Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Posted
12/31/2008 05:33:00 PM
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/37635The Return of the Bad Old Middle East By: Steven Plaut Date: Wednesday, December 31 2008 For most of the past 16 years or so, a seemingly benign specter has been haunting the world - namely, the notion that there exists a New Middle East, one that plays by rules very different from those in the Bad Old Middle East. Beginning with the first of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, Israel was launched by its own political leadership into a "peace process" whose main axiom was that the Old Middle East was dead and gone. Oslo was based on the assumption that what was needed to resolve the conflict was a sincere willingness on Israel's part to reach an accommodation with the Arab world through unilateral concessions and especially through Israel's acknowledging the legitimacy of Palestinian demands for statehood. But as we enter the year 2009, the conclusion is unavoidable that there is no such thing as a New Middle East. The Bad Old Middle East keeps reasserting itself - with a vengeance. It is crucial at this point in history for all to abandon the campaign of peace through make-believe that has governed efforts at resolving the conflict since late 1992. No progress can be made until the world renews its acquaintance with Middle East reality and stares it straight in its unpleasant face. Unhappy truths and principles must again be understood and internalized. The most important ones follow. I. Arab terrorism and military aggression are not caused by Israeli occupation but rather by the removal of Israeli occupation. Since Oslo, the working hypothesis of the Israeli government, endorsed by nearly everyone on the planet, has been that the most urgent task at hand was to end the Israeli "occupation" and remove Israel from its position of control over the lives of Palestinian Arabs.
The Israeli Left and its amen chorus in the international media have been repeating for so many years that the ultimate cause of Palestinian terrorism and Arab grievances is the "occupation" of "Palestinian lands" by Israel that few are capable any longer of thinking about that assertion critically. It is wrong. The main cause of anti-Israel terrorism today is the removal of Israeli occupation from Palestinian Arabs. This is so obvious that it is a major intellectual challenge to explain why so few people understand it. Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip in its entirety in 2004 and evicted all Jews who had been living there. The result was the massive ongoing rocket assaults launched from the Gaza Strip against Sderot, Ashkelon, and other towns in the south of Israel. The Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon was unilaterally ended in the year 2000 by then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. The direct result of that move was the launching of 4,000 Katyusha rockets from Lebanon against northern Israel in the summer of 2006 and several times that number now poised to strike Israel. The worst waves of Palestinian suicide attacks were directly triggered by the early Oslo withdrawals - before which there were no suicide bombings. The only possible exception to the rule that removal of Israeli occupation causes terrorism has been the Sinai Peninsula, which is largely empty. Yet given the role of the Sinai and its Egyptian-sponsored smuggling networks in providing a pipeline for rockets and explosives to Hamas in Gaza, it is not even clear that Israel's withdrawal from Sinai is an exception to this rule. There can be no doubt that a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and a return to pre-1967 borders would trigger a massive rocket and terror assault against the remaining rump areas of Israel, launched from the "liberated" lands in the West Bank. The same thing would result from relinquishing the Golan Heights to Syria. There are worse things in the world than occupation, and the experiences of the past few years have demonstrated how much worse are the consequences that follow the removal of Israeli occupation. The inevitable consequence of a complete withdrawal by Israel to its 1967 borders would be a replay of 1967, when the Arab world hoped to achieve the military annihilation of Israel inside its Green Line borders. This time, though, the Arabs would be using 21st century military technology. Academics can debate about whether animosity to Israel was itself initially stoked by the years of Palestinians living under occupation. But in fact there was more than sufficient Palestinian animosity and terrorism long before Israel occupied anything at all in the 1967 Six-Day War. Be that as it may, progress today can occur only if the starting point is the understanding that removal of Israeli occupation causes terror and violence. II. Israeli goodwill concessions do not trigger goodwill among Arabs, they trigger Arab aggression and violence. The Arabs interpret such goodwill measures as admission of weakness on Israel's part and as demonstrations of Israeli vulnerability and destructibility. More generally, the axiom that Israeli niceness toward Arabs can generate Arab moderation, reasonableness, and friendliness is also false. It cannot.
Attempts at buying Arab moderation through demonstrations of Jewish self-restraint and niceness go back decades and predate Israel's independence (back then it was termed havlaga). They have never worked. Present-day attempts to win over Arabs with niceness and restraint range from affirmative action programs that benefit Arabs, to turning a blind eye toward massive lawbreaking by Arabs, particularly regarding construction and squatting on public lands. Niceness means never prosecuting Arab political leaders for treason and espionage or for endorsing terror, no matter how openly they do so. It means exempting Israeli Arabs from military conscription and even from civilian national service. It has even meant that families of Arabs killed while perpetrating terror atrocities against Jews were allowed to draw "survivor benefits" from Israel's social security system (the National Insurance Institute). Outside the Green Line, niceness often consists of endless offers of cease-fires with the terrorists - cease-fires that consist of Palestinians shooting and Israelis not shooting back. It means delivering funds and sometimes weapons to the very groups engaged in terrorism, in an attempt to maintain the fa.ade of an ongoing peace process. None of these measures can assuage Arab bellicosity toward Israel and Jews; actually, each contributes toward its escalation. Should Israel ever nicely withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, the Arab world led by "Palestine" will launch a war against the remaining territory of the Jewish state. It is likely to do so in the name of the "oppressed" Arabs in the Negev and the Galilee supposedly suffering from "discrimination" in the Israeli "apartheid regime." III. The Arab-Israeli war is not about land, and it cannot be resolved by Israel's relinquishing land. The Arab world already controls territory nearly twice that of the United States (including Alaska), whereas all of Israel cannot be seen on most world maps. When Israel was occupying nothing outside of its pre-1967 borders, the Arab world refused to come to terms with its existence and is no more willing to do so today, even if Israel were to return to those same borders. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not about Israel refusing to share land and resources with Palestinians but about the absolute refusal of the Arab world to acquiesce in the existence of any Jewish-majority political entity within any set of borders in the Middle East. This misrepresentation of the conflict serves to prolong it, precisely because it misleads. The Arab world insists that Israel trade land for peace not because it is prepared to in turn offer Israel peace for the land it vacates, but because a smaller Israel will be that much easier to destroy. And even if Israel consisted of nothing more than downtown Tel Aviv, the Arab world would consider it to be an imperialist affront sitting on stolen Arab land - an illegal "settlement." IV. Education and economic progress do not produce political moderation or a desire for peace in the Arab world. To the contrary, there is reason to believe that wealth and education are negatively correlated with moderation, meaning that wealthier and better-educated Arabs are more likely to support terrorism and extremist political ideas. Arab students in European and American universities have been regular recruits for terrorist groups, and most of the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the 9/11 atrocities had been students.
Suicide bombers in Israel often are university students or graduates of Palestinian universities. Some have been highly educated professionals, such as the lawyer who blew herself up in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, killing 21 people on the spot. Public opinion polls among Arabs often show greater support for violence among the better educated. More generally, in the Middle East poverty and political oppression do not produce terrorism. Anti-Israel terrorism was sparked by the imposition of an enlightened regime on Palestinians by Israel - a regime in which basic freedoms, including freedom of speech and the right to vote in local elections, were enjoyed. Terrorism escalated with each concession by Israel, especially after it agreed to allow Palestinians political autonomy and then statehood. It escalated after Israel removed its administrative control of the Arab population in most of the "Palestinian territories." V. "Talks" cannot produce peace in the Middle East and in fact have harmful effects. There is a Western obsession with the idea that all world problems can be resolved through talking. But how many international conflicts can be said to have been resolved strictly through talking? Especially in the Middle East, there can be no doubt that talking does not resolve hostilities. It makes them worse.
The Arab-Israeli war is not a marital spat where bringing together the parties to sit around a table and socialize reduces anger, misunderstanding and tension. The conflict is not about hurt feelings but about the refusal of the Arab world to come to terms with Israel's existence, period, in any set of borders and regardless of whether Jerusalem remains under Israeli control. VI. There is no "two-state solution" or "one-state solution" to the Arab Israeli conflict. The latter solution is particularly popular on the left. Under that scenario, Israel is enfolded into a larger "secular democratic Arab state" with an Arab Muslim majority. It is in fact little more than a prescription for a Rwanda-style genocide of Jews. This is little doubt that a significant number of those proposing such a solution would really like to see this happen.
More important, there is no "two-state solution" to the Middle East conflict. Those speaking about a two-state solution really mean a 24-state solution, meaning the Arabs retain the 22 states they already have, adding a 23rd state of "Palestine" in parts of the West Bank and Gaza and pre-1967 Israeli territories, with Israel remaining the Jewish state - the 24th state in the plan - for the moment. That such a solution will not end the conflict but only signal the commencement of its next stage has long been the quasi-official position of virtually all Palestinian groups, which have long insisted that any two-state solution is but a stage in a plan of stages, after which will come additional steps ultimately ending Israel's existence as a Jewish state. The original partition plan of the United Nations had proposed that an Arab Palestinian state arise alongside Israel in 1948. The Arab world rejected this plan altogether. It had no interest in adding one more Arab Islamic state to its portfolio. It went to war to prevent the creation of any Jewish state. The two-state solution is no more realistic an option today than it was in 1948. It is ultimately as much of an existential threat to Jewish survival in the Middle East as the one-state solution. Creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel would be a major step in the escalation of the Arab war against Israel's existence, even if that war is delayed for a time while the world celebrates the outbreak of peace in the Middle East thanks to the end of Israeli "occupation." VII. Israeli Arabs form a potential fifth column, displaying massive animosity and disloyalty to the state in which they have lived for 60 years and openly identifying with the enemies of that state. Sixty years of living under the only democratic government in the Middle East has had surprisingly little impact on the feelings and loyalties of Israeli Arabs, who are by and large hostile to the very existence of the state. They are no more resigned to living as a minority within a majority-Jewish state today than they were in 1948.
Their animosity toward Israel is apparent in their voting behavior: the bulk of Israeli Arabs vote for pro-terror Arab nationalist parties with strong fascist tendencies or for the Stalinist HADASH party. When the opportunity presents itself - for example, during the riots in the fall of 2000 or earlier this year on Yom Kippur in Acre - Israeli Arab enmity toward Jews is candidly manifested, and not just in words. Education and prosperity offer little hope of changing this reality. One proof is the behavior of Arab college students in Israel. Despite being beneficiaries of affirmative action preferences in college admissions and access to scarce dormitory space, Arab students are almost uniformly anti-Israel and pro-jihad. Israeli Arabs have long played a Sudeten-like role in the conflict. In any new outbreak of hostilities with neighboring Arab countries, there is a clear and present danger that they will take to the streets in attempts to cripple the country from within. The Arab lynch mobs of the Galilee that operated in October 2000 may have been a small foretaste. For too long the world, led by Israel's own deluded leaders, has been attempting to create peace via the pretense that war is over, misrepresenting the fa.ade of negotiations as actual resolution of conflict. It has been a sham, of course, and any short-lived lulls in the fighting have served only to weaken the resolve of Israelis, whose leaders have repeatedly presented them with a Potemkin peace based on the substitution of wish-making for statecraft.
Posted
12/31/2008 10:37:00 AM
1. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1231/p09s02-coop.htmlIsrael, Hamas, and moral idiocy Much of the world's response is a false moral equivalence that simply encourages the terrorists. By Alan M. Dershowitz from the December 31, 2008 edition Cambridge, Mass. - Israel's decision to take military action against Hamas rocket attacks targeting its civilian population has been long in coming. I vividly recall a visit my wife and I took to the Israeli city of Sderot on March 20 of this year. Over the past four years, Palestinian terrorists . in particular, Hamas and Islamic Jihad . have fired more than 2,000 rockets at this civilian area, which is home to mostly poor and working-class people. The rockets are designed exclusively to maximize civilian deaths, and some have barely missed schoolyards, kindergartens, hospitals, and school buses. But others hit their targets, killing more than a dozen civilians since 2001, including in February 2008 a father of four who had been studying at the local university. These anticivilian rockets have also injured and traumatized countless children. The residents of Sderot were demanding that their nation take action to protect them. But Israel's postoccupation military options were limited, since Hamas deliberately fires its deadly rockets from densely populated urban areas, and the Israeli army has a strict policy of trying to avoid civilian casualties. The firing of rockets at civilians from densely populated civilian areas is the newest tactic in the war between terrorists who love death and democracies that love life. The terrorists have learned how to exploit the morality of democracies against those who do not want to kill civilians, even enemy civilians. The attacks on Israeli citizens have little to do with what Israel does or does not do. They have everything to do with an ideology that despises . and openly seeks to destroy . the Jewish state. Consider that rocket attacks increased substantially after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, and they accelerated further after Hamas seized control last year. In the past months, a shaky cease-fire, organized by Egypt, was in effect. Hamas agreed to stop the rockets and Israel agreed to stop taking military action against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. The cease-fire itself was morally dubious and legally asymmetrical. Israel, in effect, was saying to Hamas: If you stop engaging in the war crime of targeting our innocent civilians, we will stop engaging in the entirely lawful military acts of targeting your terrorists. Under the cease-fire, Israel reserved the right to engage in self-defense actions such as attacking terrorists who were in the course of firing rockets at its civilians. Just before the hostilities began, Israel reopened a checkpoint to allow humanitarian aid to reenter Gaza. It had closed the point of entry after it had been targeted by Gazan rockets. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, also issued a stern, final warning to Hamas that unless it stopped the rockets, there would be a full-scale military response. The Hamas rockets continued and Israel kept its word, implementing a carefully prepared targeted air attack against Hamas targets. On Sunday, I spoke to the air force general, now retired, who worked on the planning of the attack. He told me of the intelligence and planning that had gone into preparing for the contingency that the military option might become necessary. The Israeli air force had pinpointed with precision the exact locations of Hamas structures in an effort to minimize civilian casualties. Even Hamas sources have acknowledged that the vast majority of those killed have been Hamas terrorists, though some civilian casualties are inevitable when, as BBC's Rushdi Abou Alouf . who is certainly not pro-Israel . reported, "The Hamas security compounds are in the middle of the city." Indeed, his home balcony was just 20 meters away from a compound he saw bombed. There have been three types of international response to the Israeli military actions against the Hamas rockets. Not surprisingly, Iran, Hamas, and other knee-jerk Israeli-bashers have argued that the Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians are entirely legitimate and that the Israeli counterattacks are war crimes. Equally unsurprising is the response of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and others who, at least when it comes to Israel, see a moral and legal equivalence between terrorists who target civilians and a democracy that responds by targeting the terrorists. And finally, there is the United States and a few other nations that place the blame squarely on Hamas for its unlawful and immoral policy of using its own civilians as human shields, behind whom they fire rockets at Israeli civilians. The most dangerous of the three responses is not the Iranian-Hamas absurdity, which is largely ignored by thinking and moral people, but the United Nations and European Union response, which equates the willful murder of civilians with legitimate self-defense pursuant to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This false moral equivalence only encourages terrorists to persist in their unlawful actions against civilians. The US has it exactly right by placing the blame on Hamas, while urging Israel to do everything possible to minimize civilian casualties. . Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School. His latest book is "The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace." 2. The most anti-Semitic journalist in Israel, Gideon Levy of Haaretz, served as spokesman for Shimon Peres between 1978 and 1982. Here is a typical Levy anti-Semitic diatribe: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051317.html 3. Rahat is a town of Arab Bedouins in the Negev and has long been one of the most openly anti-Israel pro-terror towns in Israel. It regularly holds violent anti-Israel demonstrations. It was hit by Hamas rockets this week.
4. There is a lot of cynical talk these days about any possibly role of the upcoming Israeli elections in the behavior and positions of various public figures with regard to the operations against the Hamas. There is ONE development that CLEARLY is nothing more than a cynical play for electoral support: Uncharacteristically, Meretz, the leftist semi-Marxist party, has endorsed the attack on Gaza, as have a few other leftist groups. Shimon Peres has also endorsed it. The exceptions to the more general rule of treason on the Left. Oh, the Meretz branch in the US is NOT an exception. They are out shilling for the Hamas this week: http://www.meretzusa.org/meretz-usa-calls-immediate-cessation-violence-between-israel-and-hamas
5. Rabin and the good ole days: http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2008/12/rabin-and-good-ol-days.html
6. Nice piece: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3647296,00.html
7. The Olmertocracy is exploiting the war to launch a new assault on freedom of speech in Israel: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051346.html Some rabbis dared to call for affirmative action in favor of Jews. The Israeli political establishment which operates affirmative action on behalf of Arabs sees this as racist. 8. Hornik on the war: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=1009A9AC-3023-4373-8CC9-87912666A46B 9. The Inside Gaza Story: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=4F210816-DD1C-4036-AAFD-9AFEFB8C5104 10. What "Palestine"? http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=2C6E228A-99F5-4E5D-A709-B63202C990D0 11. Spain's Joo Problem: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=1D304414-4A24-43DC-8BFC-00CE39C27E8B
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Posted
12/30/2008 04:01:00 PM
1. Of all the commentary the past few days, I found the following one of the most touching (in Hebrew only, my translation of parts of it follows): http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3646994,00.htmlIt is written by David Moriah, himself a teacher, whose son was butchered in the terrorist attack on the Jerusalem yeshiva last year. The column is entitled: "Stop Talking about Peace and Start Talking about Justice." He writes: 'After our son was murdered in the Merkaz HaRav yeshiva, the current scenes in Gaza bypass my human intellect and instead find their way to the basic primitive yearning for revenge... 'When our 16 year old son was murdered ten months ago together with seven of his friends, the TV screens of the world were filled with scenes of the yeshiva library filled with blood, together with scenes of the residents of Gaza dancing in celebration and flashing "V" signs to one another for victory, handing out candies and firing into the air in celebration. 'I do not deny that the current scenes in Gaza bypass my human intellect and instead find their way to the basic primitive yearning for revenge. But even more so they satisfy the fundamental yearning for justice. And anyone living in this land knows that there will yet come more pictures of innocent Jewish blood and more pictures of Gaza Arabs celebrating. 'Everyone knows that there lives amongst us a large community of citizens, and it includes members of the Knesset. They - in spite of occasional clickings of the tongue and even a condemnation here or there of the atrocities - clearly desire more mass murders of civilians and bloodshed to prove that there is no choice but to negotiate with the Hamas, not to defeat it, and capitulate to its demands. 'The media commentators will go back to explaining to us that the strong is the weak and that the weak is the strong and about how the victims and casualties on our side make it necessary to negotiate with the Hamas. Governments around the world pour out advice for us about how to calm things down and negotiate, while everyone on earth knows that in our place they would undertake the most destructive and violent retaliations without a shed of moderation or mercy for any poor women and children. 'Yet everyone is speaking about peace and no one is speaking about justice. It is time to stop the jabbering about peace and to address the question of justice. I met a grandmother with healthy common sense who used to say: "That which is evil is evil, and that which is good is good." Firing dozens of bullets at children studying in a yeshiva library is evil. Firing missiles for the purpose of killing civilians is evil. Causing agony to the families of the kidnapped is evil. And dancing for joy when innocent civilians are murdered by terrorists is evil. On the other hand, taking measures to kill the murderer before he is able to kill civilians again is good. To demolish the home of a terrorist in order to deter is good. And expelling people who identify with the Gaza murderers to go live in Gaza is VERY good. 'And good things need to be done immediately, with no delay or ponderings and the darkness must be vanquished immediately...' 2. http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-184989-00.html?tag=14-17-52 The "Itija'a" organization of Israeli Arabs, funded by the EU, has issued a statement saying that the firing of rockets by the Hamas at Israeli civilians is not a war crime, but the Israeli bombings in Gaza and targeting of terrorists is. It also accused Israel of conducting genocide in Gaza and that the rule of the Hamas in Gaza is "legitimate." The organization has not been banned and its heads have not been jailed by Israel.
3. The horror. The horror. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3647185,00.html
4. New Republic's Peretz does a good job: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2008/12/27/very-disproportionate-indeed.aspx
5. Lerner and Waskow, the druggie Tikkunite pseudo-rabbis, have both issued statements against Israel's operations in Gaza.
6. Good backgrounder: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=38
Posted
12/30/2008 12:15:00 PM
1. For those with a Plautian sense of macabre irony: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/158330Ben Gurion University Prepares for Possible Attack (IsraelNN.com) The Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva has gone into emergency preparedness in light of Israel's counterterror operation in Gaza and the fact that the city is within range of rockets launched by Gaza terrorists. The university's planning, in conjunction with the Homefront Command, covers protection from rockets in public places and university residences, coordination of firefighting efforts and removal of fallout and dangerous materials. (Translation - the massive rocket attack directly produced in part by the treasonous anti-Israel activities of so many faculty members at Ben Gurion University, including at least one entire department, is now threatening the campus itself!) 2. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=9F3C4AB9-5750-48FF-A176-C4FA64202658 Groundhog Day for the Fifth Column of Malice By Melanie Phillips Spectator.co.uk |
3. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=BB3D41A5-7F9A-4F16-A409-FC9DE039BF52 Why Israel Struck By Stephen Brown
4. The war of the NGOs on behalf of Hamas: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/eu_and_nif_funded_ngos_lead_condemnations_in_gaza_conflict_
Posted
12/30/2008 11:23:00 AM
1. There is so much to say about events over the past few days, but I will try to keep mine very short. The web is full of relevant materials. a. As usual, the press and the Israeli political establishment are ignoring what actually produced the massive rocket attacks on the Israeli south, namely the pusillanimous decision to expel the Jews from the Gaza Strip and to turn the area over to the Hamas. The result of that cowardice was entirely predictable and was predicted in these quarters. The Israeli politicians at the time whined that there was no choice but to act as they did, the same whine they chant every time they do something catastrophically stupid entirely by choice. The only lesson learned by the Olmert people is that the same arrangements that produced the hundreds of rockets on the Israeli south this week must be repeated in the West Bank. b. Air strikes are dramatic and produce a nice warm fuzzy feeling in Israelis watching the film clips of buildings and bunkers exploding, and this time were far better planned than in the 2006 war against the Hezbollah. However, they cannot produce real change nor solve the problem. This was proved in Lebanon in 2006. c. There is only one solution that can work = R&D = Re-Occupation and Denazification. Everything else is a delusion. d. Those who think the Israeli government is serious about fighting terror this time need to explain why Israel is still warning the Hamas about which buildings will be bombed before they ARE bombed so that the people there can be gotten out. Also needed is an explanation for why Israel is still transferring supplies and funds to the Hamas in Gaza in the middle of the battle, including of course sugar from which Qassam rocket fuel is produced, and why Israel has not turned off the electricity so that the press propagandists cannot serve Hamas. e. It is of great value that the Hamas CONTINUE to fire rockets at Israel. Otherwise, the Olmert government would call a halt to the Israeli attack against the Hamas, and return to goodwill measures, "signaling," and new appeasements. f. A law should be passed making it illegal for an Israeli politician to use the word "signaling." Any such pol should have his mouth washed out with turpentine. g. It is clear to all that Israel should never have agreed to any "ceasefire" with the Hamas, especially not to one that left Gilad Shalit in Hamas captivity. There is a serious danger that Olmert and his people will now agree to a new ceasefire in which Shalit remains captive. h. While it has not yet happened, there is a non-trivial danger that the Hezbollah will open up rocket fire at northern Israel any time now. The same person who moved the Hezbollah up to the Israeli border with its thousands of rockets, Ehud Barak, the man who essentially shot 4000 rockets at Northern Israel in 2006, is now pretending to be a tough fighter leading the battle against the Hamas. i. Anyone who thinks the Israeli Left is merely stupid and not treasonous is being proven wrong every minute this week. j. While we all know that the overseas Left is not just anti-Zionist but also anti-Semitic, it is also increasingly Nazified, as it cheers on the Hamas attacks on Jewish children and denounces Israel as a Nazi country when it defends Jewish children. Not a single one of the anti-Israel protesters on British and American campuses had been protesting when the Hamas was "only" shooting rockets into Sderot every day. k. The international Left would denounce a Jewish partisan in 1944 who shot an SS officer and would use it as proof that all of World War II is about Jewish mistreatment of innocent Germans. Haaretz would agree. l. Israeli Arabs are massively expressing their contempt for Israel's existence and their open identification with and support for the Hamas, cheering every rocket that lands on Sderot or Netivot. Every Israeli university has seen pro-Hamas protests by Arab students carrying flags of "Palestine," in some cases where Jewish leftist students and professors join them. At the University of Haifa law school lecturer Ilan Saban was one of several leftist faculty members who demonstrated with the pro-Hamas horde. m. Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua have articles in the Italian press today protesting Israel's bombing Gaza. David Grossman has a long piece in Haaretz today demanding an immediate end to Israel shooting back. None of these writers ever found the time to publish articles anywhere calling on the Hamas to stop firing hundreds of rockets at Jewish civilians. n. For those who missed the humor, the name of the operation, "Cast Lead" or in Hebrew Oferet Yitzuka, comes from a children's Hannuka song about Daddy bring home a little Hannuka menorah made of cast lead. It is a song well know to all Israelis, even the most secular, and its choice symbolizes the unification of Israel behind the savages. o. I have been convinced so often and so incorrectly over the years that the Israeli Left and the Israeli academic world will be jolted into rationality by events. One of the most convincing times was when my own university was being targeted by Hezbollah rockets in 2006. Sure THIS will wake up the moonbats, I believed. I was wrong every single time. Every single time the Left lay low for a few days and then emerged all the more convinced that appeasement and capitulation must be the only Israeli policy. There is no doubt that this time things will be the same. Haaretz is already cover-to-cover denunciation of Israel's operations and calls for immediate ceasefire and "negotiations" with the Hamas. Any day now hundreds of Israeli academics will be calling for Israel to meet the Hamas' demands. 2. http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-sedition-at-ben-gurion-university.html Ben Gurion University's Neve Gordon (political science department chairman) has uncovered the reason for Israel's "aggression" and "war crimes": 'The assault on Gaza is also being carried out to help Kadima and Labour defeat Likud and its leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who is currently ahead in the polls....Yet, the government is actively misleading the public, since Israel could have put an end to the rockets a long time ago. Indeed, there was relative quiet during the six-months truce with Hamas, a quiet that was broken most often as a reaction to Israeli violence: that is, following the extra-judicial execution of a militant or the imposition of a total blockade which prevented basic goods, like food stuff and medicine, from entering the Gaza Strip. Rather than continuing the truce, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of violence that are tragically akin to the ones deployed by Hamas; only, the Israeli ones are much more lethal. If the Israeli government really cared about its citizens and the country's long term ability to sustain itself in the Middle East, it would abandon the use of violence and talk with its enemies.' Full article: Neve Gordon Monday December 29 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/israelandthepalestnians-middleeast 3. Some quotes: * "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing" -- Barack Obama, in July, while visiting Israel as a U.S. presidential candidate
* British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on December 27: "I call on Gazan militants to cease all rocket attacks on Israel immediately. These attacks are designed to cause random destruction and to undermine the prospects of peace talks led by President Abbas. I understand the Israeli government's sense of obligation to its population" 4. Auld Lang Zion 2009 Should auld accomplice be forgot, And never brought to trial? Should auld Osloids, friend, be forgot, In days of auld lang Zion? For betraying auld lang Zion, my dear, For debasing auld lang Zion. Should their accomplice be forgot, In days of auld lang Zion? We yids hae run aboot the world, Under fire the whole time. We've wandered mony a weary foot, To reach auld lang Zion. Save auld land Zion, my dear, Save auld land Zion, Indict those Oslo blaggards, dear, For the sake of auld lang Zion!!! 5. Man the Torpedoes! http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129107
6. Keep it up: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129100
7. Treason Chic in the middle of war: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3645241,00.html
Today Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) , tomorrow the political science department at Ben Gurion University? http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129043 8.
A Palestinian girl whose family members were killed yesterday in Gaza:
"I say Hamas is the cause of all wars." by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook A Palestinian girl whose family members was killed yesterday in Gaza after an Israeli air attack was interviewed today on Palestinian TV and placed the blame for the war on Hamas: [Girl] "We were sleeping 7 girls in the room. We were asleep and didn't know what was happening. In the morning all the bricks were on top of my head, and the heads of all my sisters. My 4 year old sister next to me was dead." [Interviewer] "How many were you?" [Girl] "Seven.In the other room were my mother, my father, my yonger brother and another sister, who is 13 days old. I say, Hamas is the cause, in the first place, of all wars." [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas) Dec. 29, 2008] 9. http://digital.nationalpost.com/epaper/viewer.aspx 29 Dec 2008 National Post Hamas's suicide mission
10. Important new items from Isracampus.org.il: Yehiam Sorek, who teaches history at Beit Berl College, finds a murdering war criminal and enemy of mankind - Bar Kochva! http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/other%20-%20Beit%20Berl%20College%20-%20Yehiam%20Sorek%20-%20Bar%20Kochva.htm Tel Aviv University - Shlomo Sand's Revisionist Pseudo-History of the Jewish People http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Seth%20Frantzman%20-%20Shlomo%20Sand.htm More anti-Semitism and Neo-Nazism on the "ALEF LIST," which operates under the auspices of the university of Haifa. To complain, go to http://www.isracampus.org.il/How%20to%20Complain.htm 11. Anti-IDF Protests in Cities, Universities Tevet 2, 5769, 29 December 08 05:56 by by Maayana Miskin (IsraelNN.com) Violent protests against IDF operations in Gaza continued in Jerusalem, Haifa and elsewhere in Israel on Monday. University students joined the fray with protests and counter-protests in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Rocks, Arson, Graves Vandalized In Jerusalem, riots continued for the third day in a row in Arab neighborhoods of the city. Twenty policemen were lightly wounded in confrontations with rioters armed with stones. Approximately 60 rioters were arrested. In the Jerusalem neighborhood of Nebi Samuel, Arab residents protested the .Cast Lead. operation in Gaza with arson attacks. Arsonists set fire to a local forest at three different points. Firefighters succeeded in extinguishing the blaze. Two suspected arsonists were later arrested. Riots were reported in Shuafat, Har Adar and the Old City in Jerusalem as well, and in the village of Kalandia north of the capital, and Rachel's Tomb (Kever Rachel) south of the city, in Bethlehem. On the Mount of Olives (Har Zeitim), overlooking the Old City, Arab rioters smashed headstones on Jewish graves in the local cemetery. Haifa U.: 'Barak Murders' vs. 'Death to Terrorists' At Haifa University, hundreds of Arabs and a handful of extreme-left Jewish students and professors faced off against supporters of the .Cast Lead. operation on campus. Arab students held signs saying .Barak murders. and .State terror,. while those supporting the IDF called out .Death to terrorists. and called for Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh to be killed. Police kept the sides apart, but minor disturbances were reported as protesters broke free to argue and occasionally throw objects at each other. Some students serving in the IDF reserves argued with their leftist professors, who were protesting against the Gaza operation. Senior university administrators said both the pro- and anti-IDF demonstrations had been approved. S tudents must be allowed to exercise their freedom of speech, they said. The Haifa student union published a statement in support of the IDF and the .Cast Lead. operation. Hebrew U.: 'With Blood and Fire We Will Liberate You, Palestine' Next to the Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, hundreds of Arab students held Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) flags and yelled, .Gaza, Gaza, do not despair,. .Allah is great,. and .With blood and fire we will liberate you, Palestine.. Jewish students from the Zionist .Im Tirtzu. (If You Will It) student group held a counter protest. The students held Israeli flags, sang the national anthem HaTikva, and shouted .We love the IDF. and .See you in the reserves.. Tel Aviv: Three Arrested Protests and counter-protests took place near the Tel Aviv University campus in Ramat Aviv. A scuffle broke out between protesters, and three were arrested.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Posted
12/27/2008 10:59:00 PM
1. While almost all Israeli journalists coddle the leftist anti-Zionist academics at Israeli universities and pander to their treason, praising them as courageous moral role models, Ben Dror Yemini, the deputy editor of Maariv, is a notable and heroic exception. While a bit left of center in his own personal outlook, he nevertheless is willing to call a leftist spade a spade and often is willing to call a leftist spade a traitor. He has frequently attacked leftist seditious Israeli Jewish professors by name. In his weekend column yesterday, he outdoes even himself. He takes on Prof. Nurit Elhanan-Peled, the very same moonbette whom we cited and commented about in a posting a few days ago. To remind you, Elhanan-Peled is a professor of education at the Hebrew University. She is sister to Marxist professor of history Yoav Peled at Tel Aviv University and her own daughter was murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Jerusalem. In response to that murder, Elhanan-Peled has since devoted herself to promoting the agenda and cause of the very same terrorists who murdered her own daughter. Her latest outburst of cheering on behalf of the Hamas was posted by us a few days back and can be read at this URL: http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HebrewU%20-%20Nurit%20Peled-Elhanan%20-%20Sakharov%20Prize.htm Yemini viciously attacks Elhanan-Peled in his column on Dec 26. It can be read in Hebrew here: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/830/891.html?hp=0&loc=202&tmp=2783 Significantly, Yemini explicitly calls her an anti-Semite and a traitor in his column. I translate the relevant parts for you (my own translation) here: 'The Hamas will also Take Care of the Lecturer 'There is in fact no reason to wait for any imminent military action. The Lie Factory is already hard at work at full steam. This week a new record was broken. A lecturer at the Hebrew University wrote an article, "The Heroes of the Gaza Strip," about those Gazans who express the "free spirit of humanity" in opposition to the "military plan about to commence by the criminals of the occupation army." The writer uses the word "thugs," that favorite term for Jews used by anti-Semites, to describe the Jewish bullies who are in secret control of the world. The use of the term is not na.ve and innocent. It erases the distinction between anti-Zionists and anti-Semites. The propaganda of "atrocities" has already arrived. No need to await a large action. 'The writer is Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, the granddaughter of the late reserve general Matityahu Peled (a notable Israeli communist ironically named Matityahu --- SP). She is a begrieved mother, whose own daughter was killed in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. She of course blames Israel for that, not the murderers. She goes out of her way to JUSTIFY the murderers! And if we yearn to understand why the freedom of spirit is being defeated and why the Islamist anti-Semitism is winning, it behooves us to continue to read her malicious propaganda in this regard. 'Israel, according to the writer Peled-Elhanan, "is sunk up to its neck in the blood of innocent (Palestinian) babies and every breath that we take shoots out red bubbles of blood into the air of the holy land." Peled-Elhanan then makes a blood-chilling misuse of the famous poem by Bialik about the Kishinev pogrom, "On the Massacre," which includes the famous line, "The revenge for the death a small child has not yet been invented by the Devil." That poem was written about the Kishinev pogrom. But she declares that "the child in question is the Palestinian from Gaza, and his butchers are the Jewish soldiers." Here we have yet another medieval blood libel. Again the Jews are murdering children. 'She writes about "cities of massacre," about a massacre supposedly being perpetrated against Palestinians. Except that she knows perfectly well that Israel has never carried out any massacre, ever, and not even something resembling a massacre, during the entire 40 years of occupation of the occupied territories. In reality, the number of Palestinians injured has been extremely low, both relatively and in absolute numbers, in comparison with any other conflict anywhere on the planet. But since when do anti-Semites care about facts. 'She refers to the Hamas murderers as "freedom fighters." No doubt she also considers the Nazis to have been also when they were struggling against the Jews. After all, years and years of demonization of Jews, of painting the Jews as the "threat to world tranquility," preceded annihilation of the Jews back then also. Peled-Elhanan continues their work. She is now perpetrating the demonization of Jews. At one time someone like Peled-Elhanan would have been tossed into prison as a traitor. The world has changed. Peled-Elhanan is the recipient of the "Sakharov Prize" granted to her by the European parliament. 'So what does one do with sicknesses like this? Silencing them would be prohibited, would turn them into martyrs. You know . the victims of the Israeli stormtroopers. What needs to be done is to do to them what they are trying to do to Israel . to turn them into lepers. To expose the anti-Semitic essence in them. And the fact that they are barons in the factory of lies. That they are the defense advocates of the anti-Semitic regime at our gates. Peled-Elhanan is operating among us and at times at our expense. She and her ilk are in service to the murderous Hamas regime. She and her ilk are perpetuating bloodshed. And in spite of that, we are commanded not to prosecute the anti-Semites in our midst. (I disagree --- SP) 'If her plot succeeds, the Hamas will be victorious and rule over us here and IT will then do the dirty job! Both to us and to her!' **** Up to this point were the words of Ben Dror Yemini. (In the remainder of his column he attacks Israeli leftists who protested when Israel barred the anti-Semitic Professor Richard Falk from entering Israel as a UN delegate after he had smeared Israel as a Nazi entity.)
Please take a few moments and send a letter of outrage to the heads of the Hebrew University and to all Hebrew University "friends of" offices around the world. Let them know what you think of people like Elhanan-Peled being emplyed using the funds of Israeli taxpayers, alumni, and overseas donors. Please cite Yemini and demand that the Hebrew University take action against the pro-terror anti-Semites on its faculty (of whom Elhanan-Peled is not the only one!). To do so, contact: President of the Hebrew University Prof. Menachem Magidor Email hupres@cc.huji.ac.il menachem@math.huji.ac.il Menachem.Magidor@huji.ac.il The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905 Tel. 02-6584143, 02-5881905 Fax. 02-5811023 President of the Hebrew University Prof. Menachem Magidor Email hupres@cc.huji.ac.il menachem@math.huji.ac.il Menachem.Magidor@huji.ac.il The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905 Tel. 02-6584143, 02-5881905 Fax. 02-5811023 The Rector of the Hebrew University is Title : Prof. First Name: Sarah Family name: Stroumsa Department: Rector of the Hebrew University Primary Email address: stroums@vms.huji.ac.il Other Email addresses: Sarah.Stroumsa@huji.ac.il stroums@huji.ac.il Telephone: 026719698 Telephone (extra): 025883676 URL: http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~stroums/ List of Hebrew University "Friends of" Offices with email addresses and faxes: http://www.huji.ac.il/huji/eng/friends_e.htm Finally, please note that Isracampus.org.il is the Israeli watchdog group that monitors and exposes academic treason in Israel, following the shenanigans of Israel's academic Fifth Column, and exposing campus politicization and extremism in Israel. It needs your help, support, and assistance! Please visit the web site weekly to learn what is happening on Israeli campuses! Please advise others to provide assistance and support to it. 2. The wonderful Nidra Poller on the Hamas Hannuka: Just posted on www.atlasshrugs.com HAMAS'S HANUKAH! Nidra Poller in Paris on the Israel counter attack to defend itself against Islamic jihad. HAZAK ! Hamastan is getting the Hanuka treatment, special delivery for evildoers. It seems the mighty jihadis were caught by surprise. Not me. Listening between the words of leftist Israeli journalists interviewed on our Jewish radio stations this week, I was sure the attack was imminent. It.s one of those times when Israel speaks with one voice and acts with one determination. Even the wimpy Olmert government could not dawdle any longer. Only two days ago the Hamasniks were gloating over Israeli indecision. These jihadis operate in closed circuit minds. Once they convince themselves they are winning, they whip up a whirlwind of delusion. Now look at them, battered and bloodied, stunned and dazed, caught in full dress uniform, whining and calling for help. As Israel stands tall and proud, exercising its sovereignty, European Jews threaten to bomb the carpets in Strasbourg and mow down the sprouts in Brussels if E.U. officials don.t stop spouting off their mouths. Not really. But it.s no more of a joke than the Automated Out of Office Replies registered early this afternoon in the French media. The French presidency of the E.U. is calling for an immediate ceasefire and, incidentally, requesting that Hamas refrain from shooting rockets into Israel. The French presidency of France, no surprise, is making the same inane statement. And so it goes down the line, flutters of indignation from automatic official responders while the real leaders are out to breakfast lunch and dinner in the empty year-end week. Never at a loss for a lie, French media have thrown the U.S. in with the hypocrites under a one size fits all headline claiming that the international community is calling for a ceasefire. In fact, the U.S. position is radically different. Wishing that Israelis will do their best to avoid civilian casualties, our government more or less told Hamas it got what it was asking for. This is now. What will happen when the 90lb weakling usurps his seat in the White House? Will we hear European squeak from the next to the last bastion of courage? A few days ago le Figaro descended to new depths with an article about Obama in swim trunks, exclaiming: .What a gorgeous hunk of man!. The only moment of truth in this endless flow of Obamaniac drivel was an article a few weeks ago about how Michelle will certainly be using fashion advisers to get her act together. Though that journalist, too, imagined gorgeous legs and a perfect figure, she did say that the future first lady.s red and black election night dress was not exactly a winner. Back to Hamastan. A Metulla News Agency (www.menapress.com for those who read French) release reports that 50 targets were hit simultaneously in the first wave of bombing, scoring 97% of direct hits in the space of 3 minutes. 50 additional targets were hit in the second wave. Most of the command posts, military bases, arms factories, and arsenals were damaged or destroyed. Tunnel personnel came scurrying out of their underground enterprises near the Egyptian border as the bombings shook the earth. Noting that Hamas spokesman Fawzi Baroum gave shooting orders.over the radio-- to rocket launchers near the Israeli border, the Metulla reporter supposes that the military communications network was destroyed. An airstrike against a building where Hamas military and political personnel had just gathered for an emergency meeting indicates, according to the same source, information gathered from human intelligence on the ground. The Metulla News Agency release concludes that Hamas, caught by surprise by .the timing, the scope, and the precision of the attack,. is desperately searching for some civilian victims to display as proof of an Israeli massacre. By 5.30 PM, Le Figaro had lined up an impressive list of condemnations. The U.E., Javier Solana, President Sarkozy, PM Fran.ois Fillon, Ban Ki-Moon, Leila Chahid, Turkey, Mahmoud Abbas, Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, Moubarak, the Arab League, Iran, Ghadaffi, Syria. Le Figaro tucked the U.S. and the U.K. into the list, trying to assimilate them with these accusations of everything from carelessness to war crimes. They must have missed this exchange with Egyptian MFA Ahmed Aboul Gheit, at a Cairo press conference. Asked if he.d known the attack was imminent, About Gheit replied, .Didn.t you? Didn.t you hear the declaration of Tzipi Livin last Thursday?. He said Hamas had been warned, and shouldn.t be surprised at getting what they asked for. And somehow this strong condemnation of .Israeli.s massacre against Gaza Strip reported by the Kuwait news agency didn.t make it onto the honor roll: http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1963075&Language=en . Why? Isn.t Sudan part of the elevated conscience of international opinion? Night has fallen here in Paris. Time to light the Hanukah candles. They will burn so brightly as the evildoers writhe in pain and cry over their broken lethal toys. A few days ago they reinstated crucifixion in the sharia arsenal of their rump Islamic republic. Today our haverim burned their punishing crosses!
3. Well, Israel's loyal Arabs have taken to the roads in a fit of violence, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at passing Jews. Since the Israeli politicians seem at a loss about how to handle these pogromchiks in the middle of the battle in Gaza, I have written Olmert and Livni with my own proposal. I can't go into details about what the proposal contains, but I can tell you that its title is, "Throw a Rock at a Jew and Die," and it has a companion document whose title reads, "If you are old enough to throw a rock you are old enough to be shot." 4. The latest from Beilingrad: http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2008/12/19/palestinians-training-kids-to-be-suicide-bombers.html
Posted
12/27/2008 06:50:00 PM
1. STATEMENT BY THE ISRAELI PROFESSORS AND LECTURERS FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE (JANUARY 1, 2009): We Israeli professors and lecturers whose salaries are paid for by taxpayers and Jewish donors would like to express our solidarity with the Hamas activists firing rockets and missiles at the schoolchildren, women and other living things in Sderot, Netivot, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Ofakim and in the other illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Negev. We insist that the only basis for peace must be that the Hamas and its associates be permitted to fire as many rockets and missiles as they wish while the Jews must be prohibited from shooting back. For this reason, we will be taking to the streets and campuses this week to express our support for the Hamas. We will be celebrating the boats attempting to break the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip. We insist that Israel open the border checkpoints and allow sugar to be shipped into Gaza to be made into Qassam fuel. We insist that the electricity be left on in Gaza so that the Hamas rocket firing crews need not use flashlights. We insist that the only legitimate way for Israel to seek the release of Gilad Shavit is to grant the demands of the Hamas, to end all Israeli security checkpoints everywhere, and to allow Hamas activists free access to Israeli school buses, cafes, and restaurants. While it is true that every other group of people on earth is entitled to exercise self-defense, we believe that Jews are exceptions to this because Jews are morally, culturally and racially inferior to other people. Since when should Untermenschen be permitted to shoot back! Anyone with grievances about anything anywhere on earth should be allowed to murder Jewish civilians as much as they wish. After all, Jews everywhere are morally response for the unforgivable crime of the state of Israel in its existing! So murders of Jews are simply collateral damage caused by Israel's criminal decision to continue to exist. The best way Israel can achieve peace is to announce an immediate unilateral decision to stop all acts of shooting back, no matter how many Israeli civilians are killed by Palestinian resistance. This should be followed up immediately by decisions to withdraw all Jewish settlers from Beer Sheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod, and these areas should be restored to their legal Palestinian owners. Only Ben Gurion University should be allowed to remain since, after all, it is already a Palestinian school. We insist that Israel never use force whenever there is any chance that any Arab civilians might get injured. But since there is always such a risk, in essence we demand that Israel never use force at all and never defend Jewish civilians. Defending Jews is nothing more than a stage of escalation in the cycle of violence. Defending Jews is criminal behavior and Israel must put a stop to it once and for all! The only way to end it is by Jews learning to turn the other cheek and by Jews turning their swords into plowshares. All we are saying is give peace a chance. SOME PREVIOUS STATEMENTS CALLING FOR PEACE:
2. BACK TO THE FUTURE HTTP://WWW.JEWISHPRESS.COM/CONTENT.CFM?CONTENTID=18600 By: Steven Plaut Archeologists in Poland have just discovered an amazing document, uncovered from beneath rubble left over in what was once the Warsaw Ghetto: A Letter and Call to Sanity for the Warsaw Ghetto zealots, from the Peace Now chapter of Warsaw, April 23, 1943. Dear Deluded Brethren, A few days ago some zealots from certain messianic settler organizations operating in Warsaw launched a series of acts of unprovoked violence against the legitimate German peace partners directing peace-seeking activities here in Warsaw. A number of German soldiers and officers have been viciously murdered, while others have been maimed and injured by these thoughtless religious fundamentalists. Comrades, we must emphasize that these violent hoodlums are deluded and are making things much worse for everyone else here in the Warsaw Ghetto. You have to understand that there are no military solutions to the problems of deportations of Jews in Warsaw by the Germans. Our problems can only be resolved through negotiations. We lovers of peace insist that, in spite of the claims of these messianic terrorists provoking the Germans, there IS a partner for negotiations among the Germans, and we Warsaw Jews DO have a moral responsibility to conduct good faith negotiations with the legitimate representatives of the German people. In addition, violent attacks by irresponsible Jewish settlers in the ghetto against Germans will only provoke a cycle of violence. There can be no winners in that. Don't these people conducting the hooligan violence understand that, if they attack the Nazi troops and refuse to conduct negotiations with the agents sent to us by the Third Reich, Hitler will lose control of his forces and then some really violent anti-Semite could take over? Besides, Hitler is really trying his best to rein in the more violent of his stormtroopers; he simply cannot be everywhere at once. And besides, the Red Army and the Eastern front have him so preoccupied that he cannot act more effectively against the renegade SS terrorists mistreating Jews. In addition, the Germans do have some legitimacy to their negotiating position. After all, Jews in Poland have been illegally occupying numerous Polish territories that really belong to Aryans! The Jews have established themselves in numerous Polish settlements where they just do not belong and their presence there has antagonized some of the local oppressed people. Horrendous inequality has been created by Jewish racism, since the Jews in Poland are better educated than the Gentiles here and Jews in Warsaw earned more than non-Jews before the war. This manifestation of anti-Gentilism must be redressed. We need some affirmative action to help the Polish non-Jews advance in society. Moreover, some Polish civilians apparently were victims of Jewish pickpockets in Warsaw before the war. We Jews certainly need to pay compensation for those inexcusable provocations. Clearly the solution is two ghettos for two peoples. The Warsaw ghetto needs to be shared. The Jews in one half must agree to be deported peacefully from that half to other destinations, so that the Germans and the Poles can have equal rights in the New Middle Europe. The Polish right of return to the ghetto needs to be addressed. The entire tragedy that we have experienced stems from the selfish inability of so many Jews to share their property and land. We repeat, violence has never solved anything. Violence only foments more violence. The violent Warsaw settlers attacking the innocent Germans are bigots and racists. They have wounded innocent bystanders in their firefights. Not only that, but the ghetto zealots attacking Germans have demonstrated insufficient sensitivity to the needs of non-traditional families and gay couples. They have been insensitive to the impact of their behavior upon the environment and the threat of global warming. We need to speak out in defense of the human rights of Germans and Poles in the vicinity of the ghetto. We must denounce the racist Zionist hooligans and messianic zealots attacking those victims. Jewish terrorism against Germans must be stopped. The entire crisis could be resolved if we Jews would only recognize the legitimate rights to self-determination of the Germans, especially the ones in Danzig. We must begin negotiations at once. Those claiming that there is no peace partner on the German side are deluded and they are the real obstacle to peace. We simply have to give Hitler a chance. He just wants a homeland for his own people and his fair share of our territory! In addition, we should stop giving encouragement to that neoconservative warmonger Winston Churchill. Doesn't he realize that his plan to occupy other peoples cannot work? Let's take a lesson from our rich and wonderful heritage. The Bible itself calls upon us to pursue peace. Stop the shooting. Start the talking. Now! Signed, Peace Now, Warsaw Chapter 3. Statement by Israeli Professors for Human Rights and Justice: We, the progressive professors for peace and human rights and justice, hereby condemn the barbaric Israeli attempt at preventing Syria from producing nuclear weapons of mass destruction. How dare those Zionists violate Syrian air space and destroy the North Korean nuclear facilities Syria was developing for peaceful uses. After all, Israel has nukes so why should not Syria under Asad get them also. Fair is fair It is not like he was really going to use them on the Jews or anything. All lovers of peace must support the right of Syria and Iran to build nuclear facilities and accumulate lots of plutonium. It is the only way to deter Israeli aggression and prevent Jews from abusing their self-determination. It is nothing more than containment of Israeli colonialism and protest againt settlement construction. The Jews should defuse the situation by agreeing to live inside a peaceful unified Middle East, one in which they would have nothing to fear from Syrian nuclear weapons, especially if they convert to Islam. Some might even be allowed to visit al-Quds after the One-State Solution is imposed. As for those American imperialists, we make no promises. As long as America is no more than a puppet of the Israel Lobby, occupying Iraq on behalf of Zionism, and controlled by Jewish neoconservatives, it remains unsafe from the weapons being developed by the oppressed masses of the progressive world. That being the case, we demand that Israel immediately accept the suggestion already being made by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, that Israel compensate Syria at once for the senseless attack by its air force and give it replacement nuclear facilities. Once that is done, we have no doubt that Syria will open peace talks with the Zionist entity. 4. A Declaration of Protest by the Women in Black, Machsom Watch, Professors for Peace and Equality, Yesh Gvul, Taayoush, MAPAM, The HADASH Party, and members of the political science department at Ben Gurion University and the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University (2006)
We, progressive lovers of peace, are outraged. How dare Ukraine pass such a reactionary anti-peace law! The Ukrainian parliament yesterday passed by a vote of 233 to 1 a law declaring that the mass starvation of Ukrainians in 1932-33 constituted intentional genocide and was a crime against humanity. We salute that one dissident who voted against the parliamentary atrocity. Now we think that Ukraine has taken things out of context. After all, Comrade Stalin was merely defending the Revolution against counter-revolutionary agents and saboteurs! Had he not implemented true equality in the Ukraine, all sorts of horrid things might have occurred instead, such as capitalism and Zionism. You cannot make a quiche without breaking some legs, er, eggs. But the worst part of this new aggression by the Ukraine against the memory of Comrade Stalin, the Sun of the Nations, is that it might mislead people into thinking that socialism cannot work and that dictatorship of the proletariat leads to genocide. Even worse, it might make people believe that capitalism produces wealth and food for the masses! We are workers (well, never mind that most of us do not have a job) who have elected ourselves spokespersons for the working class, that class that must exercise its total and exclusive sovereignty and power within each country, including the Ukraine, Russia, and Israel. We dream of the day when we will all be as equal and free as our comrade brethren and sistren in North Korea and Cuba, although Castro has been backtracking recently and actually letting his subjects grow some food. Besides, who says people need to eat more than once a day, and what is wrong with a diet of sawdust? Look how happy the North Koreans are with it! So we progressive peace-lovers in occupied Palestine demand that all people of good will denounce not only Zionist imperialism and occupation, but also Ukrainian aggression and war mongering.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Posted
12/25/2008 08:06:00 PM
1. "Uncle Bernie": http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/DocView.asp?did=1000410512&fid=980 2. Wham bam thank you ma'am: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3644073,00.html
3. The maliciously anti-Israel leftist Jewish playwright Harold Pinter just died: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081225/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_obit_pinter
Pinter had been a long-term enemy of Israel and Jews, supported international boycotts of Israel, was part of the movement to defend the spy and traitor Mordecai Vanunu. Aside from turning out the unspeakably boring and silly "plays" for which he got a Nobel Prize, Pinter was best known for his infantile anti-Americanism. Indeed, it was without a doubt his hatred of America that entitled him to his Nobel Prize more than his "dramas." If Arafat got a Nobel Peace Prize I suppose it made sense to give Pinter a Nobel for literature. I personally find the poetry on the walls of the stalls of public lavatories more inspiring. Pinter insisted that Israel was responsible for all unrest in the world (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0607/S00130.htm ). Pinter is famous for saying the following: "The 911 atrocity in New York was predictable and inevitable. It was an act of retaliation against constant and systematic manifestations of state terrorism on the part of the United States over many years, in all parts of the world..." Pinter described America as "a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics" Here is an item I posted about Pinter in 2005: http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2005/10/harold_pinter_a.php : HAROLD PINTER: ANTI-ISRAEL JEW Plaut's Complaint Nobel playwriter Harold Pinter not only hates America and Britain, but he also hates Israel and Jews. The fact that he is a Jewish-born hater of Israel is hardly unusual these days in the fever swamps of the Left. Pinter a while ago made these moonbatesque defamations against Israel and Jews: "Pinter went on to assert that the one situation that outraged him above all else was the Israeli `injustice to the Palestinians,' which is an issue that exercises many, but he then went on to say, in the context of George Bush's pursuit of Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction, that Israel possesses these weapons `and has used them." (emphasis added) Pinter also is quoted there as saying: "The USA is intent on controlling the world and the world's resources." "Bush is on a par with Saddam." "Please wash the cucumber sandwiches down with a glass of blood, with my compliments." (open letter to George Bush) "Israel's injustice to the Palestinians is an outrage." Pinter has long been a promoter of Israel.s most famous convicted traitor, Mordecai Vanunu, who spent time in jail for espionage activities against Israel. Treason against Israel makes him a hero in Pinter's mind. When interviewed and challenged about his anti-Americanism, Pinter responded, "Look, there is a vast Gulag going on in America." (If Pinter is so concerned about human rights in the United States, why did he accept the hospitality of scores of Americans who spent a fortune on feting him in 2001?) We take note of Pinter's loathing of a country that has provided him with millions of dollars in theatre takings and that has honoured him with recognition. **** Some other Pinter rantings are cited here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2081 and http://www.jewishcomment.com/cgibin/news.cgi?id=11&command=shownews&newsid=371 and http://www.robertfulford.com/2005-10-17-pinter.html See also this: http://www.zionism-israel.com/ezine/Ottolenghi-anti_Zionism.htm
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Posted
12/24/2008 07:41:00 PM
1. 'TERRITORIAL ADDICTION' AND ACADEMIC DEBASEMENT By: Kenneth Levin http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/37576 Date: Wednesday, December 24 2008 The core of the Arab-Israeli problem is Israel's "territorial addiction." So declares a December 3 Haaretz article by one Alex Sinclair. As to the solution, Sinclair does not quite echo Haaretz's former executive editor David Landau, who urged Condoleezza Rice a year ago to "rape" Israel. Rather, he advocates a friendly but forceful stand by President-elect Obama to break Israel of its addiction - promoting, in the jargon of addiction treatment (although Sinclair doesn't use the term), less violent-sounding "tough love" instead of rape. Implicit in Sinclair's metaphor is the conviction that Israel has no legitimate or rational claim to any part of the territories and that its seeking to retain a presence there is entirely pathological. Not for him the perspective of the authors of UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed in the wake of the 1967 war and subsequently the starting point for all Arab-Israeli negotiations. That document calls for Israel not to return to its pre-1967 lines but rather to negotiate "secure and recognized boundaries" with its neighbors - and Resolution 242's authors explicitly declared their conviction that it would be a grievous error to push Israel back to its former lines. Lord Caradon, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations at the time and the person who introduced the resolution in the Security Council, observed some years later: It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places where the soldiers of each side happened to be on the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them, and I think we were right not to... The American ambassador to the UN at the time concurred, noting that "Israel's prior frontiers had proved to be notably insecure." And President Lyndon Johnson, shortly after the 1967 war, declared that Israel's return to its former lines would be "not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities." Johnson advocated new "recognized boundaries" that would provide "security against terror, destruction, and war." A number of subsequent presidents have reiterated Johnson's position on borders and several have done so in even stronger terms regarding Israel's need to retain some of the areas captured in 1967. Also in the wake of the 1967 war, a memorandum written by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff stated: "From a strictly military point of view, Israel would require the retention of some Arab territory to provide militarily defensible borders." But Sinclair, in his cavalier attitude toward Israel's security, does not merely take issue with differing views; he doesn't even acknowledge them. On the contrary, he presents no evidence to rebut those views or to bolster his own position. Instead, he offers his "territorial addiction" metaphor as though it were established truth and devotes his entire piece to expanding on the metaphor. Thus, he lists the recommended interventions that an addict's friends and family can employ to win their loved one from his or her addiction, including interventions which the addict might resist. And he declares that these actions should be a model for Obama's policies toward Israel: Obama must tell us [after indicting Israel for its "addiction," Sinclair inexplicably shifts to referring to Israel as "us"] in clear terms how harmful our activities and behavior are to ourselves, to our friends, and to those around us. He must tell us what we need to do and what will no longer be tolerated. And he must help us carry out that program. The absence of argument, the heavy-handed elaboration, the sheer mindlessness of the piece, is even more amazing in that Sinclair is a teacher. He is identified in Haaretz as "a lecturer in Jewish education at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, and an adjunct assistant professor of Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America." There was a time when the essence of pedagogy was training students in how to think and write critically; how to formulate an argument and muster evidence in its defense. It entailed weaning students away from believing it sufficient simply to state one's conviction, perhaps metaphorically, and then expound on the implications of the conviction until reaching some requisite number of words. Jews are known for often being in the forefront of developments in academia. Recent decades have seen a notable debasement in standards in the social sciences, humanities, and pedagogy. Alex Sinclair's Haaretz piece on Israel's "territorial addiction" suggests that some Jews in the area of Jewish Studies are pioneering new frontiers of academic debasement. Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and the author of "The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege." 2. A Great Column on Hannuka: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2008/12/eight-lessons-for-modern-day-israel.html
3. Does Obama have a Mideast Policy? http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=1A8DE2B3-FBE5-4B2D-A889-20D62744B42E
Incidentally, there are some reports on the web that some members of the Obama team have been meeting with reps of the picayune far-Leftist Jewish anti-Zionist groups, Jewish anti-Semites like J-Street. If Obama's people think that Jewish anti-Semites are representative of the Jewish community, things look very bleak. 4. It is now official. Meretz has decreed that there are no such things as Israeli Arabs. Instead, there are "Palestinian Israelis." See: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128993
5. http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/12/peace-now-stupid-forever.html From the Yid with Lid blog: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 Peace Now--Stupid Forever !!!
You know, this one reminds me of a game show. I am talking about those times when the contestant should keep their 100 thousand dollars and go home, but he decides to try to double the money just one more time--even though the entire audience is screaming "don't be an ass !" When this guy opens up whats behind door number 3 on national television and it turns out he traded 100 grand for 12 dollars and a stick of bazooka Joe, he looks like the biggest ass that ever lived, the only redeeming feature is the confused look of horror on his face because he know that everyone who ever knew him knows how stupid he looks. Peace Now spent a year working through the Israeli courts trying to get the IDF to release papers they thought would prove their contention that 86% a particular settlement was built on private Arab land. A year ago September they got to open up door number three and were left with that stupid, confused look of horror on their faces. Because when the IDF released the information they were looking for, Peace Now's 86% number was only off by 85.5%. The community, Ma'ale Adumim, sued Peace Now for libel and today an Israeli court Awarded Ma'ale Adumim $20,000 dollars as it cited the organization and its employees for lying about the settlement. I only wish I could have been a bug on the wall of the meeting where they found out. Hey Shmuly, what happened ? You said 86% !!! Do you know how stupid we look? Yes Peace Now, we know how stupid you always look---But you look especially stupid today. Read the rest of the story below:
Israeli Court: Peace Now Lied, must Pay Now-Camera by Alex Safian, PhD Peace Now, the Israel-based advocacy group claimed in a controversial report, Breaking the Law - One Violation Leads to Another, that "a large proportion of the settlements built on the West Bank are built on privately owned Palestinian land," including 86.4% of Ma'ale Adumim's land and 35.1% of Ariel's. Overall, the report claims, "Palestinians privately own nearly 40% of the land on which settlements have been built." This is in direct contradiction to often repeated claims by numerous Israeli governments that settlements are built only on state (that is, public) land and not on private land. CAMERA raised numerous factual and legal objections to Peace Now's claims (see here and here), which the group never addressed. Peace Now, however, was eventually forced to admit that no more than 0.54% of Ma'ale Adumim's land was privately owned by Palestinians. That is, Peace Now had erred by almost 16,000 percent! Now comes word of another error - one with real consequences. Peace Now claimed in its original report that the community of Revava sat on land that was 71.15% privately owned by Palestinians. Revava did not agree that any of their land was privately owned by Palestinians. According to an article in Israel National News Revava therefore complained to Peace Now, which, without admitting any error, reduced the figure of 71.15% to 22%. Peace Now, however, refused to accurately correct their original claim, and refused to issue an apology. The group that formally owns Revava's land, The Fund for Redeeming the Land, then sued Peace Now and the report's authors (Dror Etkes and Hagit Ofran) for libel in Jerusalem Magistrates Court. The decision came on December 11th and it was a slam dunk for Revava and Fund attorney Doron Nir Tzvi. Justice Yehezkel Barclay convicted Peace Now and its staffers of libel, ordered them to pay the Fund 20,000 NIS plus tax, and to make a public apology which they must publish in the newspapers Ha'aretz and Maariv. Will Peace Now finally come clean and admit that the rest of their report is also nonsense? Or will each community that it libeled have to file a similar lawsuit for the full truth to come out?
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Posted
12/23/2008 10:42:00 AM
1. In praise of "Bogey" Yaalon: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=2D200C5B-1AF2-46E9-B19C-887F9D6AB2BF2. Hannuka Among the Hellenists http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/12/hannuka_among_the_hellenists_1.html December 15, 2006 Hannuka Among the Hellenists By Steven Plaut Of all the Jewish holidays, the one that I think best captures the contemporary Jewish zeitgeist, the one that is the most relevant to the current (and, if certain trends are not reversed, the last?) chapter in Jewish history, is Hannuka. Hannuka is, of course, the story of Jewish national liberation. It is the story of the military victory of the few against the many, of the champions of Judaism against the pagan barbarians. But it is more than this. It is the saga of the heroic struggle of Jewish survivalists (those one would today label "Zionists") against the assimilationists and self-hating Hellenists of the second century BCE. Hannuka is less a story about the battle against the Greeks than it is about the battle against the predominant assimilationist paradigm at the time among the Jews. It is about the battle against the anti-survivalists, those who hated themselves for being Jews, those who seek to be "progressive", "modern", and "in", through rejecting, abasing, disgracing and degrading themselves and their people. The Hellenists who fought the Hasmoneans were struggling against Jewish survival. Sound familiar? In the United States, the main movement of Hellenistic assimilationism has been the school of "Political Liberalism as Judaism", the pseudo-religion that holds that all of Judaism can be reduced to the pursuit of this week's liberal political fads. But the global avante garde of Jewish self-hatred these days is the Israeli Left. The Israeli Left is the main manifestation today of Jewish anti-Semitism. It not only promotes "plans" and policies designed to end Israel's existence, increasingly endorsing the one-state, bi-national Rwanda solution to the "problem" of Israeli national existence, but it also regularly attacks every symbol and concept of traditional Judaism. You think I am exaggerating? Well just consider the Op-Ed a few years back in the Israeli anti-Zionist daily Haaretz, penned by one Yehiam Sorek, a "historian" who teaches at the Beit Berl College in Israel. Beit Berl is a college run by the kibbutz movement. The "historian" Sorek devoted his Haaretz column to proving that the Maccabees were fascist and racist hooligans, bloodthirsty zealots, and downright Likudniks. His column was entitled "Bloodthirsty Zealots". His thesis was that Jews should stop celebrating Hannuka and the exploits of the Maccabees, and should instead feel sympathy for the poor occupied and mistreated Greeks and Hellenists. His article was not a spoof. The evil Maccabees were plotting to perpetrate population "transfer", wrote Sorek, that most evil of all crimes in the "minds" of Israel's fundamentalist Leftists. Population "transfer" is far worse than, say, mass murdering 2000 Jews after signing with them a series of peace accords, or turning the West Bank and Gaza over to barbarian fascists to allow them to carry out such mass murders. Sorek is a member of that same Fundamentalist Left that will not rest until all Jews have been expelled from the West Bank and Gaza in an act of ethnic cleansing, and until no Israeli armed forces are left behind to interfere with the terrorist activities of the "Palestinians." Matityahu, the father of Judah Maccabee and his brothers, was a lunatic, wrote Sorek. He was a warmonger who dragged his country into an unnecessary "war of choice", one that was not a legitimate "war of self-defense". (Never mind that there is nothing at all in Judaism that says Jews should refrain from conquering their lands unless it is part of a war of self-defense.) The Maccabees were the aggressors, insisted Sorek. And they suppressed the free speech of those who supported the Greeks; how undemocratic of them! Judah Maccabee was guilty of causing many families to lose their loved ones by leading people to war, wrote Sorek, instead of pursuing some sort of Hellenistic Oslo appeasement and capitulation, the sort the "enlightened Left" seeks today to impose upon Israel. All Judah Maccabee really wanted to do was to Occupy, Occupy, Occupy, insists Sorek. No better than the West Bank settlers today! And not only that, but Judah and his hooligans were Orthodox Jews, which every leftist knows must make them primitive and barbaric; you know, unlike the enlightened Marxist historians who live on nice kibbutzim or teach at the Beit Berl college. Unfortunately, Sorek is hardly a lone phenomenon. Israel's anti-Jewish leftists have been launching similar jihads against every other symbol of Jewish valor. Masada was a cesspool of non-tolerant fanatics, according to them. The Bible is a backward document full of fabrications. Schools should stop teaching it altogether, they demand, and instead teach something really useful, like the works of Palestinian "poets". Archeology proves the Bible is nothing but lies and fantasy, they insist. One wag labeled such people Pentateuch Deniers (intended as a play on "Holocaust Deniers"). In Israel, the country's politics - particularly its cultural/educational elite and its chattering classes - are now largely dominated by those motivated by the desire for their country to commit national suicide. They scorn themselves, their own country and their own people, the same way that the Hellenized Jews did at the time of the Maccabees. Many endorse boycotts of Israel by anti-Semites abroad. Like the Hellenized Jews, they are convinced that traditionalist Jews are reactionary and primitive, and that the greatest national priority should be renunciation of Jewish peculiarity and the striving to assimilate amongst the cosmopolitan progressive "Greeks" of the world. They are ashamed of their Jewishness and convinced that the only path to peace is to renounce it. They insist that a Seleucid "narrative" should replace the Jews' own reactionary national one. Israel's universities are by and large the Occupied Territories of these Hellenists. The Israeli media is to almost the same extent. Hellenists dominate much of the Israeli military and, somewhat incredibly, the intelligence services. (It is doubtful the country could have undergone the Oslo debacle had these intelligence services not operated as lap dogs for the Beilinized Israeli Left.) Hellenists have attempted to rewrite the Israeli school curriculum, to teach Israeli Jewish children to despise themselves. Their message is that Jews must feel ashamed, because they are mean, selfish, evil and immoral people. Surely, there would be no anti-Semitism on the planet were not the Jews such racist and insensitive people. Their aim is to convince the Jews that the only way they may become accepted in the world is to adapt to paganism, to stop seeking to exist as a separate national entity, to commit national suicide. Moreover, their campaign is aimed at challenging the moral existence of the Jews. They realize this is the weakest chink in the armor of the Jews. If Jews can be convinced that they are morally in the wrong, then no Maccabees will emerge. The aim of the Jewish Hellenists is the delegitimization of the Jews as a nation, discrediting the moral position of Jewish survivalism. The message of the contemporary Hellenists is unambiguous: Those who wish to purify the Temple, who seek pure oil for the Temple lamp, who wish to evict the barbarians from Jerusalem, are the enemies of peace. The Maccabees must be arrested for incitement. The Jews must provide Antiochus with concessions and arms and funds and a Road Map. Under no circumstances should the Jews seek to defend themselves militarily against the Seleucids, for there is no military solution to the problem of Seleucid aggression. If the barbarians murder the Jews, it is because the Jews are evil, selfish people and because they have been too reluctant to abandon their primitive survivalism. If the Israeli anti-Jewish Left has its way, the Post-Hasmonean, post-survivalist era will be upon us. See also: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2015 The director or Beit Berl is Ruthie Gavri at Phone 972-9-7476302 ruth@beitberl.ac.il Beit Berl's fax is 972-9-7476340 A form letter on the web for writing Beit Berl is here. You may also wish to write to the Minister of Education, Yuli Tamir, email info@education.gov.il , make cc to mankal@education.gov.il and owl@education.gov.il Article can be read here. Sorek's email address is yehiam.sorek@beitberl.ac.il 3. So why not apply capital punishment NOW to HIM? http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3642661,00.html
4. Who let the dog out (of Gaza)? http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3642749,00.html 5. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1229868818910&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Spinners and cheaters By DANIEL DORON 6. God Is a Problem, Sources Say How secular newsrooms handle stories with a religious component. By VINCENT CARROLL In a jarring misreading of the Islamist mentality, the New York Times last month described a Jewish center in Mumbai, India, as the "unlikely target" of the terrorists who attacked various locations there. "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen," the Times went on to declare, "or if it was an accidental hostage scene." Paul Marshall would not be surprised by such stunningly na.ve statements. In "Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion" -- a collection of essays that he edited with Lela Gilbert and Roberta Green Ahmanson -- he notes that similar assertions have been common in the coverage of Islamic terrorism. The book's contributors explore all sorts of news stories with a religious component -- Islamic and otherwise -- showing where reporters have veered off course and discussing the reasons why. Despite 9/11 and dozens of equally pitiless massacres, some journalists, Mr. Marshall says, are reluctant to accept the "fundamental religious dimension" of jihadist motives. Such journalists concentrate on "terrorist statements that might fit into secular Western preconceptions about oppression, economics, freedom and progress." When terrorists murdered Christian workers while sparing Muslims in the offices of a Karachi charity in 2002, Mr. Marshall observes, "CNN International contented itself with the opinion that there was 'no indication of a motive.' Would it have said the same if armed men had invaded a multiracial center, separated the black people from the white people, then methodically killed all the blacks and spared all the whites?" But surely journalists do a better job at stories in their own backyards. Actually, no. According to the evidence in "Blind Spot," the coverage is often worse. Jeremy Lott reminds us, for example, of the media hysteria in 2004 that greeted the release of the movie "The Passion of the Christ." Never mind that director Mel Gibson seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of his critics two years later when he spouted anti-Semitic drivel after an arrest for drunken driving. The contempt of journalists was hardly reserved for the director alone. Many confidently predicted that, if by some chance this violent rendition of Jesus' death found an audience, it would unleash a surge in anti-Semitic bigotry or even an orgy of violence. Such forecasts appear delusional in retrospect. They were possible, Mr. Lott maintains, because of "a troubling willingness by journalists to believe the worst of religious would-be moviegoers." Blind Spot Edited by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert and Roberta Green Ahmanson (Oxford, 220 pages, $19.95) The chasm between a profoundly secular media and their audience was also unmistakable upon the death in 2005 of John Paul II. Although the pope's international legacy was treated with respect in most post-mortems -- reporters could hardly miss his role in the fall of communism -- his influence within the church was described in decidedly less flattering terms. " 'Disciplinarian' was often used," Amy Welborn tells us, "as was 'authoritarian' and even 'monarchical.' " Most journalists apparently believed that the "only Catholics dissatisfied with his pontificate were those advocating women's ordination or changing Church positions on abortion or homosexuality," yet the pope took positions and made appointments that bothered traditionalists, too. Indeed, the most notable excommunication of his papacy was of the "deeply traditionalist archbishop Marcel Lefebvre." In some respects, Ms. Welborn argues, conservative Catholics may have been even more frustrated by John Paul's papacy than liberals. The same conservative template was immediately imposed on Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he became Pope Benedict XVI. The gentle, complex intellectual the public has grown to know over the past three years was variously described as "polarizing," "hard line" and, in an oft-repeated phrase, "God's Rottweiler" because of his Vatican role, as cardinal, in protecting church doctrine and disciplining theologians. No less revealing has been coverage of the faith-based effort to deploy U.S. foreign policy on behalf of victims of persecution. An alliance that included conservative evangelicals, the Catholic Church, Jewish groups and a variety of other organizations prodded Congress into passing four watershed measures: the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the Sudan Peace Act of 2002 and the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. "Any one of these initiatives is a major story," Allen D. Hertzke writes, "but together they represent the most important human rights movement since the end of the cold war." Not only was this story underplayed in the press; it was often miscast as merely a crusade of Christian conservatives and reported with patronizing, skeptical references to their claims -- as if the persecution of Christians abroad was a matter of debate. Too many journalists apparently have trouble treating with respect any movement in which Christian conservatives provide what Mr. Hertzke calls "crucial grass-roots muscle." Such attitudes no doubt explain the media's double standard in the coverage of the 2004 presidential election. As C. Danielle Vinson and James L. Guth observe: "The Bush campaign in evangelical churches was portrayed as unusual and certainly questionable, whereas [John] Kerry's outreach through black churches was seen as routine." Ms. Vinson and Mr. Guth maintain that "the most significant problem is not media bias but media ignorance," but their own evidence suggests that the problem is equal parts of both. Many journalists, it would seem, equate modernity with secularism. Yet God refuses to retire, not only in this country but in most of the rest of the world. Terry Mattingly offers a prescription for better coverage: "Editors do not need to try to hire more reporters who are religious believers," he says, but they do need to hire more journalists "who take religion seriously, reporters who know, or are willing to learn to hear the music." At a time of newsroom cutbacks, such advice may fall on barren soil. If so, the news media will continue to miss a vast dimension of mankind's story. Mr. Carroll is editorial-page editor of the Rocky Mountain News. 7. Leftwing Anti-Semitism: a Good Bibliography: http://www.paulbogdanor.com/antisemitism.html 8. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=EC938B12-F1AE-4FEB-A134-80F4BDBD4EA8 Olmert's Friends, again:
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