Arlene Kushner
I have learned that the Shin Bet had picked up information days ago about an attack initiated from the Sinai that was being planned by the Popular Resistance Committees. Thus, troops -- from the Counter-Terrorism YAMAM Unit and the elite Golani Brigade -- had already been deployed along the Israel-Sinai border.
The expectation had been that PRC was planning abduction of one or more Israelis, possibly soldiers, in a stealth operation under cover of night. What happened, then, according to reports, diverged from what had been anticipated not only in terms of time of day, but also locale, as the terrorists entered Israel at a point not far from an Egyptian military installation. The prior intelligence explains how Barak was able to announce so quickly that the source of the attack was Gaza, and why the air strike aimed first for the PRC headquarters.
Without question, the toll of dead and wounded would have been far worse, had the military not already had a presence on the scene. They were able to engage the terrorists almost immediately.
~~~~~~~~~~
But there are anguished questions that linger in the air with regard to whether the Israeli response was sufficient. Should there have been a far larger deployment along that border, with, perhaps, constant air surveillance?
Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amatzia Chen, a former commander of commando units, says, in an article running in Arutz Sheva:
"In the sixties we were able to seal the western border with Egypt such that even a mouse would have thought twice before going too far; it is hard to believe what is happening today."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146962
~~~~~~~~~~
Are there other actions that should have been taken? The major charge in this regard, and the most serious, involves failure to be pro-active rather than re-active.
General Chen, cited above, says:
"Unfortunately, according to the Oslo framework, once the late Rabin signed the agreements they served as a pretext for the IDF’s senior command to act as if it was a peaceful time, and that has failed time after time. That’s why what happened in Eilat does not surprise me.
“Instead of responding after the attack, the military system had to act beforehand, against the intentions to attack..."
While Caroline Glick, in her column today, says:
"Israeli military preparedness follows a depressing pattern. The IDF does not change its assessments of the strategic environment until Israeli blood runs in the streets."
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/08/blood-in-the-streets.php
~~~~~~~~~~
So what are we talking about here?
If the IDF had intelligence that the PRC was planning a terrorist act, and knew where the PRC headquarters was located, why wasn't it hit before the act took place?
Ideally, that perhaps should have happened -- it's something that many fervently wish would have happened.
And yet, the larger context may have mitigated against this in the minds of Israeli decision-makers. Putting aside issues of compromising valuable sources of intelligence, we are looking at a very involved diplomatic environment. With the UN vote on a Palestinian state pending and the Israeli government expending major effort on lobbying for support within the international community, I can imagine unease about appearing to be an aggressor -- which is how we would have been painted.
I am not claiming that these should necessarily have been the determining factors in a decision. But I will say it is complex enough so that seconding guessing this is not simple.
Of course, we're being painted as aggressors anyway -- see below -- as we respond to the terror attack, but the world knows it's a response. Is the difference substantial enough to matter?
~~~~~~~~~~
A more clear cut opportunity to act, it has longed seemed to me, is with regard to the retaking of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border area between Gaza and the Sinai where the weapons smuggling tunnels are located. Such an action would be clearly and demonstrably defensive in nature.
On Israel radio today, former chief of the Southern Command Zvi Fogel called for just this.
~~~~~~~~~~
But then there is another issue involving the Sinai, and the fact that it's a terrorist playground today that is not adequately controlled by the Egyptian military.
General (res.) Uzi Dayan, who headed the Israeli National Security between 2003 and 2005, is a man for whom I have considerable respect. In another article up on Arutz Sheva he discusses this issue:
"... from a military perspective we need to prepare for a new reality [in Southern Israel].”
The peace treaty with Egypt does not permit Israeli troops in the Sinai. But Israel, which is eager to preserve that peace treaty, must also maintain its fundamental right to protect its citizens.
“We do not want to heat up the region but we also do not want this border to become a terror border. Therefore it is important to react and go after terrorists. We must ask the Egyptians to have the possibility of intervening militarily in the Sinai if it is required.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146965
Glick addresses this issue as well.
Elsewhere, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has explained that there has been a reluctance to build up forces in the south out of concern that it would unsettle the Egyptians at a time when they may be vacillating with regard to the peace treaty.
Come on! If we need to reinforce our southern forces? (Shouldn't they have been reinforced before yesterday's attack?) The Egyptians -- if they're not on the side of the jidhadists -- know perfectly well what we're dealing with. And if it turns out that they are on the side of the jihadists, we darn well better have reinforced the Southern Command.
See a YNet op-ed on this issue here:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4111087,00.html
~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday I reported that there were seven Israeli dead, including one IDF soldier. This was Moshe Naftali, 22, of Ofra, in Judea. A member of the Golani Brigade, he was rushing to help people in the bus that had been fired upon when he was killed.
Moshe Naftali
He was buried today in the Har Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem.
Eilat terror victims laid to rest
Isrphoto
~~~~~~~~~~
Also buried today on Har Herzl was Paskal Avrahami, a senior member of the YAMAM Counter-Terrorism Unit and a legendary sharpshooter, who was hit after I had reported yesterday. A brave and dedicated veteran fighter who trained many others, he was deeply mourned by his unit.
His commander eulogized him thus:
"We're standing here, unable to fathom the loss of YAMAM's number one officer... You did not hesitate yesterday, didn't falter for one moment and your heroic actions saved many lives.
"You were the pillar of fire showing us the way. We promise to carry on with your work."
Photo: Noam Moskowitz
He leaves a wife and three children.
~~~~~~~~~~
At least 12 Kassam rockets and Grad katyusha rockets were launched into Israel over the night. Grads were aimed at Beersheva and Ashdod; some were stopped by the Iron Dome system. Ten people were injured, two seriously, when a Grad hit a yeshiva in Ashdod. In one instance a rocket hit a synagogue but failed to explode.
During the night Israel continued to act in Gaza in response to this. There were seven sites targeted with direct hits confirmed -- against weapons manufacturing sites in the north, smuggling tunnels in the south, and more.
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile Nabil Sha'ath, a senior PA (PA, not Hamas) official said that what Israel is doing constitutes "war crimes."
"The Israeli insanity will not hold back the Palestinian leadership from going to the UN; on the contrary it will give us a stronger motivation to continue our move,” he told the PA news agency WAFA.
Such criticism as was leveled against the original terror attack was based not on a moral perspective. Rather, it was said that it "gives Israel an excuse to attack," and thus is counterproductive. This is the standard Palestinian Arab stance.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Danon’s ‘annexation campaign’ set to begin
GIL HOFFMAN
Campaign calling for all of Judea and Samaria to be made part of the sovereign state of Israel to be launched on Facebook.
As the Palestinian Authority prepares to ask the United Nations General Assembly to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally, a pressure campaign will begin Wednesday asking Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to unilaterally annex the West Bank.
The campaign is the brainchild of Likud MK Danny Danon, who has sponsored a bill that would begin the process of making all of Judea and Samaria part of the sovereign state of Israel. The campaign will begin on Facebook, spread to top Israeli websites, and perhaps after that to the streets. “The campaign will call for the Israeli government to respond to the Palestinians’ unilateral step by taking a Zionist unilateral action of annexing the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” Danon said.
The Likud legislator said the campaign was intended to remind the public and the government that many major decisions by Israel were taken unilaterally, including declaring the state by former prime minister David Ben-Gurion, annexing eastern Jerusalem by former prime minister Levi Eshkol and the annexation of the Golan Heights by former prime minister Menachem Begin.
He neglected to mention former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Support for such a move is growing as the Palestinians’ September 20 initiative comes closer. More than half the Likud faction has endorsed the idea, including ministers Gilad Erdan, Yisrael Katz, Moshe Kahlon, and Yuli Edelstein.
Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon has also spoken about Israel taking unilateral actions without being specific. Outside the Likud, Israel Beiteinu minister Uzi Landau and Habayit Hayehudi’s minister Daniel Hershkowitz have endorsed the move.
“The Prime Minister’s Office doesn’t comment on the issue, but it helps Netanyahu to show that there are possible internal actions for Israel and political risks for the Palestinians,” Danon said. “The Palestinians need to know that they have a lot to lose by taking a unilateral approach.”
Danon said that if the Palestinians move ahead with the declaration of a state, he would ask to expedite the legislative process. Government support would likely be necessary to pass such controversial legislation.
Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Openheimer said he was confident the coalition would not take what he called a “suicidal action.”
Openheimer said such threats would only encourage the Palestinian Authority to take unilateral steps and the nations of the world to support the moves of the Palestinians.
Campaign calling for all of Judea and Samaria to be made part of the sovereign state of Israel to be launched on Facebook.
As the Palestinian Authority prepares to ask the United Nations General Assembly to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally, a pressure campaign will begin Wednesday asking Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to unilaterally annex the West Bank.
The campaign is the brainchild of Likud MK Danny Danon, who has sponsored a bill that would begin the process of making all of Judea and Samaria part of the sovereign state of Israel. The campaign will begin on Facebook, spread to top Israeli websites, and perhaps after that to the streets. “The campaign will call for the Israeli government to respond to the Palestinians’ unilateral step by taking a Zionist unilateral action of annexing the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” Danon said.
The Likud legislator said the campaign was intended to remind the public and the government that many major decisions by Israel were taken unilaterally, including declaring the state by former prime minister David Ben-Gurion, annexing eastern Jerusalem by former prime minister Levi Eshkol and the annexation of the Golan Heights by former prime minister Menachem Begin.
He neglected to mention former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Support for such a move is growing as the Palestinians’ September 20 initiative comes closer. More than half the Likud faction has endorsed the idea, including ministers Gilad Erdan, Yisrael Katz, Moshe Kahlon, and Yuli Edelstein.
Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon has also spoken about Israel taking unilateral actions without being specific. Outside the Likud, Israel Beiteinu minister Uzi Landau and Habayit Hayehudi’s minister Daniel Hershkowitz have endorsed the move.
“The Prime Minister’s Office doesn’t comment on the issue, but it helps Netanyahu to show that there are possible internal actions for Israel and political risks for the Palestinians,” Danon said. “The Palestinians need to know that they have a lot to lose by taking a unilateral approach.”
Danon said that if the Palestinians move ahead with the declaration of a state, he would ask to expedite the legislative process. Government support would likely be necessary to pass such controversial legislation.
Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Openheimer said he was confident the coalition would not take what he called a “suicidal action.”
Openheimer said such threats would only encourage the Palestinian Authority to take unilateral steps and the nations of the world to support the moves of the Palestinians.
Justice Demands that Pollard's Sentence Be Commuted To Time Served
Alan M. Dershowitz
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2364/justice-demands-pollard-sentence-commuted
There are several reasons why justice demands that Jonathan Pollard's sentence be commuted to time served and that he be immediately released.
The first is a legal and constitutional argument. Pollard waived his right to trial by jury in exchange for a promise by the government that it would not seek life imprisonment. The government broke that promise. It submitted a perjured affidavit by then Secretary of Defense Weinberger demanding life imprisonment and overstating the damage that Pollard had caused. This was a direct breach of the plea bargain. Unfortunately Pollard's appeal was argued to a panel that included two Jewish judges, at least one of whom aspired to the Supreme Court. The two of them wrote a scandalously inept opinion affirming the sentence, while the third, non-Jewish, judge declared it to be a gross violation of due process and basic fairness. The non-Jewish judge, who had no fear of being accused of dual loyalty, was correct. The two Jewish judges were dead wrong. I know of no other case in American jurisprudence in which a plea bargain has been so blatantly violated and the violation approved by an appellate court. The legal remedy is enforce the plea bargain as written and impose the sentence that the government promised it would seek. If Pollard had served that sentence, he would be free by now.
Even if the law did not require Pollard's immediate release, principles of fairness and equal justice surely would. The typical sentence imposed on an American who spies for an ally of the United States is in single digits. Such sentences have been imposed on Americans who spies for Egypt and other countries that are American allies. There is no reason in justice or fairness for Pollard to have received the double digit sentence for spying for Israel. The prosecutor in this case tried to justify this sentencing disparity by arguing that since so many Americans support Israel, the need for deterrence is greater. This is an unacceptable double standard.
Finally, there are the humanitarian considerations. Pollard has served longer than any American convicted of spying for an American ally. He is very sick having undergone several surgeries. He will die in prison unless his sentence is commuted.
Why, it might be asked, is he still in prison? The answer is that two groups of people have worked hard to keep him in prison. The first is the intelligence community, led by former CIA Director George Tenet. President Clinton was apparently prepared to release Pollard toward the end of his term when Tenet, former head of the CIA, threatened to quit. This threat violated the law, which expressly prohibits a CIA Director from making policy. Tenet's illegal threat made policy and kept Pollard in prison.
The other group that worked hard to keep Pollard in prison was a group of Jewish senators who wrote to President Clinton insisting that Pollard's sentence not be shortened. President Clinton personally told me that this letter from influential Jewish senators affected his decision. Now even several of these senators are calling for Pollard's release.
Pollard's continued imprisonment, in violation of law, equality, justice and compassion, is a stain on America. This stain can be removed if President Obama commutes Pollard's sentence to time served. A commutation is different than a pardon. A pardon erases the conviction, whereas a commutation simply reduces the sentence, without in any way suggesting that the defendant was not guilty of a serious crime. Pollard has admitted his guilt, not once but several times. The first time was when he pleaded and was sentenced. More recently he has apologized, as has the Israeli government. By pleading guilty and cooperating with the investigation, Pollard spared the government the embarrassment and difficulties inherent in a spy trial. Had he not confessed his guilt, it is unlikely he would have been convicted of the most serious charge of spying, since the only direct evidence outside of his confession was the fact that he had unauthorized possession of classified material.
For helping the government in this way, he was promised that he would not have to spend the rest of his life in prison. But now he is likely to die in prison, a broken and sick man, unless President Obama does the right thing. The time has come, indeed it is long overdue, for Jonathan Pollard to receive proportional justice.
This article originally appeared in Newsmax.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2364/justice-demands-pollard-sentence-commuted
There are several reasons why justice demands that Jonathan Pollard's sentence be commuted to time served and that he be immediately released.
The first is a legal and constitutional argument. Pollard waived his right to trial by jury in exchange for a promise by the government that it would not seek life imprisonment. The government broke that promise. It submitted a perjured affidavit by then Secretary of Defense Weinberger demanding life imprisonment and overstating the damage that Pollard had caused. This was a direct breach of the plea bargain. Unfortunately Pollard's appeal was argued to a panel that included two Jewish judges, at least one of whom aspired to the Supreme Court. The two of them wrote a scandalously inept opinion affirming the sentence, while the third, non-Jewish, judge declared it to be a gross violation of due process and basic fairness. The non-Jewish judge, who had no fear of being accused of dual loyalty, was correct. The two Jewish judges were dead wrong. I know of no other case in American jurisprudence in which a plea bargain has been so blatantly violated and the violation approved by an appellate court. The legal remedy is enforce the plea bargain as written and impose the sentence that the government promised it would seek. If Pollard had served that sentence, he would be free by now.
Even if the law did not require Pollard's immediate release, principles of fairness and equal justice surely would. The typical sentence imposed on an American who spies for an ally of the United States is in single digits. Such sentences have been imposed on Americans who spies for Egypt and other countries that are American allies. There is no reason in justice or fairness for Pollard to have received the double digit sentence for spying for Israel. The prosecutor in this case tried to justify this sentencing disparity by arguing that since so many Americans support Israel, the need for deterrence is greater. This is an unacceptable double standard.
Finally, there are the humanitarian considerations. Pollard has served longer than any American convicted of spying for an American ally. He is very sick having undergone several surgeries. He will die in prison unless his sentence is commuted.
Why, it might be asked, is he still in prison? The answer is that two groups of people have worked hard to keep him in prison. The first is the intelligence community, led by former CIA Director George Tenet. President Clinton was apparently prepared to release Pollard toward the end of his term when Tenet, former head of the CIA, threatened to quit. This threat violated the law, which expressly prohibits a CIA Director from making policy. Tenet's illegal threat made policy and kept Pollard in prison.
The other group that worked hard to keep Pollard in prison was a group of Jewish senators who wrote to President Clinton insisting that Pollard's sentence not be shortened. President Clinton personally told me that this letter from influential Jewish senators affected his decision. Now even several of these senators are calling for Pollard's release.
Pollard's continued imprisonment, in violation of law, equality, justice and compassion, is a stain on America. This stain can be removed if President Obama commutes Pollard's sentence to time served. A commutation is different than a pardon. A pardon erases the conviction, whereas a commutation simply reduces the sentence, without in any way suggesting that the defendant was not guilty of a serious crime. Pollard has admitted his guilt, not once but several times. The first time was when he pleaded and was sentenced. More recently he has apologized, as has the Israeli government. By pleading guilty and cooperating with the investigation, Pollard spared the government the embarrassment and difficulties inherent in a spy trial. Had he not confessed his guilt, it is unlikely he would have been convicted of the most serious charge of spying, since the only direct evidence outside of his confession was the fact that he had unauthorized possession of classified material.
For helping the government in this way, he was promised that he would not have to spend the rest of his life in prison. But now he is likely to die in prison, a broken and sick man, unless President Obama does the right thing. The time has come, indeed it is long overdue, for Jonathan Pollard to receive proportional justice.
This article originally appeared in Newsmax.
"Does It Ever End?"
Arlene Kushner
Many of you will have heard already, of course. But I want to put out this post this evening concerning a terrorist attack that hit Israel today.
Perhaps one day we will see the end of it. But not yet, certainly.
This attack was different in its locale and its technique from what we've seen more commonly: Multi-pronged, it took place in the desert not far outside of Eilat.
Because we're talking about something that happened over the last few hours, and many facts are not yet confirmed, I find that different sources are providing variant versions of what transpired. In due course, there will be more clarity. Briefly, now...
At least seven, are dead -- six civilians and one IDF soldier. There are about 30 wounded, including two small children.
At about noon today, terrorists -- apparently wearing Egyptian army uniforms -- entered Israel via the Sinai and opened fire on an Egged (Israeli) bus headed to, and not far from, Eilat. The bus driver remained cool and responded appropriately, quickly accelerating to get out of the range of fire as quickly as possible.
Only minutes later, roadside bombs exploded, hitting soldiers patrolling along the Egyptian border. Mortar shells were also aimed at soldiers.
Some while thereafter, north of the first attack, an anti-tank missile was fired. I believe it was aimed towards a bus but hit a private vehicle. My understanding is that all those in the car were killed.
~~~~~~~~~~
Terrorists were engaged, and killed by the IDF. The number killed is said to be seven, but I'm seeing reports indicating that as many as 20 may have been involved in the different stages of this operation.
~~~~~~~~~~
My immediate thought when hearing the first reports was that we were looking at Bedouin terrorists coming out of the Sinai, which has been something of a no-man's land in recent months. The Bedouin -- cooperating with/co-opted by Jihadist groups -- have been rampaging there since the fall of Mubarak; they have been responsible on repeated occasions for blowing up the Sinai pipeline that supplies natural gas to Israel.
See here for information about the al-Qaeda presence in the Sinai:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4110791,00.html
~~~~~~~~~~
However, Defense Minister Barak indicated that the attack originated in Gaza. This does not necessarily mean that Hamas -- which praised the attack but did not claim responsibility -- was the source. What is clear is that this was a carefully orchestrated attack by a group with sophistication about terror techniques.
Hamas did evacuate its headquarters in anticipation of an Israeli air action, and additionally threatened that there would be a response to any Israeli military operation in Gaza.
~~~~~~~~~~
Retaliatory action inside of Gaza began almost immediately, with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that Israel's sovereignty had been hurt.
Netanyahu
Tonight Netanyahu issued this statement:
"We all witnessed an attempt to ratchet up the level of terror emanating from Sinai. If someone thinks that Israel will put up with this, he is wrong.
"I have established a principle: when Israeli citizens are hurt, we hit back immediately, and with force. This principle was implemented today. The people who gave the order to murder our civilians, who were hiding in Gaza, are no longer among the living."
The Israeli air strike hit a building in Rafah used by terrorists. According to Palestinian Arab sources, among the six killed were Abu Oud al-Nirab, the commander of the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, and Khaled Shaath, a senior member of the group.
~~~~~~~~~~
There are reports that Egyptian military have been cooperative in responding to these multiple attacks -- possibly taking down a couple of the terrorists and searching the area on their side of the border for the presence of those terrorists not yet caught.
Last week, the Egyptian military launched an operation in the Sinai against Jihadists and associated Bedouin. It involved about 1,000 troops and several hundred armed personnel carriers, and raised some eyebrows because the Sinai, according to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, is to be demilitarized. However, Israel, mindful of the problems with arms smuggling into Gaza by the Bedouins, as well as terrorist influence in the area, welcomed the operation. Egyptian troops took up positions near Rafah and El-Arish; I am not aware of any stipulation of a date by which they have to leave.
See more here:
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=233772
~~~~~~~~~~
A fence along Israel's border with the Sinai is in process of being put up. It was approved in order to prevent infiltration not only with regard to terrorists, but because of the large number of emigrants from Africa seeking to enter Israel illegally (a problem that has reached unmanageable proportions).
Unfortunately, at this point, work on the fence, which is scheduled for completion by the end of next year, is less than half completed. Where the work has been done, infiltration has diminished. Areas where there is no fence are supposed to be patrolled and monitored with cameras and radar scans. But this remains a highly porous border.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
Many of you will have heard already, of course. But I want to put out this post this evening concerning a terrorist attack that hit Israel today.
Perhaps one day we will see the end of it. But not yet, certainly.
This attack was different in its locale and its technique from what we've seen more commonly: Multi-pronged, it took place in the desert not far outside of Eilat.
Because we're talking about something that happened over the last few hours, and many facts are not yet confirmed, I find that different sources are providing variant versions of what transpired. In due course, there will be more clarity. Briefly, now...
At least seven, are dead -- six civilians and one IDF soldier. There are about 30 wounded, including two small children.
At about noon today, terrorists -- apparently wearing Egyptian army uniforms -- entered Israel via the Sinai and opened fire on an Egged (Israeli) bus headed to, and not far from, Eilat. The bus driver remained cool and responded appropriately, quickly accelerating to get out of the range of fire as quickly as possible.
Only minutes later, roadside bombs exploded, hitting soldiers patrolling along the Egyptian border. Mortar shells were also aimed at soldiers.
Some while thereafter, north of the first attack, an anti-tank missile was fired. I believe it was aimed towards a bus but hit a private vehicle. My understanding is that all those in the car were killed.
~~~~~~~~~~
Terrorists were engaged, and killed by the IDF. The number killed is said to be seven, but I'm seeing reports indicating that as many as 20 may have been involved in the different stages of this operation.
~~~~~~~~~~
My immediate thought when hearing the first reports was that we were looking at Bedouin terrorists coming out of the Sinai, which has been something of a no-man's land in recent months. The Bedouin -- cooperating with/co-opted by Jihadist groups -- have been rampaging there since the fall of Mubarak; they have been responsible on repeated occasions for blowing up the Sinai pipeline that supplies natural gas to Israel.
See here for information about the al-Qaeda presence in the Sinai:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4110791,00.html
~~~~~~~~~~
However, Defense Minister Barak indicated that the attack originated in Gaza. This does not necessarily mean that Hamas -- which praised the attack but did not claim responsibility -- was the source. What is clear is that this was a carefully orchestrated attack by a group with sophistication about terror techniques.
Hamas did evacuate its headquarters in anticipation of an Israeli air action, and additionally threatened that there would be a response to any Israeli military operation in Gaza.
~~~~~~~~~~
Retaliatory action inside of Gaza began almost immediately, with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that Israel's sovereignty had been hurt.
Netanyahu
Tonight Netanyahu issued this statement:
"We all witnessed an attempt to ratchet up the level of terror emanating from Sinai. If someone thinks that Israel will put up with this, he is wrong.
"I have established a principle: when Israeli citizens are hurt, we hit back immediately, and with force. This principle was implemented today. The people who gave the order to murder our civilians, who were hiding in Gaza, are no longer among the living."
The Israeli air strike hit a building in Rafah used by terrorists. According to Palestinian Arab sources, among the six killed were Abu Oud al-Nirab, the commander of the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, and Khaled Shaath, a senior member of the group.
~~~~~~~~~~
There are reports that Egyptian military have been cooperative in responding to these multiple attacks -- possibly taking down a couple of the terrorists and searching the area on their side of the border for the presence of those terrorists not yet caught.
Last week, the Egyptian military launched an operation in the Sinai against Jihadists and associated Bedouin. It involved about 1,000 troops and several hundred armed personnel carriers, and raised some eyebrows because the Sinai, according to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, is to be demilitarized. However, Israel, mindful of the problems with arms smuggling into Gaza by the Bedouins, as well as terrorist influence in the area, welcomed the operation. Egyptian troops took up positions near Rafah and El-Arish; I am not aware of any stipulation of a date by which they have to leave.
See more here:
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=233772
~~~~~~~~~~
A fence along Israel's border with the Sinai is in process of being put up. It was approved in order to prevent infiltration not only with regard to terrorists, but because of the large number of emigrants from Africa seeking to enter Israel illegally (a problem that has reached unmanageable proportions).
Unfortunately, at this point, work on the fence, which is scheduled for completion by the end of next year, is less than half completed. Where the work has been done, infiltration has diminished. Areas where there is no fence are supposed to be patrolled and monitored with cameras and radar scans. But this remains a highly porous border.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
YESHA Represents a No Cost Ceiling
My Right Word
On the issue of the attempts by anti-Zionist radical forces as well as B'tselem, New Israel Fund, Peace Now and Haaretz to push the current protests/demos/rallies/assemblies/tent city phenomenon in Israel - J14 - in the direction of the supposed link between economic hardship and the YESHA communities, EOZ points out:
if the anti-Zionist left would get their way and a half million Jews were ethnically cleansed from their homes, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars - money that every Israeli taxpayer would have to pay! [America, too, actually mostly] It cost about $2 billion to remove a few thousand Jews from Gaza...the cost of..."social justice" would be a huge burden on the Israeli economy, making the chances of affordable housing in Israel much more remote...
A point I have been making, too.
In Dr. Aaron Lerner's Weekly Commentary, I found that there are false savings if the YESHA communities are harmed and that
"Slashing funding today for the settlements won’t help achieve the “social justice” goals.
That’s because the operative questions is not if Israel spent a bazillion dollars on the settlements in the past but how a change in funding today would impact the situation in Israel. The first and foremost “social justice” problem is affordable housing. And it is going to take several years – in the most optimistic scenarios – for housing construction within the Green Line to close the supply gap that has pushed prices up beyond the reach of many families.
Any policy decision that encourages families to move from the settlements to communities within the Green Line would only exacerbate the existing shortages – making it take that much longer for supply to catch up with demand."
The huge profits being made in industry - food, etc., - have nothing to do with YESHA. And YESHA families share the economic burden of health, educational and other necessary services.
Not only that, but moving to YESHA would alleviate financial pressures on young families (see I Harel below).
The issue of YESHA does include persons those seeking a better economic lifestyle, one also cheaper, but it is still a matter of Zionist patriotism, of assuring Israel's lomng-term security and protecting the values of the patrimony. And this is still a middle-class protest in the main, let's not ignore.
That matter, the national responsibility concern bound up with YESHA, has no cost ceiling on it.
The value of those goals are worthy paying for.
On the issue of the attempts by anti-Zionist radical forces as well as B'tselem, New Israel Fund, Peace Now and Haaretz to push the current protests/demos/rallies/assemblies/tent city phenomenon in Israel - J14 - in the direction of the supposed link between economic hardship and the YESHA communities, EOZ points out:
if the anti-Zionist left would get their way and a half million Jews were ethnically cleansed from their homes, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars - money that every Israeli taxpayer would have to pay! [America, too, actually mostly] It cost about $2 billion to remove a few thousand Jews from Gaza...the cost of..."social justice" would be a huge burden on the Israeli economy, making the chances of affordable housing in Israel much more remote...
A point I have been making, too.
In Dr. Aaron Lerner's Weekly Commentary, I found that there are false savings if the YESHA communities are harmed and that
"Slashing funding today for the settlements won’t help achieve the “social justice” goals.
That’s because the operative questions is not if Israel spent a bazillion dollars on the settlements in the past but how a change in funding today would impact the situation in Israel. The first and foremost “social justice” problem is affordable housing. And it is going to take several years – in the most optimistic scenarios – for housing construction within the Green Line to close the supply gap that has pushed prices up beyond the reach of many families.
Any policy decision that encourages families to move from the settlements to communities within the Green Line would only exacerbate the existing shortages – making it take that much longer for supply to catch up with demand."
The huge profits being made in industry - food, etc., - have nothing to do with YESHA. And YESHA families share the economic burden of health, educational and other necessary services.
Not only that, but moving to YESHA would alleviate financial pressures on young families (see I Harel below).
The issue of YESHA does include persons those seeking a better economic lifestyle, one also cheaper, but it is still a matter of Zionist patriotism, of assuring Israel's lomng-term security and protecting the values of the patrimony. And this is still a middle-class protest in the main, let's not ignore.
That matter, the national responsibility concern bound up with YESHA, has no cost ceiling on it.
The value of those goals are worthy paying for.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Israel, anarchy and global chaos
LOUIS RENÉ BERES
08/17/2011
The fragmentation of the Middle East and North Africa is just the beginning.
What rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
– The Second Coming,
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
In history, there is a powerful difference between anarchy and chaos.
Watching different forms of violence erupt across Northern Africa and the Middle East, a core observation should spring to mind: Chaotic disintegration is already well underway in parts of the world. Significantly, substantial and possibly sudden extensions of this condition to other parts of our planet are now plausible.
For the United States, facing both military limitations and further financial crises, the implications are worrisome. For Israel, an increasingly- beleaguered mini-state, they are existential.
International law will not save Israel.
Nor will the United States, even under a different president. Assorted treaties notwithstanding, including the New Start agreement between the US and Russia, nuclear and biological weapons may still spread. These “unthinkable” devices could soon become all too thinkable.
There are foreseeable interactions between individual catastrophic harms that could make the overriding risk of global chaos still more pressing. For Israel, a country smaller than Lake Michigan, the dangers are both particular and unique. Facing not only an unprecedented nuclear threat from Iran, but also the more-or-less simultaneous appearance of “Palestine,” the Jewish state could quickly find itself engulfed in mass-casualty terrorism, and/or unconventional war.
The probability of expanding Middle East chaos could be enlarged by enemy irrationality. If, for example, Israel should face a jihadi adversary that would value certain religious expectations even more highly than its own physical survival, any deterrent threat could be neutralized. Such paralysis could mean a heightened threat of nuclear and/or biological war. It could also place Israel in the cross hairs of mass-destruction terrorism.
In world politics, irrationality is not the same as madness. An irrational adversary is one that values certain goals more highly than even its own self-preservation. A mad adversary would display no preferred ordering of goals or values. It follows, at least from the standpoint of successful Israeli deterrence, that enemy irrationality would be “better” than enemy madness.
But a choice is unavailable. Whether Israel or America face irrationality, madness, neither or both is not up to us.
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,” wrote Yeats, “and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” Now, assembled in almost 200 armed tribal camps called nation-states, humanity coexists uneasily and insecurely. The origins of this radically decentralized world lie discernibly in the Peace of Westphalia – a major treaty that put an end to the Thirty Years War back in 1648.
Now, chaos is more portentous than ever. This owes largely to the fusion of anarchy with authentically apocalyptic weaponry.
In time, even with the UN and its vaunted “international community,” there may be no safety in arms, no rescue from political tyranny, and no answers from science. New wars could rage until every flower of culture is trampled, and until all things human are leveled.
How shall such circumstances be averted? Before answering, we must first acknowledge that chaos and anarchy represent opposite ends of the same global continuum. “Mere” anarchy, or the absence of central world authority, has always been “normal.” Chaos, however, is unique. It is thoroughly “abnormal.”
Since the seventeenth century, our anarchic world can be best described as a system; what happens in any one part necessarily affects the other parts. When deterioration is marked, and begins to spread from one nation to another, the effects can undermine international stability.
When this deterioration is rapid and catastrophic, as it would be following the start of any unconventional war and/or unconventional terrorism, the corollary effects would be correspondingly immediate and overwhelming.
These effects would be chaotic.
Aware that even an incremental collapse of remaining world authority structures will affect its many enemies, leaders of Israel quickly need to advance precise and plausible safeguards against collapse and chart durable paths to survival.
Such indispensable considerations are likely not yet seriously underway.
Israel’s leaders are wasting precious time with their ritualistic considerations of assorted “peace plans.” Soon, in consequence, they may need to consider just how they should respond to life in a global ‘state of nature.’ The triggering mechanism of a global descent into chaos could be a variety of mass-casualty attacks against Israel, or against other western democracies. Even the traditionally “powerful” United States would not be immune. For that matter, Israel’s own largely middle-class demonstrations this summer against the “oligopoly” reveal a previously unrecognized internal vulnerability.
Any further chaotic disintegration of the world system would fundamentally transform the Israeli system. Such a transformation could involve total or near-total destruction. In anticipation, Israel will have to orient its strategic planning to an assortment of worst-case prospects, focusing on a wide range of primarily self-help security options.
Israel’s persistently one-sided surrender of territory, its mistaken reluctance to accept certain critical preemption options, and its periodic releases of live terrorists in exchange for slain Jews may never bring direct defeat. Taken together, however, these policy errors will have a weakening effect on Israel. Whether the principal result here will be a “mere” impairment of the Jewish state’s commitment to endure, or a devastating missile attack and/or major acts of terror is still not clear.
The fragmentation of the Middle East and North Africa is just the beginning.
For Israel, wider patterns of anarchy are inevitable. What might still be avoided, however, are chaos, mega-destruction and an unendurable sorrow. This avoidance will require early awareness in Jerusalem that, as in any primordial state of nature, survival demands resolute courage, intellectual imagination, and a willingness to suffer even huge short-term harm to prevent a much longer-term collective disappearance.
The writer is professor of political science and international law at Purdue University.
The author of many major books and articles in the field, he was chair of Project Daniel (Israel).
08/17/2011
The fragmentation of the Middle East and North Africa is just the beginning.
What rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
– The Second Coming,
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
In history, there is a powerful difference between anarchy and chaos.
Watching different forms of violence erupt across Northern Africa and the Middle East, a core observation should spring to mind: Chaotic disintegration is already well underway in parts of the world. Significantly, substantial and possibly sudden extensions of this condition to other parts of our planet are now plausible.
For the United States, facing both military limitations and further financial crises, the implications are worrisome. For Israel, an increasingly- beleaguered mini-state, they are existential.
International law will not save Israel.
Nor will the United States, even under a different president. Assorted treaties notwithstanding, including the New Start agreement between the US and Russia, nuclear and biological weapons may still spread. These “unthinkable” devices could soon become all too thinkable.
There are foreseeable interactions between individual catastrophic harms that could make the overriding risk of global chaos still more pressing. For Israel, a country smaller than Lake Michigan, the dangers are both particular and unique. Facing not only an unprecedented nuclear threat from Iran, but also the more-or-less simultaneous appearance of “Palestine,” the Jewish state could quickly find itself engulfed in mass-casualty terrorism, and/or unconventional war.
The probability of expanding Middle East chaos could be enlarged by enemy irrationality. If, for example, Israel should face a jihadi adversary that would value certain religious expectations even more highly than its own physical survival, any deterrent threat could be neutralized. Such paralysis could mean a heightened threat of nuclear and/or biological war. It could also place Israel in the cross hairs of mass-destruction terrorism.
In world politics, irrationality is not the same as madness. An irrational adversary is one that values certain goals more highly than even its own self-preservation. A mad adversary would display no preferred ordering of goals or values. It follows, at least from the standpoint of successful Israeli deterrence, that enemy irrationality would be “better” than enemy madness.
But a choice is unavailable. Whether Israel or America face irrationality, madness, neither or both is not up to us.
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,” wrote Yeats, “and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” Now, assembled in almost 200 armed tribal camps called nation-states, humanity coexists uneasily and insecurely. The origins of this radically decentralized world lie discernibly in the Peace of Westphalia – a major treaty that put an end to the Thirty Years War back in 1648.
Now, chaos is more portentous than ever. This owes largely to the fusion of anarchy with authentically apocalyptic weaponry.
In time, even with the UN and its vaunted “international community,” there may be no safety in arms, no rescue from political tyranny, and no answers from science. New wars could rage until every flower of culture is trampled, and until all things human are leveled.
How shall such circumstances be averted? Before answering, we must first acknowledge that chaos and anarchy represent opposite ends of the same global continuum. “Mere” anarchy, or the absence of central world authority, has always been “normal.” Chaos, however, is unique. It is thoroughly “abnormal.”
Since the seventeenth century, our anarchic world can be best described as a system; what happens in any one part necessarily affects the other parts. When deterioration is marked, and begins to spread from one nation to another, the effects can undermine international stability.
When this deterioration is rapid and catastrophic, as it would be following the start of any unconventional war and/or unconventional terrorism, the corollary effects would be correspondingly immediate and overwhelming.
These effects would be chaotic.
Aware that even an incremental collapse of remaining world authority structures will affect its many enemies, leaders of Israel quickly need to advance precise and plausible safeguards against collapse and chart durable paths to survival.
Such indispensable considerations are likely not yet seriously underway.
Israel’s leaders are wasting precious time with their ritualistic considerations of assorted “peace plans.” Soon, in consequence, they may need to consider just how they should respond to life in a global ‘state of nature.’ The triggering mechanism of a global descent into chaos could be a variety of mass-casualty attacks against Israel, or against other western democracies. Even the traditionally “powerful” United States would not be immune. For that matter, Israel’s own largely middle-class demonstrations this summer against the “oligopoly” reveal a previously unrecognized internal vulnerability.
Any further chaotic disintegration of the world system would fundamentally transform the Israeli system. Such a transformation could involve total or near-total destruction. In anticipation, Israel will have to orient its strategic planning to an assortment of worst-case prospects, focusing on a wide range of primarily self-help security options.
Israel’s persistently one-sided surrender of territory, its mistaken reluctance to accept certain critical preemption options, and its periodic releases of live terrorists in exchange for slain Jews may never bring direct defeat. Taken together, however, these policy errors will have a weakening effect on Israel. Whether the principal result here will be a “mere” impairment of the Jewish state’s commitment to endure, or a devastating missile attack and/or major acts of terror is still not clear.
The fragmentation of the Middle East and North Africa is just the beginning.
For Israel, wider patterns of anarchy are inevitable. What might still be avoided, however, are chaos, mega-destruction and an unendurable sorrow. This avoidance will require early awareness in Jerusalem that, as in any primordial state of nature, survival demands resolute courage, intellectual imagination, and a willingness to suffer even huge short-term harm to prevent a much longer-term collective disappearance.
The writer is professor of political science and international law at Purdue University.
The author of many major books and articles in the field, he was chair of Project Daniel (Israel).
Humanitarian Crisis: Gaza Exporting Aid!
Gavriel Queenann
In another sign that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza isn't all it is said to be, Gazans are sending aid to Somalia.
Imams in mosques in the Gaza strip mentioned Somalia during Friday prayers last week and asked Gazans to donate to their brothers there.
Moreover, the Arab Doctors Union Gaza branch ran a campaign asking the people of Gaza to donate to people of Somalia. The campaign, called "From Gaza hand in hand to save the children of Somalia", will last throughout Ramadan.
The Union took out advertisements supporting the campaign in local radios and websites to encourage people to contribute to the campaign. It is planning advertisements on local television also.
Various people responded to the campaign, but most donations came from the local non-governmental organisations and some wealthy businessmen, according to the organizers of the campaign.
One of the donors, Mohammed Abd Al Latif said, "I saw the pictures of our brothers in Somalia and felt so sorry for them; I wanted to do anything to help."
"The campaign aimed at demonstrating the extent of physical cohesion between the besieged Gaza and Somalia, showing that the Palestinian people are capable of supporting and standing by the Somali people," said Ahmad Hathat, the public relations officer of the Union.
The charity campaign underscores the fact that Gaza is swimming in surplus aid from an international community willing to underwrite the national aspirations of Fatah and Hamas to the extent that their enclaves have become transit points, rather than a destination, for aid.
In another sign that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza isn't all it is said to be, Gazans are sending aid to Somalia.
Imams in mosques in the Gaza strip mentioned Somalia during Friday prayers last week and asked Gazans to donate to their brothers there.
Moreover, the Arab Doctors Union Gaza branch ran a campaign asking the people of Gaza to donate to people of Somalia. The campaign, called "From Gaza hand in hand to save the children of Somalia", will last throughout Ramadan.
The Union took out advertisements supporting the campaign in local radios and websites to encourage people to contribute to the campaign. It is planning advertisements on local television also.
Various people responded to the campaign, but most donations came from the local non-governmental organisations and some wealthy businessmen, according to the organizers of the campaign.
One of the donors, Mohammed Abd Al Latif said, "I saw the pictures of our brothers in Somalia and felt so sorry for them; I wanted to do anything to help."
"The campaign aimed at demonstrating the extent of physical cohesion between the besieged Gaza and Somalia, showing that the Palestinian people are capable of supporting and standing by the Somali people," said Ahmad Hathat, the public relations officer of the Union.
The charity campaign underscores the fact that Gaza is swimming in surplus aid from an international community willing to underwrite the national aspirations of Fatah and Hamas to the extent that their enclaves have become transit points, rather than a destination, for aid.
Ya'alon: G-d Forbid We Apologize to Turkey
Vice Prime Minister says that if Israel apologizes to Turkey over the flotilla, the Turks won't stop there.
by Elad Benari
Published: 17/08/11
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon addressed on Tuesday the Palmer Report regarding the 2010 Freedom Flotilla and the ongoing reconciliation efforts with Turkey.
Ya’alon, who spoke at a conference of Likud activists, said, “We’ll meet with the Turks after the report is published. G-d forbid we apologize.”
Ya’alon added that “national honor is not a concept that came from the street but one that has a strategic significance. If we apologize and Erdogan later turns around and says he got us down on all fours apologizing, he will appear as the leader of the Middle East. He will never let go, even after we apologize.” Turkey has demanded that Israel apologize for the deaths of nine IHH activists who were aboard the Mavi Marmara last year.
The ship was attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and when it refused to turn to the Ashdod Port so that the aid it claimed it was carrying could be inspected by Israel, soldiers had no choice but to board the ship.
When the soldiers came onboard, they were attacked by the self-proclaimed ‘peace activists’ on the ship, who attacked them with clubs and attempted to kidnap them. It was only when the soldiers were in serious danger that they had to open fire at the activists.
“The Palmer committee clearly said that the blockade on Gaza is legal,” Ya’alon said. “There’s no siege on Gaza, no hunger, no humanitarian crisis, goods enter on a regular basis, shopping malls are open and they buy luxury cars.
“There is a security blockade on Gaza and therefore it is illegal to intercept it, that’s what the committee stated,” he added. “We’ve got answers to anything that the Turks have directed at us. The committee ruled in our favor and the Turks won’t accept it.”
Ya’alon’s comments are in line with ones recently made by other politicians. Earlier this week, Likud MK Danny Danon castigated Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in an opinion piece in the Washington Times.
“In fact, the Turkish government owes Israel an apology for this attack, along with other recent actions that have threatened the lives of Israeli citizens,” Danon wrote.
Turkey “should apologize for encouraging the sending, under false pretenses, of anti-Israel activists into the country’s sovereign territory,” he added. “These supposedly peaceful activists, who were in fact carrying a cache of illegal weapons, attacked Israeli soldiers without provocation.”
National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau also recently rejected the Turkish demand that Israel apologize, saying, “If anyone should apologize, it’s Turkey for standing behind the provocative flotilla. It’s Turkey that needs to explain its connections with Hamas and other extremist Muslim groups. It’s Turkey that needs to explain its policy, not only to us but to the entire world.”
by Elad Benari
Published: 17/08/11
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon addressed on Tuesday the Palmer Report regarding the 2010 Freedom Flotilla and the ongoing reconciliation efforts with Turkey.
Ya’alon, who spoke at a conference of Likud activists, said, “We’ll meet with the Turks after the report is published. G-d forbid we apologize.”
Ya’alon added that “national honor is not a concept that came from the street but one that has a strategic significance. If we apologize and Erdogan later turns around and says he got us down on all fours apologizing, he will appear as the leader of the Middle East. He will never let go, even after we apologize.” Turkey has demanded that Israel apologize for the deaths of nine IHH activists who were aboard the Mavi Marmara last year.
The ship was attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and when it refused to turn to the Ashdod Port so that the aid it claimed it was carrying could be inspected by Israel, soldiers had no choice but to board the ship.
When the soldiers came onboard, they were attacked by the self-proclaimed ‘peace activists’ on the ship, who attacked them with clubs and attempted to kidnap them. It was only when the soldiers were in serious danger that they had to open fire at the activists.
“The Palmer committee clearly said that the blockade on Gaza is legal,” Ya’alon said. “There’s no siege on Gaza, no hunger, no humanitarian crisis, goods enter on a regular basis, shopping malls are open and they buy luxury cars.
“There is a security blockade on Gaza and therefore it is illegal to intercept it, that’s what the committee stated,” he added. “We’ve got answers to anything that the Turks have directed at us. The committee ruled in our favor and the Turks won’t accept it.”
Ya’alon’s comments are in line with ones recently made by other politicians. Earlier this week, Likud MK Danny Danon castigated Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in an opinion piece in the Washington Times.
“In fact, the Turkish government owes Israel an apology for this attack, along with other recent actions that have threatened the lives of Israeli citizens,” Danon wrote.
Turkey “should apologize for encouraging the sending, under false pretenses, of anti-Israel activists into the country’s sovereign territory,” he added. “These supposedly peaceful activists, who were in fact carrying a cache of illegal weapons, attacked Israeli soldiers without provocation.”
National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau also recently rejected the Turkish demand that Israel apologize, saying, “If anyone should apologize, it’s Turkey for standing behind the provocative flotilla. It’s Turkey that needs to explain its connections with Hamas and other extremist Muslim groups. It’s Turkey that needs to explain its policy, not only to us but to the entire world.”
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Samaria Residents to Protesters: Come Live Out Here!
Gil Ronen
A7 News
The grassroots Samaria (Shomron) Residents' Council handed out flyers Tuesday at the tent protest sites in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Modi'in, offering an assortment of homes that are waiting to be bought up in Samaria. The grassroots Samaria (Shomron) Residents' Council handed out flyers Tuesday at the tent protest sites in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Modi'in, offering an assortment of homes that are waiting to be bought up in Samaria.
"Residences in Tel Aviv and the center of Israel have become unattainable," the flyer states. But in Samaria, "a variety of religious and secular communities will be glad to absorb you and offer you a true living experience that includes everything you can only dream about: good education for the children, breathtaking scenery, a close knit value-oriented community and most of all – a sense of national mission. All this at a reasonable price."
The flyer details several specific offers for houses that are for sale: a 104 square meter home in Avnei Hefetz, a short ride from the coastal city of Netanya, for 740,000 shekels or a similar sized home in Shavei Shomron for 550,000 shekels.
Council chairman Benny Katzover stated, "We, in Samaria, believe that the community settlements are the best solution that offers a quality of life with which city folk are unfamiliar. I truly believe that if they overcome imaginary obstacles they will benefit greatly from this."
A7 News
The grassroots Samaria (Shomron) Residents' Council handed out flyers Tuesday at the tent protest sites in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Modi'in, offering an assortment of homes that are waiting to be bought up in Samaria. The grassroots Samaria (Shomron) Residents' Council handed out flyers Tuesday at the tent protest sites in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Modi'in, offering an assortment of homes that are waiting to be bought up in Samaria.
"Residences in Tel Aviv and the center of Israel have become unattainable," the flyer states. But in Samaria, "a variety of religious and secular communities will be glad to absorb you and offer you a true living experience that includes everything you can only dream about: good education for the children, breathtaking scenery, a close knit value-oriented community and most of all – a sense of national mission. All this at a reasonable price."
The flyer details several specific offers for houses that are for sale: a 104 square meter home in Avnei Hefetz, a short ride from the coastal city of Netanya, for 740,000 shekels or a similar sized home in Shavei Shomron for 550,000 shekels.
Council chairman Benny Katzover stated, "We, in Samaria, believe that the community settlements are the best solution that offers a quality of life with which city folk are unfamiliar. I truly believe that if they overcome imaginary obstacles they will benefit greatly from this."
Questioning the Legality of Proposed Palestinian Statehood
CAMERA
News Media Mum on Questionable Legality of Proposed Palestinian Nationhood
UN.Logo1.bmp
With the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) pursuing a declaration of recognition of a Palestinian state from the United Nations in September, little is heard from most major news media about the questionable legality and diplomatic contradictions such a declaration would entail.
Meanwhile, the U.N. will not consider the case for Kurdish statehood, which is far stronger than that for the Palestinian Arabs. Not surprisingly, mainstream media have all but ignored this glaring contrast.
New York Sun columnist Hillel Halkin put it succinctly: The Palestinians have many friends, the Kurds have none. And so, viva Palestinian statehood -- and down with statehood for the Kurds. Since principles have nothing to do with it, it may be beside the point to observe that, in principle, the Kurds have a far better case for statehood than do the Palestinians. They have their own unique language and culture, which the Palestinians do not have. They have had a sense of themselves as a distinct people for many centuries, which the Palestinians have not had. They have been betrayed repeatedly in the past 100 years by the international community and its promises, while the Palestinians have been betrayed only by their fellow Arabs.
But the U.N. cares not that the Palestinians are on the wrong side of the U.N. Charter since they are not peace-loving. The charters of both wings of the Palestinians -- Fatah (P.A.) and Hamas – call for the elimination of Israel.
Secondly, ethnic cleansing is specifically forbidden by the U.N. General Assembly but the Palestinians openly demand a Jew-free state which of course entails ethnic cleansing of Jews residing in parts of ancient Israel known as the West Bank and claimed by the Palestinians and in the parts of Israel’s capital of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians.
Thirdly, Palestinian incitement to hatred and violence against Israel and Jews, continues in violation of U.N. decrees. Article 26 (2) of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights implicitly condemns incitement to hatred/violence against other ethnic/religious groups in textbooks but Palestinian textbooks previously and currently have continued to contain incitement against Jews and Israel. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolution 2003/37 (No. 4) ”Condemns incitement of ethnic hatred, violence and terrorism” but the P.A. seems to be doing all it can to demonstrate their hate-indoctrination causing even the U.S. State Department to take notice.
The lack of a legal basis for acquisition of Palestinian statehood through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) via the U.N. General Assembly, rather than through negotiations with Israel, is documented by a CAMERA Backgrounder which notes that P.A. is bound by the 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo accords agreements to solve outstanding issues with Israel through direct negotiations, and that U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 call for Arab-Israel peace to be reached through talks between and among the parties.
If the U.N. General Assembly -- in violation of previous U.N. Security Council resolutions and international agreements supported by the United Nations -- complies with the request for a declaration recognizing a Palestinian Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip outside of and in contradiction to the established procedure of direct negotiations in accordance with the relevant measures, even if the recognition lacked immediate effect, it would imply an imposition of international borders on Israel without Israeli input, including taking parts of its capital, Jerusalem, away from it and giving the parts to a new country.
The Protocols are back
Op-ed: Revival of infamous anti-Semitic book fuelled both by Muslim leaders, Christian clergy
Giulio Meotti
Israel Opinion
The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a short book concocted by the czarist police and presented as minutes of a secret meeting where Jews plotted world domination, is the biggest falsehood that refuses to die. It’s the only book that has ever had the perverse distinction of being both globally influential and, at the same time, a forgery.
The “Protocols” are now prominently displayed not only in the Middle East, but also on the Western and Christian bookshelf. Books based on the “Protocols” are now available even in countries with hardly any Jews such as Japan. A Chinese bestseller entitled “The Currency War” and based on the “Protocols,” describes how Jews are planning to control the world by manipulating the financial system. The book is reportedly read in the highest government circles.
Recently, an Iranian stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair presented a copy of the “Protocols” published in English by the Islamic Republic of Iran in plain view. Thousands of Jews have been killed in Europe because of this infamous document. Hitler used it as a manual in his war to exterminate the Jews and Palestinian suicide bombers have been found with the “Protocols” in their pockets. Renowned historian Bernard Lewis wrote that the “Protocols” were brought into the Islamic world by Christian authors who translated the book into Arabic. That shameful operation is still battering the Middle East. The “Protocols” rarely attracts Western attention, as we like to think that it is just a bad joke. But now some Christian sects and bishops are fomenting hatred against the Jews using traditional ant-Semitism - much of it theological.
Indeed, many bishops are quoting again from the “Protocols.” In an interview with George Saliba, Bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Lebanon, aired on Al-Dunya TV on July 24, 2011, he declared: “The source that finances and incites all these international organizations, in the East and West, and especially in the Arab world, they are led by a single, evil organization, known as Zionism.”
“It is behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these evils, using the people of the West – whether in the US, in Europe, or their followers,” he said.
Jews demonized again
The recent boom of anti-Semitic conspiracies, especially in the "new Egypt," is linked with the revival of the “Protocols”, like the modern twist of accusing Israel of distributing drug-laced chewing gum and candy in the aims of killing children and sexually corrupting Arab women, or the lingerie soaked with invisible ink for coded Jewish messages.
The “Protocols” is being published with new editions in Arabic almost every year, and in Persian and Turkish as well. Listening to “moderate” Muslim leaders (never mind the Ayatollahs) and looking at the vile, racist cartoons in the strictly controlled Arab media (even in Egypt and Jordan, formally at peace with Israel), one sees a pathological hatred that may erupt in unconventional attacks.
Representing “Western corruption,” Jews are demonized again as “vermin,” “a cancer,” intentional spreaders of AIDS through blood transfusion and prostitution. The conspiracy resembles that of Josef Stalin, who accused six Jewish doctors of plotting to poison the Soviet leader. Even the West Dunbartonshire Council, the Scottish council at the centre of a row over its boycott of Israeli books, admitted it had bought a copy of the “Protocols” in January.
The “Protocols” are now on prominent display at the Malaysian capital’s International Airport, the Hamas charter includes citations of the “Protocols,” and the book can be found in bookstalls on Cairo’s streets. An Arabic translation of the “Protocols” can be also found on the website of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Information.
Last year, renowned leftist Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo declared that he had “re-evaluated” the “Protocols” and now felt they largely reflect the truth about the Jews. The Jewish Community Confederation of Venezuela has just lodged a protest with the country’s attorney general, denouncing the promotion of the “Protocols” by a state-owned media outlet.
‘The Jews are God killers’
A few months ago, The Australian revealed that the biggest mosque in central Sydney was selling copies of the inflammatory anti-Semitic book and the “Protocols” is prominently displayed on Edgware Road in the heart of London.
The constant use of the “Protocols” in the Arab media, especially in soap operas during the Ramadan, creates an atmosphere where any charge against the Jews is believed. It does not matter whether the “Protocols” are fact or fiction: their “predictions” have largely come true.
Last December the patriarch of the Antioch Church, Gregory III Laham, declared that there was a “Zionist conspiracy” behind al-Qaeda’s attack on a Catholic church in Baghdad, where 58 innocent parishioners were slaughtered. Richard Williamson, one of four bishops ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and later rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI, said that the “Protocols” are “authentic” and that the Jews are fighting for world domination “to prepare the Anti-Christ’s throne in Jerusalem.”
Last year, Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, said that he believed a “Zionist attack” was behind the criticism against the Church on sexual abuse. Babini was quoted by Catholic website Pontifex as saying: “They do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.” The Bishops’ Conference later rushed to issue a statement quoting Babini denying he had ever given the interview.
While there is in fact no Jewish conspiracy to submit the world, there is an anti-Jewish conspiracy that is infecting the minds and the hearts of millions of people, in the West and elsewhere. Next month Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claimed to have distributed the “Protocols” to expose “the real visage of this satanic enemy” (Israel) and to “burn and wholly destroy this deadly, cancerous tumor”, will speak at the United Nations’ conference on racism in New York.
But most tragic is that an Iranian Shihab-3 missile fired from Tehran to Tel Aviv would take 12 minutes to hit the Jews. The greatest forgery and blood libel is again fomenting a Jewish catastrophe, now with the shameful complicity of some Christian bishops. The “Protocols” was first published in Russia in 1905 by a Christian priest, Sergius Nilus. One century later the word “Jew” has become again an accepted insult in the global square.
Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism
Giulio Meotti
Israel Opinion
The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a short book concocted by the czarist police and presented as minutes of a secret meeting where Jews plotted world domination, is the biggest falsehood that refuses to die. It’s the only book that has ever had the perverse distinction of being both globally influential and, at the same time, a forgery.
The “Protocols” are now prominently displayed not only in the Middle East, but also on the Western and Christian bookshelf. Books based on the “Protocols” are now available even in countries with hardly any Jews such as Japan. A Chinese bestseller entitled “The Currency War” and based on the “Protocols,” describes how Jews are planning to control the world by manipulating the financial system. The book is reportedly read in the highest government circles.
Recently, an Iranian stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair presented a copy of the “Protocols” published in English by the Islamic Republic of Iran in plain view. Thousands of Jews have been killed in Europe because of this infamous document. Hitler used it as a manual in his war to exterminate the Jews and Palestinian suicide bombers have been found with the “Protocols” in their pockets. Renowned historian Bernard Lewis wrote that the “Protocols” were brought into the Islamic world by Christian authors who translated the book into Arabic. That shameful operation is still battering the Middle East. The “Protocols” rarely attracts Western attention, as we like to think that it is just a bad joke. But now some Christian sects and bishops are fomenting hatred against the Jews using traditional ant-Semitism - much of it theological.
Indeed, many bishops are quoting again from the “Protocols.” In an interview with George Saliba, Bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Lebanon, aired on Al-Dunya TV on July 24, 2011, he declared: “The source that finances and incites all these international organizations, in the East and West, and especially in the Arab world, they are led by a single, evil organization, known as Zionism.”
“It is behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these evils, using the people of the West – whether in the US, in Europe, or their followers,” he said.
Jews demonized again
The recent boom of anti-Semitic conspiracies, especially in the "new Egypt," is linked with the revival of the “Protocols”, like the modern twist of accusing Israel of distributing drug-laced chewing gum and candy in the aims of killing children and sexually corrupting Arab women, or the lingerie soaked with invisible ink for coded Jewish messages.
The “Protocols” is being published with new editions in Arabic almost every year, and in Persian and Turkish as well. Listening to “moderate” Muslim leaders (never mind the Ayatollahs) and looking at the vile, racist cartoons in the strictly controlled Arab media (even in Egypt and Jordan, formally at peace with Israel), one sees a pathological hatred that may erupt in unconventional attacks.
Representing “Western corruption,” Jews are demonized again as “vermin,” “a cancer,” intentional spreaders of AIDS through blood transfusion and prostitution. The conspiracy resembles that of Josef Stalin, who accused six Jewish doctors of plotting to poison the Soviet leader. Even the West Dunbartonshire Council, the Scottish council at the centre of a row over its boycott of Israeli books, admitted it had bought a copy of the “Protocols” in January.
The “Protocols” are now on prominent display at the Malaysian capital’s International Airport, the Hamas charter includes citations of the “Protocols,” and the book can be found in bookstalls on Cairo’s streets. An Arabic translation of the “Protocols” can be also found on the website of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Information.
Last year, renowned leftist Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo declared that he had “re-evaluated” the “Protocols” and now felt they largely reflect the truth about the Jews. The Jewish Community Confederation of Venezuela has just lodged a protest with the country’s attorney general, denouncing the promotion of the “Protocols” by a state-owned media outlet.
‘The Jews are God killers’
A few months ago, The Australian revealed that the biggest mosque in central Sydney was selling copies of the inflammatory anti-Semitic book and the “Protocols” is prominently displayed on Edgware Road in the heart of London.
The constant use of the “Protocols” in the Arab media, especially in soap operas during the Ramadan, creates an atmosphere where any charge against the Jews is believed. It does not matter whether the “Protocols” are fact or fiction: their “predictions” have largely come true.
Last December the patriarch of the Antioch Church, Gregory III Laham, declared that there was a “Zionist conspiracy” behind al-Qaeda’s attack on a Catholic church in Baghdad, where 58 innocent parishioners were slaughtered. Richard Williamson, one of four bishops ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and later rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI, said that the “Protocols” are “authentic” and that the Jews are fighting for world domination “to prepare the Anti-Christ’s throne in Jerusalem.”
Last year, Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, said that he believed a “Zionist attack” was behind the criticism against the Church on sexual abuse. Babini was quoted by Catholic website Pontifex as saying: “They do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.” The Bishops’ Conference later rushed to issue a statement quoting Babini denying he had ever given the interview.
While there is in fact no Jewish conspiracy to submit the world, there is an anti-Jewish conspiracy that is infecting the minds and the hearts of millions of people, in the West and elsewhere. Next month Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claimed to have distributed the “Protocols” to expose “the real visage of this satanic enemy” (Israel) and to “burn and wholly destroy this deadly, cancerous tumor”, will speak at the United Nations’ conference on racism in New York.
But most tragic is that an Iranian Shihab-3 missile fired from Tehran to Tel Aviv would take 12 minutes to hit the Jews. The greatest forgery and blood libel is again fomenting a Jewish catastrophe, now with the shameful complicity of some Christian bishops. The “Protocols” was first published in Russia in 1905 by a Christian priest, Sergius Nilus. One century later the word “Jew” has become again an accepted insult in the global square.
Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism
Monday, August 15, 2011
Social Justice for All: Incarcerated Palestinian Terrorists Salary Increase
Jameel @ The Muqata at 8/15/2011
The Yisrael Hayom newspaper (page 7) and Israel's Channel B Radio reported this morning that Israel has notified that United States of America that the Palestinian Authority has increased the "salaries" of convicted Palestinian terrorists currently serving time in Israeli prisons for attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.
The Palestinian Authority now provides the following monthly salaries to every single convicted Palestinian terrorist in Israeli prisons, based on the amount of time they need to serve for their crimes: convictions up to 3 years in prison: 1400 NIS/month
3 - 5 years: 2000 NIS/month
5 - 10 years: 4000 NIS/month
10 - 15 years: 6000 NIS/month
15 to 20 years: 10,000 NIS/month
20 - 30 years: 12,000 NIS/month
These royalty salaries comprise 3.5% of the Palestinian Authority's monthly operating budget which is financed 50% by the USA, and 50% by "donor countries."
In addition, families of imprisoned Palestinian terrorists are entitled to special monthly stipends from the PA, and even higher monthly bonus salaries go to those Palestinian terrorists who are also Arab citizens of Israel
The UK's Daily Mail reported that the British Government is annually providing 5 million pounds of funding to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, out of the annual 86 million pounds sterling worth of "aid" to the Palestinian Authority till the year 2015.
Social Justice for All!
The Yisrael Hayom newspaper (page 7) and Israel's Channel B Radio reported this morning that Israel has notified that United States of America that the Palestinian Authority has increased the "salaries" of convicted Palestinian terrorists currently serving time in Israeli prisons for attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.
The Palestinian Authority now provides the following monthly salaries to every single convicted Palestinian terrorist in Israeli prisons, based on the amount of time they need to serve for their crimes: convictions up to 3 years in prison: 1400 NIS/month
3 - 5 years: 2000 NIS/month
5 - 10 years: 4000 NIS/month
10 - 15 years: 6000 NIS/month
15 to 20 years: 10,000 NIS/month
20 - 30 years: 12,000 NIS/month
These royalty salaries comprise 3.5% of the Palestinian Authority's monthly operating budget which is financed 50% by the USA, and 50% by "donor countries."
In addition, families of imprisoned Palestinian terrorists are entitled to special monthly stipends from the PA, and even higher monthly bonus salaries go to those Palestinian terrorists who are also Arab citizens of Israel
The UK's Daily Mail reported that the British Government is annually providing 5 million pounds of funding to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, out of the annual 86 million pounds sterling worth of "aid" to the Palestinian Authority till the year 2015.
Social Justice for All!
"Chaos, Pandemonium and Assorted Other Goodies"
Arlene Kushner
I've been writing for some time about how upside down the world is. But it seems, on reflection, that it was not upside down, it was only tilted sideways -- and now the tilt is increasing. The state of the world is getting worse, and one must stop and ask, who notices? The failure of the Western world to pay attention is what is perhaps most frightening.
In my opinion, the recent riots in London represent some very serious handwriting on the wall of history. But I've yet to see wide scale recognition of this in the US.
Melanie Phillips wrote in her blog the other day, that "what we are seeing [among other things] is a culture of narcissistic selfishness on an epic scale and a general breakdown in education, morality and elementary codes of civilised behaviour, much of it deliberately willed on for the past three decades by a grossly irresponsible and politically motivated intelligentsia that set out to smash the west.
"And now London is being smashed as a result."
~~~~~~~~~~
What I have begun to read about -- and it's terribly politically incorrect to mention this -- is a kind of mob influence in America, with black hate crimes against whites. The law, it seems, is not acting decisively enough in these cases, and, as lawyer J. Christian Adams wrote in Family Security Matters, "The mob is decisive when the law is not."
This is the America that was going to see new unity and hope under the leadership of its first black president. But now it's difficult not to link what is going with this president. Adams reports that one family in Ohio that was severely beaten by a mob of blacks received the taunts, “This is our world. This is a black world.” But, he says, "The Justice Department under Eric Holder has little interest in bringing hate crimes charges to protect white victims."
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10140/pub_detail.asp
~~~~~~~~~~
Should we be surprised?
~~~~~~~~~~
Obama held a Ramadan break-the-fast dinner in the White House the other day, and thanked the Muslims for their contribution to America. Just one more deplorable instance of the president's pandering that reflects a clear bias.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, of course, there is Obama's abysmal failure with regard to foreign affairs -- no where so more than in the Middle East, where the US is no longer respected as a player of significance. Obama is making it easier for the bad guys to win.
And the economy? Need I say it? The national debt, the unemployment.
And yet, I'm not hearing the cries. They should be loud enough to hear in Jerusalem: The American people should be on their feet shouting, "ENOUGH!" But they're not. And Obama's approval rating should be in the single digits. But it's not. It's down (by how much depends on the source reporting.). But not by enough.
Is this a sane world?
~~~~~~~~~~
The economy of the European nations is in serious trouble as well -- in many cases because of socialist welfare policies.
The "Arab Spring" turned out to be a January thaw, with the whole region embroiled in tensions and unrest that do not bode well for constructive development of the states involved.
~~~~~~~~~~
What the Palestinian Arabs are up to depends on the day of the week, or the hour of the day:
They say they will reconcile with Hamas, but arrest members of Hamas in Judea and Samaria; Hamas says Fatah is not serious.
The PA sometimes talks about going to the Security Council, and sometimes to the General Assembly. They are promoting "non-violent resistance" for September (like they were ever non-violent), but say they want to keep things quiet because it will make them look better. Reportedly Fayyad and Abbas are at odds on how to proceed.
There is nonsensical talk about going to the UN and then coming to the negotiating table.
Meanwhile a whole lot of crystal balls are very cloudy these days: various columnists and pundits cannot get their acts together with regard to any clear explanation of what is likely to happen in September. Everything from a major crisis to almost nothing is being predicted. (I'm holding fast to my earlier prediction and will return to this in due course, rest assured.)
And the European nations keen on supporting that Palestinian state seem to ignore the fact they would own it -- that is, the state leaders would come to them eternally with hands out. As the European states are struggling financially themselves, and this is something they can ill afford, can we say their support for a Palestinian state is rational?
~~~~~~~~~~
Had enough? I haven't yet told you the worst. You know what's threatening world stability?
Israel's plans to build housing over the Green Line in Jerusalem.
How do I know? The Americans and Europeans say so. They are terribly upset by the announcement by Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) to put up 1,600 apartment units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem. If it weren't for this, the PA would undoubtedly come to the table. And if the PA came to the table, surely Iran would stop building the bomb. No?
~~~~~~~~~~
In a sane world, Israel would be applauded for her stability in a very unstable part of the world. For her vibrant democracy where around her there is often violent autocratic rule. For her ability to thrive and develop, thereby benefiting the world at large with regard to medical and hi tech innovations.
In a sane world, Israel would be supported and praised and emulated.
And so the readiness of the world to bring Israel down is the final proof of the world's insanity.
We must pray for Israel's leaders, that they will stand strong against the pressures of the outside world, and the pressures (for a return to a welfare state) within, as well. Israel absolutely must stand strong.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dear friends, for me, tomorrow begins "Kaitana Savta" -- best translated as Camp Grandma. Over the next three weeks small groups of my grandchildren will be sleeping over, going to the Science Museum with me, eating pizza and ice cream, doing arts and crafts, walking in the Old City.
There is nothing that restores sanity and optimism like time with bright, eager and dearly loved grandchildren.
Cannot say there will be no postings in the next three weeks. But they will be diminished in number. Hopefully at the end of that time I will be refreshed and ready to deal more effectively with the insanity of the world and the ambiguities that abound.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
I've been writing for some time about how upside down the world is. But it seems, on reflection, that it was not upside down, it was only tilted sideways -- and now the tilt is increasing. The state of the world is getting worse, and one must stop and ask, who notices? The failure of the Western world to pay attention is what is perhaps most frightening.
In my opinion, the recent riots in London represent some very serious handwriting on the wall of history. But I've yet to see wide scale recognition of this in the US.
Melanie Phillips wrote in her blog the other day, that "what we are seeing [among other things] is a culture of narcissistic selfishness on an epic scale and a general breakdown in education, morality and elementary codes of civilised behaviour, much of it deliberately willed on for the past three decades by a grossly irresponsible and politically motivated intelligentsia that set out to smash the west.
"And now London is being smashed as a result."
~~~~~~~~~~
What I have begun to read about -- and it's terribly politically incorrect to mention this -- is a kind of mob influence in America, with black hate crimes against whites. The law, it seems, is not acting decisively enough in these cases, and, as lawyer J. Christian Adams wrote in Family Security Matters, "The mob is decisive when the law is not."
This is the America that was going to see new unity and hope under the leadership of its first black president. But now it's difficult not to link what is going with this president. Adams reports that one family in Ohio that was severely beaten by a mob of blacks received the taunts, “This is our world. This is a black world.” But, he says, "The Justice Department under Eric Holder has little interest in bringing hate crimes charges to protect white victims."
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10140/pub_detail.asp
~~~~~~~~~~
Should we be surprised?
~~~~~~~~~~
Obama held a Ramadan break-the-fast dinner in the White House the other day, and thanked the Muslims for their contribution to America. Just one more deplorable instance of the president's pandering that reflects a clear bias.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, of course, there is Obama's abysmal failure with regard to foreign affairs -- no where so more than in the Middle East, where the US is no longer respected as a player of significance. Obama is making it easier for the bad guys to win.
And the economy? Need I say it? The national debt, the unemployment.
And yet, I'm not hearing the cries. They should be loud enough to hear in Jerusalem: The American people should be on their feet shouting, "ENOUGH!" But they're not. And Obama's approval rating should be in the single digits. But it's not. It's down (by how much depends on the source reporting.). But not by enough.
Is this a sane world?
~~~~~~~~~~
The economy of the European nations is in serious trouble as well -- in many cases because of socialist welfare policies.
The "Arab Spring" turned out to be a January thaw, with the whole region embroiled in tensions and unrest that do not bode well for constructive development of the states involved.
~~~~~~~~~~
What the Palestinian Arabs are up to depends on the day of the week, or the hour of the day:
They say they will reconcile with Hamas, but arrest members of Hamas in Judea and Samaria; Hamas says Fatah is not serious.
The PA sometimes talks about going to the Security Council, and sometimes to the General Assembly. They are promoting "non-violent resistance" for September (like they were ever non-violent), but say they want to keep things quiet because it will make them look better. Reportedly Fayyad and Abbas are at odds on how to proceed.
There is nonsensical talk about going to the UN and then coming to the negotiating table.
Meanwhile a whole lot of crystal balls are very cloudy these days: various columnists and pundits cannot get their acts together with regard to any clear explanation of what is likely to happen in September. Everything from a major crisis to almost nothing is being predicted. (I'm holding fast to my earlier prediction and will return to this in due course, rest assured.)
And the European nations keen on supporting that Palestinian state seem to ignore the fact they would own it -- that is, the state leaders would come to them eternally with hands out. As the European states are struggling financially themselves, and this is something they can ill afford, can we say their support for a Palestinian state is rational?
~~~~~~~~~~
Had enough? I haven't yet told you the worst. You know what's threatening world stability?
Israel's plans to build housing over the Green Line in Jerusalem.
How do I know? The Americans and Europeans say so. They are terribly upset by the announcement by Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) to put up 1,600 apartment units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem. If it weren't for this, the PA would undoubtedly come to the table. And if the PA came to the table, surely Iran would stop building the bomb. No?
~~~~~~~~~~
In a sane world, Israel would be applauded for her stability in a very unstable part of the world. For her vibrant democracy where around her there is often violent autocratic rule. For her ability to thrive and develop, thereby benefiting the world at large with regard to medical and hi tech innovations.
In a sane world, Israel would be supported and praised and emulated.
And so the readiness of the world to bring Israel down is the final proof of the world's insanity.
We must pray for Israel's leaders, that they will stand strong against the pressures of the outside world, and the pressures (for a return to a welfare state) within, as well. Israel absolutely must stand strong.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dear friends, for me, tomorrow begins "Kaitana Savta" -- best translated as Camp Grandma. Over the next three weeks small groups of my grandchildren will be sleeping over, going to the Science Museum with me, eating pizza and ice cream, doing arts and crafts, walking in the Old City.
There is nothing that restores sanity and optimism like time with bright, eager and dearly loved grandchildren.
Cannot say there will be no postings in the next three weeks. But they will be diminished in number. Hopefully at the end of that time I will be refreshed and ready to deal more effectively with the insanity of the world and the ambiguities that abound.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
The Left’s Very Anti-PC Strategy: Hate, Fear, Stereotype, and Treat Diversity as Evil
Barry Rubin
When one talks to supporters of President Barack Obama, one quickly learns that his actual policies and their relative success or failure are of no importance for many of them. Some have defected, many more are worried (even if they won’t admit it publicily) but might overcome their doubts and vote for him again.
The significant factor shaping their views is one of self-image. That’s why evidence and events have relatively little influence on them unless–which may be precisely what happens in America between now and November 2012–these things become too big to ignore. “Too big to ignore!” Perhaps that should be a counter-slogan against, “Too big to fail.”
To support Obama makes them smart, sophisticated, anti-racist, modern, members of an intellectual and social elite standing against the yahoos with the pitchforks out in the provinces. From the defenders of the downtrodden, the left has transformed itself into the well-financed aristocracy sneering at the peasantry. That’s why the theme of portraying the opposition as greedy rich, fat-cat, corporate chieftains and simultaneously hillbilly, gun-toting, religious fanatic racists who think Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya and want to reinstitute slavery is so incredibly effective in shoring up its base of support.
Even the simplest points of fact—that the Tea Party is a group of people opposed to big government, high taxes, tight regulation, and large deficits—barely appears amidst the propaganda aimed at discrediting any opposition as illegitimate.
If you can persuade people that anyone is insane if they want to cut economically unproductive government spending and not raise taxes at a time of massive depression and growing deficits has got a pretty good propaganda machine.
The hardcore Obama supporter is not watching unemployment levels, the economy, the mess in Egypt and Libya, or the effectiveness of health care reform, His concern is that if he decides Obama is a terrible president it means he is one of “them.” This is a horror he can never accept. For the Jews among them—which explains their higher membership in this group—these factors are reinforced by the image of becoming the very Nazi Cossack Klu Klux Klan monster that is their worst nightmare.
The left isn’t doing this because it’s on the defensive or desperate. On the contrary, this is its main strategy. How else can you persuade about half the population, liberals and centrists, to support the most left-wing policy in American history? That’s why they need a strategy based on hate, fear, stereotyping, demonization of the “other,” rejection of diversity, and all those other things that supposedly Political Correctness and Multiculturalism supposedly oppose! What’s the response? I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t know but it might be useful to have it all in one place:
1. Avoid playing into these stereotypes whenever possible. Once you lose your credibility by being too extreme or not being able to present facts, it is very hard to regain it in this atmosphere.
2. Word of mouth, have the best arguments and point them out to people. Never doubt that no matter how confident many of these people appear to be they are having severe doubts about their policies and ideas working. Be able to argue on the other side’s own terms in order to show hypocrisy (see point in bold above).
3. Provide credible alternative sources of information. Youre reading one of the best ones, PJM, right now.
‘
4. Don’t rant; don’t argue with those who cannot be persuaded; and don’t spend your time attacking people whose differences with you are relatively small. Focus on the large portion of the open-minded. Remember the purpose of communication is not to make yourself feel good but to make people on the other end feel that you’re right.
5. Don’t write off traditional liberals who are somewhere between being horrified and confused by the policies they are supporting. Point out that this is a leftist and not liberal program. This isn’t the platform of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, or even Bill Clinton. It is the worldview of the 1948 Progressive Party and the 1960s’ New Left.
6. The simple truth is–as expressed by such people as Vice-President Joe Biden and Senator Harry Reid–that the far left argues that anyone who is an African-American, Hispanic-American, woman, or gay has no right to oppose Obama and his policies. If they do, they are a traitor to their “race” (or whatever) and should be treated with the utmost contempt and shut up as quickly as possible. So much for diversity.
7. Point out how this anti-democratic strategy is destroying America’s tradition of free and open debate, as well as the cherished institutions of universities, schools, and media. On issue after issue–climate change, the budget, revolutionary Islamism, Israel, etc.–the message is that there is only one proper stance and disagreement will not be tolerated. There’s nothing intellectually advanced or sophisticated about such behavior. It is the most reactionary approach possible. The left, disguised as liberals, takes an approach more akin to the Middle Ages or eighteenth-century conservatism than to historic liberalism. If Galileo Galilei said the earth goes around the sun, Al Gore would retort, in the style of a church inquisitor, that the science on that matter has already been permanently settled.
8. The basis of the left’s case is to deny things have changed. On the one hand, it needs to fool people into thinking that America is still full of racists and bigots and big corporations still rule the land as they did many long decades ago. On the other hand, they need to fool people into thinking that we are still in the 1950-2000 era in which spending resources are unlimited, schools don’t indoctrinate kids, universities aren’t ideological institutes for producing intolerant left-wing activists, the media is still reasonably fair, and the United States has not yet passed the maximum burden of entitlements whose continue growth will destroy the country.
9. Point out that this isn’t exactly the best time to portray Western Europe as a model for the United States since Europe has cracked up very badly and following the same policies will produce the same result.
10. Direct experience and observation changes people who are not blinded by ideology. And clearly Obama’s policies have failed at home and abroad, a point that will be regularly and increasingly obvious over the next 15 months. That should count for something and perhaps people will be ready to listen to why this has happened.
When one talks to supporters of President Barack Obama, one quickly learns that his actual policies and their relative success or failure are of no importance for many of them. Some have defected, many more are worried (even if they won’t admit it publicily) but might overcome their doubts and vote for him again.
The significant factor shaping their views is one of self-image. That’s why evidence and events have relatively little influence on them unless–which may be precisely what happens in America between now and November 2012–these things become too big to ignore. “Too big to ignore!” Perhaps that should be a counter-slogan against, “Too big to fail.”
To support Obama makes them smart, sophisticated, anti-racist, modern, members of an intellectual and social elite standing against the yahoos with the pitchforks out in the provinces. From the defenders of the downtrodden, the left has transformed itself into the well-financed aristocracy sneering at the peasantry. That’s why the theme of portraying the opposition as greedy rich, fat-cat, corporate chieftains and simultaneously hillbilly, gun-toting, religious fanatic racists who think Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya and want to reinstitute slavery is so incredibly effective in shoring up its base of support.
Even the simplest points of fact—that the Tea Party is a group of people opposed to big government, high taxes, tight regulation, and large deficits—barely appears amidst the propaganda aimed at discrediting any opposition as illegitimate.
If you can persuade people that anyone is insane if they want to cut economically unproductive government spending and not raise taxes at a time of massive depression and growing deficits has got a pretty good propaganda machine.
The hardcore Obama supporter is not watching unemployment levels, the economy, the mess in Egypt and Libya, or the effectiveness of health care reform, His concern is that if he decides Obama is a terrible president it means he is one of “them.” This is a horror he can never accept. For the Jews among them—which explains their higher membership in this group—these factors are reinforced by the image of becoming the very Nazi Cossack Klu Klux Klan monster that is their worst nightmare.
The left isn’t doing this because it’s on the defensive or desperate. On the contrary, this is its main strategy. How else can you persuade about half the population, liberals and centrists, to support the most left-wing policy in American history? That’s why they need a strategy based on hate, fear, stereotyping, demonization of the “other,” rejection of diversity, and all those other things that supposedly Political Correctness and Multiculturalism supposedly oppose! What’s the response? I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t know but it might be useful to have it all in one place:
1. Avoid playing into these stereotypes whenever possible. Once you lose your credibility by being too extreme or not being able to present facts, it is very hard to regain it in this atmosphere.
2. Word of mouth, have the best arguments and point them out to people. Never doubt that no matter how confident many of these people appear to be they are having severe doubts about their policies and ideas working. Be able to argue on the other side’s own terms in order to show hypocrisy (see point in bold above).
3. Provide credible alternative sources of information. Youre reading one of the best ones, PJM, right now.
‘
4. Don’t rant; don’t argue with those who cannot be persuaded; and don’t spend your time attacking people whose differences with you are relatively small. Focus on the large portion of the open-minded. Remember the purpose of communication is not to make yourself feel good but to make people on the other end feel that you’re right.
5. Don’t write off traditional liberals who are somewhere between being horrified and confused by the policies they are supporting. Point out that this is a leftist and not liberal program. This isn’t the platform of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, or even Bill Clinton. It is the worldview of the 1948 Progressive Party and the 1960s’ New Left.
6. The simple truth is–as expressed by such people as Vice-President Joe Biden and Senator Harry Reid–that the far left argues that anyone who is an African-American, Hispanic-American, woman, or gay has no right to oppose Obama and his policies. If they do, they are a traitor to their “race” (or whatever) and should be treated with the utmost contempt and shut up as quickly as possible. So much for diversity.
7. Point out how this anti-democratic strategy is destroying America’s tradition of free and open debate, as well as the cherished institutions of universities, schools, and media. On issue after issue–climate change, the budget, revolutionary Islamism, Israel, etc.–the message is that there is only one proper stance and disagreement will not be tolerated. There’s nothing intellectually advanced or sophisticated about such behavior. It is the most reactionary approach possible. The left, disguised as liberals, takes an approach more akin to the Middle Ages or eighteenth-century conservatism than to historic liberalism. If Galileo Galilei said the earth goes around the sun, Al Gore would retort, in the style of a church inquisitor, that the science on that matter has already been permanently settled.
8. The basis of the left’s case is to deny things have changed. On the one hand, it needs to fool people into thinking that America is still full of racists and bigots and big corporations still rule the land as they did many long decades ago. On the other hand, they need to fool people into thinking that we are still in the 1950-2000 era in which spending resources are unlimited, schools don’t indoctrinate kids, universities aren’t ideological institutes for producing intolerant left-wing activists, the media is still reasonably fair, and the United States has not yet passed the maximum burden of entitlements whose continue growth will destroy the country.
9. Point out that this isn’t exactly the best time to portray Western Europe as a model for the United States since Europe has cracked up very badly and following the same policies will produce the same result.
10. Direct experience and observation changes people who are not blinded by ideology. And clearly Obama’s policies have failed at home and abroad, a point that will be regularly and increasingly obvious over the next 15 months. That should count for something and perhaps people will be ready to listen to why this has happened.
Abbas Wants US-led NATO Force for PA State
Gavriel Queenann
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas told visiting US Congressmen on Thursday he wants the security of a future PA state to be handed to NATO under US command, the Maan news agency reported Friday.
The PA state must also be "empty of settlements," Abbas said, according to official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA. Members of the US Congress and Senate delegation, headed by Democrat Senator Steny Hoyer, met with Abbas in Ramallah on Thursday, and quizzed Abbas on Israel's designation as a Jewish state, the status of refugees, and reconciliation between Abbas' Fatah party and rival Hamas, Presidential adviser Nimir Hamad said.
Abbas reiterated the Palestinian Authority's well-known positions on these matters, Hammad added, and specified that security responsibility for the Palestinian Authority would be handled by a third party, suggesting the US-Europe military alliance NATO.
In September 2010, Abbas outlined his government's acceptance of international forces from NATO or similar to the UNIFIL force operating in southern Lebanon playing a role in PA security, as long as forces did not include one single Israeli, whether from the civilian population or the military.
Abbas is currently pursuing a unilateral recognition of PA statehood based on pre-1967 lines at the United Nations in September.
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas told visiting US Congressmen on Thursday he wants the security of a future PA state to be handed to NATO under US command, the Maan news agency reported Friday.
The PA state must also be "empty of settlements," Abbas said, according to official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA. Members of the US Congress and Senate delegation, headed by Democrat Senator Steny Hoyer, met with Abbas in Ramallah on Thursday, and quizzed Abbas on Israel's designation as a Jewish state, the status of refugees, and reconciliation between Abbas' Fatah party and rival Hamas, Presidential adviser Nimir Hamad said.
Abbas reiterated the Palestinian Authority's well-known positions on these matters, Hammad added, and specified that security responsibility for the Palestinian Authority would be handled by a third party, suggesting the US-Europe military alliance NATO.
In September 2010, Abbas outlined his government's acceptance of international forces from NATO or similar to the UNIFIL force operating in southern Lebanon playing a role in PA security, as long as forces did not include one single Israeli, whether from the civilian population or the military.
Abbas is currently pursuing a unilateral recognition of PA statehood based on pre-1967 lines at the United Nations in September.
Friday, August 12, 2011
We Stop for Ducks
Norma Zager
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?” Will Rogers
Few Americans haven’t seen a line of baby ducks following the Mama duck across the street. This picture also includes a line of cars stopped on both sides to allow the ducks safe passage. I, too, stop for ducks.
Human beings are nothing if not paradoxical. The safety of a baby duck is paramount, and yet we allow the good of our nation to come second to political and selfish ideological agendas.
I imagine most have spent the last week or two sickened by the partisan display of political insanity Washington dinner theatre has provided. If nothing else, we do get a great deal of entertainment for our money from Beltway Productions. Although unfortunately, too often of late, we have been treated to shows far more frightening than the mind of a Hitchcock or De Palma could conjure.
Sadly, many are faced with circumstances they could never have fathomed, and the world has glimpsed the pitiful state of the United States Congress’ selfish, childish lust for power.
As Harry Truman’s desk plate once read so eloquently, “The Buck Stops Here.”
No matter how many people Obama tries to lay the blame upon, it cannot disguise his egregious lack of leadership.
The Congressional dog and pony show has once again displayed little intelligence or responsibility, but provided instead copious amount of fodder for comics and late night hosts.
And yet, Americans aren’t laughing.
Facing the gravest financial times since the Great Depression, we are too overwhelmed by the intensity of our circumstances to even fathom an exit from this previously undiscovered circle of hell where we now reside.
Ducks you ask?
Yes, exactly the point.
While families are forced from their homes, doing without food and the basic necessities of life, we stop our car for a family of ducks.
We watch as a brutal leader in Syria murders babies, children have no food to eat and Iran continues to threaten the safety and security of the world.
We stop for ducks.
Our Navy Seals are killed, Somalia allows thousands of children to starve every day and prevents rescue workers from helping, another American father or mother is pink slipped and loses their healthcare for their children and—we stop for ducks.
Europe is falling apart, China is stealing our technologies, candidates are throwing stones at one another and yet—we stop for ducks.
Shouldn’t we be equally concerned about what our leaders are doing to people, to us? Harry Reid postures to ensure Obama’s reelection with no concern for Americans that are suffering for his wild spending spree.
The Republicans jump on a high horse at a time when perhaps walking alongside the horse is the best way to travel.
The White House begins an uproarious session of the blame game at all our expense.
But we do stop for ducks.
Do we stop so we can go home and feel good about ourselves? Is it so we can look in the mirror and say, well I’m a good person I didn’t run over a Mama duck and her babies?
I understand it’s difficult to see a way out of our current mess. We have certainly gotten ourselves in knee deep this time.
Two billion plus for the United Nations, over 1.5 billion a year for Pakistan, over 600 million for the Palestinians to help care for and honor known terrorists, financial contributions to the International Monetary Fund to bail out Greece, Spain, Italy, etc. etc.
Lots of money leaving America these days, but how much is coming back in? And to whom is the money going? Not Americans, but the evilest of evil to buy our destruction.
If foreign aid was designed to help ensure our friendships and support among nations, how’s that working for us?
Americans are broke. Seniors who lived on their investments have lost them or at least half.
Politicians continue to receive world-class healthcare while children do without meds and proper medical services.
Babies go to sleep hungry in our biggest cities while people attend a $35,000 a plate dinner for a man who makes Marie Antoinette look like Albert Schweitzer.
But we do stop for ducks.
Never before in recent history have the interests of the American people been so egregiously dismissed. Have the cries of babies, the needs of families, children and the elderly been swept aside so callously to ensure political advantage?
Selfishness and self-interest have become the watchwords of America. The world has gotten a front row glimpse at the failure of a once great nation.
Congress makes Caligula look like Mother Teresa and a high price has been paid.
We have one chance to turn this country around and take back our dignity. To act like the caring and compassionate nation we are—we stop for ducks.
Please don’t be misled by a toothy smile or a pledge of change that was far from the change we were promised. Or a politician’s tactics or lies designed to destroy an opponent and distract voters from his own abject failure.
Our leaders don’t stop for ducks, but of course, they are not us. They run over babies and children and if we allow it, they can only quack up our country further.
In truth, politicians run—all the way to the bank with our money in tow.
Lord, protect the duck family that gets in their way en route.
The series “Postcards from America—Postcards from Israel” by Ari Bussel and Norma Zager is a compilation of articles capturing the essence of life in America and Israel during the first two decades of the 21st Century.
The writers invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, Israel visitors rarely discover.
This point—and often—counter-point presentation is sprinkled with humor and sadness and attempts to tackle serious and relevant issues of the day. The series began in 2008, appears both in print in the USA and on numerous websites and is followed regularly by readership from around the world.
© “Postcards from America — Postcards from Israel,” August, 2011
Contact: bussel@me.com
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?” Will Rogers
Few Americans haven’t seen a line of baby ducks following the Mama duck across the street. This picture also includes a line of cars stopped on both sides to allow the ducks safe passage. I, too, stop for ducks.
Human beings are nothing if not paradoxical. The safety of a baby duck is paramount, and yet we allow the good of our nation to come second to political and selfish ideological agendas.
I imagine most have spent the last week or two sickened by the partisan display of political insanity Washington dinner theatre has provided. If nothing else, we do get a great deal of entertainment for our money from Beltway Productions. Although unfortunately, too often of late, we have been treated to shows far more frightening than the mind of a Hitchcock or De Palma could conjure.
Sadly, many are faced with circumstances they could never have fathomed, and the world has glimpsed the pitiful state of the United States Congress’ selfish, childish lust for power.
As Harry Truman’s desk plate once read so eloquently, “The Buck Stops Here.”
No matter how many people Obama tries to lay the blame upon, it cannot disguise his egregious lack of leadership.
The Congressional dog and pony show has once again displayed little intelligence or responsibility, but provided instead copious amount of fodder for comics and late night hosts.
And yet, Americans aren’t laughing.
Facing the gravest financial times since the Great Depression, we are too overwhelmed by the intensity of our circumstances to even fathom an exit from this previously undiscovered circle of hell where we now reside.
Ducks you ask?
Yes, exactly the point.
While families are forced from their homes, doing without food and the basic necessities of life, we stop our car for a family of ducks.
We watch as a brutal leader in Syria murders babies, children have no food to eat and Iran continues to threaten the safety and security of the world.
We stop for ducks.
Our Navy Seals are killed, Somalia allows thousands of children to starve every day and prevents rescue workers from helping, another American father or mother is pink slipped and loses their healthcare for their children and—we stop for ducks.
Europe is falling apart, China is stealing our technologies, candidates are throwing stones at one another and yet—we stop for ducks.
Shouldn’t we be equally concerned about what our leaders are doing to people, to us? Harry Reid postures to ensure Obama’s reelection with no concern for Americans that are suffering for his wild spending spree.
The Republicans jump on a high horse at a time when perhaps walking alongside the horse is the best way to travel.
The White House begins an uproarious session of the blame game at all our expense.
But we do stop for ducks.
Do we stop so we can go home and feel good about ourselves? Is it so we can look in the mirror and say, well I’m a good person I didn’t run over a Mama duck and her babies?
I understand it’s difficult to see a way out of our current mess. We have certainly gotten ourselves in knee deep this time.
Two billion plus for the United Nations, over 1.5 billion a year for Pakistan, over 600 million for the Palestinians to help care for and honor known terrorists, financial contributions to the International Monetary Fund to bail out Greece, Spain, Italy, etc. etc.
Lots of money leaving America these days, but how much is coming back in? And to whom is the money going? Not Americans, but the evilest of evil to buy our destruction.
If foreign aid was designed to help ensure our friendships and support among nations, how’s that working for us?
Americans are broke. Seniors who lived on their investments have lost them or at least half.
Politicians continue to receive world-class healthcare while children do without meds and proper medical services.
Babies go to sleep hungry in our biggest cities while people attend a $35,000 a plate dinner for a man who makes Marie Antoinette look like Albert Schweitzer.
But we do stop for ducks.
Never before in recent history have the interests of the American people been so egregiously dismissed. Have the cries of babies, the needs of families, children and the elderly been swept aside so callously to ensure political advantage?
Selfishness and self-interest have become the watchwords of America. The world has gotten a front row glimpse at the failure of a once great nation.
Congress makes Caligula look like Mother Teresa and a high price has been paid.
We have one chance to turn this country around and take back our dignity. To act like the caring and compassionate nation we are—we stop for ducks.
Please don’t be misled by a toothy smile or a pledge of change that was far from the change we were promised. Or a politician’s tactics or lies designed to destroy an opponent and distract voters from his own abject failure.
Our leaders don’t stop for ducks, but of course, they are not us. They run over babies and children and if we allow it, they can only quack up our country further.
In truth, politicians run—all the way to the bank with our money in tow.
Lord, protect the duck family that gets in their way en route.
The series “Postcards from America—Postcards from Israel” by Ari Bussel and Norma Zager is a compilation of articles capturing the essence of life in America and Israel during the first two decades of the 21st Century.
The writers invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, Israel visitors rarely discover.
This point—and often—counter-point presentation is sprinkled with humor and sadness and attempts to tackle serious and relevant issues of the day. The series began in 2008, appears both in print in the USA and on numerous websites and is followed regularly by readership from around the world.
© “Postcards from America — Postcards from Israel,” August, 2011
Contact: bussel@me.com
MEMRI vs. CRIHL and US Money
My Right Word
Are you upset that MEMRI received $200,000?
Office of International Religious Freedom Funds Middle East Media Research Institute Project
The Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor awarded a $200,000 grant to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) to conduct a project that documents anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and Holocaust glorification in the Middle East. This grant will enable MEMRI to expand its efforts to monitor the media, translate materials into ten languages, analyze trends in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and glorification, and increase distribution of materials through its website and other outlets. Well, is a $500,000 grant one that also will make you upset?
In an effort to settle one of the longest-running disputes in the Middle East peace process, American, Israeli and Palestinian researchers are conducting what purports to be the first scientific study of incitement in Palestinian and Israeli textbooks. The study, funded by a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State, was commissioned by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land (CRIHL), a Jerusalem-based consortium of senior Islamic, Jewish and Christian religious figures in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The study seeks to provide the first rigorously empirical and objective analysis of how Palestinian and Israeli textbooks depict the “other.”
^
Are you upset that MEMRI received $200,000?
Office of International Religious Freedom Funds Middle East Media Research Institute Project
The Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor awarded a $200,000 grant to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) to conduct a project that documents anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and Holocaust glorification in the Middle East. This grant will enable MEMRI to expand its efforts to monitor the media, translate materials into ten languages, analyze trends in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and glorification, and increase distribution of materials through its website and other outlets. Well, is a $500,000 grant one that also will make you upset?
In an effort to settle one of the longest-running disputes in the Middle East peace process, American, Israeli and Palestinian researchers are conducting what purports to be the first scientific study of incitement in Palestinian and Israeli textbooks. The study, funded by a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State, was commissioned by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land (CRIHL), a Jerusalem-based consortium of senior Islamic, Jewish and Christian religious figures in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The study seeks to provide the first rigorously empirical and objective analysis of how Palestinian and Israeli textbooks depict the “other.”
^
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The PA denies Jewish history in Jerusalem The Jewish Temple is "the alleged Temple"
Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Earlier this week, on the Jewish day of mourning known as Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, the official PA daily denied the Temple's existence, referring to it as "the destruction of the alleged Temple" and "the so-called destruction."
For years, Palestinian Authority leaders have actively denied Jewish history both in ancient Judea/Israel and in Jerusalem in particular. Palestinian Media Watch has documented this ongoing PA policy of historical revisionism, which centers on the denial that a Jewish Temple ever existed in Jerusalem. PA political and religious leaders, officials, and even academics consistently refer to the Temple as "the alleged Temple." [Arabic: Al-Haikal Al-Maz'oom]. The Palestinian claims that the Temple never existed and that Jews have no history in the Land of Israel not only contradict Jewish sources, Christian sources, and the archeological record, but contradict the Quran as well. The Quran in Sura 17:2-7 mentions the "Children of Israel's" two periods of independence in the land and the destruction of both the First and the Second Temple: "...to enter the Temple even as they entered it for the first time, and to lay waste..."
The PA accuses Israel of forging a false Jewish history in the land while at the same time stealing Palestinian history, culture, and heritage. The Palestinians refer to these actions as "Judaization." The main target of this "Judaization" is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which Israel purportedly conspires to destroy in order to build the Jewish Temple.
Advisor to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmad Al-Ruweidi, recently denied the existence of the Temple while commenting on an Israeli excavation of a tunnel:
"I personally visited the entrance to this tunnel, and it is clear that they [the Israelis] have built it modeled on the alleged Temple, as a basis for transferring the Temple in the future into the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
The following are examples from the PMW archives from April to July 2011. The examples are arranged in two categories: PA leaders refer to the Jewish Temple as "the alleged temple" and PA denial of Jewish history in the land and accusations of heritage theft.
PA leaders refer to the Jewish Temple as "the alleged temple"
PA daily news report: "The destruction of the alleged Temple."
"Since Monday morning, groups of extremist Jews have been roaming the courtyards of Al-Aqsa mosque (i.e., the Temple Mount) one after the other, under heavy police protection, on the occasion of the [week of the] so-called "destruction of the Temple"... This Sunday, the occupation's police handed the shop owners in the Market of the Cotton Merchants... which leads to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, an order forcing them to close their shops on Monday afternoon (i.e., the eve of the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple - Tisha B'av), in order to facilitate the arrival of the settlers to the Market, for the sake of holding special Talmudic rituals on the occasion of the destruction of the alleged Temple."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 9, 2011]
Abbas' advisor: Israel wants to transfer the alleged Temple into the Al-Aqsa Mosque
PA TV News broadcast, main report the Committee to Protect Silwan's report concerning the Israeli excavation of a tunnel.
PA TV newsreader: "[The Committee to Protect Silwan] noted that some of the Israeli sources had said that a gold bell had been found in the tunnel, belonging to what they call the Second Temple Period. This once again highlights the efforts of the Israeli side to forge the history of the holy city."
Interview with Ahmad Al-Ruweidi, advisor to President Abbas, on the Committee's report:
Abbas' advisor, Al-Ruweidi: "I personally visited the entrance to this tunnel, and it is clear that they [the Israelis] have built it modeled on the alleged Temple, as a basis for transferring the Temple in the future into the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
[PA TV (Fatah), July 26, 2011]
Chairman of the Palestinian National Council calls Temple "alleged temple"
"Chairman of the [Palestinian] National Council, Salim Al-Za'anoun, yesterday demanded a halt to the works to Judaize the city of Jerusalem, ...in the vicinity of the [Al-Aqsa] Mosque, turning them into ritual baths for the 'alleged temple', and turning the surroundings of the Mosque and the Old City of Jerusalem into biblical parks."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011]
Jews visiting the Temple Mount are "invasion," and all Israelis are "settlers"
"Israeli MP Michael Ben-Ari invaded the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday heading a group of settlers, who were on a tour of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, listening to Ben-Ari's explanations about the alleged Temple... Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'a Law, Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is, said that the invasion of Al-Aqsa had been carried out under the protection of extensive occupation (i.e., Israeli) police forces. He warned of a most dangerous plot of the Israeli establishment, including its various branches, to seize control of [the Mosque], in order to destroy it and establish the alleged Temple in its place."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 9, 2011]
Official PA daily: Israel's "Judaization plans... serve the myth and legend of the alleged Temple"
"It should be noted that the decisions to destroy and remove the Al-Bustan neighborhood were meant to realize the Judaization plans, according to which Talmudic parks would be established in its stead, serving the myth and legend of the alleged temple."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 12, 2011]
PA TV: The "alleged Temple" is "myth and legend"
"In occupied Jerusalem, the so-called 'Israel Supreme Court of Justice' is expected to rule on the fate of 88 homes in the Al-Bustan neighborhood. Member of the Silwan and Al-Bustan Neighborhood Defense Committee, Fakhri Abu Diab... emphasized that occupation forces [Israel] are trying to remove the neighborhood altogether and to expel its residents, numbering more than 2,500, with the aim of building Talmudic parks which serve the myth and legend of the alleged Temple."
[PA TV, May 11, 2011]
Official PA daily: "The legend and fable of the alleged Temple"
"The Committee for Protection of Silwan Land and Assets warned of accelerated work in the area... [Member of the committee Fakhri] Abu Diab drew attention to the fact that the occupation authorities (i.e., Israel) are acting to falsify facts and history, by 'planting' alleged graves in the area, claiming that they are Jewish ones, and thereby conclusively seizing the area... He stated that the results of the [construction of] very prominent works being carried out by the occupation's instruments, are changes in the area's landmarks, with the aim of falsifying its history and its heritage, and [bringing about] its complete Judaization, as a service to the legend and fable of the alleged Temple. As to the parks... they will belong to the Temple, which the occupation authorities and groups of extremist Jews are hurrying to build in place of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 7, 2011]
Former Minister of Religious Affairs: The "alleged Temple" never existed on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque
"'Quds.net Center for Research and Communications' recently published the book, 'The Guide to the Al-Aqsa Mosque', by speaker at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and former Minister of Religious Affairs, Sheikh Yusuf Salameh. The book... deals with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, its importance, and the religious importance of the city of Jerusalem, in order to refute what the Israelis disseminate, claiming that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the ruins of their temple. Sheikh Salameh said that the book was published at this sensitive time, with the holy city in general and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular being subjected to brutal occupation attack, aimed at forging reality, culture and history... The book refutes the Israeli claims that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is situated upon the ruins of the alleged Temple, and states that the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall) is an authentic part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and is not the 'Wailing Wall', as the occupiers falsely refer to it."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 2, 2011]
Former PA Chief Justice of Religious Court: Israel plans destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque to build "alleged Temple"
"Former [PA] Chief Religious Justice, Sheikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi... warned against negligence of the nation in fulfilling its obligation to defend Jerusalem, which would allow the Israeli occupation to carry out its plans - its transformation into a Jewish city and the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order to establish the alleged Temple in its place."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 28, 2011]
Official PA daily: "Alleged Temple"
"The Al-Aqsa Institute for Islamic Trusts and Heritage said that the Israeli occupation had replaced several stones from the wall with stones carrying Talmudic Jewish symbols, such as a stone with a model of the alleged Temple."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2011]
PA denial of Jewish history and accusations of heritage theft
PA TV News: Israel steals Palestinian identity and cultural heritage
PA TV News on a Debka folkdance festival held in Safa, in the Ramallah district:
PA TV reporter: "[The groups] are directing a message to the entire world, that the Palestinian nation still retains its identity and its cultural heritage, while Israel attempts to steal this heritage."
[PA TV (Fatah), July 15, 2011]
PA distortion: Jews changed original Arabic name "Al-Buraq Wall" to "the Wailing Wall"
Official PA daily's columnist on religious affairs, Is'haq Feleifel: "The great and exalted Allah commanded the angel Gabriel to place Muhammad upon the riding beast [named] Al-Buraq, which was a cross between horse and donkey. The night journey was both physical and spiritual... Once he [Muhammad] reached the Al-Aqsa Mosque, (PMW note: the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was not yet built in the time of Muhammad. The "night journey" mentioned in the Quran is dated to 621 CE. The mosque was built on the Temple Mount by the son of Ummayad Caliph Abd Al-Malik 84 years later in 705 CE.) the angel Gabriel removed Muhammad from upon Al-Buraq's back, and then he tied the beast to the Al-Buraq rock, which was called the 'Al-Buraq Wall'. The Jews changed its name to the 'Wailing Wall', because the Jews are always trying to change Arabic names into Hebrew names, especially when it comes to prayer sites or names of towns and villages. For example, they call Al-Quds 'Jerusalem'; Al-Khalil [they call] 'Hebron'; Atara - 'Atarot, Nablus - 'Shechem', Tel Al-Rabi'a - 'Tel Aviv'(PMW note: 'Rabi'a' is the Arabic translation of the Hebrew word 'aviv', meaning 'spring'); Askelan - Ashkelon. There is not enough room to list all the names which have been replaced with false names. Even the 'Torah' falsified, changed and forged; this is the way of the Jews - they always try to change the real names to other, false names, in order to erase the [historical] facts."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 1, 2011]
It should be noted that all six Hebrew names of cites appear in the Bible long before the Arabic names existed.
Palestinian distortion: "If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem" was Crusader expression usurped by Zionists
Palestinian researcher Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV claims that the Hebrew Bible's psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:
"[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) 'If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember thee.'
This statement, said by the Frankish [Crusader] ruler of Acre shortly before he left, was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism."
[PA TV, June 2, 2011]
Jewish presence in land of Israel 2,000 years ago "represents... nothing more than invention and falsification"
"The Zionists must acknowledge publicly, in front of the world, that the Jews have no connection to the Palestinian Arab land, upon whose ruins arose the colonialist settler Zionist plan that settles and expels, represented by the Israeli apartheid state. That which occurred two thousand years ago (i.e., the Jewish/Israeli presence in the land), assuming that it is true, represents in the book of history nothing more than invention and falsification and a coarse and crude form of colonialism."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 27, 2011]
Israel stole Palestinian heritage, including clothing, keffiyeh, falafel and humus
Columnist Muwaffaq Matar, commenting on the cheap products from the Far East flooding the Palestinian market:
"The Israelis have already stolen our clothing, our keffiyeh, our falafel and our humus, so why should we [now] allow produce from China and Taiwan to burn our olive tree (i.e., destroy the local economy)?"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 26, 2011]
PA mayor: "The Zionist enemy" is trying "to create a history" at the expense of Palestinian history
Ahmad Budheir, Mayor of Kufr Al-Hares: "We are suffering from the Zionist enemy, from the visits of the settlers - or the incessant invasions of the settlers - into the town, from the harassment and repeated assaults on citizens, on homes and on the land. They are trying to create a history that doesn't exist on our land, as usual, to steal the history and to steal the culture. They are trying to build history at the expense of our own history."
[PA TV (Fatah), May 23, 2011]
Abbas denies Jews have history in Israel
Abbas' speech in Gaza, delivered in his name by his advisor and representative Abdallah Al-Ifranji, in honor of "nakba" day - "catastrophe" day, the day the PA mourns the creation of the State of Israel:
PA moderator of PA Gaza event: "The speech of President Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and President of the Palestinian Authority, will be delivered by the comrade, the great fighter, Abdallah Al-Ifranji, representative and advisor of the President."
Mahmoud Abbas, (delivered by his representative, Abdallah Al-Ifranji):
"National reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah] is required in order to face Israel and Netanyahu. We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims - that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years BCE - we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history BCE. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: 'Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.'"
[PA TV, May 14, 2011]
Official PA daily: Israel not only steals land but also history of Jerusalem
Headline: "Jerusalem is capital of Arab civilization"
"[Jerusalem] is the religious, historical, cultural and scientific capital of the Palestinian people in particular, and of the Arab nation in general. It is the pinnacle of civilizations of the entire world. When the Arab Jebusite king Malkizedeq built the city of Jerusalem, naming it Jebus and designating it the capital of his country six thousand years ago, none of the world's capitals existed yet... The veteran families which lived in ancient Jerusalem... lived a life of culture and civilization in the full sense of the word, to the extent that other cities which arose thousands of years ago attempted to imitate Jerusalem, the unique wonder, but none of them succeeded in building [a city] like Jerusalem. This is Jerusalem, the city which is closer to God's royal throne than any other part of the globe...
Therefore the invaders [Israel/the Jews] desired it, despite its small area... because this is the place which the Creator blessed, along with its environs. The invaders [Israel/the Jews], who steal the city's geography, are trying to also steal its history."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 14, 2011]
Official PA daily: Israel resorts to forgery to create evidence for Jewish history in Jerusalem
Headline: "Personalities living in Jerusalem: The occupation authorities (i.e., Israel) are forging the wall of Jerusalem by inserting stones engraved with a model of the alleged Temple"
"Respected Jerusalem bodies and personalities warned of suspicious forgery activities accompanying the extensive rehabilitation works which the occupation authorities [Israel] are carrying out... Chairman of the Jerusalem Association of NGO's, Hazem Gharabli, told WAFA...: 'What intensifies the concerns of Jerusalem bodies and individuals - even regular people - is the fact that the occupation authorities have completely covered the area where the rehabilitation works are being carried out, not allowing anyone to see which activities are actually going on there.
Their aim may be to remove original stones and to replace them with stones with Talmudic drawings or engravings, alluding to the existence of a Jewish heritage in the city.'... The Al-Aqsa Institute for Islamic Trusts and Heritage said that the Israeli occupation had replaced several stones from the wall with stones carrying Talmudic Jewish symbols, such as a stone with a model of the alleged Temple, and a stone with a Star of David."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2011]
Deputy Minister of Culture: Israel steals Palestinian culture
"Deputy Minister of Culture, Musa Abu Ghreibeh, spoke about the role of his Ministry in reviving the Palestinian memory, especially in light of Israeli measures aimed at erasing this memory from the minds of Palestinians and specifically of the youth. He also noted with approval the role of the Eve Center (i.e., center for women's issues) in strengthening culture, resolve, and activity aimed at preventing the occupation from stealing Palestinian culture."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 4, 2011]
Earlier this week, on the Jewish day of mourning known as Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, the official PA daily denied the Temple's existence, referring to it as "the destruction of the alleged Temple" and "the so-called destruction."
For years, Palestinian Authority leaders have actively denied Jewish history both in ancient Judea/Israel and in Jerusalem in particular. Palestinian Media Watch has documented this ongoing PA policy of historical revisionism, which centers on the denial that a Jewish Temple ever existed in Jerusalem. PA political and religious leaders, officials, and even academics consistently refer to the Temple as "the alleged Temple." [Arabic: Al-Haikal Al-Maz'oom]. The Palestinian claims that the Temple never existed and that Jews have no history in the Land of Israel not only contradict Jewish sources, Christian sources, and the archeological record, but contradict the Quran as well. The Quran in Sura 17:2-7 mentions the "Children of Israel's" two periods of independence in the land and the destruction of both the First and the Second Temple: "...to enter the Temple even as they entered it for the first time, and to lay waste..."
The PA accuses Israel of forging a false Jewish history in the land while at the same time stealing Palestinian history, culture, and heritage. The Palestinians refer to these actions as "Judaization." The main target of this "Judaization" is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which Israel purportedly conspires to destroy in order to build the Jewish Temple.
Advisor to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmad Al-Ruweidi, recently denied the existence of the Temple while commenting on an Israeli excavation of a tunnel:
"I personally visited the entrance to this tunnel, and it is clear that they [the Israelis] have built it modeled on the alleged Temple, as a basis for transferring the Temple in the future into the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
The following are examples from the PMW archives from April to July 2011. The examples are arranged in two categories: PA leaders refer to the Jewish Temple as "the alleged temple" and PA denial of Jewish history in the land and accusations of heritage theft.
PA leaders refer to the Jewish Temple as "the alleged temple"
PA daily news report: "The destruction of the alleged Temple."
"Since Monday morning, groups of extremist Jews have been roaming the courtyards of Al-Aqsa mosque (i.e., the Temple Mount) one after the other, under heavy police protection, on the occasion of the [week of the] so-called "destruction of the Temple"... This Sunday, the occupation's police handed the shop owners in the Market of the Cotton Merchants... which leads to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, an order forcing them to close their shops on Monday afternoon (i.e., the eve of the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple - Tisha B'av), in order to facilitate the arrival of the settlers to the Market, for the sake of holding special Talmudic rituals on the occasion of the destruction of the alleged Temple."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 9, 2011]
Abbas' advisor: Israel wants to transfer the alleged Temple into the Al-Aqsa Mosque
PA TV News broadcast, main report the Committee to Protect Silwan's report concerning the Israeli excavation of a tunnel.
PA TV newsreader: "[The Committee to Protect Silwan] noted that some of the Israeli sources had said that a gold bell had been found in the tunnel, belonging to what they call the Second Temple Period. This once again highlights the efforts of the Israeli side to forge the history of the holy city."
Interview with Ahmad Al-Ruweidi, advisor to President Abbas, on the Committee's report:
Abbas' advisor, Al-Ruweidi: "I personally visited the entrance to this tunnel, and it is clear that they [the Israelis] have built it modeled on the alleged Temple, as a basis for transferring the Temple in the future into the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
[PA TV (Fatah), July 26, 2011]
Chairman of the Palestinian National Council calls Temple "alleged temple"
"Chairman of the [Palestinian] National Council, Salim Al-Za'anoun, yesterday demanded a halt to the works to Judaize the city of Jerusalem, ...in the vicinity of the [Al-Aqsa] Mosque, turning them into ritual baths for the 'alleged temple', and turning the surroundings of the Mosque and the Old City of Jerusalem into biblical parks."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011]
Jews visiting the Temple Mount are "invasion," and all Israelis are "settlers"
"Israeli MP Michael Ben-Ari invaded the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday heading a group of settlers, who were on a tour of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, listening to Ben-Ari's explanations about the alleged Temple... Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'a Law, Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is, said that the invasion of Al-Aqsa had been carried out under the protection of extensive occupation (i.e., Israeli) police forces. He warned of a most dangerous plot of the Israeli establishment, including its various branches, to seize control of [the Mosque], in order to destroy it and establish the alleged Temple in its place."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 9, 2011]
Official PA daily: Israel's "Judaization plans... serve the myth and legend of the alleged Temple"
"It should be noted that the decisions to destroy and remove the Al-Bustan neighborhood were meant to realize the Judaization plans, according to which Talmudic parks would be established in its stead, serving the myth and legend of the alleged temple."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 12, 2011]
PA TV: The "alleged Temple" is "myth and legend"
"In occupied Jerusalem, the so-called 'Israel Supreme Court of Justice' is expected to rule on the fate of 88 homes in the Al-Bustan neighborhood. Member of the Silwan and Al-Bustan Neighborhood Defense Committee, Fakhri Abu Diab... emphasized that occupation forces [Israel] are trying to remove the neighborhood altogether and to expel its residents, numbering more than 2,500, with the aim of building Talmudic parks which serve the myth and legend of the alleged Temple."
[PA TV, May 11, 2011]
Official PA daily: "The legend and fable of the alleged Temple"
"The Committee for Protection of Silwan Land and Assets warned of accelerated work in the area... [Member of the committee Fakhri] Abu Diab drew attention to the fact that the occupation authorities (i.e., Israel) are acting to falsify facts and history, by 'planting' alleged graves in the area, claiming that they are Jewish ones, and thereby conclusively seizing the area... He stated that the results of the [construction of] very prominent works being carried out by the occupation's instruments, are changes in the area's landmarks, with the aim of falsifying its history and its heritage, and [bringing about] its complete Judaization, as a service to the legend and fable of the alleged Temple. As to the parks... they will belong to the Temple, which the occupation authorities and groups of extremist Jews are hurrying to build in place of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 7, 2011]
Former Minister of Religious Affairs: The "alleged Temple" never existed on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque
"'Quds.net Center for Research and Communications' recently published the book, 'The Guide to the Al-Aqsa Mosque', by speaker at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and former Minister of Religious Affairs, Sheikh Yusuf Salameh. The book... deals with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, its importance, and the religious importance of the city of Jerusalem, in order to refute what the Israelis disseminate, claiming that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the ruins of their temple. Sheikh Salameh said that the book was published at this sensitive time, with the holy city in general and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular being subjected to brutal occupation attack, aimed at forging reality, culture and history... The book refutes the Israeli claims that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is situated upon the ruins of the alleged Temple, and states that the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall) is an authentic part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and is not the 'Wailing Wall', as the occupiers falsely refer to it."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 2, 2011]
Former PA Chief Justice of Religious Court: Israel plans destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque to build "alleged Temple"
"Former [PA] Chief Religious Justice, Sheikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi... warned against negligence of the nation in fulfilling its obligation to defend Jerusalem, which would allow the Israeli occupation to carry out its plans - its transformation into a Jewish city and the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order to establish the alleged Temple in its place."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 28, 2011]
Official PA daily: "Alleged Temple"
"The Al-Aqsa Institute for Islamic Trusts and Heritage said that the Israeli occupation had replaced several stones from the wall with stones carrying Talmudic Jewish symbols, such as a stone with a model of the alleged Temple."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2011]
PA denial of Jewish history and accusations of heritage theft
PA TV News: Israel steals Palestinian identity and cultural heritage
PA TV News on a Debka folkdance festival held in Safa, in the Ramallah district:
PA TV reporter: "[The groups] are directing a message to the entire world, that the Palestinian nation still retains its identity and its cultural heritage, while Israel attempts to steal this heritage."
[PA TV (Fatah), July 15, 2011]
PA distortion: Jews changed original Arabic name "Al-Buraq Wall" to "the Wailing Wall"
Official PA daily's columnist on religious affairs, Is'haq Feleifel: "The great and exalted Allah commanded the angel Gabriel to place Muhammad upon the riding beast [named] Al-Buraq, which was a cross between horse and donkey. The night journey was both physical and spiritual... Once he [Muhammad] reached the Al-Aqsa Mosque, (PMW note: the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was not yet built in the time of Muhammad. The "night journey" mentioned in the Quran is dated to 621 CE. The mosque was built on the Temple Mount by the son of Ummayad Caliph Abd Al-Malik 84 years later in 705 CE.) the angel Gabriel removed Muhammad from upon Al-Buraq's back, and then he tied the beast to the Al-Buraq rock, which was called the 'Al-Buraq Wall'. The Jews changed its name to the 'Wailing Wall', because the Jews are always trying to change Arabic names into Hebrew names, especially when it comes to prayer sites or names of towns and villages. For example, they call Al-Quds 'Jerusalem'; Al-Khalil [they call] 'Hebron'; Atara - 'Atarot, Nablus - 'Shechem', Tel Al-Rabi'a - 'Tel Aviv'(PMW note: 'Rabi'a' is the Arabic translation of the Hebrew word 'aviv', meaning 'spring'); Askelan - Ashkelon. There is not enough room to list all the names which have been replaced with false names. Even the 'Torah' falsified, changed and forged; this is the way of the Jews - they always try to change the real names to other, false names, in order to erase the [historical] facts."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 1, 2011]
It should be noted that all six Hebrew names of cites appear in the Bible long before the Arabic names existed.
Palestinian distortion: "If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem" was Crusader expression usurped by Zionists
Palestinian researcher Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV claims that the Hebrew Bible's psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:
"[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) 'If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember thee.'
This statement, said by the Frankish [Crusader] ruler of Acre shortly before he left, was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism."
[PA TV, June 2, 2011]
Jewish presence in land of Israel 2,000 years ago "represents... nothing more than invention and falsification"
"The Zionists must acknowledge publicly, in front of the world, that the Jews have no connection to the Palestinian Arab land, upon whose ruins arose the colonialist settler Zionist plan that settles and expels, represented by the Israeli apartheid state. That which occurred two thousand years ago (i.e., the Jewish/Israeli presence in the land), assuming that it is true, represents in the book of history nothing more than invention and falsification and a coarse and crude form of colonialism."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 27, 2011]
Israel stole Palestinian heritage, including clothing, keffiyeh, falafel and humus
Columnist Muwaffaq Matar, commenting on the cheap products from the Far East flooding the Palestinian market:
"The Israelis have already stolen our clothing, our keffiyeh, our falafel and our humus, so why should we [now] allow produce from China and Taiwan to burn our olive tree (i.e., destroy the local economy)?"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 26, 2011]
PA mayor: "The Zionist enemy" is trying "to create a history" at the expense of Palestinian history
Ahmad Budheir, Mayor of Kufr Al-Hares: "We are suffering from the Zionist enemy, from the visits of the settlers - or the incessant invasions of the settlers - into the town, from the harassment and repeated assaults on citizens, on homes and on the land. They are trying to create a history that doesn't exist on our land, as usual, to steal the history and to steal the culture. They are trying to build history at the expense of our own history."
[PA TV (Fatah), May 23, 2011]
Abbas denies Jews have history in Israel
Abbas' speech in Gaza, delivered in his name by his advisor and representative Abdallah Al-Ifranji, in honor of "nakba" day - "catastrophe" day, the day the PA mourns the creation of the State of Israel:
PA moderator of PA Gaza event: "The speech of President Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and President of the Palestinian Authority, will be delivered by the comrade, the great fighter, Abdallah Al-Ifranji, representative and advisor of the President."
Mahmoud Abbas, (delivered by his representative, Abdallah Al-Ifranji):
"National reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah] is required in order to face Israel and Netanyahu. We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims - that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years BCE - we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history BCE. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: 'Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.'"
[PA TV, May 14, 2011]
Official PA daily: Israel not only steals land but also history of Jerusalem
Headline: "Jerusalem is capital of Arab civilization"
"[Jerusalem] is the religious, historical, cultural and scientific capital of the Palestinian people in particular, and of the Arab nation in general. It is the pinnacle of civilizations of the entire world. When the Arab Jebusite king Malkizedeq built the city of Jerusalem, naming it Jebus and designating it the capital of his country six thousand years ago, none of the world's capitals existed yet... The veteran families which lived in ancient Jerusalem... lived a life of culture and civilization in the full sense of the word, to the extent that other cities which arose thousands of years ago attempted to imitate Jerusalem, the unique wonder, but none of them succeeded in building [a city] like Jerusalem. This is Jerusalem, the city which is closer to God's royal throne than any other part of the globe...
Therefore the invaders [Israel/the Jews] desired it, despite its small area... because this is the place which the Creator blessed, along with its environs. The invaders [Israel/the Jews], who steal the city's geography, are trying to also steal its history."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 14, 2011]
Official PA daily: Israel resorts to forgery to create evidence for Jewish history in Jerusalem
Headline: "Personalities living in Jerusalem: The occupation authorities (i.e., Israel) are forging the wall of Jerusalem by inserting stones engraved with a model of the alleged Temple"
"Respected Jerusalem bodies and personalities warned of suspicious forgery activities accompanying the extensive rehabilitation works which the occupation authorities [Israel] are carrying out... Chairman of the Jerusalem Association of NGO's, Hazem Gharabli, told WAFA...: 'What intensifies the concerns of Jerusalem bodies and individuals - even regular people - is the fact that the occupation authorities have completely covered the area where the rehabilitation works are being carried out, not allowing anyone to see which activities are actually going on there.
Their aim may be to remove original stones and to replace them with stones with Talmudic drawings or engravings, alluding to the existence of a Jewish heritage in the city.'... The Al-Aqsa Institute for Islamic Trusts and Heritage said that the Israeli occupation had replaced several stones from the wall with stones carrying Talmudic Jewish symbols, such as a stone with a model of the alleged Temple, and a stone with a Star of David."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2011]
Deputy Minister of Culture: Israel steals Palestinian culture
"Deputy Minister of Culture, Musa Abu Ghreibeh, spoke about the role of his Ministry in reviving the Palestinian memory, especially in light of Israeli measures aimed at erasing this memory from the minds of Palestinians and specifically of the youth. He also noted with approval the role of the Eve Center (i.e., center for women's issues) in strengthening culture, resolve, and activity aimed at preventing the occupation from stealing Palestinian culture."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 4, 2011]
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Israel’s tribal protest
Op-ed: Despite effort to speak on behalf of nation, social protest represents just one Israeli tribe
Yoaz Hendel
Israel Opinion
The tens of thousands of people who marched through the streets of Tel Aviv Saturday night constitute yet another show of force for the protest movement that emerged here out of nowhere.
Even an objector such as myself, who has no special sympathy for the hidden politics of the organizers, cannot deny the process they facilitated; the fact that they managed to bring indifferent Israelis out to the streets in an era of individualism; the fact they managed to stir discourse about justice and society; and mostly the fact that they prompted all of us to examine things in a different way. However, with all due respect to the achievements and numbers, a protest is measured by results and not by slogans. Despite the great desire and Shlomo Artzi’s music, it was not the “people” that hit Tel Aviv’s streets last night, but rather, only a particular tribe within the people.
The “people” wants “social justice” but is having trouble agreeing what that means. The middle class or the poor? Well-to-do young people who seek normal prices in order to make ends meet, or poverty-stricken Israelis who can’t even start to make ends meet? With all due respect to the reports from the media induced national bonfire last night, it was a display of one specific tribe, and we should keep that in mind.
We must admit the truth – this protest, from its very beginning to the rally last night, was created by the media of this same tribe. It’s the project of the century for Israel’s largest public relations agency, with numerous news items and headlines that present a consistent picture. When Israel’s media outlets carry the uniform message that “the protest is spreading,” the protest spreads, regardless of whether this is good or bad.
No room for questions
The masses who hit the streets last night were intoxicated by the sweaty media embrace from Rothschild Boulevard and by the fact that everyone is seemingly backing them – the singers, artists and politicians. They hit the streets knowing that objection is impermissible. This is pleasant and heart-warming, yet the problem is that in a democratic state it may prompt the opposite process. This protest is seemingly so justified that it appears questions are no longer allowed. And with the abundance of historical significance here, it seems there is no room for discussing practical results.
The tents, the protests, the philosophical discussions and even the political fantasies constitute a celebration of democracy. The problem is that in these types of celebrations there are always some who get too intoxicated. The State of Israel should be grateful to and embrace the initiators, regardless of their political views. Personally, I hope that they will soon become volunteer activists, that they will enlist to the cause of making the Negev and Galilee flourish, and that they will enter politics, regardless of which side they choose.
Yet as an Israeli, I hope that they will soon understand that speaking on behalf of this people - even when the cause is just - is dangerous.
Yoaz Hendel
Israel Opinion
The tens of thousands of people who marched through the streets of Tel Aviv Saturday night constitute yet another show of force for the protest movement that emerged here out of nowhere.
Even an objector such as myself, who has no special sympathy for the hidden politics of the organizers, cannot deny the process they facilitated; the fact that they managed to bring indifferent Israelis out to the streets in an era of individualism; the fact they managed to stir discourse about justice and society; and mostly the fact that they prompted all of us to examine things in a different way. However, with all due respect to the achievements and numbers, a protest is measured by results and not by slogans. Despite the great desire and Shlomo Artzi’s music, it was not the “people” that hit Tel Aviv’s streets last night, but rather, only a particular tribe within the people.
The “people” wants “social justice” but is having trouble agreeing what that means. The middle class or the poor? Well-to-do young people who seek normal prices in order to make ends meet, or poverty-stricken Israelis who can’t even start to make ends meet? With all due respect to the reports from the media induced national bonfire last night, it was a display of one specific tribe, and we should keep that in mind.
We must admit the truth – this protest, from its very beginning to the rally last night, was created by the media of this same tribe. It’s the project of the century for Israel’s largest public relations agency, with numerous news items and headlines that present a consistent picture. When Israel’s media outlets carry the uniform message that “the protest is spreading,” the protest spreads, regardless of whether this is good or bad.
No room for questions
The masses who hit the streets last night were intoxicated by the sweaty media embrace from Rothschild Boulevard and by the fact that everyone is seemingly backing them – the singers, artists and politicians. They hit the streets knowing that objection is impermissible. This is pleasant and heart-warming, yet the problem is that in a democratic state it may prompt the opposite process. This protest is seemingly so justified that it appears questions are no longer allowed. And with the abundance of historical significance here, it seems there is no room for discussing practical results.
The tents, the protests, the philosophical discussions and even the political fantasies constitute a celebration of democracy. The problem is that in these types of celebrations there are always some who get too intoxicated. The State of Israel should be grateful to and embrace the initiators, regardless of their political views. Personally, I hope that they will soon become volunteer activists, that they will enlist to the cause of making the Negev and Galilee flourish, and that they will enter politics, regardless of which side they choose.
Yet as an Israeli, I hope that they will soon understand that speaking on behalf of this people - even when the cause is just - is dangerous.
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