Steven Plaut

Thursday, December 31, 2009


THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO http://www.zioncon.blogspot.com



The Left is Having Conniptions over Being Monitored and Exposed:
http://counterpunch.com/makdisi10182007.html
"Academic colleagues, get used to it," warned the pro-Israel activist Martin Kramer in March 2004. "Yes, you are being watched. Those obscure articles in campus newspapers are now available on the Internet, and they will be harvested. Your syllabi, which you've also posted, will be scrutinized. Your Web sites will be visited late at night."


 

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Save the baby Polar Bears! Build more Israeli Settlements!


HELP ME!! HELP ME!!!


Well, the Copenhagen conference was over just a few days ago but now it turns out that there is a horrendous anti-environmental aspect of Obama's policies that is contributing to global warming and energy inefficiency.

I am referring to Obama's demand that Israel end all construction activities in the West Bank, accepted under bullying by the Netanyahu gang.

You see, as part of the "freeze" of those "settlements," a number of projects for installation of solar panels that generate renewable energy cleanly from solar energy are blocked. The Knesset this week discussed this anti-environmental initiative of the Obama Administration following a question raised by Knesset Member Uri Orbach. The weather in Israel makes generating electricity by means of solar panels popular.

EMPOWER SETTLERS (with Solar Power!)

But now, alas, freezing settlements threatens the wellbeing of the entire planet, destroying the polar icecaps, killing coral reefs, and drowning polar bears!

The solution? Build more settlements!


 

1.  Auld Lang Zion

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 abasing 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 lang
Zion, my dear,
Save auld lang
Zion,
Indict those
Oslo blaggards, dear,
For the sake of auld lang
Zion!!!

 

 

2.  Wall Street Journal: Israel's Right in the 'Disputed' Territories

By DANNY AYALON

The recent statements by the European Union's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel's rights to what are generally called the "occupied territories" but what really are "disputed territories."

That's because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered "occupied" in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel's conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years.

The name "West Bank" was first used in 1950 by the Jordanians when they annexed the land to differentiate it from the rest of the country, which is on the east bank of the river Jordan. The boundaries of this territory were set only one year before during the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan that ended the war that began in 1948 when five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State. It was at Jordan's insistence that the 1949 armistice line became not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations." (Italics added.) This boundary became the famous "Green Line," so named because the military officials during the armistice talks used a green pen to draw the line on the map.

After the Six Day War, when once again Arab armies sought to destroy Israel and the Jewish state subsequently captured the West Bank and other territory, the United Nations sought to create an enduring solution to the conflict. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is probably one of the most misunderstood documents in the international arena. While many, especially the Palestinians, push the idea that the document demands that Israel return everything captured over the Green Line, nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution calls for "peace within secure and recognized boundaries," but nowhere does it mention where those boundaries should be.

It is best to understand the intentions of the drafters of the resolution before considering other interpretations. Eugene V. Rostow, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967 and a drafter of the resolution, stated in 1990: "Security Council Resolution 242 and (subsequent U.N. Security Council Resolution) 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to "secure and recognized borders," which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 194."

Lord Caradon, the British U.N. Ambassador at the time and the resolution's main drafter who introduced it to the Council, said in 1974 unequivocally that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial."

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, made the issue even clearer when he stated in 1973 that, "the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal." This would encompass "less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory, inasmuch as Israel's prior frontiers had proven to be notably insecure."

Even the Soviet delegate to the U.N., Vasily Kuznetsov, who fought against the final text, conceded that the resolution gave Israel the right to "withdraw its forces only to those lines it considers appropriate."

After the war in 1967, when Jews started returning to their historic heartland in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as the territory had been known around the world for 2,000 years until the Jordanians renamed it, the issue of settlements arose. However, Rostow found no legal impediment to Jewish settlement in these territories. He maintained that the original British Mandate of Palestine still applies to the West Bank. He said "the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors." There is no internationally binding document pertaining to this territory that has nullified this right of Jewish settlement since.

And yet, there is this perception that Israel is occupying stolen land and that the Palestinians are the only party with national, legal and historic rights to it. Not only is this morally and factually incorrect, but the more this narrative is being accepted, the less likely the Palestinians feel the need to come to the negotiating table. Statements like those of Lady Ashton's are not only incorrect; they push a negotiated solution further away.

Mr. Ayalon is the deputy foreign minister of Israel.

 

3.  Texas terrorist had some curious reading preferences:  http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/12/why-did-nidal-hasan-read-the-middle-east-forum

 

 

4.  This reads like a Plaut spoof, but it is for real:  http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/12/27/avatar-the-spiritual-progressive-movie-of-the-decade/ and companion piece: http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/12/28/avatar-and-whiteness/

 

And this one is even funnier: http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/12/26/the-seven-moral-principles-of-kwanzaa/

 

 

5.  A different Dayenu:  http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/41995

 

 

6.  Repost of old item:  Israel's Music Man

 

     The Israeli Labor Party recently selected Ehud Barak, who had been prime minister from 1999 to 2001, to serve as its party chief and contender for prime minister in the next election, probably in 2008.

 

                                Barak has always been associated in my mind with music - as well as the incredibly harmful policies he has advocated since entering politics. True, Barak was a military hero. He even entered Beirut disguised as a woman to assassinate terrorists, a scene recorded in the movie "Munich." You can imagine how many jokes at his expense that triggered.

 

                                But once he left the army, he went out shopping for political ideas and ended up buying the silliest ones available on the Shimon Peres/Oslo vintage clothing rack. He attempted to turn the Golan Heights over to Syria, which would have allowed the Syrian military to advance to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. This inspired me at the time to write a parody of an old Bobby Darin classic, with Ehud Barak singing "Splish Splash I was taking a Ba'ath."

 

                                It continued: "Splish, Splash! I jumped back in the bath. Well how was I to knowt here was appeasement going on?"

 

                                Later, due to Barak's disastrous policies as prime minister and his attempt to hand over Jerusalem to the PLO savages, a new song seemed called for. Barak had just been creamed in a landslide electoral defeat by Ariel Sharon. The new piece was to the tune of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song." It went:

                               

EH HOOD, day EH EH HOOD

Ehud's done and we wan him go home

EH, he say EH, he say EH, he say EH,

                                he say EH, he say EH-ay-ay-HOOD

Ehud's done and we wan him go home

They shoots all night from ole Ramallah

(Ehud's done and we wan him go home)

As all night he wave white bandana

(Ehud's done and we wan him go home)

Come, Mr. Tally Mon, tally me election

Ehud's done and we wan him go home

Come, Mr. Tally Mon, tally the rejection

Ehud's done and we wan him go home

 

                                Barak is often proclaimed by the media to be the "most decorated Israeli general." But last summer he effectively dropped 4,000 Katyusha rockets on northern Israel, because those attacks were a direct result of his having ordered Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

 

                                And now Barak is desperately looking for a new campaign jingle. Being a helpful sort, I thought I would give him a hand.

 

                                To understand the new song, you need to recall that in 1998 Barak declared: "I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations."

 

                                My proposed campaign song for Reb Ehud is based on the wonderful "If I Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the Roof." (Unfortunately Tevye is not running for prime minister.)

                                Ready? Here goes!

 

Dear God, you made so many, many cowardly people.

I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be a coward.

But it's no great honor, either!

So, what would have been so terrible if

                                I had a small dose of gumption?

(music)

 

If I were a terrorist,

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba

                                deedle deedle dum.

All day long I'd biddy biddy bomb.

If I were a Hamas man.

I wouldn't have to work hard.

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba

                                deedle deedle dum.

If I were a biddy bomber bum,

Yidle-diddle-didle-didle BOMB.

 

I'd have a big tall house with virgins by the dozen,

Right in the midst of Gaza town.

A fine tin roof with real al-Kassams below.

There would be one long rocket just going up,

And one even longer coming down,

And one more leading nowhere, just for show.

I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys

                                and other Labor chiefs,

For all the town to see and hear.

And each loud "cheep" and "squawk"

                                and "honk" and "quack"

Would ring like a Kassam in my ear,

As if to say "Here lives a Tanzim man."

                               

If I were a terrorist,

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba

                                deedle deedle dum.

All day long I'd biddy biddy bomb.

If I were a Hamas man.

I wouldn't have to work hard.

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba

                                deedle deedle dum.

If I were a biddy bomber bum,

Yidle-diddle-didle-didle BOMB.

 

The most important men in town

                                would come to fawn on me!

They would ask me to be appeased by them,

Like Shimon Peres the Kind.

"If you please, Reb Ehud..."

"Pardon me, Reb Ehud..."

Posing problems that would cross a Tanzim's mind!

And it won't make one bit of difference

                                if I answer war or peace.

When you're me, they think you really know!

 

If I were a terrorist,

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba

                                deedle deedle dum.

All day long I'd biddy biddy bomb.

If I were a Hamas man.

I wouldn't have to work hard.

Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba

                                deedle deedle dum.

If I were a biddy bomber bum,

Yidle-diddle-didle-didle BOMB.

 

Lord who made the lion and the lamb,

You decreed I should be what I am.

Would it spoil some vast eternal plan

If I were a ter-ror-ist MAN!!!

(Curtain closes)

 

 

7.   Anti-Semitic Comic Book:  :  http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=35&x_article=1777

And

http://newsrealblog.com/2009/12/30/the-wretched-cockburns-and-the-new-york-times-perpetrate-another-atrocity-against-the-jews/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+newsrealblogfb+%28NewsReal+Blog%29

 

8.  Need an updated list of Hitlerjugend?  Go to http://usacbi.org/

 

9.  CNN's Bash-Israel Fidelista:  http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/30/ted-turner-billionaire-funder-of-the-left/

Monday, December 28, 2009


 

 

 

1.  SO let us see if we have this straight.   Obama appoints a commissar to head the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.  But he appoints one Hannah Rosenthal, who is deeply associated with the anti-Israel lobby group "J Street."  Then as her first act in the Obama battle against anti-Semitism, the same Rosenthal attacks Israeli ambassador Michael Oren for his refusal to attend a Bash-Israel rally organized by J Street.  For more details, see this:  http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/28/andrew-sullivan-unhinged-by-peter-collier/
 
See this also: 

 

http://www.jstreetjive.com/2009/12/shilling-for-j-street-hannah-rosenthal.html and other items on http://www.jstreetjive.com

 

Maybe Obama chum Khalidi was not available to do the job.

 

 

2.  There is suddenly debate in Israel over which figures should appear on new money denomination notes.  See http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3825938,00.html  This reminded me of a suggestion I made back in the early 1980s. 

 

Back in the early 80s, with inflation at hundreds of percent, I suggested placing on Israeli money notes photos of Arafat and Assad and Stalin, rather than Jewish heroes.  After all, THEY deserved to be stuck on money bills losing value at 80% per year!

 

3.  Naw, no hypocrisy here:  http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HebrewU%20-%20Zeev%20Sternhell%20-%20gets%20to%20chose%20what%20is%20an%20ethical%20uprising.htm

 

 

4.  BGU's David Newman shilling for the anti-Semites in the UK:  http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/BGU%20-%20David%20Newman%20-%20feels%20the%20heat%20from%20Board%20of%20Trustees.htm


Sunday, December 27, 2009


Where it said "Communist front pro Israel group"
it should have been Communist front pro terror group
 
Apologies


 

 

If this were my attempt at a spoof, I would agree with you that it is in really poor taste.  After all, it is insensitive to invent an Israeli sociologist devoting his or her life to "Queer Studies," claiming he is organizing a special academic journal volume on "Queering the Middle East," promoting transvestism and cross-dressing, and then making up for him or her an insulting mock name to top it off. 

 

Only one problem.  Even I could not invent such a critter.  He or she really exists.  In fact, he/she is one of the leaders and founders of the communist-front pro-Israel group "Machsom Watch." 

 

I keep saying he-or-she because, frankly, I do not know which he-or-she is.  I must explain that several web pages describe her as a female, although she sure looks like a male to me.  And – please forgive me  - this critter's real name is (gulp!!) Adi Kuntsman!  No, I did not make that one up, so do not scream at ME for vulgarity!  It is what the he-or-she-or-it is now calling itself.  His/her web page is here: http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/MDCSN/AdiKuntsman.pdf  Note the photo and how he/she claims to be an expert on Russian transvestites who made aliyah to Israel.  See also http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ricc/aboutus/people/kuntsman/index.html   Naturally he/she is fanatically anti-Israel (http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/kuntsman261009.html)   Here is a testimonial about young Adi from his/her anti-Israel wife/partner:  http://www.gilasvirsky.com/yehuditkeshet.html

 

Here is the announcement for the conference:

 

Queering Middle Eastern Cyberscapes

Special issue of Journal of Middle Eastern Women's Studies

http://sites.google.com/site/queeringmideasterncyberscapes/home

 

Guest Editors: Noor Al-Qasimi and Adi Kuntsman

 

Call for Papers

 

Digital media and cybercultures have long been explored as fields of 

identity formation, cultural contestations, and political tensions. 

Digital mediascapes have also been of particular interest to  

scholars of gender and sexuality for their potential to transform  

some gendered, racial, and sexual power structures while  

reaffirming, and often violently reinforcing, others. This special  

issue ofJournal of Middle Eastern Women's Studies aims to bring  

feminist and queer analysis of media and communication technologies  

(the Internet, mobile phones, surveillance technologies, digital  

television, and telecommunication) to the field of the Middle East  

as both a geo-cultural space and a political entity.

 

Our intention is to examine the intersections, tensions, and co- 

constitutions of queer sexualities and communication technologies;  

queerness as a form of digitalized affect and as a political  

practice; mediated violence and violence of mediation; new  

technological frontiers and frontiers of identities; and practices  

of everyday use and digitalized imaginaries. We hope to explore  

these and other phenomena as they emerge in Middle Eastern countries 

and communities and their diasporas. In recent years, much work has 

focused on media in the Middle East, and gender/sexuality in the  

Middle East; however, there is a paucity of scholarship on the  

intersection of these fields. Still less work has emphasized  

queering as a political metaphor in relation to the field of Middle  

East Studies. The aim of this special issue is to acknowledge the  

utility of a postcolonial queer critique as applied to this region  

and its diasporas.

 

We are soliciting work that engages with the intersection of media  

and sexuality with reference to the Middle East. Possible topics  

thus include:

 

Surveillance, war on terror

The policing of sexuality

Orientalism in new media cultures

Governmentality, biopolitics, and the Middle East

Sexuality and media censorship

Media technologies (e.g., YouTube, mobile phones, bluetooth, 

picture/ video messaging) and queerness

Queer and/or social networking websites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace)

Queer Middle Eastern diasporas in cyberspace

HIV/AIDS-related online communities

Homophobia

LGBT and NGO activism

Drag, cross-dressing, butch/femme identities, other queer  subjectivities

Gay imperialism

 

We welcome abstracts of articles to be considered for inclusion in  

this special volume. Please send a bio and a 500-word abstract  

detailing the topic of your article, the overall context, your  

material, methodology, and theoretical argument by the 1st of  

February 2010 to qmecissue@googlemail.com . Authors will be notified 

by the 15th of February 2010 of the outcome of their submissions.  

If  accepted, full papers should be submitted by the 1st of July 

2010.  Papers will then be reviewed individually in the standard 

double- blind review process.

 

We also welcome shorter pieces of creative or analytical writing (up 

to 1000 words, or 4000 words for interviews) or visual material on  

the theme of this special volume. These pieces may be topical and/or 

polemical. They are not sent out to be peer-reviewed but are  

selected by the editors of the issue. If you would like to submit a   

short piece, please contact us to discuss the format and deadlines.

 

Abstracts and inquiries about this issue should be sent to 

qmecissue@googlemail.com  .


Thursday, December 24, 2009


 

 

1.  Harvard Psychiatrist Kenneth Levin on self-hating Jewish anti-Semites:

http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/24/auto-genocide-jewish-style-by-kenneth-levin/?dsq=27137291#comment-27137291

 

Auto-Genocide, Jewish Style – by Kenneth Levin

Posted By Kenneth Levin On December 24, 2009 @ 12:10 am In FrontPage | 1 Comment

Demonization not only of Israel's Jews but of all Jews, and calls for their mass murder, are a staple of media, mosques and schools throughout most of the Arab world and in some non-Arab Muslim countries such as Iran. Jews are portrayed as vermin or as satanic beings, the source of all human ills, ritual murderers of Muslim and Christian children, evil-doers fit only for extermination.

Yet, as in virtually every past situation when incitement against Jews and attacks on them have intensified, some Jews have rushed to volubly defend the Jews' attackers. They have become supporters and cheerleaders even for those most committed to translating their Jew-hatred into action.

Hamas's charter quotes a Hadith in which Allah declares that the Day of Judgement will not come until the Jews are all killed and even the stones and trees will help in murdering them. The charter adds that Hamas "aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take." Hamas has, of course, perpetrated innumerable terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings and rocket and mortar barrages, and Hamas children's television instructs its young audience to kill Jews.

Yet Jewish member of Britain's Parliament Gerald Kaufman has affectionately compared Hamas to Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto. American Sara Roy, a "researcher" at Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies and a perennial figure on the Israel-bashing lecture circuit, has waxed rhapsodic about the supposed "evolution in [Hamas's] political thinking… [and] its position on a two-state solution" and defends the organization's administration of Gaza. This as Hamas seeks to impose Sharia law across Gaza and repeatedly proclaims its unswerving commitment to its anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agenda.

Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah has declared that "If [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide," and Hezbollah has in fact gone after them worldwide, as in its 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires that claimed 87 lives. But none of this has constrained Noam Chomsky from visiting with Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders, praising the organization and advocating its arming. Norman Finkelstein has likewise met with Hezbollah leaders and offered encomiums to the group. Emoted Finkelstein at one point, "I say this without fear: for those who believe in freedom and dignity, we are all Hezbollah now."

Iran's Achmadinejad has, of course, repeatedly asserted there was no Holocaust while promising to visit a future Holocaust on Israel. He has virulently attacked "the Jews" and ratcheted up Iran's support in money, weapons and training to Hamas and Hezbollah. Yet Achmadinejad's Iran, too, has its Jewish supporters, who cast the Iranian theocracy as Israel's victim. This is not limited to the usual culprits such as Chomsky. For example, the voice of the blog "Tikun Olam" (which has now widely come to mean somehow healing the world by attacking and seeking to undermine the Jewish state), one Richard Silverstein, declared, regarding Iran's nuclear threat, "Of course, the Iranians do not have an ICBM to carry such a warhead. Nor do they have a nuclear weapon. But these are mere technicalities when it comes to frightening the world into adopting the Israeli government's priorities and interests."

Noteworthy is that many of those who embrace today's would-be exterminators of the Jews make a point of advertising that they are themselves children of Holocaust survivors. Examples are Finkelstein and Sara Roy. In their twisted thinking, they trumpet their parents' history as though it somehow confers on them a special right to back forces that aspire to another Holocaust.

A variation on outright Jewish support for purveyors of genocidal Jew-hatred is the spectacle of Jews who downplay the threat and indict those taking it seriously. The latter are ridiculed as paranoiacs mentally scarred by past assaults on the Jews and simply projecting that past onto a relatively benign present. The leader of the new American Jewish lobby "J Street" (which has opposed stronger sanctions against Iran), Jeremy Ben-Ami, characterized as irrational anyone who would construe the threat presented by Hamas or Hezbullah or Iran as so great as to justify a military response. Ben-Ami went on to observe, in a New York Times interview, "… there's their grandmother's voice in their ear; it's the emotional side and the communal history…"

Some Israelis promote the same line. Hebrew University political scientist Yaron Ezrahi has virtually made a career of purveying this comprehension of reality. Ezrahi has suggested that the perception of existential threats reflects in large part less actual dangers than a warped world view embraced by some Jews and "founded on a long memory of persecution, genocide, and a bitter struggle for survival…"

Many more Jews could be mentioned who support those openly calling for the Jews' annihilation, and still more who downplay the threat and caricature concerned voices. Hardly less unsavory are the myriad Jews who attack Israel's policies as the source of all the nation's difficulties, insist that "peace" can be had if only Israel would reform itself and make sufficient concessions, militantly advocate such a course and say nothing of the genocidal agenda of the nation's enemies or of their aggressive indoctrinating of additional cadres dedicated to enacting that agenda.

M.J. Rosenberg, erstwhile director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy Center, has written multiple articles on, for example, Israel and Hamas. He has invariably used them to excoriate Israel and complain about the Jewish state and the U.S. not being more forthcoming to the Palestinian Jihadists – as in "The U.S. should be extending carrots to Hamas" – and has never addressed Hamas's explicit and continually reasserted commitment to the extermination of Israel and the Jews. He has acknowledged Hamas's involvement in terror and its opposition to Israel's existence but has uniformly done so in the context of criticizing Israeli policies.

Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian mullahs and others of Israel's enemies have not hidden their objective. As has been the case whenever Jews have been under threat, there is no shortage of those from the community who side with the aggressors, or dismiss the threat and demean anyone taking it seriously, or rationalize the threat, cast fellow Jews as instigating it and demand their reform. All, shamefully, lend succor and cover to the would-be annihilators.

Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People under Siege.

 

 

2.  Scratch a leftist and you will find a bolshevik fighting against market competition and in favor of cartels and monopolies.   Take Nitzan Horowitz, one of the few remaining Knesset Members of the rump Meretz party.   Horowitz wants to pass a new law against competition in pricing books in the country of the People of the Book.

 

How come?

 

Well, the past few days some of the leading members of Israel's Literary Left took time off from fighting for the annihilation of Israel by the terrorists to demand that the government manipulate book prices to force them artificially higher.  It seems that they are upset because they earn royalties based on a percent of the take when their books get sold.  This past week David Grossman, A. B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and several other literary lefties issued a whine about competition driving book prices lower.  The solution, they seem to have sold to Meretz, is to restrict competition in book stores and force prices up.

 

 

3.  Fighting the New Blood Libel

BY LOU MARANO, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

http://www.jewishjournal.com/ world/article/fighting_the_new_blood_libel_20091222/

4. 

December 23, 2009

NGO Monitor
1 Ben Maimon Blvd.
Jerusalem, Israel 92262

mail@ngo.monitor.org
www.ngo-monitor.org

 Promoting Accountability in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

 

NGOs and the BDS Movement: Background and Funding

Background: The "Durban Strategy" has become the core of the global anti-Israel boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, led by NGOs and linked to "war crimes" cases against Israeli officials ("lawfare").  Much of this activity is supported by government-funded political NGOs (primarily European and private foundations).

This BDS campaign resulted from the NGO Forum at the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism (Durban), which adopted "a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state," and called for "the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation, and training) between all states and Israel."

On November 9, 2009, the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly adopted a "Resolution against Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement." This can serve as a model for other organizations, including the NIF. The "action recommendations" call on organizations to:

  • Declare that the BDS movement be regarded with the utmost urgency;
  • Lead an effective response and devise a proactive strategy to the BDS movement...
  • Conduct research to develop the most effective messages and strategies for the major sectors of BDS activity;
  • Educate [leaders] about the nature, tactics and dangers of BDS;
  • Train local leadership on how to counter BDS initiatives in local communities;
  • Be on alert for BDS initiatives and support each other as necessary.

NGOs involved in BDS and their funders (partial list):
*The NDC mechanism is funded by Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands; 2008-9

NGO

Primary Funders

Funding Amount

Central Involvement

 

Addameer

Sweden

€207,000 (2009)

 Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)

 

NDC*

$250,000

 

Al Haq

Netherlands

$461,201 (2008)

 BDS is part of mission statement

Diakonia

$204,134 (2008)

 

NDC*

$150,000

 

Norway, Ireland

 unknown

 

Al Mezan

Sweden

€105,000 (2007-9)

 Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)

 

NDC*

$500,000

 

Norway, EU

unknown

 

Alternative Information Center

Ireland, Sweden (via Diakonia), Catalan gov't

unknown

 "Yes to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Against Israel"

 

Alternatives (Montreal)

Canada

$C2 million 2008-10 (halted?)

 Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)

 

Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (PA)

EU

€374,174 (2009-11)  

 Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)

 

Spain

€98,347 (2009)

 

Switzerland

 unknown

 

Badil (PA)

NDC*

$100,000

 Leader of BDS movement

 

Christian Aid

UK, Ireland, EU

combined €22 million 2007-8

"Partner supporting" calling for BDS and "pursuing parastata Zionist orgs"

 

Coalition of Women for Peace

EU

€247,954 (2005-7) 

 Runs "Who profits?" website, which is central in the Norwegian BDS campaign

 

NIF

$285,509 (2006-8)

 

Defence of Children International -Palestine Section

Sweden

€316,000 (2009[1]) 

 Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)

 

NDC*

$450,000

 

Diakonia

Sweden

$42.7 million (2008)

 Advocates for divestment strategy against Israel, lobbies against EU-Israel upgrade

 

EU

 unknown

 

Human Rights Watch

Soros' Open Society Institute

$2,353,895 (2007-8) 

Supported Caterpillar boycott, Call for cuts in U.S. foreign aid to Israel

 

Ford Foundation

$445,000 (2009-11)

 

Netherlands via Oxfam-NOVIB 

$987,818 (2007-8)

 

Israel Committee Against House Demonstrations (ICAHD)

Spain

€105,000 (2009)

 Leader in BDS activism

 

NDC*

$80,000

 

KAIROS

Canada.
Funding was recently
halted.

$1,575,966 (2008) 

 Main supporter of church divestment campaign

 

Machsom Watch

EU

€251,650 (2007-2010)

 Norwegian Pension Fund divestment campaign

 

NIF

$165,198 (2006-8)

 

Miftah

EU

$100,531 (2008)

Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)

 

Denmark

$101,767 (2008)

 

Norway

$129,870 (2008)

 

Mossawa

NIF

$517,642 (2006-8)

Norwegian Pension Fund divestment campaign

 

EU

€298,660 (2006-8)

 

UK

unknown

 

Norwegian Association of NGOs for Palestine (incl. Norwegian People's Aid)

Norway

€57,000 (2008) 

Coordinates Norwegian Boycott Israel Campaign

 

USA

€8,000 (2008)

 

Sweden, Netherlands

 unknown

 

Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)

NDC*

$130,000 

Leader of BDS movement

 

 

Received France's Human Rights Prize

 

 

Sabeel

Sweden

€76,000 (2006-8)

Leader of global church divestment movement

 

Trocaire

Ireland

€23,499,837 (2008)

Supports BDS movement, lobbies against EU-Israel upgrade, calls for review of arms export licenses

 

UK

€640,682 (2008)

 

EU

€1,698,692 (2008)

 

War on Want

UK

€256,000 (2008)

Advocates for sanctions, including arms boycott

 

Ireland

€77,000 (2008)

 

EU

€266,000 (2008)

 

  [1]Grant shared with other NGOs; breakdown not provided.

 

 

 

5.  http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/12/shhhmubarak-is-building-a-wall.php
by Khaled Abu Toameh
Journalist

Shhh…Mubarak is building a wall  An Apartheid Wall?

 

 

6.  Anyone see anything bizarre about this?  http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/12/mosque-at-ground-zero-adding-insult-to-agony.html

Mosque at Ground Zero in NY

 

7.  The Zohar on Left vs. Right:  http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2009/12/left-out-from-this-weeks-zohar.html

 


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