security task force on Iran. They recently wrote a piece on the need for a strong policy on Iran that is the most encouraging thing I've heard in a long time. Seems not everyone is asleep at the wheel. They call for much stricter sanctions as the only way that a diplomatic solution might be possible. This requires building alliances for genuine international cooperation. "The U.S. military," they say, "is capable of launching a devastating strike on Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure — probably with more decisive results than the Iranian leadership realizes." This should be the solution of last resort. However..."both to increase our leverage over Iran and to prepare for a military strike, if one were required, the next president will need to begin building up military assets in the region from day one." The encouraging news: "These principles are all supported unanimously by a politically diverse task force that was assembled by the Bipartisan Policy Center. The group, which includes former senior Democratic and Republican officials, retired four-star generals and admirals, and experts in nuclear proliferation and energy markets, offers a clear path for constructing an enduring, bipartisan consensus behind an effective U.S. policy on Iran." Now if the people in power would just pay attention. ~~~~~~~~~~ In less than three weeks, there will be mayoral elections in Jerusalem. Palestinian Authority's chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, has issued a fatwa (a religious injunction) forbidding Arabs in Jerusalem from voting in this election. ~~~~~~~~~~ Late in June, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued his latest report on the implementation of Resolution 1701. It discussed Israeli claims that Hezbollah was rebuilding in the south of Lebanon, but said that while UNIFIL had investigated, they found "no evidence of new military infrastructure in the area of operations." Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, has a pretty good idea as to how this could be so: "UNIFIL does not conduct patrols, establish checkpoints or maintain a presence of any kind within the towns and villages south of the Litani [River]. Indeed, the UN forces have little unmediated security-related contact of any kind with the population of the area. "Thus, while UNIFIL, according to its own figures, carries out around 400 foot, vehicle and air patrols in each 24-hour period, these take place exclusively along recognized patrol paths and in rural areas. UN forces maintain no independent checkpoints and are involved in a minimum of joint checkpoints with the LAF [Lebanese army] ... "...given the physical absence of UN forces from any of the areas where evidence of Hezbollah infrastructure-building has emerged [in built-up areas], it is not surprising that UNIFIL reports 'no evidence' that such activity is taking place. "In general, the two sides appear to do their best to stay out of each other's way." Charming state of affairs, is it not? This alone is enough reason to not want Livni to head the government: the "diplomatic solution" to end the War in Lebanon, which she pushed as a great victory, is what led to these arrangements. ~~~~~~~~~~ The fact that the stockpiling of arms is being done in populated, built-up areas should be noted. This will make going after them much harder, and if we accidentally hit civilians in the process, Hezbollah will garner a PR victory, something it knows very well. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile, Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin reported today at a Cabinet meeting that Syria's relationship with Hezbollah is strengthening: "Hezbollah operatives are working from within Syria. The Syrians are loosening all restraints, and [are irresponsibly giving] Hezbollah access to almost all of their strategic capabilities. "Currently, Assad is continuing to open up its warehouses to Hezbollah." Said Yadlin, Syria was "turning into the arms granary" for Hezbollah. What was it Olmert said about negotiations with the Syrians turning them from terrorism? ~~~~~~~~~~ I would like to end with an unusual article about Obama that appeared in this past Friday's Jerusalem Post, done by an Israeli journalist who came to Chicago to interview Jews who know/knew Obama. This article must be read in its entirety, and it's long. It starts fairly positively. But as you read you see that the Jews who like Obama are extremely left wing. In fact, one rabbi who had a relationship with him expresses disappointment that Obama has not been true to his far left positions but has moved more centrist — but, said the rabbi, he understands that Obama has to do this to win. This echoes precisely what I have felt regarding Obama's tendency to say one thing and mean another. There is one quote from a resident of Obama's neighborhood that says
it all: "Now it's like he wants to hug and kiss Israel every five
minutes. That's completely not the Barack I had as a neighbor. That
started this year when he was trying to get elected."
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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THE JEWS, PALIN, AND LIBERAL POLITICS
Posted by LEL, October 26, 2008. |
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This was written by Abraham H. Miller, who is an
emeritus professor of political science, and a former
counter-terrorist consultant to the National Institute of Justice.
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Prior to his conversion to Judaism, my friend went to see his rabbi, who explained to him the obligations and responsibilities of becoming Jewish. My friend said he could within reason to do what the rabbi asked of him, but then my friend looked very seriously at the rabbi and said, "Rabbi, there is one thing I will never be able to do." The rabbi looked at him with concern and asked, "What's that?" To which my friend responded, "I could never become a Democrat." The affinity between being a Democrat and being Jewish is taken as axiomatic. In the ethnic classic, Beyond the Melting Pot, authors Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan remind us that American Jews long ago acquired the social status of Episcopalians, but still manage to vote like Puerto Ricans. But what most Jews don't know is it wasn't always that way. It was the ascendance of Franklin Roosevelt and the historic realigning election of 1932 that brought Jews, and Eastern European ethnics, into the Democratic fold. The coalition Roosevelt built was reinforced in the Kennedy and Johnson years by a concern for civil rights and the attempts to eliminate poverty. Jews perceived the expansion of civil rights as the expansion of rights for all Americans. For Jews, the obligation to the poor was part of their religious heritage of tzedaka, the duty to give charity, which had been transformed into a cultural and political heritage among secular Jews. But the homogeneity of Jewish partisanship began to seriously fracture during the Carter administration. Carter clearly had a Jewish problem, one underscored not simply by his zealous commitment to the Palestinian cause, but one unobtrusively and poignantly revealed by his statement that there were too many Jews on the proposed board of the Holocaust Museum. The rise of Ronald Reagan brought a significant number of Jews and fellow Eastern European ethnics into the Republican camp. This phenomenon is remarkably described by historian Samuel G. Freedman's The Inheritance, a book that could easily have described my own family's generational journey from Roosevelt to Reagan. The transformation of civil rights from equal opportunity to equal result also forced Jews to confront a new political reality. While the Protestant elite had enforced quotas so as to restrict Jewish enrollment in Ivy League Schools, the liberal elite now did the same thing through a newspeak of quotas masquerading as goals. If some were underrepresented, then others were overrepresented. And everyone knew who the overrepresented were. The joke on campus quickly became how an affirmative-action officer would have dealt with the Manhattan project by firing the disproportionate representation of Jewish nuclear physicists, replacing them with unqualified minorities, and the consequent results for civilization. As the far-left supported Middle East regimes that oppressed women, that had no idea of the meaning of civil liberties, and that encouraged the martyrdom of those who blew themselves up along with innocents; Jewish leftists, like so many lemmings, also embraced these sentiments. Their liberal co-religionists were incapable of going that far, but given the dissonance caused by the leftist model of the Middle East, liberal Jews often became super critical of Israel. Congregations refused to sponsor pro-Israel movies, arguing they were one-sided, while bending over backwards to invite speakers with ties to the far left who were little more than Palestinian propagandists. Liberal Jewish congregations followed the far-left by developing a moral equivalence between those who fired rockets into civilian crowds and those who used military force to prevent that firing. "Violence is violence," became the mantra of liberal rabbis. "Oh, there has been violence and tragedy on both sides," a local rabbi dismissively said to a colleague of mine during an interview. In Northern California where I now live, I am told that after 09/11 some of the rabbis gave sermons during the high holidays criticizing fundamentalists Christians, as if it were they, and not the followers of radical Islam, who boarded those ill-fated airplanes. Jews of my acquaintance speak mindlessly of their fear of "Christian Jihadists," an appellation that is not simply offensive, but one that betrays both a pathetic and palpable stupidity. Have you ever seen a Christian blow up himself and others in the name of Jesus and then be anointed as a martyr by prominent ministers, priests and theologians? The left's embrace of mass murderers in the name of self-determination caused leftist Jews to also embrace these murderers, even though the people being killed were also Jews. And as Christian Zionists became strong supporters of Israel, leftist Jews found an even stronger reason to severe their ties with Israel. The term, "Christian Jihadists." evolved, courtesy of journalist Thomas Friedman, into an equally stupid term, "American Hizbullah." This was bandied about not only in leftist Jewish circles, but also among liberal Jews, as if it were a mark of erudition rather than one of ugly stupidity. The left has now created a prismatic world where all politics is merely a variation of the same phenomenon, just at slightly different points along the same continuum. Moral equivalence is now the left's new objective reality. Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists are consequently morally equivalent, however nonsensical and illogical such juxtaposition turns out to be. It is not surprising to see leftist Jews in the forefront of the radical Palestinian movement. These Jews need to demonstrate their leftist purity, because their psychological identities as well as their social networks are based on a rigid adherence to the leftist creed. This embrace of ideology in the absence of self interest is what Hannah Arendt so brilliantly described in The Origins of Totalitarianism as the mindset that is the vital foundation for totalitarian mass movements. Leftist Jews have a new target for their outrage, Sarah Palin, another fundamentalist Christian who supports Israel. Among Sarah Palin's sins are that she shoots wolves and protects the unborn, to which Israeli literary figure Naomi Ragen has responded, would leftist Jews like her better if she shot children and nurtured wolf cubs? It is also not surprising that in response to the pressure of leftist Jews, the pusillanimous leaders of Jewish organizations, whose sympathies incline toward the left, disinvited Palin from speaking at a Jewish organization rally, held outside the United Nations (September 23, 2008), protesting Iran's quixotic, genocidal President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Caroline Glick notes in the Jerusalem Post of September 23, 2008, these leaders decided that it is more important to put Barack Obama in the White House than to stand up to the man who promises the world a Second Holocaust. And if one looks at the backgrounds of some of these leaders, they reveal a menage of self-loathing Jews who have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Arabs and against Israel at critical moments that threatened Israel's very survival. While the Palin controversy rages in the Jewish community, I have received numerous anti-Palin emails from liberal Jewish women: several even asked me to contribute money to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin's name, as a slap in the face to Palin's pro-life politics. As Iran pursues its nuclear program touted as the new Final Solution, the most critical issue on the minds of these liberal Jewish women is one that puts the deaths of the unborn ahead of the lives of six million Israeli Jews already delivered from the womb. With attitudes like these, Jews need not fear the Islamic Jihadists and the Ahmadinejads of the world; Jews only need to fear the real enemy of the Jewish people — their co-religionists who are incapable of seeing the world from any vantage point other than one that is permanently and mindlessly anchored at the left end of the political spectrum. Contact LEL at lel817@yahoo.com |
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AN OPEN LETTER TO NATHAN DIAMENT OF THE OU
Posted by Buddy Macy, October 26, 2008. | |
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Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com |
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AN APPETITIE TO DESTROY
Posted by David Wilder, October 26, 2008. |
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Last night at just after one o'clock my cell phone rang. When the phone rings at 1:00 in the morning, at least in my house, something is wrong. Orit Struck was on the other end, apologizing for waking me up and then informing me that hundreds, if not more troops, — police, soldiers, the riot squad, etc. were on their way to the Federman farm, located just off the road between Kiryat Arba proper and the Givat Harsina (Ramat Mamre) neighborhood, just about five minutes outside of Hebron. Their goal: to destroy the farm. The homes on the Federman property have been there for over ten years. Noam and Elisheva have lived there for the past two years. Every once in a while the war drums start sounding, with rumors of an impending expulsion from the land, which the government says is 'illegally settled.' Most times, it's just noise. Tonight it looked like the real thing. 
I was out of the house within about ten minutes. But when I arrived at Ma'arat HaMachpela, on the only road to Kiryat Arba, I found it blocked by Border police and metal gates in the middle of the street. They motioned to me that the road was closed and that I should leave. I pulled out my press card, which in Israel is the closest thing to a magic wand, and presented it to the officer in charge. He took it and made a call on his walkie-talkie. A minute later he came back and returned the card. And told me to leave. "But I'm a journalist," I claimed. He looked at me, said "I know, but you can't go," and walked away. I requested numerous times, as did others, a warrant declaring the area to be a 'closed military zone.' Sometimes they responded, 'there's a warrant, it will eventually get here,' and other times, 'there is no warrant.' Others were told, 'there's a military operation going on — you have to stay here for your own good, so you won't be in danger.' Some were told, 'there's an armed terrorist in the Kasbah — we have soldiers looking for him. It's dangerous for you to be here. Go home!' The truth was that all roads leading to the Federman farm had been sealed off. The troops didn't want the enemy to have any reserves assisting them. At about 1:30 the two homes on the Federman farm were forcibly invaded. Sinai Tur and his wife Rivka were told that they had seven minutes to get out. The Federman family didn't have such luxury. The troops broke the home's windows and climbed in through them. They quickly made their way to the children's bedrooms where they shook awake the kids, dragged them from their beds, beating some of them, and forcefully expelling them from their home, still in pajamas. Some of the kids went via the door; others via through the window. Noam was immediately arrested, being suspected of planning to 'blow the forces up with gas balloons.' His daughter Isca, 16 1/2 years old, was also arrested for some unknown reason. 
Once everyone was out, the bulldozer started plowing down the houses and other structures on the property. It didn't take too much time, as the families were not allowed to remove any of their belongings. Down came the houses, on top of everything that was inside. By 3:30 or so, it was over. The families were left homeless and propertyless. As Elisheva Federman put it: "they wouldn't let me take my children's books or belongings or mementos. Eighteen years of marriage, nine children — everything we had, gone." For no apparent reason, except pure hate. Hate for Jews living in Judea and Samaria; hate for Jews living in the Hebron — Kiryat Arba region; and an extra special hate for Noam and Elisheva Federman, who epitomize love for Eretz Yisrael. 
The Israeli government, in particular Defense Minister Ehud Barak, (who is searching for political brownie points to assist him in the now upcoming election) and Generals Gaddi Shamni and Noam Tibon (who is an expert in destroying houses — he commanded the forces that destroyed the home of Livnat Uzeri, whose husband Nati had been, only months earlier, killed by terrorists in their home,) is intent on making life as difficult as possible for Jews in Yesha and in the Hebron region in particular. Late this afternoon a large group of people began work to rebuild the Federman farm. A short time ago an appropriate response was issued by the ruling junta: A warrant was received informing that at ten o'clock tonight the entire area would be declared a 'closed military zone,' that cement blocks would be placed there surrounding the property, and security forces would remain there to insure that the area remained sterile (i.e. Judenrein). Earlier today journalists interviewing me did not seem so interested in the destruction of the property or the expulsion of the families. Rather they seemed intent on asking/attacking me as a result of remarks made by people at the site of the devastation. Those comments ostensibly called for the death of IDF soldiers, and the 'wiping out of their names,' and that they should all 'be like Gilad Shalit.' 
There is a saying in Hebrew that a person should not be held responsible for his words when his loved ones are still lying dead in front of him. That is how I relate to the above-quoted remarks. The expulsion from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria are all still much to fresh and the fate of those expelled still hurting much too much. It is no secret that this administration has plans to implement further expulsions, be they in the Hebron area, or Binyamin and the Shomron. There is a feeling in the air — a sensation reminiscent of the Rabin-Peres days following signing of the cursed Oslo Accords, when 'settlers' were unofficially declared 'enemies of the state' and were so appropriately treated. The IDF and other security forces are an integral element necessary for Israel's survival. But they cannot and must not be taken advantage of to batter the very people they are supposed to protect and defend. I don't believe that anyone has any plans to begin a civil war, but the comments, as extreme as they are, seem to represent the growing frustration level amongst many Israelis. I see them, not as an active threat, rather as the mercury on a thermometer climbing higher and higher, much too fast. Perhaps those making decisions in the current government should realize that what they refuse to do to Arab terrorists and their families they are all too willing to do to their own Jewish citizens, who have not murdered anyone. And it seems, with an appetite. An appetite to destroy. See:
More photos of the destruction
The Hebron Fund Dinner — November 17, in NYC — Details at
hebronfund.com or 718-677-6886
David Wilder is spokesman of The Jewish Community of Hebron.
You can contribute directly in Israel to The Jewish Community of
Hebron, POB105, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, email: hebron@hebron.org.il
or phone: 972-52-431-7055. In USA, write to The Hebron Fund, 1760
Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, email: hebronfund@aol.com or phone:
718 677 6886.
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THE EVIL UMPIRE
Posted by Boris Celser, October 26, 2008. |
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Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he
does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss,
the abyss will gaze back into you. — Friedrich Nietzsche
According to CNN this week, "Britain's highest court on Wednesday
dashed the hopes of Chagos Islanders seeking to return to the Indian
Ocean homeland they lost when Diego Garcia was leased to the U.S. for
an air base ... The islanders were evacuated, mainly to Mauritius,
between 1967 and 1973 ... Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was
"appropriate on this day that I should repeat the government's regret
at the way the resettlement of the Chagossians was carried out in the
1960s and 1970s and at the hardship that followed for some of them.
"We do not seek to justify those actions and do not seek to excuse the
conduct of an earlier generation," Miliband added."
Well, the British did it, and the Americans benefited. Of course,
the Chagossians are not Palestinians, and no UN body is pushing for
their return. They were expelled from their homes just after the
"Palestinian nation" was invented. On the one hand, the weak gets no
right of return. On the other hand, the strong must surrender their
rights and homes, forced by the strongest. Who stays, who goes, who
returns, it is all a matter of muscles, combined with the right
psychology of guilt applied on the weakest among the strong.
If George Bush indeed offered the Golan to Syria, then in all
likelihood we have a November/08 — January/09 surprise in the cards.
This implies full cooperation from the lame duck Prime Minister of
Israel, who, along with others, seems prepared to give the Jewish
people a parting gift they will not soon forget. After all, how come
Ahmadinejad of Iran gets an ovation at the UN when he calls for Israel'
s destruction, but the same thing happens when foreign leaders come to
the Knesset and call for the division of Jerusalem?
If America is the Soviet Union of the Western Hemisphere, at least most of the hemisphere has learned how to deal with the problem, and so have the Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans, and others. Apparently the "Great Satan" only has the "Little Satan" left to rape, and the latter is more than willing, so technically it is not even rape.
What must the Cubans be thinking as they look at how America treats one of their closest allies? Cuba is still boycotted by the US, because it did not say "uncle" like so many others. It dared resist, while being only a few miles away. It is not a democracy, but it has caused far less harm than the old Soviet Union did, and China, Russia, and the Muslim world still do. But it must be taught a lesson, now or later. America likes to make the rules.
The Cubans must be scared, wondering if they're next. All that is needed is for a US Secretary of State to go to the UN's Security Council with secret photos "proving" Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons are hidden in the island. Either that or they can say they've found a few leftover nukes from the Khrushchev era. America's 50-year boycott of Cuba is even more shameful than promising to move its embassy to Jerusalem.
The late Jeane Kirkpatrick, former US ambassador to the UN, was
known as pro-Israel, and was liked and respected by Israeli and
American Jews for that reason. However, she was also the same person
who defended US policy in direct support of, in her own words,
"authoritarian" military dictatorships in Latin America and
elsewhere, as preferable to "totalitarianism" (meaning the Soviet
Union and its Communist allies"). One wonders if being tortured and
killed in an authoritarian jail is really better than suffering the
same fate in a totalitarian one. Did she ask the victims' families?
Is it also a surprise that so many Jews and gentiles in those former
authoritarian countries don't like American policies and totally
mistrust its designs on Israel? Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama or
McCain, in the end is always more of the same. The nooze is tightening
around Israel's neck.
Those calling Israel a "banana republic" should be aware that
banana republics don't surrender any land, let alone their capital.
One could, by analogy, call Israel these days a "sabra republic".
Does it sound pejorative and unfair to this tough fruit and to this
tough people? Then it is time those residing there stand up and join
forces with the minority living east and west of the "Green Line"
who actually understand what is about to happen if America has its
way.
As the country's borders move towards the sea from the river, the
definition of who is a settler also changes. The pressure to surrender
to Israeli Arabs' demands, the pressure of millions of "Palestinians"
"returning" to be stuck near Jordan the river instead of in Jordan
the country will strangle Israel. "Just Do It" will mean more to
them than just a slogan by a more famous Jordan.
Let's call a spade a spade. If Israel is going to become a virtual
US colony, and many Jews in the world were never interested in living
in America, why should they move to this colony, unless forced by
external circumstances? They don't wear Israeli or American hats. If
Gaza, the Golan, Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem go, then only
Arabs in those places will be able to say: "We can see America from
our homes".
And if the nukes ever came, the territories surrendered might
actually escape the devastation, but no Jews would be there or be
allowed in. Furthermore, the real America is not the one that would
have been hit. Uncle Sam x Allah would be sorted out ... eventually.
If there was an evil empire, then there is also an evil umpire. Jewish Americans in the Holy Land who believe in the land of Israel had better realize what millions elsewhere have experienced with the US. It is their turn now. They can resist it by giving their powerful fellow Jewish Americans also living in Israel, but supporting the anti-Israel and pro-Arab policies of the US State Dept., an unequivocal message: "Yankee go home!"
Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net
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A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS!
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, October 25, 2008. |
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A picture is worth a thousand words! Above is a map of the Middle East bearing a Kafkaesque epithet, compliments of your web site Think Israel. Jewish Israel, indeed, is but two tenths of one percent the size of her surrounding Muslim neighbors. Could anyone in his right mind view this map objectively and still believe the miniscule state of Israel is an occupier of Arab land? In fact, considering the fact that neighboring Jordan, that less than imposing state to the right of Israel, yet about four times as large as Israel, should be part of the Jewish homeland per the Balfour Declaration scribed in the 1920s promising Jews all of Palestine, an agreement fecklessly dishonored by Brits in charge of land distribution giving 80% of that land away to greedy Muslim Arabs as if they needed more land, one might reasonably wonder if Arabs in fact occupy Jewish land contrary to the current skewed mind-sets of most folks. How for example could former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, erstwhile leader of Israel's most formidable ally, a highly intelligent individual, have the chutzpah to presume Israel occupies Arab land and further assert that Israel is an apartheid state, when Jews are obviously squeezed into an almost invisible portion of the Middle East per any viewpoint, when Jews merely attempt to dwell on additional land rightly secured in 1967 as a consequence of vanquishing hostile Arabs attempting to destroy their incredibly small state, when Jews allow Arabs to remain on such land culturally intact knowing Arabs would not be so kind if the situation were reversed? Doesn't Carter as well as his supporters acknowledge their own nation conquered its Southwest, including California, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, indeed virtually took that land from Mexico in the 1800s as part of America's 'manifest destiny', would never consider giving that land back to Mexico, yet never would be designated an occupier let alone an apartheid state if native Americans on reservations were also factored into that equation? Hmmm! More ominously but not unexpectedly Nicholas Kristof's op ed piece, published in the 10/22/2008 edition of the New York Times, describing how Senator Barack Obama's presidential candidacy improves America's tarnished world image, suggests much of that world, especially Muslim world, knows "a cabal of white bankers and Jews who use police with fire hoses to repress blacks" control his heretofore despised nation. Kristof asserts an Obama candidacy however "triggers severe cognitive dissonance" thus, according to one expert "makes them (presumably Muslims) receptive to a new paradigm for the U.S.", yet we may infer not Jews. I suppose those 'repressive' Jews, at least previously in charge of America, were unable to stifle the opinion of a renown Israel bashing ex-president; an overlooked fact by those anti-American anti-Semitic morons. Then again, what can one expect from a world, both Muslim and non-Muslim, that can't or refuses to recognize the implications of a map. Jews and the Jewish homeland always seem to be in the cross hairs of worldwide indignation despite, according to census figures at the turn of century 21, contributing merely 13.3 million folks worldwide, of which about 5 million live in Israel, to a planetary population of over 6 billion, or about .22 % of the total. Consider that Muslims contribute over 1 billion adherents, about 20% of the world's total population, almost 100 times more folks than Jews, is it logical to presume that Jews wield so much power, control the world's most influential nation, occupy and in effect abuse so many Muslims in the Middle East within an area the size of a thimble? Amazing! Yet, even the Wall Street Journal, now owned by the Murdoch family, a conservative newspaper one might assume would consistently portray a pro-Israel perspective, on 09/19/2008 publishes an essay by the Holocaust revisionist Mahmoud Abbas, spewing slimy 'make nice' rhetoric, promoting his anti-Israeli mantra alluding to "continued settlement expansion and land confiscation in the West Bank", fodder for normally you would think pro-Israel readers to ponder. Say it isn't so Rupert! Are you or perhaps your family members also seduced by the Arab smoothie; are you or perhaps your family members also in bed with Arafat's long time understudy like so many other pro-Palestinian puppets? Might we send you a map of the Middle East to refresh your memory and jolt your senses? Might we suggest Jews in that hostile region of the world have only one place to freely 'hang their hats', wield any influence, a sliver of an oasis less than the size of your own vast empire!?! Few if any sovereign nations in the history of the world voluntarily ceded land to another nation in exchange for any promise of peace; in effect the analogue of paying protection money? Few if any sovereign nations in the history of the world have been told by the rest of the world to so cede land secured as a result of winning a defensive war of survival? Yet the Jewish homeland, already contracted by 80% in violation of a binding declaration, is expected by much of the rest of the world to comply with that request. Furthermore, such complicity to extortion by Israeli leaders, no doubt a feckless act of betrayal to future generations, if consummated would leave Israel vulnerable to terrorist attacks, would liken Israel to a weakened wounded animal in the eyes of drooling jihadist buzzards yearning to finish the job, yearning to annihilate a naïve nation knowing the complicit West would scratch its collective head, not unlike the way those nations behave even when genocidal acts are committed in places like Darfur. Unless and until Israel is treated with true respect by global
leaders there is absolutely no reason for the Jewish homeland to
negotiate with Arab representatives like Abbas or anyone else bearing
a worldwide stamp of approval! Unless and until a monstrous map of the
Middle East drapes the wall of any conference room, clearly visible to
all those present, substantially influencing any rational agenda for
those participating in any serious discussion pertaining to peace in
the Middle East, clearly outlining a Palestinian state within the
boundaries of what should be Israel but alas remains the kingdom of
Jordan, Israeli negotiators need not attend!
Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant.
He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He
writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion,
no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at
larose@snip.net
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OBAMANOMICS
Posted by Amil Imani, October 25, 2008. |
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Obama's economic plan is a recipe for long-lasting disaster. Keep in mind that wrecking anything, as opposed to building things, requires very little time and effort. Obama's plan is deceptively attractive, while in reality it is a huge wrecking ball that will capsize the already listing ship of our economy. Here is a partial list of reasons why. Judge for yourself. Obama is proposing a trillion dollars in new spending. Where is he going to get the money, given the government's present huge budget deficit? From the filthy rich and blood-sucking corporations, that's where, he says. A terrific vote-getting scheme. But will it work? Obama doesn't tell you that in the present world money is like water. It flows to the lowest ground. And the lowest ground for money is found in places where it can make more money — not locations where it is seriously tapped by government. For example, Ireland where the corporate income tax rate is 12.5% and not the United States, which has the second highest rate in the world. As it is, one of the biggest reasons that many corporations set up their businesses abroad is the high cost of doing business here at home. Hence, a great many jobs are lost to overseas enterprises. Obama doesn't tell you that rich people didn't get to be rich by being stupid. The minute they hear him talk about "spreading the wealth around", they shift their money to safe havens where Obama can't get to it. Like those hedge funds run by George Soros and other big Democrat donors. Obama doesn't tell you that much of the money invested in this country is from non-Americans, who do so not because they are philanthropists but because they believe in the American genius and our creative hard-working people who know how to produce wealth. Once they see Obama the taxman, they sell their holdings and move their money to safer havens. The result is that American company shares drop in value, companies won't be able to raise cash to do product development, so they will shut down their research departments and layoff workers. Or, they simply move their entire operation, or parts of it, abroad. The American economic genius is based on the principle of empowering people at all levels to succeed financially through their own efforts. The government must empower all individuals to succeed and not to take money from the successful and spread it around. Keep in mind that the really rich, both Americans and foreigners, have the smarts and resources to escape Obama's net. The ones that get caught in Obama's net are tens of millions of small shareholders such as retirees who depend on annuities to live. These folks suddenly find themselves strapped. With Obamanomics, pension funds of states, universities, other institutions, and individuals will suffer a major blow. During the present economic crises, retirement funds upon which the livelihood of millions depends have taken a two trillion dollar hit. Obama's plan undermines the most powerful motive for wealth production: incentives. It is the incentive that makes a person work hard to provide for his own and his family's living, and secure his financial future. Society after society has tried and failed the economic solution of "spreading the wealth around." It doesn't work. All it does is discourage hard work and reward sloth. It is suicidal to buy into that failed policy, and that's exactly where Obama aims to take us. And in this dangerous scheme, he will have the House and Senate on his side. The Democratic Party has drifted so far to the left that it can hardly heed economic reason. Just this past Monday, Barney Frank, the head of the Banking Committee, the same person who brought us the sub-prime rate and the housing fiasco, seeing Obama at the helm, crooned, "there are a lot of rich people out there whom we can tax at a point down the road." It is shortsighted and even dangerous to lose our cool in the face of present problems by placing our full trust in a charismatic inexperienced man who promises a great deal that he will certainly fail to deliver. Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy
activist residing in the United States of America, speaking out for
the struggling people of his native land, Iran. Contact him at
amil_imani@yahoo.com and visit his website: http://www.amilimani.com/
this was published on American Thinker
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