Toronto Board of Rabbis stepped on a hornets nest.

Rochelle Wilner

Dear Rabbis,
I join many others in expressing my profound disappointment and deep sense of sadness at your, at best, misguided, but far more likely, misinformed, repugnant statement regarding Pamela Geller’s speaking engagement here in Toronto, which I attended. For an illustrious group, as you portray yourselves to be, you have committed the unforgivable sin of speaking lashen hora of an individual you neither know nor care to know. You accuse Ms. Geller of being known for her “extreme criticism of Muslims in language that is intended to shock and ridicule” but you offer NO examples of her words to support your claim. You claim, with certainty, that the result of her speaking engagement will be “increasing tensions within the Jewish community and between Jews and Muslims in Toronto.”  For rabbinic clergy to even level such a charge against Ms. Geller is beyond the pale – with your words you have given credibility and legitimacy to all those who hate us, including the Muslim Brotherhood. You might be proud but, many of us whom you purport to represent, are ashamed of what you have said. You might find Ms. Geller’s words “distasteful” but I find your words, accusations and actions despicable.

Gas presence found in new Karish reservoir

By SHARON UDASIN

Delek Group reports signs of significant gas presence from the Karish 1 well; Energy Minister Shalom praises announcement.

Tamar natural gas rig. Photo: Albatross

A new and potentially robust “shark” may be floating in the Mediterranean’s eastern waters.
A significant gas presence on Wednesday evening was reported from the Karish 1 well (shark in English), located about 75 kilometers northwest of Haifa, said The Delek Group, an Israelbased conglomerate and gas provider.

Related:

• Natural gas from Tamar field starts flowing
• Shalom: Natural gas companies must report profits

While official analyses of the drilling results will be conducted by Netherland, Sewell – Oil & Gas Engineering Consulting Services (NSAI) and published within the next two months, the Delek Group and its partners are stressing that there is likely a sizable gas presence in the well, which is located within the Alon C basin.
Alon C stands just northeast of the 282-billion-cubic meter Tamar basin that is already flowing into Israel’s gas pipes, and further northeast of Tamar’s neighboring – and roughly 535- billion-cubic-meter – Leviathan reservoir.

The U.S. Role in the Sunni-Shi'ite Conflict With Allies Like These...

Harold Rhode

America should back only pro-American forces who do not privately finance or publicly promote hatred against the U.S. It is in America's interest to rid the Muslim world of the Islamic fundamentalist forces whose goals and actions are inimical to American and Western interests; not to cozy up to them.

You might think that what the United States should be doing in the Sunni-Shi'ite conflict -- in which it has no theological stake -- is working to eliminate all forces in the Muslim world, whether Sunni or Shi'ite, who want to bring down the U.S. You might also think that what the U.S. should not be doing is looking the other way when countries it calls allies -- and wealthy individuals from those countries -- support, with both money and arms, forces who kill U.S. soldiers and citizens.
At present, this is not what is happening.

False claim by UNRWA in response to PMW report: Map without Israel that official posed with does not represent today but "pre-1948" Palestine

UNRWA's name still appears in logo of youth center that currently glorifies suicide bomber on its Facebook page

 Israeli representative to the UN
cites PMW's UNRWA story
in complaint to UN Secretary-General

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9009

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Earlier this week, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, Ann Dismorr, posed with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine," at an UNRWA event in Lebanon.

These pictures were broadcast on Palestinian Authority TV and on the Palestinian news site pn-news.net, corroborating PMW's report.
 
UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness, responding on UNRWA's website, rejected PMW's report. He claimed that the map in question was not intended to  reflect the present, but reflected the period before Israel was established:

"UNRWA categorically rejects accusations in the media that the Agency is 'erasing Israel from the map' because its officials and stakeholders stood next to a map which does not show Israel.
The map in question is an embroidery depicting a pre-1948 map and therefore ante-dates the creation of the state of Israel. The allegations are therefore completely false."

[UNRWA's website, May 14, 2013,
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=1748 ]

A Risky Alliance: The Danger of Arming Syrian Rebels

Frank Spano
IPT News

http://www.investigativeproject.org/4020/a-risky-alliance-the-danger-of-arming-syrian

Time and time again, the United States has set itself up for long-term failure in the interest of preserving short-term face. American forces fighting in Afghanistan have faced threats from training and munitions provided to the Afghan fighters in the 1980s that led to the Taliban's rise to power. In that instance, the United States chose to arm a rebel force in an effort to defeat a Soviet invasion of a country with limited strategic importance, in order to maintain its position in the "cause du jour" of stamping out communism wherever it may exist.

The Media's Muhammad Blackout Defers Again to Islam

Andrew E. Harrod
FrontPageMagazine.com

http://www.meforum.org/3507/media-muhammad-blackout

Yet again depictions of Islam's prophet Muhammad are causing controversy. The French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo has published a special edition released in January 2013 entitled La Vie de Mahomet, 1ère partie: Les débuts d'un prophète ("The Life of Muhammad, Part One: The Debut of a Prophet"; part two will follow in June 2013). Press reaction in both France and Germany, however, has not been uniformly welcoming, demonstrating once more a media aversion to open examination of Islam.
Charlie Hebdo has previously published cartoons involving Muhammad and sharia Islamic law, with the weekly magazine's offices becoming in the process the victim of a firebombing attack. Charlie Hebdo describes online its latest presentation of Muhammad as a factual transposition of "Muhammad's life as told by Muslim chroniclers into images." "In the West," the magazine explained, "everyone is able to cite episodes from the life of Jesus, but who is able to cite episodes from the life of Muhammad? Is this normal in a country like France, where Islam is presented as the second religion?" "If the form appears to some blasphemous," Charlie Hebdo argued, "the substance is perfectly halal."

Apocalypse and Puckered Lips Now: Hawking Ignorance beyond the Stratosphere

NORMAN SIMMS May 16, 2013

Stephen Hawkings just announced he will not travel to Israel to speak. He has decided to listen to Palestinian colleagues who tell him not to go. Stephen Hawkings, from his wheelchair, hunched over and only able to speak through an elaborate talking device, acceded to the pressures of those who wish to divest, boycott and sanction Israel. A great scientist, a great communicator, for all his disabilities, thus puts his name and prestige squarely on the side of the "suffering" Palestinians and against the State of Israel-that monstrous Zionist entity, that Apartheid State, that-that-words hardly matter when you can splatter out your hatred from your puckered lips. One of the greatest and most intelligent men of our age has succumbed to the mind-numbing propaganda of those who, against all facts, in defiance of all historical evidence, and in the face of manifest truth, those who hate the Jews, although they have to call them, at least some of the time, Israelis or Zionists-or colonialists, or imperialists, running dogs of American capitalism.

13 must-see museums in Israel

There are more museums per capita in Israel than anywhere in the world, and they’re all bursting with innovation and creativity.

By Viva Sarah Press

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Photo by Ariel Jerozolimski

Israel has more museums per capita than anywhere else in the world. With 230-plus museums (and counting), visitors and locals have the luxury of choosing which topic — art, science, history, design, architecture, technology – appeals to them most.

Visit an Israeli museum on International Museum Day, May 16.

Every year since 1977, the International Council of Museums has celebrated the importance of these cultural institutions in the development of society with an International Museum Day on or around May 18. Some 32,000 museums in 130 countries participate in the global event. Israeli museums will be marking this year’s International Museum Day on May 16, 2013 – offering free entrance (in most cases), and free guided tours. If you’d rather not depend on eeny-meeny-miny-mo, ISRAEL21c offers this list of 13 of Israel’s must-see museums: 1. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Ranked among the world’s leading art and archaeology museums, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem should be your first stopover. The museum houses 500,000 objects, including the famous Dead Sea Scrolls; a grand collection of archaeological finds; an immense treasury of world Judaica; an amazing sculpture garden; and vast collections of primitive, European and modern art. The museum was founded in 1965, underwent a massive $100 million renovation in 2009-2010, and is considered the largest cultural institution in the country.

Clashes in W. Bank and J'lem as Palestinians mark Nakba Day

KHALED ABU TOAMEH, DANIEL K. EISENBUD

Palestinians throw stones, Molotov cocktails in J'lem, West Bank; 4 soldiers injured from Molotov cocktail attack; 19 Palestinians arrested in clashes with police at Damascus Gate; Gaza rocket lands in Eshkol.

Palestinian protesters, police clash at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on Nakba Day, May 15, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Palestinians on Wednesday marked the 65th anniversary of Nakba Day [Day of the Catastrophe], the day after the Gregorian calendar for Israeli independence, with demonstrations and rallies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Clashes between Palestinian stone-throwers and IDF soldiers erupted in Kalandya, south of Ramallah, Hebron and Bethlehem. In all cases the IDF used crowd-dispersal methods, according to an IDF spokeswoman.

Patton on Islam

Bosch Fawstin

To compare Patton with today’s U.S. General in wartime: Click Here.

Obama's General: S̶t̶a̶m̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ Hugging Out Jihad

From "HOPE" to "HUG"

The First Enemy President naturally appointed The First Islamophile General. Here's the scum from February and here he is explaining why he thinks there's an uptick in our soldiers being murdered. And now, after 100 soldiers have been murdered in sneak attacks by our Afghan "allies"/all lies, here's what the Islamerican General John Allen had to say:

 "One of our battalion commanders publicly and openly hugged his Afghan battalion counterpart. And that solved the problem right on the spot." 

Kansas: Muslim Brotherhood’s MSA ramps up after Boston attacks

creeping
Muslims are getting more bold after each successful terror attack. After Boston, Muslims decided to get in the faces of non-Muslims with a ‘Meet a Muslim Person’ ruse. This one at Johnson County Community College in rural Johnson County, Kansas just outside Kansas City – where Hamas has been active for decades. h/t @causingfitna

 

Notice the saying on the back of the t-shirts of the prostrated Muslims: “Islam is not just a religion it is a way of life.”
We’d like to contribute to the campaign too.
Meet Aisha Khan who cost Kansas taxpayers $36K for faking a disappearance.

Meet a Kansas City Muslim arrested in Islamic marriage to 14-year old


Meet another Kansas-area Muslim Hussein A. Ahmed, Muslim charged with raping, impregnating step-daughter, witness-wife found dead

Israel and the Arab Gulf States: An Undeclared Alliance

Joseph Puder On May 14, 2013

In her Washington Post column on May 5, 2013, Jennifer Rubin blasted the Obama administration, opining that “As for the Middle East, when a U.S. president is this passive and unwilling to act in accord with its words, the West and the Sunni states can take comfort in knowing that Israel is there to rein in the mullahs and their surrogates.”  It is rather ironic that increasingly, the Sunni Arab Gulf states look to Israel instead of the Obama administration for action against Iran. This has led to a tightening of security and intelligence relations between Israel and several Arab Gulf states.

Déjà Vu: “Peace in Our Time”

Isi Leibler
May 14, 2013
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4616

“Peace in Our Time” was proclaimed by Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in defense of his disastrous Munich Agreement with Hitler. History testifies that his policy of appeasement and failure to confront the aggressive Nazi barbarians virtually made World War II inevitable.

It was in August 1993, just 20 years ago, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, strongly pressured by then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, embarked on what he described as a “gamble for peace” and consummated the Oslo Accords with the PLO, an act which bitterly divided the nation.

The Real Erdogan

by Veli Sirin
May 13, 2013 

The Turkish judiciary has become a weapon for settling scores, silencing opponents, restructuring Turkish society as an AKP party-state, and undermining secularism. That is the true nature of Erdogan's program.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, born on February 26, 1954, comes from a shabby Istanbul waterfront neighborhood where children grew up between rusting ships and old tires. He sold snacks on the street as a youth, to help his family. He called himself "the black Turk." He emerged, a parvenu in Istanbul's elegant, secular social strata, as a much-feared religious advocate for the masses. He is now married to Emine, with whom he has four children: two sons, and two daughters. His daughters, like his wife, wear headscarves (hijab).

Erdogan graduated from a religious high school, was a semiprofessional soccer player for various teams, worked in municipal bus services, and served as an accountant and manager in a food company. He completed his education in business administration and served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998 – but was then tried and sentenced for anti-secular incitement, and spent four months in prison. In 2001 he founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which swept the Turkish elections of 2002 in a landslide majority.

Since then, Erdogan has turned Turkey upside-down. The Islamist outsider, the extreme religious believer, the failed soccer player, now determines the future of his country.

UNRWA representative poses with map that presents all of Israel as "Palestine" at event in Lebanon

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8981

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

[PA TV, May 3, 2013]

At the official launch of two German-funded UNRWA projects in southern Lebanon, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, Ann Dismorr, posed with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine."

The map includes both the Palestinian Authority areas as well as all of Israel. Above the map is the Palestinian flag and the inscription "Arab Palestine." The text at the bottom of the map also says "Palestine." The neighboring countries Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are all named on the map as is the Mediterranean Sea. Israel is not mentioned or designated anywhere. Several places and cities, both in Israel and from the Palestinian Authority, are included on the map of "Palestine": The Negev desert, Be'er Sheva, Rafah (Gaza), Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias and the Dead Sea.

When Demography Was An Issue in ... 1971

My Right Word

Shmuel Katz...would have denounced recent comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he stated the need for a Palestinian Arab State is the only way to “prevent the eventuality of a binational state.” Here, Netanyahu is accepting one of the premier arguments of Israel’s left – that if the Arabs living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza do not get their own state, Israel will have no choice but to incorporate them as citizens into a Jewish one, and the Jews would then be overrun demographically. 

Shmuel rebutted the argument that the Arab birthrate was cause for concern in the 1971 pamphlet, “Will Appeasement Lead to Peace”, which he co-wrote with former Mapai Knesset Member Eliezer Livneh:

Rethinking shorter army service

Prof. Ron Breiman

Last week we were told of plans to cut mandatory military service by four months -- a decision that would take affect in two years. Seemingly, this plan should be praised, as it purports to ease the burden on young Israelis and save a considerable amount of money which can be used for other things. However, we should take a moment to reconsider its merits.

Only once before in Israeli history has a similar measure been taken, and only two draft classes were able to enjoy it. I'm talking about those who were drafted in August and November of 1964 and served only two years and two months. Not long after, the quiet along Israel's borders, since 1956, was broken and the winds of war began to blow from Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The result was the Six-Day War in 1967. 

Barking up the wrong tree

Hezi Sternlicht

This is the last call for anyone interested in a Trajtenberg Committee II. It is your right to protest against anyone you see fit, but here's a little piece of advice: Don't do anyone any favors. Protest against the people who are really taking the people's money -- the ports, the Israel Electric Corporation, the tycoons.  There are a few more bodies that can be added to that list. Perhaps the Kirya Defense Ministry compound, where 50-year-old desk jockeys are free to enter the private sector equipped with an exorbitant Defense Ministry pension and haircuts worth millions of shekels -- all at the expense of the state. My dear friends, what are you doing marching to the squares again? Didn't you do enough damage last time?

Peace? From the Palestinian Standpoint, There is a Past, No Future

Lital Shemesh
 
I participated in the Dialogue for Peace Project for young Israelis
and Palestinians who are politically involved in various frameworks.
The project’s objective was to identify tomorrow’s leaders and
bring them closer today, with the aim of bringing peace at some future
time.
 
The project involved meetings every few weeks and a concluding seminar
in Turkey.
 
On the third day of the seminar after we had become acquainted, had
removed barriers, and split helpings of rachat Lukum [a halva-like
almond Arab delicacy] as though there was never a partition wall
between us, we began to touch upon many subjects which were painful
for both sides. The Palestinians spoke of roadblocks and the IDF
soldiers in the territories, while the Israeli side spoke of constant
fear, murderous terrorist attacks, and rockets from Gaza.
 
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