Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Posted
11/29/2005 01:28:00 PM
1. Well, Amir Peretz is picking up political rejects and jetsam even while many of the establishment Labor Party people are making moves toleave. The latest recruit is none other than communist TV-radio hostess Sheli Yachimovich. Why communist? Well, in recent elections she endorsed the Stalinist pro-terror HADASH party, which has never gotten around to renouncing Stalin's terror. Sheli is the main target of ridicule on Israel's leading humor TV show these days Eretz Nehederet. She says she is joining the Peretzites because she thinks they represent "social democrats," and if you think that Stalin was a social democrat then you should be joining Simpleton Sheli. The feminizts were upset when the TV comedians made funny of Sheli, using a character to represent her as - well, coyote ugly. SHeli is 45 and is a flaming feminizt. She used to write for the Marxist Al-Hamishmar newspaper before it went bankrupt (it had gone into mourning when Stalin died, running as its banner headline: "The Sun of the Nations has Set"). She pretends to be an intellectual and writes book reviews in the press. 2. Hitler's Victory: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47615 3. What Arab Moderates? http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475644288&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull 4. Execution is the Answer! http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20349 5. Sexy Jihad: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20321 CBC jihads against Israel: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20320
Monday, November 28, 2005
Posted
11/28/2005 10:42:00 AM
1. Concerning Sharon's new party - see http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475636811&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull That pretty much sums everything up. Meanwhile, for those of you confused about Shimon Peres joining Sharon's new "Kadima" party, the problem is that you are not looking at things properly. The party really should be named "Kadima La-Churban" (Onward to Destruction). Israeli politics, you see, has long been little more than an episode from the Simpsons TV show. Mister Burns, as you will realize the moment you look closely at him, has always been Shimon Peres. His nerdy sidekick Smithers is, or used to be, Yossi Beilin. Homer Simpson himself is Ariel Sharon, a man who believes in nothing and stands for nothing but feeding his beer belly. There are several Simpsons episodes where Homer and Mr. Burns team up with one another. Now Marge Simpson's two hag sisters are clearly BOTH Shulamit Aloni. You can tell from the cigarettes. Moe of Moe's Bar seems to be a character played by Bibi Netanyahu although a minority view has him being played by Avishay Braverman. The town drunk Barnie has grown a large moustache and has taken over the Labor Party, although some say that it is really Tommy Lapid and that Amir Peretz has shaved and is really playing Bapu the fast food owner. As you see, Israeli politics are so confusing. Bart Simpson himself seems to be Moshe Feiglin. Haim Ramon is playing the comic book store guy. Now doesn't that make a hell of a lot more sense than what YOU were thinking? 2. The Megalomania of the Assimilationist Liberal (Asslib) Jewish Establishment in the USA: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles_print.php?article_id=5010 3. Atrocities at DePaul: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/comment.php?id=83 4. Canada: http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=18106 5. Not sure if this is for real: Michael Jackson to build a mosque in Bahrain http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/009146.php Western Resistance suggests that Jacko is doing this to cover himself after getting caught in a ladies' loo, headscarf and all, in Bahrain. "Jackson to build a mosque in Bahrain," from the Khaleej Times, with thanks to Fjordman: MANAMA . World..s top pop singer Michael Jackson,, who recently settled down in Manama has donated a huge amount of money, the figure was not disclosed, for building a state-of-the-art mosque near his luxury palace in the Bahraini capital, according to his spokesman. The proposed mosque would be designated for learning the principles and teachings of Islam, as well as teaching of English language, for which high-standard teachers would be brought from United States under his personal supervision, the spokesman said. Jackson did so as a token of appreciation to the Bahraini people, who welcomed him and treated him as if he was one of the citizens of their country.... It is noteworthy that Germain Jackson, the brother of Michael had embraced Islam at the beginning of 1990s, and he was one of former Jackson Five band and the solo singer[.] Germain had felt his brother Michael has great interest and study of Islamic books, the tolerance of Islam and his dealing with Arab and Muslim personalities since long years. The most prominent among those figures is Prince Al Waleed bin Talal and the Bahraini royal family. 6. Intifada ad Infinitum: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20323 7. Keep track of academic sedition in Israel. Visit www.israel-academia-monitor.com !
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Posted
11/27/2005 10:39:00 AM
Amir Peretz's new sidekick is "Professor" Avishay Braverman, president of Ben Gurion University for almost as long as Kaddafi has been president of Libya. Peretz is already boasting that his anti-productivity quasi-bolshevik "ideas" have the backing of an academic heavyweight - Braverman. Academic heavyweight? I did a literature search to see what "academic" work Avishay Braverman has ever done. What I found was that he co-edited a book on agricultural economics with Joseph Stiglitz (this would not count as an academic publication at any serious research university - it is an anthology that contains one paper co-authored by Braverman), he did a few reports for the World Bank in agricultural economics (neither would these), has one contribution to a volume of proceedings from a conference on agriculture (neither would that), and he published a paper in a Brazilian journal in Portuguese: TI: Custos e beneficios da estabilizacao de precos agricolas no Brasil. (With English summary.) AU: Braverman,-Avishay et-al SO: Pesquisa-e-Planejamento-Economico. August 1991; 21(2): 227-52 According to the computerized bibliography Econlit, the authoritative data base for research in economics, this last one is the only publication in a "refereed" journal that he has and IT is in Portuguese (and so does not count). In research universities, only refereed journal publications in English form the basis for academic achievement (at least in economics). In short, Braverman's academic record is essentially a blank slate. What wonder then that academic standards at Ben Gurion University have been trashed, at least for far leftist anti-Zionists, while Braverman ran the show!
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Posted
11/26/2005 05:56:00 PM
From www.israel-academia-monitor.com Professor Kenneth Mann in 'The Apartheid Law in Israel: A Seminar on the Occupation Law and Israel.s Military Courts' The Apartheid Law in Israel: A Seminar on the Occupation Law and Israel.s Military Courts The Apartheid Law seminar offers a unique opportunity for lawyers, law students, media professionals and political activists to hear first hand accounts and analysis from the predominant figures in the field. We believe that the cooperative investigation of the Apartheid law . an issue which has been absent from public discourse in Israel . will consequently lead to public discussion and to civil action. The seminar is comprised of 8 bi-monthly sessions . conducted in Hebrew - beginning 8th of November, taking place in Daila, Queen Shlomzion 4, Jerusalem. Session 1: The judicial framing of the Israeli occupation in the OPT . an international perspective . Attorney Michael Sfard Tuesday, 8.11.05 at 19:30, Daila. Session 2: The right for representation in criminal law in Israel . overview Prof. Kenneth Mann, Tel Aviv Aviv University Tuesday, 22.11.05 at 19:30, Daila. Session 3: Occupation Law . The military law code Attorney Leah Zemel (communist party member and lawyer for terrorist murderers) Tuesday, 6.12.05 at 19:30, Daila Session 4: Administrative Detention and Secret evidence Attorney Tamar Peleg, The Society for the Protection of the Individual Tuesday, 20.12.05 at 19:30, Daila Session 5: Legal Representation in Military Courts Attorney Sahar Francis, Adameer Tuesday, 3.1.06 at 19:30, Daila Session 6: The Bureaucracy of the Occupation . a detailed examination Attorney Limor Yehuda, ACRI and Attorney Yael Berda Tuesday, 17.1.06 at 19:30, Daila Session 7: A Panel of Palestinian Ex-Prisoners Tuesday, 31.1.06 at 19:30, Daila Session 8: A Study Tour of the Military Court in Offer Camp Time and date to be finalized. Concluding Session . Thinking Together . Palestinian and Israeli lawyers, presenting personal perspectives and possibilities for the future. Time and date to be finalized. http://www.newsfromwithin.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=306&Itemid=1&lang=ISO-8859-1
Friday, November 25, 2005
Posted
11/25/2005 11:27:00 AM
1. The head of Israel's most extremist university, Ben Gurion University, is a leftist named Avishay Braverman. Braverman is by training an economist, although before coming to BGU most of his career was outside academia, at the World Bank. Under his long regime as President of BGU, entire academic departments at BGU were established in which no non-leftist opinion could be expressed. The political science department there operated with its own Disloyalty Oath, in which no Zionist was welcome. BGU under Braverman collected perhaps the largest number of anti-Israel extremists and seditious radicals of any university in Israel, many openly calling for Israel to be destroyed. Academic standards were trashed as far leftists, some with laughable academic records, were hired, promoted, and granted tenure at BGU.
Now Braverman the economist has teamed up with Amir Peretz the mustachioed trade union leftist, now heading teh Israeli Labor Party and seeking to restore it to its 19th century ideological roots, a man whose entire outlook is anti-economic and 19th century marxism. And at his right hand is Braverman, about to end his rule at BGU and clearly trying to position himself for a cabinet slot in any Peretz government. Peretz, whose own literacy is somewhat dubious, clearly sees having a professor on his team as greatly important: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/649945.html 2. Oslo as mental illness: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20222 3. Psychologists for Jihad: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20265 4. Israel's Judicial Tyranny: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132053877195&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Posted
11/24/2005 10:03:00 AM
1. The Timothy Leary of the Hebrew University Allow us to introduce you to Professor Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University (see http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~bshanon/ ). While having once been a serious psychologist with a distinguished academic record, since 1997 the good professor has spent most of his energy on promoting psychedelic drug use, and doing a bit more than dabble in getting high himself. Haaretz weekend magazine Nov 25, 05 devotes a long piece to the professor. Seems that he discovered a cousin of LSD used by South American Indians, named Ayahuasca while trekking about Ecuador and Brazil in 1993. He dropped acid, er- I mean Avahuasca, more than a hundred times. He was chairman of the psychology department at the Hebrew University at the time. He advocates use of psychedelic drugs and insists that their use is simply not well known in the West. I guess he has never been to my high school in Philadelphia nor to the parks near the Berkeley campus. Shanon does not believe in the subconscious and insists that anyone can learn all there is to know about their psyche if they trip out on dope enough. I guess Shanon belongs to the Mikey-Lerner-Tikkun school of psychology. It goes without saying that the good Prof. Shanon is also a far leftist. See http://www.dasbistro.com/pipermail/clarkgreen/2003-April/001218.html and http://www.jerusalemites.org/appeal/7.htm and http://www.emjournal.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ap03036.html We can understand why Shanon's ideas are so popular among the anti-Zionist Campus Left at the Hebrew University. After all, one really needs to be stoned to believe in ideas of leftists. But why are Hebrew University donors funding this Timothy Leary on Mt. Scopus? 2. Mikey Jackson does not only abuse children: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/649270.html 3. Please check out http://www.iconoclast.ca/mainpage.html
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Posted
11/22/2005 03:13:00 PM
Subject: Hebron Arabs Sick of "Anarchists"
I am translating parts of the article that appears at http://www.inn.co.il/news.php?id=130800 (in Hebrew on web site) The Arabs of Hebron are Sick of Anarchists In recent days officials of the "Palestinian Authority" have coordinated with the Jewish community of Hebron attempt to bring to an end the activities of leftist extremist "anarchist" activists from all around the world who have congregated in order to assist the Israeli Far Left in its activism, supposedly on behalf of the Arabs of Hebron. The collaboration began due to the arrival of the "anarchists" in the city of Hebron. Local Arabs in Hebron claim that the same anarchists who supposedly are trying to assist them are in fact behaving in a provocative and offensive manner, in violation of the moral and religious norms and standards of respect upheld by local Hebron Arabs, and especially undermine the morals of local youths. According to testimony from a number of local Arab eyewitnesses in the city, the anarchists have been attempting to incite local Arab youths against their own religion and beliefs, as well as exposing them to drugs and sexual depravity. In an interview for the local paper "Kol Hair", the father of one of the many local youths injured in the unrest organized by the anarchists complained, "These anarchists come here and all the time undermine the education we give our youths. At first we took them in with hospitality; after all, they claimed they wanted to help us so why kick them out? But very quickly they outraged me with their behavior." In order to expel the anarchists fromthe town, local Arab and Jewish leaders in Hebron have come to terms and settled differences, including agreements to place observers on thestreets of Hebron. Both local Jews and Arabs hope that these observers will replace the foreign "anarchists", supposedly in town to serve as observers. The spokesman for the Jews of Hebron confirmed that any new replacement observers will be Arabic-speaking and acceptable to local Arabs. He added that the international "anarchists" came to Hebron come from Western cultures steeped in sexual ludeness and permissiveness, as well as sexual perverseness and drug use. "Their presence in Hebron serves to inflame violence because they are seeking to create provocations and encourage violence." ... He mentioned an incident where Israeli soldiers seized an Arab woman who had just tried to stab them, but a group of anarchists attacked the soldiers to free the woman. In recent days, Jewish organizations from Israel and from overseas have been coming to Hebron to confront the international "anarchists" who have besieged the town. The Jews have been investigating the motives and purposes of the "anarchists" in coming to Hebron and are supporting and encouraging the Israeli troops who have to deal with the attacks by the leftist "anarchists".
Posted
11/22/2005 11:14:00 AM
1. The Left Hates, Just Hates: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20274 2. Non-PC Feminists enrage the Left: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20249 3. KURT VONNEGUT: MOONBAT A formerly great writer goes off the deep end: US author lauds suicide bombers. (Hat tip: LGF readers.) ONE of the greatest living US writers has praised terrorists as .very brave people. and used drug culture slang to describe the .amazing high. suicide bombers must feel before blowing themselves up. Kurt Vonnegut, author of the 1969 anti-war classic Slaughterhouse Five, made the provocative remarks during an interview in New York for his new book, Man Without a Country, a collection of writings critical of US President George W. Bush. Vonnegut, 83, has been a strong opponent of Mr Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, but until now has stopped short of defending terrorism. But in discussing his views with The Weekend Australian, Vonnegut said it was .sweet and honourable. to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs. .They are dying for their own self-respect,. he said. .It.s a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It.s like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you.re nothing.. Asked if he thought of terrorists as soldiers, Vonnegut, a decorated World War II veteran, said: .I regard them as very brave people, yes.. He equated the actions of suicide bombers with US president Harry Truman.s 1945 decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On the Iraq war, he said: .What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back.. Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an .amazing high.. He said: .You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high.. Friday, November 18, 2005 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog 4. Amnesty International's Crime against Humanity: http://www.spectator-online.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/18/437e456c84821 5. Clinton moving to Nevada: http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=10333786&src=eDialog/GetContent 6. Treason in Joysey: http://mensnewsdaily.com/blog/kouri/2005/11/nj-college-professor-advocates-death.html
Monday, November 21, 2005
Posted
11/21/2005 08:17:00 PM
(Copy of the "yesh Gvul" brochure offering $750/Month for IDF soldiers who refuse service in Judea and Samaria available for perusal or faxxing -dsb) http://www.israelnn.com/print.php3?what=news&id=93321 18:18 Nov-20-05 / 18 Cheshvan 5766 Police Open Investigation into Left-Wing Groups Offering Incentives to Refuse IDF Service Sunday, November 20, 2005 / 18 Cheshvan 5766 (IsraelNN.com) Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan has instructed the police to open an investigation against members of the extreme-left 'Yesh Gvul' organization due to suspicions that they are offering monetary incentives for young people who agree to refuse to serve in the IDF. In response to an inquiry by investigative journalist David Bedein, Nitzan wrote: "After considering the matters, I have decided to instruct the police to open an investigation into allegations of committing crimes of incitement to draft-dodging and refusal." Bedein had made the inquiry claiming that there is particular severity to the fact that the group is offering monetary incentives and support to the refusers. ============== http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=11379 Financing Desertion in Israel By David Bedein FrontPageMagazine.com | December 18, 2003 Next Wednesday night, an Israeli organization funded by an American Jewish organization will be organizing an all day teach-in in the heart of Tel Aviv to convince high school students not to join the Israeli army and to convince Israeli soldiers to desert the Israel Defense Forces. The theme of the "teach-in": Israel's soldiers are "war criminals." All this occurs after the PLO orchestrated over 20,000 terror attacks over a period of three years that have resulted in the cold blooded murders of more than 900 men, women and children throughout Israel. Meanwhile, the Hizbullah organization gnaws at Israel's border with its war of attrition in the north, moving into the positions that the Israeli army unilaterally withdrew from under the Beilin/Barak left wing government's hasty retreat from Lebanon in May 2000. And, at the same time, tens of weapons smuggling tunnels are being dug along Israel's long southern frontier with the collusion of Israel's neighbor to the south, Egypt. As a result, the Israel Defense Force has been forced to spread its small army to conduct operations in order to preempt terrorists by locating, arresting and neutralizing potential killers where they plan potential terror attacks, while at the same time guarding and patrolling two very hot borders. While the IDF operations are taking place, a group of Israelis with support from a Jewish group in the US have been conducting a well-financed campaign to encourage IDF troops to desert their units. I write this not only as a journalist, but also as the father of Noam, an Israeli soldier who serves as a sergeant in an IDF combat unit that operates in an isolated and sensitive area of operation where he risks his life every day. My wife and I and our five other children look forward to welcoming our oldest son home whenever he can get away for Shabbat. Noam arrives home exhausted and, like the other young men and women his age serving in the army, he appreciates the support that he gets from the "home front" - our community and his own family. Yet at every train station and bus station that Noam passes through he is "greeted " by paid professionals who distribute leaflets to IDF soldiers to encourage them to desert from their units, offering to pay them to do so. The leaflets that Noam picks up describe Israeli soldiers as "war criminals" and are financed through a Jewish organization in my home community of Philadelphia in the United States. That organization is the Shefa Fund. As their website at www.shefafund.org proudly states, the Shefa Fund provides funds to the "Courage to Refuse" campaign, which proclaims that it will pay for any IDF soldier for the time that he might spend in prison and for any legal expenses involved in refusing to serve. A recent investigative TV program which aired on Commerical Station Channel Two in Israel showed how the "Courage to Refuse" campaign had set up a counseling service in the center of Tel Aviv known as "New Profile", which counsels young Israeli men and women on how to avoid Israeli army service altogether. Page seven of the annual Shefa Fund report also proudly states that the Shefa Fund has most recently allocated funds to the Courage to Refuse Campaign. This has enabled the Israeli draft desertion campaign to take out ads, distribute leaflets at army bases and at bus stops, and to hire a PR firm to further incite IDF troops to desert their units. Instead of calling themselves "deserters", these soldiers call themselves "refusenicks," a term reminiscent of the struggle to save Soviet Jews who were refused exit visas from the Soviet Union in the 1970's and 1980's. Copying the tactics of the struggle to free Soviet Jewry, the Shefa Fund has now launched a campaign for Jews in the US to "sponsor" deserters from the IDF and to glorify them in their hometown communities in the US. Needless to say, all this undermines the morale of the IDF by accusing Israeli soldiers of conducting war crimes against an Arab population which harbors terrorists and which encourages and celebrates the murder of Jews, even women and children. The Shefa Fund has responded to these reports by distributing a letter in which it states that "as a matter of policy, we do not distribute flyers on buses or at points where soldiers are returning from the front. "Courage To Refuse," in fact, works only with reservists, not with soldiers who are under compulsory service. These organizations do not encourage desertion, and do not pay anyone to recruit members or to refuse military service." The Shefa Fund also claims that "Yesh G'vul" and "Courage to Refuse" do not encourage desertion from the Israeli military, despite the fact that this is precisely what both organizations do by distributing letters, leaflets and internet messages every day in praise of IDF reservists and new IDF inductees who desert their IDF units rather than engage in the pursuit of PLO terrorists who escape to safe havens in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza and Jerusalem. Throughout the past year, Yesh Gvul and Courage To Refuse have held countless rallies in honor of young inductees to IDF compulsory service who are now sitting in prison for deserting their units rather than pursuing PLO killers in the West Bank and Gaza. So much for the Shefa Fund claim that they are "only working with reservists." The Shefa Fund also claims that "Yesh G'vul and Courage To Refuse conduct activities that are legal", despite the fact that Yesh G'vul, as an Israeli-registered Non-Profit Organization, #58-039186-0, was disbanded as a non-profit organization on December 31, 1997 because of "financial irregularities" and remained disbanded until June 2002 when it was established as a profit-making corporation, listed in the Israel Corporate Registrar, #51-325106-6. According to the Israeli law, it is a felony for Yesh G'vul to solicit or to receive funds, from Israel or from abroad, from the time it was disbanded as a non-profit organization until the time it was registered as a corporation. Even more important, it is illegal to encourage Israeli citizens to engage in the felonious act of desertion from the IDF. Since the Shefa Fund asserts that neither Yesh G'vul nor Courage To Refuse pay Israeli soldiers when they desert the IDF, it would seem that the Shefa Fund's leaders did not read the websites of Courage To Refuse at HYPERLINK "http://www.seruv.org.il/defaulteng.asp" www.seruv.org.il in which Courage To Refuse announced until recently, both in Hebrew and in English, that it would pay deserters for "the time that they spend in jail" to cover their mortgage, tuition, rent and day-care for their children - benefits which are much more than an IDF soldier would get from the Israeli government's meager "national security" allowance during IDF regular or reserve service. Imagine what would happen if the IDF paid the tuition, mortgage, rent and day-care for its soldiers while they are on reserve duty? The current "Yesh G'vul" brochure offers a flat $750(US) a month for anyone who is jailed for desertion from the IDF. The Shefa Fund has therefore created the first financial incentive system to make it profitable for an Israeli soldier to desert the Israeli army. All told, the Shefa Fund provided $160,000(US) for this purpose in 2002 alone. And where does the Shefa Fund get this money? Its brochures show several hundred Jewish contributors who have earmarked funds for their support of IDF desertion. However, a look at the US #990 IRS forms for the Shefa Fund reveals that the Shefa Fund received an anonymous $15 million donation, of which Shefa is not saying where it came from. Just who is this mysterious anonymous donor? Ironically, the Shefa Fund is generally known as an agency that provides sorely needed health, education and welfare programs for social services throughout North America. It remains to be seen whether Shefa's assistance to IDF deserters will hurt or help its fund-raising for their worthy social causes. Meanwhile, Noam and his fellow soldiers remain on duty protecting the people of Israel.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Posted
11/20/2005 06:33:00 PM
1. Yeah, Bruce! http://www.southflorida.com/news/sfl-rowntstsh7nov13,0,3691923.story?coll=sfe-news-wire 2. Film for the Jews for a Second Holocaust: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/15/D8DT400G9.html 3. Shocked, shocked: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20199 4. Terrorists in Suits: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20203 5. Pagan Reform Pseudo-Jews: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/18/national/a142251S12.DTL 6. CAMERA: Ha'aretz Stonewalls In Attempt to Escape From Correcting Errors http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=27518 Ha'aretz Stonewalls In Attempt to Escape From Correcting Errors Tamar Sternthal Director, Israel Office CAMERA www.CAMERA.org Monday, November 14, 2005 For more than two decades, CAMERA has followed media coverage of Israel and the Middle East closely, contacting countless outlets with questions about factual accuracy and in many instances eliciting corrections. Virtually every major media outlet in America and some beyond U.S. shores have corrected errors in response to CAMERA, in accordance with professional journalistic standards asserting the paramount importance of accuracy -- and accountability. Among those issuing corrections, often multiple times, have been the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, International Herald Tribune, National Public Radio, ABC News, and CNN. Until recently CAMERA's efforts have focused primarily on North America with few foreign media outlets monitored intensively for accurate coverage or challenged for corrections on erroneous reporting. Little attention was directed, for example, toward Ha'aretz, an Israeli daily newspaper printed in Hebrew and English and relied on by the Western press corps as well as Israel's cultural and political elite. (Ha'aretz is sometimes described by its admirers as the New York Times of Israel .) With the opening of CAMERA's Israel office last year, however, it was possible for the first time to monitor Ha'aretz in the same sustained way as U.S. newspapers are followed. In the last year, CAMERA has contacted the paper's editors concerning multiple factual errors, taking the identical approach used with U.S. publications - emailing editors behind the scenes, providing data substantiating why a report is incorrect, requesting a correction, following up with phone calls, and finally, posting an item on our Web site and/or sending out an alert. (In a particularly egregious case, we published an Op-Ed in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles about a serious and uncorrected error.) However, unlike prominent American and international outlets, Ha'aretz apparently considers itself above criticism. Ha'aretz editors seem unaccustomed to responding to readers in a straightforward process and appear to believe readers have no right to fault them for shoddy, inaccurate coverage. Rather than considering the substance of CAMERA's queries, Ha'aretz has stonewalled completely, refusing to correct errors. Indeed, the English edition of the newspaper, in contrast to almost every major American newspaper, has no regular corrections section; a lone correction appears once every few months. Amira Hass Falsehood CAMERA contacted Ha'aretz editors about an error that appeared Nov. 2 in an Op-Ed entitled "How the PA Failed" by columnist Amira Hass. She writes that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "cannot prevent the expropriation of land for Jewish-only roads in the West Bank." In fact, while there are roads prohibited to Palestinians in the West Bank, there are no "Jewish-only roads." Israel' s Arab citizens and, indeed, Israeli citizens of any religion or ethnicity, have just as much right to travel on those restricted roads as do Israeli Jews. Israeli Arabs frequently use the bypass roads for business and to visit relatives. Moreover, at least one Israeli Arab was fatally shot by Palestinian terrorists on one of these roads. As the Los Angeles Times reported on Aug. 8, 2001: "{Wael Ghanem, an Israeli Arab, was shot and killed as he drove toward the Jewish settlement of Tzofim in the West Bank, not far from where an Israeli woman was killed on Sunday. . . . However, he was driving a car with yellow license plates on a West Bank road where a similar shooting attack had taken place, raising the possibility that Palestinian gunmen thought they were targeting an Israeli settler." Georgios Tsibouktzakis, a Greek Orthodox monk, shot on June 12, 2001, was another non-Jew killed by Palestinian terrorists while on these roads. Even B'Tselem, an organization frequently critical of Israel, acknowledges that restricted roads are reserved for those with Israeli plates, (Jews and Arabs), as opposed to Jews only. Thus, an Aug. 9, 2004 hard-hitting report stated: "B'Tselem has divided the Forbidden Roads Regime into three categories of roads: 'sterile roads' where Palestinian traffic is completely prohibited, roads where Palestinians require special permits, and roads with restricted access. The regime applies only to Palestinians. Israeli vehicles are allowed to travel freely along these roadways." (Emphasis added.) This false charge implying a racist policy on the part of Israel -- allowing special privilege to Jews over other religious and ethnic groups -- is particularly pernicious. When such a claim is made in a prominent Israeli newspaper it is often echoed in the media worldwide. In response to CAMERA's request for a correction on this issue, Ha'aretz assistant editor Ruth Meisels inadvertently sent CAMERA's Israel Director Tamar Sternthal what was clearly meant to be an internal Ha'aretz email. Addressed to a Ha'aretz employee who apparently handles phone calls, the email warned (in Hebrew): "In the event that this [CAMERA complaint] gets to you: We have a quasi 'policy,' on the orders of [editor-in-chief] David [Landau], to ignore this organization and all of its complaints, including not responding to telephone messages and screening calls from Tamar Sternhal [sic], director of CAMERA. Otherwise, we will never finish with them." Thus, Ha'aretz editors appear to have little interest in the accuracy of their coverage or the accepted standards of journalism -- unlike their American counterparts -- and seem to believe (wrongly) that not returning a phone call or responding to an email will deflect CAMERA's efforts to redress false and inflammatory assertions. Uncorrected Errors Beyond the most recent Amira Hass error, numerous others remain uncorrected, including: In a July 18, 2004 column, Gideon Levy made a number of false claims, among them the allegation that Golda Meir once said: "After what the Nazis did to us, we can do whatever we want." CAMERA was not able to track down any source for such a quote. Moreover, Levy himself sent an email to CAMERA admitting that he had no source. Nevertheless, Ha'aretz editors refused to correct. On Jan. 26, 2005, Ha'aretz ran a five-column color Reuters photograph above the fold on the front page, with the incorrect caption: "A Palestinian man inspecting buildings after they were demolished by Palestinian police in Gaza yesterday, the first time the PA has acted against illegal construction." In actuality, the PA has repeatedly acted against illegal construction, and CAMERA provided Ha'aretz with news reports from Times of London, the Washington Post, and Israel's Channel 2 substantiating earlier such action taken by the PA in 1994, 1995, and 1998, respectively. In a Feb. 10, 2005 Op-Ed about the current status of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ha'aretz writer Sefi Rachlevsky alleged that there had been "four years in which the Palestinians preserved nearly absolute quiet." The exact time of the four years is not entirely clear from Rachlevsky's writing, but at no point during the 1990s was there a period in which "the Palestinians preserved nearly absolute quiet." CAMERA provided Haaretz with a detailed list of the attacks which occurred throughout the decade. Ha'aretz again stonewalled. In a June 5, 2005 Op-Ed, Yossi Beilin claimed that in Israel from 1957 to 1967 "only 20 people were killed from hostile operations." In fact, at least 40 Israelis were killed in hostile acts during this period. In a Jan. 21, 2004 exposi in Ha'aretz Magazine, Meron Rapaport erred about the Absentee Property Law, stating: "The law stipulates that the property of such an absentee would be transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property, with no possibility of appeal or compensation" (emphasis added). This is false, as both appeal and compensation are possible, and landowners have exercised these rights and been compensated. Though Ha'aretz ran a letter from CAMERA on this issue, a letter is no substitution for an acknowledgment from the newspaper that it had erred. 'Personal Vendetta' In July, the Israeli weekly Makor Rishon ran an article about CAMERA's Israel office, focusing on its efforts with respect to Ha'aretz, quoting the editor: David Landau, editor of Ha'aretz, says that his relationship to CAMERA's complaints are different than his relationship to the complaints of others. "I confirm that we relate to CAMERA as if they have a personal vendetta against us. I have experience of many years with them. We encourage readers to write to us, and we publicize every day or two days corrections of errors according to need, but everything depends on the clean hands of the writer." Yet, it is totally untrue to suggest that in the English edition, which is the version Western journalists read, corrections run every day or two. Moreover, CAMERA is the only organization to press Ha'aretz for factual accountability in a systematic way. Thus, it is CAMERA's unique agenda to promote accountability which makes Ha'aretz's relationship with us "different." Israeli Code of Ethics Landau's directive to disregard complaints from CAMERA not only stands in contrast to the attitudes and procedures of the U.S. arena but also, in fact, violates the Rules of Professional Ethics of Journalism as authorized by the Israel Press Council. These state: "Substantive mistakes, omissions or inaccuracies in the publication of facts must be corrected speedily, fairly and with the appropriate emphasis relative to the original publication. In addition, in suitable cases, an apology shall also be published. In suitable cases a person injured shall be given a fair opportunity to respond to a substantive mistake, omission or inaccuracy speedily and with the appropriate emphasis relative to the original publication." Ha'aretz seems to believe it is above any such guidelines requiring accountability.
Posted
11/20/2005 09:40:00 AM
Subject: Amir Peretz' Master Plan to Destroy Israel
http://jewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=5687 *Moustache Pete: Israel`s New Labor Party Commissar* By *Steven Plaut* The victory of Amir Peretz over Shimon Peres in the Nov. 9 Labor Party primaries all but guarantees the victory of the Likud in Israel`s next national election. It also makes it quite likely that the Labor Party will now shrink into insignificance and irrelevance as the Peretz victory will serve as a shot in the arm for the nearly extinct left-wing Meretz Party. The most dramatic ramification of all, of course, is that Peretz's triumph at long last puts an end to the career of Shimon Peres, the holder of Israel's record for political failure. Having lost virtually every political contest he's ever fought, and coming off his shocking and embarrassing defeat at the hands of the unschooled Peretz, Peres is finished politically. (Peres responded to his loss to Peretz with a show of ungraciousness, refusing to call Peretz to congratulate him and threatening to challenge the primary results in court.) The amazing thing is that Shimon Peres managed to impose so many of his ideas on Israel without ever winning an election. The Oslo "peace process" was by and large Peres's initiative. It was imposed on Israel by Yitzhak Rabin, who was willing to follow Peres's lead on statecraft even though he'd been elected on a platform flatly rejecting any Oslo-like strategy. Peres in time managed to use the shock in Israel over the assassination of Rabin to neutralize what had been growing opposition to the Rabin-Peres initiative. Later, the visionless leaders of Likud also followed Peres's line and continued to pursue peace through appeasement and national self-abasement. Enough of Peres; let us turn our attention now to Amir Peretz. The new Labor Party boss is, to put it politely, a cross between Jimmy Hoffa and Cheech. A party hack who built his career mainly by establishing a power base in Israel's corrupt Histadrut trade union federation, Peretz got as far as he has in part through fortuitously pinning his political fortunes to the tailcoats of other politicians, and in part because the establishment politicians in Labor never took him seriously enough to neuter him politically. Born in Morocco, Peretz immigrated with his parents to Israel at the age of four. He first came to national attention in Israel in 1983 upon his election as mayor of the economically distressed working class Negev town of Sderot. This was long before the days when Sderot morphed into Israel's Stalingrad, routinely taking the brunt of rocket attacks by the PLO and its affiliates. (Peretz has been notoriously absent from Sderot during those attacks, and has had almost nothing to say about them). A personal note: The only time I met Peretz face to face was when he invited me to testify before a Knesset committee he was chairing on health policy. Aware of his reputation as an intellectual lightweight, I made my presentation in monosyllables and simple words, but he just stared at me with uncomprehending wide eyes, apparently understanding nothing that I said. Peretz served as a warehouse and maintenance officer in the Israeli military, sustaining a leg injury in the Sinai in 1974 when his personnel carrier was involved in an accident. After recovery he was offered the task of running a gas station, but he refused, claiming he was not "prepared to be anyone's boss on the grounds that it would constitute exploitation." Perhaps he was really afraid of the bookkeeping challenges involved. Instead, he bought a small farm in an agricultural cooperative in the Negev, where he grew rose flowers. Later, after his stint as mayor of Sderot, he was pushed into minor Labor Party visibility as the token Moroccan Jew recruited by Labor leaders concerned with the party's difficulties attracting working class "Mizrachi" or Oriental-Jewish voters. (While styling itself the party of the working man, the Labor Party has long been the bastion of the middle- and upper-middle-class Ashkenazi establishment.) Peretz has always been instantly recognizable in the media thanks to his huge Zapatista moustache. He seems to have been made for caricaturists. "I love the moustache," he once confessed to Dalia Karpel of Haaretz. "A small moustache wouldn't suit me...." *'Laziest Member of Knesset'* Peretz was elected to the parliament in 1988. As a member of Knesset, he devoted most of his energies to prohibiting the use of out-sourcing and operation of non-unionized labor exchanges, the result being higher unemployment among low-skilled Israeli workers. Seeing that his prospects for a senior position in Labor were close to nonexistent, he joined the disaffected faction set up by Haim Ramon in the early 1990's. Ramon considered himself a serious contender for the job of prime minister but was certain he was being blocked by the party machine. Ramon and his sidekick Peretz decided to challenge the Labor establishment inside the Histadrut trade union federation with their own dissident slate named "New Haim" (or "New Life," a play on Ramon's first name). In the Histadrut union elections, the Ramon team beat the Labor machine and seized control of the trade union federation, with Peretz as second in command and in charge of strike actions and trade union negotiations. But already by then the Histadrut, once a powerful state within the Israeli state, had lost much of its muscle. It had been a stunning fall for the union behemoth: Histadrut membership cards were a sine qua non for getting a job in pre-1948 Israel and without such membership workers were barred from many jobs even into the 1970's. Histadrut funds were always misused by the Labor Party to fund its own election campaigns. Before statehood, funds donated by Jews around the world had been funneled through the Histadrut into the coffers of MAPAI (forerunner to today's Labor) and used to build the party's power base. After 1948 Israeli taxpayer funds were similarly misappropriated for the same purpose. By the early 1990's the Histadrut was little more than a weak and corrupt anachronism, stripped of its control of Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest bank, after the "bank share scandal," a large Ponzi scheme that collapsed in 1983. It also lost control of many of its insolvent pension funds, which had long served as slush funds for Histadrut commissars, and of its captive "General Sick Fund," Israel's largest health service provider. After beating the Laborites in the Histadrut elections, Ramon quickly tired of his trade union toy. He resigned from the leadership of the Histadrut in 1995 and turned the job over to Amir Peretz While Ramon made his way back into the Labor Party's upper echelons, Peretz was still seeing his political ambitions stymied by the party machine. In 1999 he decided to use his power base in the Histadrut to challenge the Labor Party and set up his own competing "labor" faction, named Am Echad (One Nation). Using funds appropriated, Jimmy Hoffa style, from trade union accounts, Peretz spent his way into the parliament as a small two-seat (later three-seat) party, though he received just 16 percent of the vote in his home town of Sderot. His victory was, however, large enough to force Labor to co-opt Peretz and his people and offer them a power share within the prty, including reserved Knesset seats in the elections slate. In parliament Peretz only bothered to show up for about 11 percent of the votes and was dubbed the "laziest member of Knesset." His stock reply to critics was, "I am busy with the Histadrut." The single largest item on his expense account, according to a Knesset report of 2001, was NIS 18,720 for private tutoring in English, a language he has never quite mastered. *Armchair Revolutionaries' Last, Great Hope* Politically, Peretz, who likes to describe himself as a "social democrat," is associated with the Israeli Oslo Left, and was long a board member of Peace Now and the left-wing New Israel Fund. His ideas on economics are little different from those of nineteenth century socialists and syndicalists, and he dreams of turning Israel into some sort of hybrid combination of Sweden and Belarus. He has no patience for and no understanding of market economics. As the major promoter of an ever higher minimum wage in Israel, Peretz bears a major share of responsible for the country's high unemployment rate, caused largely by that minimum wage. Peretz also led the campaign against the employment in Israel of foreign temporary workers, who today are the backbone of Israel's agricultural and construction sectors. Had Peretz gotten his way, both those sectors would have collapsed. While mouthing socialist slogans about the working class, Peretz actually built his power base mainly on the elitist "unions" of highly skilled, lavishly paid professionals ? i.e., feather-bedded workers in government-owned or sponsored monopolies such as the Israel Electric Company, whose "workers," including engineers and technicians, are probably the most grossly overpaid group of people in Israel. Peretz made common cause with the "workers" in this and other sectors ? such as the seaports and airports ? in which market competition is suppressed by the Israeli government. Peretz consistently promoted the interests of the unionized overpaid professionals and semi-professionals at the expense of blue-collar workers ? those hurt most by the frequent strikes called by the Histadrut. He single-handedly shut down Israel's airports so often that foreign businessmen were refusing to come to Israel altogether, not from a fear of terrorism but from a fear of getting stranded when the airports were shut down. In earlier Labor Party primaries, Peretz used union funds to secure more votes than any other candidate. Even so, given Labor's inability to produce a serious contender for leadership after the debacle of Amram Mitzna's 2003 landslide loss to Ariel Sharon, support for Peretz in the primaries was far less a vote for him than it was a protest against the machine leaders. Will Sephardic voters be enticed by a Peretz-led Labor Party? Don't count on it. Labor may have long viewed Peretz as a magical key to opening the door to bring in Sephardic voters, but Oriental Jews in Israel remain far more likely to vote for the Likud and the religious parties, and in any case Moroccan Jewish candidates do not have a very good track record in attracting the votes of non-Moroccan Oriental-Jewish voters. The more likely effect of the Peretz nomination will be to drive away much of Labor's Ashkenazi rank and file ? and some of the leaders as well. A good chunk probably will end up in the semi-Marxist Meretz Party. The parliamentary strength of Meretz has shrunk almost to the endangered-species level, but the abandonment of Labor by the educated Ashkenazi middle class, who will be repulsed by Peretz's lowbrow blue-collar shallowness, will likely revive Meretz as a political force. Peretz already is itching to flex his muscles in a national showdown with Sharon and is threatening to bust up the Labor-Likud National Unity government immediately to force it. And of course the coming wave of political jokes about Peretz-as-ignoramus will make all those Bush, Gore, and Quayle jokes look tame and polite by comparison. Unless the Labor machine now topples Peretz, which it might yet do, the party is on course to losing the next election to the Likud by a much larger landslide than its last loss. But such a prospective landslide will also lower the likelihood that the Likud will abandon its current platform of "Oslo Lite" or take any courageous stand on anything. Already Commerce Minister Ehud Olmert is maneuvering to replace Ariel Sharon as Likud chief on a platform of escalated appeasement. While mouthing the slogans of the Left about Oslo, "disengagement" and the "peace process," Amir Peretz clearly means to make anti-market economics and "social issues" his main banners. One should bear in mind that the Israeli Left does even more damage when it gets all compassionate and concerned about "social issues" than it does when it pursues "peace." The way it invariably pursues "social issues" is through seeking massive tax increases and budget outlays for "social needs" coupled with massive interference in market mechanisms. But Peretz's ambitions go well beyond even that. Should the Israeli public ever be foolish enough to allow Peretz to seize the reins of power, he will quite simply destroy the Israeli economy. He would order massive across-the-board wage increases detached from productivity considerations, which would drive countless businesses into receivership while raising unemployment to astronomical levels. He would promote the interests of state monopolies and seek to nationalize more industry. He would suppress competition and attempt to restore the quasi-Bolshevik system of price controls and rationing that nearly caused Israel to collapse during its first years of independence, controls wisely trashed by the socialist MAPAI leaders of the 1950's when they came to the realization that these could not possibly work. Peretz would also seek to expand the powers of the Histadrut, which all the while would operate under his fiefdom, turning it back into a state within the Israeli state ? an unelected anti-democratic second government, a dictatorship of the unionized middle-class pseudo-proletariat. It is precisely because of his promises to establish a system of socialist command-and-control central planning with trade union tyranny that some of Israel`s most foolish professors and journalists have endorsed him with such enthusiasm. Dreaming of creating a Scandinavian-style welfare state combined with "class warfare" against the big bad "industrialists," and led by a bullying trade union mafia, these armchair revolutionaries see Peretz as the last great hope of leading Israel out of the First World and back into the Third.
Posted
11/20/2005 04:40:00 AM
In Contrast To Oslo Agreements Rafah Deal Silent on Terrorists Date: 19 November 2005 "The PA will act to prevent the movement of weapons and explosives at the Rafah crossing." [Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing - Security 15 November 2005] http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2005/Nov/15-381874.html The text does not obligate the PA to act to prevent the movement of terrorists. Previous agreements specifically cited terrorists as people to be stopped at crossings. For example: THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN INTERIM AGREEMENT - 28 Sep 1995 Annex I Protocol Concerning Redeployment and Security Arrangements APPENDIX 5 Protocol Rewarding Arrangements with Respect to Passages (as amended) ... SECTION B Entry and Exit through the Palestinian Wing ..1. Entry from Egypt and Jordan ... e. ... Suspicion justifying questioning in the closed checking area may be one of the following: (1) the passenger was involved, directly or indirectly, in criminal or planned criminal activity, in terrorist or planned terrorist activity and is not a beneficiary of the amnesty provisions of the Agreement; .......If, at the conclusion of this questioning, the suspicion has not been removed, such passenger may be apprehended, after the other side has been notified. www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/THE+ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN+INTERIM+AGREEMENT+-+Annex+I.htm We have evidence of the intentions of the Palestinian Authority. On November 17, an article about the agreement appeared on the web site of the Palestinian National Authority's International Press Center (http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/details.asp?name=11835). In part it read: "Meanwhile, the director of borders and crossings, Salim Abu Safiyyeh, asserted that there won't be any live video streams to the Israeli side via the surveillance cameras installed in Rafah terminal, pointing out that even the joint control room will not receive these live feeds, and will be only for the presence of the third party that will monitor the borders." It remains unclear why U.S. Secretary of State Rice decided to press Israel to allow free passage for terrorists. Thanks to Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA for assembling this data. ---------------------------- I
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Posted
11/15/2005 09:55:00 AM
1. Juan Cole and the Decline of Middle Eastern Studies by Alexander H. Joffe Middle East Quarterly Winter 2006 http://www.meforum.org/article/789 When the Middle East Studies Association's annual conference ends on November 22, 2005, University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole[1] is scheduled to become the organization's president. The association describes itself as: A non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications, and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom.[2] As president, Cole is the public face of Middle Eastern studies. His election marks an endorsement of his work by hundreds of professors in various fields of Middle Eastern studies in American universities. Cole has written four academic books but his prominence comes not from scholarship but from his commentary on history and current events.[3] As such, this commentary provides a mirror into the state of Middle Eastern studies and the widespread urge of its practioners to promote polemic over scholarship. Cole: Israel as a Fascist Society Juan Cole: The Likud coalition in Israel does contest elections. But it isn't morally superior in most respects to the Syrian Baath. The Likud brutally occupies 3 million Palestinians (who don't get to vote for their occupier) and is aggressively taking over their land. That is, it treats at least 3 million people no better than and possibly worse than the Syrian Baath treats its 17 million.?September 9, 2004[4] Middle East Quarterly: Freedom House gives Syria its lowest rating of "not free" for both political rights and civil liberties.[5] In contrast, Israel has a rating of "free."[6] The analogy between Likud and the Syrian Baath misunderstands the nature of comparative politics. The Likud has an active membership and contested leadership; the Baath is subordinate to Bashar al-Assad. Cole ignores the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, its massacres of perhaps 20,000 in Hama in 1982, and the imprisonment of at least 17,000 political prisoners.[7] Cole: No American media will report the demonstrations in Israel[8] as fascist in nature, and no American politicians will dare criticize the Likud. But the fact is that the Israeli predations in the West Bank and Gaza are a key source of rage in the Muslim world against the United States (which toadies unbearably to whatever garbage comes out of Tel Aviv's political establishment), something that the 9-11 commission report stupidly denies.?July 26, 2004[9] MEQ: Cole's characterization of peaceful demonstrations as "fascist" is inaccurate. Fascism suggests an autocratic system that seeks to regiment and control every aspect of social, political, and economic life. This cannot apply to Israel, which has from its independence been fully democratic. Israelis often demonstrate against their government's policies. Cole also fails to acknowledge U.S. political criticism of various Israeli governments. In 1991, Secretary of State James Baker declared Sharon persona non grata in Washington[10] and President H.W. Bush opposed issuing loan guarantees to Israel.[11] More recently, the Pentagon blacklisted Israeli Defense Ministry director-general Amos Yaron because of a dispute over Israel's military relationship with China.[12] Lastly, Jerusalem?not Tel Aviv?is the capital of Israel. Cole: Judaism has given us so much that is noble in ethical religion, and what the Likud is doing is an insult to that long and glorious tradition. Likud's real roots lie not in the Bible but in Zionist revisionism of the Jabotinsky sort, which is frankly a kind of fascism.?March 21, 2003.[13] MEQ: Cole's dislike for Ze'ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940), an early Zionist leader who moved Zionism from intellectual debate to reality by organizing illegal immigration into Mandatory Palestine and helped establish a Jewish state, is a constant theme in his Internet postings. Cole resents the establishment of the Jewish state. In January 2003, he wrote, "While one certainly cheers the British for giving refuge in Palestine to Jews fleeing Hitler, it would have been nobler yet to admit them to the British Isles rather than saddling a small, poor peasant country with 500,000 immigrants hungry to make the place their own."[14] Cole's insistence that Likud's willingness to defend Israel against terrorism suggests a break with the "glorious tradition" of Judaism, a religion in which he holds no expertise, suggests a misunderstanding of both the democratic process which brought Likud to power and the divisions between religion and state which mark Israeli governance. Cole: Dual Loyalties Cole: It is an echo of the one-two punch secretly planned by the pro-Likud faction in the Department of Defense. First, Iraq would be taken out by the United States, and then Iran. David Wurmser, a key member of the group, also wanted Syria included. These pro-Likud intellectuals concluded that 9-11 would give them carte blanche to use the Pentagon as Israel's Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv (not wars that really needed to be fought, but wars that the Likud coalition thought it would be nice to see fought so as to increase Israel's ability to annex land and act aggressively, especially if someone else's boys did the dying).?August 29, 2004[15] MEQ: Cole suggests that many American Jewish officials hold dual loyalties, a frequent anti-Semitic theme.[16] Suggestions that American Jewish officials desired "someone else's boys" to fight is anti-Semitic and a common refrain in Cole's commentary.[17] Cole's commentary is often derivative and dishonest; he often substitutes others' web commentaries for the effort of tracking down original sources. In the case of "the one-two punch," he adopts the narrative espoused by the Lyndon LaRouche movement[18] and mischaracterizes the contents of the Institute for Advanced Strategy and Political Studies paper[19] that actually chastised Israel for not supporting the U.S. fight against terrorism and made suggestions about how Jerusalem could be more supportive of Washington. Cole: Likud Manipulation Cole: The rightwing Zionists want to racialize the Sudan conflict in American terms, as "Arab" versus "black African" because they want to use it to play American domestic politics and create a rift among African-Americans and Arab-Americans. Both of the latter face massive discrimination in contemporary society, and they should find ways of cooperating to counter it. What is happening in Darfur is horrible with regard to the loss of life and the displacement of persons, but the dispute is not about race. It is about political separatism and regionalism.?March 27, 2005[20] MEQ: In contrast to those in the region,[21] Cole argues that there has not been an ethnic component to the Sudanese conflict and implies that suggestions that ethnicity is a factor are a Zionist conspiracy. Since hostilities erupted after Khartoum's 1983 decision to impose Islamic law over the predominantly Christian and animist southern region of the country, approximately two million persons have died.[22] Cole: If Rice is going to be a successful Secretary of State, she simply has to get back control of US foreign policy from the Likudniks in the Bush administration.?January 20, 2005[23] MEQ: Cole promotes an anti-Semitic myth while misunderstanding the process of U.S foreign policy. The president and the U.S. Congress set the direction of U.S. foreign policy. A secretary of state is charged with implementing it. Several times weekly, a Principles' Committee, consisting of the secretaries of state and defense, the national security advisor, and the director of national intelligence, meets to resolve any policy questions. In response to charges of undue influence by Jewish American officials, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said, "I suppose the implication of that is that the president and the vice-president and myself and Colin Powell just fell off a turnip truck to take these jobs."[24] Cole: With both Iraq and Iran in flames, the Likud Party could do as it pleased in the Middle East without fear of reprisal. This means it could expel the Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, and perhaps just give Gaza back to Egypt to keep Cairo quiet. Annexing southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, the waters of which Israel has long coveted, could also be undertaken with no consequences, they probably think, once Hizbullah in Lebanon could no longer count on Iranian support. The closed character of the economies of Iraq and Iran, moreover, would end, allowing American, Italian, and British companies to make a killing after the wars (so they thought).?August 31, 2004[25] MEQ: No Israeli expulsion of the Palestinians or annexation of Lebanese land has occurred. Cole's comment appears to reflect his belief in the Arab nationalist and Islamist claim that Israel seeks to stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates.[26] This is one of many Cole predictions that are detached from reality. Cole: Israel as Cause of Terrorism Cole: That British police have received training in Israel in stopping suicide bombers with the technique of shooting the suspect in the head has not made things easier in that regard [sic].?July 25, 2005[27] MEQ: In most cases, Israel thwarts suicide attacks without violence.[28] Following the shooting of a Brazilian tourist by the London police on July 22, 2005, Tom Gross, the Jerusalem correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, wrote, "Had the Israeli police shot dead an innocent foreigner on one of its buses or trains, confirming the kill with a barrage of bullets at close range in a mistaken effort to thwart a bombing, the UN would probably have been sitting in emergency session by late afternoon to unanimously denounce the Jewish state."[29] Cole: our press and politicians do us an enormous disservice by not putting the Israeli announcement about the Jerusalem barrier on the front page. This sort of action is a big part of what is driving the terrorists (and, of course, Sharon himself is a sort of state-backed terrorist, anyway). The newspapers and television news departments should be telling us when we are about to be in the cross-fire between the aggressive, expansionist, proto-fascist Likud coalition and the paranoid, murderous, violent Al-Qaeda and its offshoots.?July 11, 2005[30] MEQ: The separation fence has reduced terrorism 75 percent.[31] Saudi Arabia, India, Morocco, Turkey and even the United Nations in Cyprus built similar barriers before Israel, in each case reducing terrorism or, in the latter case, communal violence.[32] Cole: According to the September 11 Commission report, Al-Qaeda conceived 9/11 in some large part as a punishment on the U.S. for supporting Ariel Sharon's iron fist policies toward the Palestinians. Bin Laden had wanted to move the operation up in response to Sharon's threatening visit to the Temple Mount, and again in response to the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp, which left 4,000 persons homeless. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad argued in each case that the operation just was not ready.?July 8, 2005 MEQ: Martin Kramer points out that the 9-11 Commission determined the hijacking plan was conceived by early 1999, that Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount took place in September 2000 when he was head of the opposition, and that the Jenin operation took place in April 2002, seven months after 9/11. After these factual problems were pointed out, Cole surreptitiously changed his original posting. [33] Cole: It is obvious to me that what September 11 really represented was a dragooning of the United States into internal Middle East political conflicts. Israel's aggressive policies in the West Bank and Gaza have poisoned the political atmosphere in the Middle East (and increasingly in the Muslim world) for the United States. It is ridiculous to suggest that radical Islamists don't care about the Palestine issue.?September 9, 2004[34] MEQ: Cole ignores events such as the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, and on the USS Cole in 2000, all of which took place during periods of seeming progress in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Cole: We don't need any more U.S. buildings blown up because our government is coddling cuckoo [Israeli] settlers who are stealing other people's land to fulfill some weird religious power fantasy.?January 2, 2004[35] MEQ: The 9-11 Commission determined that planning for the terrorist attacks began during the Camp David II process as it appeared that Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat would agree to a comprehensive peace agreement.[36] Cole: Taking Liberty with the Facts Cole: Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing? He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot four times. If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man's honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men.?August 8, 2005[37] MEQ: According to Vincent's wife, he was not romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter.[38] Iraq is not part of the Mediterranean world; Baghdad is more than 500 miles from both Tel Aviv and Beirut. Cole: Even medieval Islamic law recognized the right of Christians, Jews, and other monotheists to practice their religion and enjoy rights to their lives and property. This relative tolerance has often been enhanced in the twentieth century by the rise of nationalism, wherein Arab Christians sometimes are privileged as symbols of national authenticity because Christianity predated Islam in the nation's history.?August 3, 2004 [39] MEQ: As Martin Kramer points out, "Iraqi nationalists perpetrated massacres against Iraq's Christians in 1933 and against its Jews (who also predate Islam in Iraq's history) in 1941."[40] Cole's understanding of medieval Islam is also selective. Harun al-Rashid (786-809) originated the practice?revived by the Nazis more than a millennium later?of requiring Jews to wear yellow patches.[41] The eleventh century Saljuq dynasty also required Jews to wear yellow patches and shuttered Christian-owned taverns.[42] Both Christians and Jews had to pay extortionate taxes until they converted "voluntarily" to Islam.[43] In nineteenth century Iran?within Cole's self-declared scope of expertise?Islamic clerics whipped up anti-Christian pogroms.[44] Only in the early twentieth century, did Jews and Christians win equal rights within Iran,[45] and then only briefly. Alex Joffe is director of Campus Watch, at www.campus-watch.org. [1] Cole received a Bachelor's degree in the history and literature of religions, Northwestern University; a master's in Arabic studies from the American University in Cairo and a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the University of California in Los Angeles. He joined the University of Michigan in 1984 and served an abbreviated term as the director of the university's Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies. [2] "About MESA," Middle East Studies Association website, accessed Sept. 7, 2005. [3] Robert Haug, "An Informed Commentator," Michigan Today, Summer 2004. [4] Cole, "Dual Loyalties," Informed Comment, Sept. 9, 2004. [5] "Country and Related Territory Reports: Syria," Freedom in the World 2004: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties (New York: Freedom House, 2004). [6] "Country and Related Territory Reports: Israel," Freedom in the World 2004. [7] Farid N. Ghadry, "Syrian Reform: What Lies Beneath," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005, pp. 61-70. [8] On July 20, 2005, several thousand Israelis protested against unilateral disengagement. [9] Cole, "200,000 Israeli Fascists Demand Colonization of Gaza," Informed Comment, July 26, 2004. [10] The Jerusalem Post, May 3, 1991. [11] The New York Times, Sept. 17, 1991. [12] The Washington Times, Dec. 30, 2004. [13] Cole, Informed Comment, Juan Cole website, Mar. 21, 2003. [14] Cole, "Review of Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response," Global Dialogue, Jan. 27, 2003. [15] Cole, "Pentagon/Israel Spying Case Expands: Fomenting a War on Iran," Informed Comment, Aug. 29, 2004. [16] See Harold E. Quinley and Charles Y. Glock, Anti-Semitism in America (New York: Free Press, 1979), pp. 9-10. [17] Efraim Karsh, "Juan Cole's Bad Blog," The New Republic, Apr. 25, 2005. [18] "The Pollard Affair Never Ended!" Executive Intelligence Review (journal of the Lyndon LaRouche movement), Sept. 8, 2002. [19] "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," report of the Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy toward 2000, The Institute for Advanced Strategy and Political Studies, Jerusalem, 1996. [20] Cole, "The Google Smear as Political Tactic," Informed Comment, Mar. 27, 2005. [21] Emily Wax, "?We Want to Make a Light Baby: Arab Militiamen in Sudan Said to Use Rape as Weapon of Ethnic Cleansing," The Washington Post, June 30, 2004. [22] Francis M. Deng, "Sudan - Civil War and Genocide," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2001, pp. 13-21. [23] Cole, "Rice Doublespeak at Senate," Informed Comment, Jan. 20, 2005. [24] Quoted in Jeffrey Goldberg, "A Little Learning," The New Yorker, May 9, 2005. [25] Cole, "Franklin Met with Naor Gilon," Informed Comment, Aug. 31, 2004. [26] Daniel Pipes, "Imperial Israel: The Nile-to-Euphrates Calumny," Middle East Quarterly, Mar. 1994, pp. 29-39. [27] Cole, "London and Sharm el-Sheikh Investigations," Informed Comment, July 25, 2005. [28] The New York Times, July 25, 2005. [29] The Jerusalem Post, July 24, 2005. [30] Cole, "Jerusalem and Terrorism," Informed Comment, July 11, 2005. [31] Ma'ariv (Tel Aviv), June 23, 2004. [32] Ben Thein, "Is Israel's Security Barrier Unique?" Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2004, pp. 25-32. [33] Martin Kramer, "Making Cole-Slaw of History," Sandbox, July 9, 2005. [34] Cole, "Dual Loyalties." [35] Cole, "Top 5 Tasks Remaining in 2004 in the War on Terror," Informed Comment, Jan. 2, 2004. [36] 9-11 Commission Report (Washington, D.C.: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, July 22, 2004), pp. 154-160. [37] Cole, "Constitution Still Deadlocked," Informed Comment, Aug. 8, 2005. [38] "Lisa Ramaci-Vincent vs. Juan Cole," FrontPage Magazine, Aug. 30, 2005. [39] Cole, "Muslim Clerics Deny Targetting [sic] of Christians," Informed Comment, Aug. 3, 2004. [40] Martin Kramer, "Cole Turkey," Sandbox, Aug. 3, 2004. [41] Habib Levy, Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran, Hooshang Ebrami, ed., George W. Maschke, trans. (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1999), p. 64. [42] Levy, Jews of Iran, p. 225. [43] Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude (Madison, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002). [44] Abbas Amanat, Pivot of the Universe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 82-3. [45] Daniel Tsadik, "The Legal Status of Religious Minorities: Imami Shi?i Law and Iran's Constitutional Revolution," Islamic Law and Society, 3 (2003): 406. 2. Crime among the Wahhabis: http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20051114-015138-3548r.htm 3. PC Indoctrination on Campus at Ball State: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20151 3. Lying about Iraq ... Not: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20148 4. More on Paristine: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20136 5. Making the rounds of the Internet....... The news just got worse for the French today. The Germans offered military aid, saying they could have tanks and troops in Paris within 48 hours, just like they did in 1940, 1914, 1870....No problem! 6. Lying about Bush Jews: http://hnn.us/articles/17555.html 7. Berkeley JCC to be used by moonbats to smear conservative Chinese Berkeley professor who dares to support the war in Iraq: http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1782551.php 8. More on Paristine: http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=17850 9. Those of you who are wondering how two Israeli professors can possibly endorse the lunatic conspiracist nonsense of people like Barry Chamish, take a look at http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C635160132%2C00.html They have Mormon professorial company!
Friday, November 11, 2005
Posted
11/11/2005 11:00:00 AM
Whenever confronted with evidence of the collaboration of academics from thei campus with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic extremists, the officials at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba always insist that treason is not the officially sanctioned policy of the university and that such extremist activity is regretable but well within the framework of academic freedom. Such statements are belied now by the fact that Ben Gurion University is holding a one-day conference on "Medical Teams and Dual Loyalties", co-sponsored by the university and the extremist anti-Semitic organization "Physicians for Human Rights". The conference will be held Nov 29 and the opening speaker will be Prof. Avishay Braverman, the president of Ben Gurion University. The "dual loyalty" of which the conference speaks is evidently dual loyalty to Israel and "Palestine". The Physicians for Human Rights is a fanatic anti-Israel propaganda organization. While whining every time Israel searches a PLO ambulance for weapons, it has never come out in favor of the defense of the "human right" of Jews not to be murdered by terrorists. PHR has been the focus of attention by NGO-Monitor.org, which documents phony propaganda organizations passing themselves off as NGOs. Its report may be read at http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v3n02/v3n02-2.htm In the past PHR was accused by large numbers of people, including in a petition organized by Prof. Gerald Steinberg and signed by hundreds of academics, of being an openly anti-Semitic organization, after it distributed propaganda with anti-Jewish caricatures. For samples, see http://www.ngo-monitor.org/archives/infofile/PHRIPictures.htm For more details on that, see http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=230911&contrassID=2&+ubContrassID=16&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y and http://www.israelnationalnews.com/print.php3?what=article&id=2176 In the 1990s, PHR was run for a while by Neve Gordon, probably the most anti-Semitic academic at Ben Gurion University, an open groupie of neonazi Norman Finkelstein. Some of Gordon's areticles were published by the web site operated by Ernst Zundel, the nazi deported from Canada. The Israeli Medical Association has denounced PHR as an anti-Israel propaganda outfit: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v1n05/v1n05-3.htm PHR is funded by the EU, by the seditious pro-terror New Israel Fund (which also funds the defense team for arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti), and by other extremist groups. The Israel Medical Association official boycotts PHR. The PHR routinely turns out extremist propaganda that is little more than collections of lies: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v1n01/v1n01-1.htm THIS is the partner of Avishay Braverman and of Ben Gurion University in debating supposed human rights violations by Israel at an official BGU campus event.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Posted
11/10/2005 11:51:00 AM
I will be commenting at length on the Amir Peretz nomination in a separate posting. 1. A Yesha Cowboy Song! Was feeling poetic, so apologies for this: Settler Sue, the Sioux City Jew Based on the classic cowboy song Sioux City Sue by Gene Autry (original words at http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiSIOUXSU.html ) I drove a herd of cattle down from old New-Joysey way That's how I come to be in the land of Judah-Ay. I met a gal from Iowa. Her eyes were big and blue. I asked her what her name was, She said, "Sioux City Jew." CHORUS: Sioux City Sue, My Soft Settler Jew, Your hair is red. Your eyes are too. I'd swap my horse and dog for you. Sioux City Jew, Now Gush Katif Sue, There ain't no gal as true as my sweet Soft Settler Sue. I asked her if she had a beau. She said, "Yes, quite a few." And so I started courtin' with my Occupier Sue. The first time that I stole a kiss, I caught her occupyin' too. I asked her did she love me. She said, "And my Uzi too." Now I'm admittin', Iowa, I owe a lot to you. 'Cause I came from New-Joysey to find my Sioux City Jew. I'm gonna rope and tie her up. I'll use my old lassoo. We're gonna put our brand up there in Yesha hilltops too. From the recording by Gene Autry. 2. http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=17785 Bibles Out, Vaginas In at University of Wisconsin Written by Abraham Miller Wednesday, November 09, 2005 As political humorist Art Buchwald would have said, .Could I have made this one up?. The University of Wisconsin, at Eau Claire, has prohibited all Bible study by resident associates (RAs) on their own time even when conducted in the privacy of their room. Not to be seen as discriminating solely against Christians, the university, wrapping itself tightly in the garb of multiculturalism, extended the prohibition to include the study of the Koran and the Torah. One wonders if Scientologists, witches, and secular humanists will be exempted. In case you are one of those who continues to disbelieve the arrogance of the politically correct in our state-funded institutions of post secondary education--note that I purposely did not say .higher education.--this story is for you. The rationale for this public trampling on the First Amendment.s sacred grant of freedom of religion is that resident associates who study the Bible and pray to God might be seen as .unapproachable. by their charges. Some academic bureaucrat.s arbitrary notion of what .approachable. means, of course, trumps the First Amendment. And how consistently has this notion been enforced? One RA who for three years staged the controversial but feminist-applauded play, ''The Vagina Monologues,'' as an official residence hall activity, received praise from the Office of Housing and Residence Life. No university official suggested that participation in a controversial play that obsessed about a woman.s vagina for more than an hour would make someone .unapproachable.. Only studying the Bible would do that! As Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate noted in ''The Shadow University,'' it is precisely in the offices of housing and residence life that the left has most strongly assembled its artillery in fighting the cultural wars. Through compulsory sensitivity sessions, leftist indoctrination for those who aspire to be resident associates and resident counselors, and the creation of an environment where disputes between students are resolved by decisions that favor a leftist agenda, an entire separate but important curriculum is being forced on a captive audience of powerless and unsophisticated undergraduates. What the left knows is that the greatest threat to the imposition of any belief system is a counter belief system. People wedded to an ideology or a religion are unlikely to be swayed by attempts at propaganda and indoctrination that contradict their faith. Studies of the .brain washing. experiments conducted on American prisoners of the Korean War showed that strongly religious Southern Baptists were impervious to .brain washing.. The imposition of the left.s agenda on social values would receive serious challenge from people who actively study the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah. The purpose of the university.s edict is not so much that it believes it will stop people from pursuing their faith, which, as history teaches us, people will do anyhow, even on pain of death. Rather it is to put people of faith on notice that they are not welcome in positions of authority and responsibility in the university.s dormitories where the inculcation of leftist social and political values is an important component of the experience of residence life. This is why the left must not only remove religion from the public square but also from the very fabric of our society. In the left-dominated institutions of post-secondary education, where constitutional rights are routinely trampled when they collide with the left.s agenda, religion is terribly vulnerable. If the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire is remotely permitted to enforce this obscenity, it will be the shape of worse things to come throughout the highly imitative post-secondary education community. The way to stop this is not to waste your time writing to the university. FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, has tried this approach and has not so much as received a response. Stand up in your congregation and make people of faith aware of this outrage. Write to the Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin Jim, POB 7863, Madison, WI 53707. Write to President Bush and demand that his administration cut off all federal funds to the University of Wisconsin system. Certainly, if a university refused to employ African Americans as resident associates because they would be viewed as .unapproachable,. the wrath of this society would descend on them with such force and swiftness that it would surpass the shock and awe bombing campaign in Iraq, and justifiably so. People of faith should demand no less from their government. The stakes are equally great. About the Writer: Abraham H. Miller is emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati and a founding member of the Ohio Association of Scholars. 3. Ben Gurion University's Cheerleader for Neonazi Norman Finkelstein http://jewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=5678 4. Leftist Indoctrination at Bar Ilan University: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/643534.html Bar Ilan U. professors: Cancel `overly leftist` seminar on Rabin By Tamara Traubman, Haaretz Correspondent In a highly unusual step, some 20 Bar Ilan University professors called on the university administration to cancel a Wednesday seminar marking the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, arguing that the institution is becoming too leftist, and that the seminar's program is one-sided, denying expression to the pro-settler nation religious viewpoint. The morning seminar, organized in cooperation with Haaretz, focused on the influence of the Rabin murder on mamlachtiut the concept of the responsibility of politicians to rise above politics. The seminar also came in for criticism from a different source. Women's groups noted the relative absence of women involved in the event. The seminar was organized by Prof. Yedidya Stern of the Bar Ilan law faculty, and is being held under the sponsorship of Bar Ilan President Moshe Kaveh and Haaretz. Among the scheduled speakers are former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon, former Supreme Court chief justice Meir Shamgar, Elon Moreh Hesder Yeshiva head Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, Petah Tikva Hesder Yeshiva head Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, former Supre Court justice Dalia Dorner, and Haaretz Editor-in-Chief David Landau. 'From left to extreme left' Bar Ilan Professor Elisha Haas, who led opposition to the seminar, said the event calls for dialog, but is itself a one-way monolog. "They're bringing only one viewpoint - left and extreme left," Haas said. One can find only one speaker from the settler side." A protest letter initiated by Haas read in part: "Of 26 participants listed in the seminar's published program, around 85 percent represent one line of the public discourse in Israel, including representatives of the more extreme left, who reject the very existence of the Jewish State." The professors also criticized the university's partnership with Haaretz. They said that it was "unimaginable" in an academic context that the partnership would mean that the three main sessions would be chaired by Haaretz personnel, a reference to journalists Tom Segev, Ari Shavit and Danel Ben-Simon. University: Small group of critics A university spokesman, in a reference to the anti-disengagment movement, said that the critics of the seminar represented a "small group of people identified with 'orange,' who believe that Bar Ilan University has turned too leftist for their taste." The spokesman said the seminar had maintained balance, inviting both a rabbi from Eilon Moreh settlement and Menachem Klein, a professor who had helped draft the Geneva Initiative. At the same time, he continued, "It is their right to express protest and that is well and good. As long as there is debate, that is very good."
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