July 2010 Archives
Saturday, July 31, 2010
A U.S. Marine Corps F-18 Hornet aircraft prepares to refuel over Afghanistan July 8, 2010. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Andy M. Kin/Released)
This is actually an excellent series of photos from The Big Picture that range from the cool to the poignant. I suggest checking out the whole thing.
[The following, by Charles Jacobs, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group, and Sasha Giller, the group's current director, also appears in this week's Jewish Advocate.]
Jews around the world are in a hot wrangle over a conversion bill in Israel's Knesset that raises the exquisitely contentious question of "who's a Jew?" According to the most-worried, if passed, the bill could give Orthodox rabbis power to nullify conversions performed by non-Orthodox rabbis outside Israel. I read today that the bill is being put off until October. Whew!
But there may be no respite from another challenge to Jewish identity, coming eerily in these same moments. In a June 26 speech delivered to a large gathering of his flock, entitled, "Who are the real children of Israel?" Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam compared himself to Moses and then declared that the prophetic children of Israel are not the Jews living in Israel, but the black men and women of America.
"Allah," said Farrakhan, revealed to "the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that the Black people of America are the real children of Israel. ...[S]omebody has taken the promise of God to the children of Israel and claimed it for themselves."
Farrakhan's "we're the true Jews" speech came two days after he sent a letter - along with two books - to 16 Jewish American leaders. The publications, issued by NOI's "Historical Research Department," are "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Volume Two" and "Jews Selling Blacks." Farrakhan called them "an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery..."
Continue reading "Farrakhan's Achilles' heel"[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Scene from the Book of Esther from the frescos of the Synagogue of Dura-Europa in Syria (mid-3rd Century CE)
The Arab world is busy denying its ancient Jewish history, but eagle-eyed tourists may stumble across some real gems. This exchange between two commenters is from a recent thread on Harry's Place:
Continue reading "The denial of Jewish heritage in the Arab world"This story of the National Jewish Democratic Council's attack on the Emergency Committee for Israel is a must-read. NJDC's David Harris first calls J Street "bi-partisan," then backs off that silly claim. The fact is they don't know what to do, since they can't exactly attack ECI for making Israel support a partisan issue when they've never said a thing about J Street. In fact, J Street is the highest profile partisan "pro-Israel" Jewish group we remember ever seeing. To compare them to ECI is unfair, since ECI is actually putting actual Israel support at the forefront of their decision making, while J Street is simply supporting Joe Sestak because he's on the left and willing to attack Israel from that ground.
[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]
If you take a look here you'll find a report by the Oxford Research Group about the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. The report opposes any such action on Israel's part but I, like you, knew that before reading it. It's well worth a read though, in spite of its adherence to the bien pensant received wisdom on the matter in question. There are, however, a couple of questions about it that I'd like to bring up:
1.
One of the main reasons it gives for advising against Israeli military action against Iran is that any such action would be unlikely to prevent the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by the state the late Ayatollah Montazeri described as neither Islamic nor a republic. Well, what sane person imagines that any series of military measures could put a permanent end to Iran's nuclear ambitions? Not even an invasion and occupation could do that. The real question is, what sort of damage and what degree of delay could an Israeli attack cause to Iran's nuclear facilities and plans and would such damage and delay be worth inflicting when balanced against the costs of the inevitable Iranian retaliation?
Continue reading "Attacking Iran: A New Report"[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Hearts will sink to learn, according to Israel National News, that the Palestinian leadership want a new state of Palestine in the West Bank to be as judenrein as the majority of other Arab states. How this policy will encourage peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews is anybody's guess:
If a Palestinian Authority state is created in Judea and Samaria, no Israeli citizen will be allowed to set foot inside, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said this week in a meeting with members of the Arab League. The PA chairman also stated that he would block any Jewish (he said Jewish, not Israeli - ed) soldiers from serving with an international force stationed on PA-controlled land.
"I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land," Abbas declared.
Abbas addressed the Arab League during a discussion over the possibility of holding direct negotiations with Israel. Like Abbas, Arab League members agreed to direct talks in theory, but only if a number of "measures and conditions" were met. De facto, both Abbas and the League nixed the talks, but the constant discussion of conditions is seen as an attempt to throw the ball back into Israel's court after PM Netanyahu, in Washington recently, succeeded in putting the onus for agreeing to talks on Abbas.
[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]
Shouldn't this farce teach us a lesson? The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United States and others have telephoned Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas and begged him, pleaded with him:
Oh, please please--one can imagine them saying--negotiate with Israel so we can give you a state as soon as possible. We will give you a lot of gifts if you do it, so we can then bestow even more goodies on you!
And Abbas says "No!"
Why? Why if Palestinians are so eager for a two-state solution, for a country of their own, for ending the "horrible" "occupation" (which mostly ended in 1994-1996), putting a stop to the "suffering" of their people, putting a stop to violence, enabling their children to go to school, raising living standards, and all the other benefits of putting an end to this long-standing conflict?
Why? Why? If it is Israel that is blocking peace is Israel's government ready to negotiate--and has been for more than a year--while the PA says no?
Because it is precisely the PA, and Hamas of course, that is sustaining the conflict. It refuses to make peace because:
Continue reading "The Palestinian Authority Struggles to Sabotage Any Chance for Peace"[The following, by AKUS, is a crosspost from CiF Watch. How could this have slipped by me? The new editor at The Guardian's online sewer, Comment is Free, is none other than the co-author of My Name is Rachel Corrie. You cannot make this stuff up. -MS]
In April, Israeli Nurse wrote of the impending changes at the Guardian, following the departure of Georgina Henry to the "Culture" section of the Guardian, which apparently was in need of extra clicks that can only be ensured by posting the anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian articles that are so successful in bringing out the Israel-bashers on CiF's Middle East section.
Although Georgina Henry was a hard act to follow for sheer malice and double-talk, the Guardian appears to have scored a home-run with the idea of bringing in a feminist Jewish editor to replace Georgina - Katharina Viner (see also 'She never hated men' - "But the death at the age of 58 of 'the most maligned feminist on the planet' has deprived feminism of its last truly challenging voice, says Katharine Viner").
We now have a female as-a-Jew leading the charge for endless articles intended to delegitimize and denigrate Israel. Viner sees herself as the torchbearer for Rachel Corrie, the American inadvertently killed as she tried to protect an arms-smuggling tunnel with her body in Gaza.
Viner has quickly equipped herself with a stable of equally biased, fringe female Jewish contributors. There is the deplorably uninformed Mizrachi Shabi. Viner introduced us to new face on the block (see the parrot on Viner's shoulder), Florida native Guarnieri,("a Tel Aviv based journalist"), an ultra-leftist new arrival in Israel thoroughly disgraced in her CiF debut by chortling CiFers when she revealed a total lack of understanding of the issue of global foreign worker regulations - and Israel's adherence to widely accepted policies. A US native, and now, apparently, Israeli immigrant taking advantage of the right-of-return to condemn her new country, as-a-Jew Guernieri performed the remarkable feat of avoiding any mention of what is happening to Mexicans back home in Arizona in her eagerness to condemn Israel for proposing to implement the same rules applied across the Western world.
Continue reading "Katharine Viner nails her colors to the mast (head)"
You know I don't even know what to say about this? Arab American museum raising funds for Helen Thomas sculpture
At least the statue won't be able to talk.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Perfect title for this matter from Fresno Zionism. I suggest reading Vic's post in full.
This is the story of Emily Henochowicz, a young American college student who, you guessed it, went to Israel to a demonstration and was badly injured, losing an eye. I first read her story in the NYT: Student Injury at Protest Leads to Battle in Israel. The article makes her sound like a middle of the road kid, not in any way an anti-Israel operative, 'she feels a certain affinity with both sides. She said she had wanted to help the Palestinians, but because of her background, she said she also felt "very attached" to Israel "in lots of ways."' In fact, she hooked up with the ISM:
After her arrival in Israel, Ms. Henochowicz, who came to Jerusalem's Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, got involved with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement after meeting activists at a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah, an East Jerusalem neighborhood where settlers have won court cases and evicted several Palestinian families from their homes.
From Sheikh Jarrah, Ms. Henochowicz frequented the regular Palestinian protest spots in the West Bank like Bilin, Nilin and Nabi Saleh...
Frankly, that's game set match for the Israeli authorities, and the idea that the Israeli tax payer should pay for this girl's injuries is frankly rather perverse. Unless: The authorities acted criminally according to their own rules, in which case she should be compensated and the perpetrator punished, or they acted negligently according to their training, in which case blame could be apportioned.
Read Vic's post in full, but I have to bring you this bit:
...It's ironic that idealistic young people are being injured and even killed while being cynically used in support of anti-democratic, racist, misogynist -- and murderous - groups like Hamas.
It's time that Israel put a stop to it. Efforts to detect infiltration from ISM and similar groups should be stepped up. And foreign activists who can be shown to have participated in anti-Israel activities should be rounded up and summarily deported.
Here is a video (h/t: Daled Amos) made by Ms. Henochowicz that is... indescribable. But I think it provides a window into the mindset that gives rise to tragedies like hers.
This is really brutally pathetic stuff. Indescribable is right. A young artist, an introspective (narcissistic?) girl who comes off borderline non compos mentis on video...She lost her eye for this little game. Personally, the more I think about it, the more frightening this video becomes.
Good video going viral that shows what the BDS movement is, and what it is not. Hint: It's NOT about the "occupation."
[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Karmel Melamed, then a toddler, with his father, before their departure from Iran
It was the cruel execution of their relative Ebi, a young man of 30, which caused Karmel Melamed and his family to flee Iran. Without personal experience of the random brutality of the Ayatollahs' regime, the Melameds might still be living in Iran today. Writing in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles Karmel Melamed movingly recalls that terrible time 30 years ago:
"I will never forget when I first saw his body -- they shot him with one bullet at point-blank range in his heart," my father, George Melamed, shared with me a few weeks ago, reflecting on his friend -- and brother-in-law's brother -- Ebrahim (Ebi) Berookhim, who was executed in an Iranian prison on July 31, 1980, at the age of 30. For the past 30 years, my father has rarely spoken of this young Jewish man's killing and the circumstances that propelled our family's abrupt flight from Iran. During these past three decades, he's tried to forget how Ebi was unjustly accused of being an Israeli and American spy, then ruthlessly murdered by Iran's radical Islamic regime.
"Yet as Ebi's 30th yahrzeit approached this month, my parents, our relatives and some local Iranian Jews who knew this successful young Jewish businessman finally opened up to me about this tragedy that completely transformed all of our lives.
"With news of the Iranian government's pursuit of nuclear weapons continually filling today's airwaves, the story of Ebi's killing serves as a stark reminder to us all of the continuing brutality and illogical nature of the ayatollahs' regime in Iran. The Iranian government's inhumane practice of random arrests and imprisonment of innocent individuals continues to this day: On July 31, 2009, the same date that Ebi died but 29 years later, three American hikers were randomly taken hostage in Iran for mistakenly crossing a border; they remain unfairly imprisoned. Last year, Roxana Saberi, an Iranian American journalist based in Tehran, was arrested on false charges of espionage -- she was one of the lucky ones; after immense pressure from abroad, the Iranian authorities released her.
"Ebi, my relative, wasn't so lucky. And the pain of losing him continues to haunt our family three decades later."
The editor explains: The Plight of Afghan Women: A Disturbing Picture
Our cover image this week is powerful, shocking and disturbing. It is a portrait of Aisha, a shy 18-year-old Afghan woman who was sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws. Aisha posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan, many of whom have flourished in the past few years. Her picture is accompanied by a powerful story by our own Aryn Baker on how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban -- and how they fear a Taliban revival...[More.]
American intervention didn't cut that woman's nose off. Western imperialism didn't cut that woman's nose off. The people who cut her nose off don't give a damn about Gaza.
Whether we should stay in Afghanistan or not depends on a number of factors, but stay or go never forget this is what is out there and it can't be ignored or wished away. We're over there because we tried to ignore it and they came over here to try to cut our noses off.
Via Daniel Halper: Taliban Brutality and Sissy: TIME magazine ends debate on the war in Afghanistan?
I'm glad to see Israeli officials taking it on themselves to get their own explaining done: The Flotilla Farce - Whether they are from Turkey, Ireland or Cyprus, those that participate reek of hypocrisy.
...Today, there are more than 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon who are deprived of their most basic rights. The Lebanese government has a list of tens of professions that a Palestinian is forbidden from being engaged in, including professions such as medicine, law and engineering. Palestinians are forbidden from owning property and need a special permit to leave their towns. Unlike all other foreign nationals in Lebanon, they are denied access to the health-care system. According to Amnesty international, the Palestinians in Lebanon suffer from "discrimination and marginalization" and are treated like "second class citizens" and "denied their full range of human rights."
Amnesty also states that most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have little choice but to live in overcrowded and deteriorating camps and informal gatherings that lack basic infrastructure.
In view of the worsening plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon, it is the height of irony that a Lebanese flotilla is organizing to leave the port of Tripoli in the next few days to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza. According to one of the organizers, the participants are "united by a feeling of stark injustice."
This attitude exposes the dishonesty of the whole flotilla exercise. Whether it is from Turkey, Ireland or Cyprus, those that participate in these flotillas reek of hypocrisy. There are currently 100 armed conflicts and dozens of territorial disputes around the world. There have been millions of people killed and hundreds of millions live in abject poverty without access to basic staples. And yet hundreds of high-minded "humanitarian activists" are spending millions of dollars to reach Gaza and hand money to Hamas that will never reach the innocent civilians of Gaza.
This is the same Gaza that just opened a sparkling new shopping mall that would not look out of place in any capital in Europe. Gaza, where a new Olympic-sized swimming pool was recently inaugurated and five-star hotels and restaurants offer luxurious fare.
Markets brimming with all manner of foods dot the landscape of Gaza, where Lauren Booth, journalist and "human rights activist," was pictured buying chocolate and luxurious items from a well-stocked supermarket before stating with a straight face that the "situation in Gaza is a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur."...
Speaking of life in Gaza, Dave has a series of posts exposing the reality there. See here, here, here, here, and here.
But it's not all really about helping anyone, is it? It's about destruction. Purely.
Sounds like a good charity, and some really good prizes, so why not? Apologies to all for the off topic, and now back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Lee Smith has a must-read follow up to last week's column, Mainstreaming Hate, as, responding to his critics without naming them -- critics who cried for more evidence (a sure fire sign they either haven't been following along or aren't be honest) -- Lee presents an expanded work, complete with links and even a "Jew-baiter's lexicon" for good measure. This is really well done material full of zingers delivered with subtlety and so hard to excerpt. I give you a taste to start with, or you can just skip over and read the whole thing: Playing With Fire - When the comments field turns ugly, who should be held accountable? Plus: A Jew-baiter's lexicon.
...After I contacted Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief Susan Glasser for comment before publication of last week's column, FP.com quickly excised dozens of the most egregiously anti-Semitic comments that stuck to Walt's posts. Perhaps they should have also vetted some of the links that Walt himself embeds for the edification of his readers. Consider this recent post where Walt has inserted a link under the name Ariel Sharon, which leads to a 2002 article on the Media Monitors Network website:
The name Safire, as in William Safire of the New York Times, is a name they recognize well at the State Department. He is one of the high priests of Sulzberger's New York Times empire which has a franchise to dictate terms to the State Department. Of course, it is Safire himself who appears to be taking in dictation work these days from his old pal, Ariel Sharon. Before you read on, note that the Boston Globe is also a publication owned by Sulzberger. Is their a civil war breaking out among the Yiddish Supremacists? Or is Sulzberger trying to deflect some of the damage that is bound to come his way as a result of transforming his media empire into just another corner of the Israeli Lobby? Who cares? Let Sulzberger explain his shadow government's antics.
With this link Walt shows that he hangs out in the same fetid places as some of his most paranoid commenters. And yet it is true, as some of my critics, including Walt, contend, that he and his colleagues are not responsible for the views of their readers. Walt is not accountable for the rabble that hang on his every word and who feel vindicated by the fact that their dark fantasies about Jews are enhanced by a veneer of academic reasoning from a Harvard professor. Nor can Walt be blamed for the fact that David Duke lauded his work on the Israel lobby's machinations in pushing the United States to war in Iraq. ("It is quite satisfying," wrote the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, "to see a body in the premier American University essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making since even before the war even started.") Even though a sewer follows Walt wherever he goes, he is not that sewer's keeper.
I did not feel the need to make the case that Walt himself is an anti-Semite. There are plenty of credible voices who have pursued that line of argument. They have made a case that the book he co-authored with John Mearsheimer, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, was an anti-Semitic tract. Still others equally credible believe that Walt simply flirts with anti-Semitism. Andrew Sullivan has also been called to account, more than once, for combining his strident, conspiratorial denunciations of Israel, "Jewish neocons," and "the Israel Lobby," with his pronounced obsession with circumcision. Even as Glenn Greenwald and Phillip Weiss have both been accused of obscuring the plain facts behind their frothing rhetoric about Israel, I never claimed that they were of the hothouse flower variety of anti-Semite known as the self-hating Jew.
Whether or not these bloggers are anti-Semitic is precisely the argument Walt and the rest want to have and precisely the one I do not. Anti-Semitism is an idea held in the mind that finally can only be confirmed--and can always be denied--by the mind holding it. I can no more discern what these bloggers really think about Jews than I can know whether they are thinking about the color blue or green. To get bogged down in this argument deflects attention from the issue that I am interested in here, which is not a mental state, but a process, an activity in which all four men openly engage: Jew-baiting...
A very useful distinction methinks.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) leads a mass formation of ships from South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, France, Canada, Australia and the United States through the Pacific Ocean July 24, 2010, during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010. RIMPAC is the world's largest international maritime exercise and is designed to increase mutual cooperation and enhance the tactical capabilities of participating nations in various aspects of maritime operations at sea. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Scott Taylor, U.S. Navy/Released
A little heavy handed? Perhaps. But you gotta love that Horowitz goes straight for the heart. He does nothing by halves. And I just love the fact that he ran this thing on Olbermann's show:
Via: The Other McCain: David Horowitz Runs Pro-Israel Ad on Olbermann Show; Kos Kids Freak Out]
A pair of videos from the indispensable MEMRI demonstrate yet another reason that Gaza ought to simply be incorporated into Egypt: They share a common culture: Jew hatred. (Video at the links.)
Following are excerpts from a Gaza Friday sermon, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 16, 2010:
Preacher: Dearly beloved, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is subjected to a vicious campaign of Judaization and defilement, at the hands of the filthiest creatures made by Allah - the Jews...
Today, we see the brothers of apes and pigs destroying homes with their occupants still in them, uprooting trees from their land, and killing women, children, and the elderly...
A levy of blood will be paid for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Our people will never relinquish the Al-Aqsa Mosque or Palestine. We will redeem it with our souls, with our blood, with our sons, with what is most dear to us - regardless of the sacrifices we will have to make - until it is liberated, with the grace of Allah, and until this holy land is purified from the filth of the Jews...
Brothers in faith, the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains under oppressive occupation. The Jews continue to defile it with their filth. The only way to liberate it is through Jihad for the sake of Allah...
Jihad today is an individual duty, incumbent upon each and every Muslim man and woman. According to the Islamic legal principle, when an enemy invades a Muslim country, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim man and woman. A son should set out on Jihad even without the permission of his father, a wife should set out even without the permission of her husband, and a slave should set out even without the permission of his master.
Egyptian Cleric Hussam Fawzi Jabar: Hitler Was Right to Do What He Did to the Jews
Following are excerpts from a religious program hosted by Egyptian cleric Hussam Fawzi Jabar, which aired on Al-Nas TV on July 11, 2010:
Hussam Fawzi Jabar: This is the nature of the Jews. By nature, they abhor keeping their commitments. By nature, they hate peace. By nature, they love treachery, betrayal, deception, killing, and blood. This is their nature...
It is very sad to see some of our own people, who speak our own tongue, try to convince their peoples that the Jews are peace-loving, that a solution to the satisfaction of both parties can be reached with them. I say that whoever says this and tries to convince others should either deny what is said in the Koran and the Sunna, and accept what the Jews say as truth, or else deny what the Jews say and accept what is said in the Koran and the Sunna. There is no third alternative...
One of the most amazing things I have read is that Hitler said: "I could have annihilated all the Jews of the world, but I left some of them, so that you would understand why I did this to them." Hitler was right to say what he said and to do what he did to the Jews...
Just another nit of chipping away at society's respect for the federal government and the law. Good analysis at Legal Insurrection: Arizona Law Upheld In Part - Order and Analysis Here (Update: Strikes Most Key Provisions), and Helplessness and Anarchy
...States have been left helpless to deal with the anarchy created by the failure of the federal government to enforce border security. Whereas yesterday it was unclear how far states (such as Rhode Island) could go, today states are powerless.
The inability of a state to implement a policy of checking the immigration status even of people already under arrest for some other crime is remarkable.
While I cannot blame the Judge for striking some provisions of S.B. 1070 (particularly those creating independent criminal sanctions), the ruling as to checking the status of people already under arrest is mind-numbing.
As a reader to my prior post points out, states already routinely run searches for a variety of statuses, including outstanding warrants, child support orders, and non-immigration identity checks. Each of these checks potentially could delay release of an innocent person or burden some federal agency.
The Judge's reasoning, particularly that the status check provision violated the 4th Amendment even as to persons already under arrest, applies just as easily to these other status checks.
With a federal government which refuses to take action at the border until there is a deal on "comprehensive" immigration reform, meaning rewarding lawbreakers with a path to citizenship, this decision will insure a sense of anarchy. The law breakers have been emboldened today, for sure.
As it stands this afternoon, it is perfectly rational for someone faced with the choice of obeying the immigration laws or not, to choose not to do so. The choice of lawlessness makes a lot more sense than spending years winding through the byzantine legal immigration system, because the end result will be the same but lawlessness gets you here more quickly.
When the law and the federal government reward lawlessness, something is very wrong.
Also, Mark Levin: An Abominable Decision
...I think the word "abomination" does not overstate this court's decision.
Yeah, yeah, he didn't mean it. Look, the guy was free of Zionist domination talking to a European news outlet and figured he could let it flow without fear of Judeo-retribution (clearly he's seen Inglourious Basterds). He never counted on the fact that we also own the internet. Let's check out Norm again:
According to Brooks Barnes at the New York Times, Stone released this statement yesterday afternoon, in apology for his remarks to the Sunday Times:
In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity - and it was an atrocity.
Well, an apology is an apology and it would be churlish not to accept that he means it. A question remains, all the same, about how it is that Stone could come to make the mental associations he now regrets having made: between public interest in the Holocaust and Jewish domination of the media; between the Jewish tragedy in Europe and the far greater damage he said was done by Hitler to the Russians. It's good that Stone should be sorry for what he said. It will be even better if he's not only sorry but also understands how he came to say it.
Also, Jeffrey Goldberg: Oliver Silverstein Apologizes
And: ADL Says Oliver Stone's Apology 'Insufficient'
Update: A report from an interesting new news site:
Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com
And Yourish has it right: Oliver Stone, paving the way to mainstreaming anti-Semitism
I don't know. It's just what I thought of...
Rep. Barney Frank causes scene demanding discount
Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank caused a scene when he demanded a $1 senior discount on his ferry fare to Fire Island's popular gay haunt, The Pines, last Friday. Frank was turned down by ticket clerks at the dock in Sayville because he didn't have the required Suffolk County Senior Citizens ID. A witness reports, "Frank made such a drama over the senior rate that I contemplated offering him the dollar to cool down the situation." Frank made news last year when he was spotted looking uncomfortable around a bevy of topless, well-built men at the Pines Annual Ascension Beach Party. Frank's spokesperson confirmed to Page Six that his partner, James Ready, asked the ticket office for a regular ticket for himself and a senior ticket for Frank, "but was turned down because Frank didn't have a resident ID."
Barney has two good potential opponents: Sean Bielat and Earl Sholley.
Will these European politicians never stop sucking up and tell the truth? (Don't answer that one, either.) In case you've been stuck in a closet, the UK's PM David Cameron went a pandering to the Islamist government in Turkey, not only saying some silly things about Tueky, Islam and the EU, but saying some rather wicked things about Israel, the Gaza Flotilla, and...well, here's the straight news piece: 'Gaza cannot remain a prison camp'
This is, by the way, the dominant nature of the British critique of Israel. It all boils down to questions and assertions that have little more substance than "When did you stop beating your wife?" It's assertion after assertion based on little fact and tremendous quantities of overblown rhetoric repeated ad nauseum for which there is no answer or solution as the premises are so batshit crazy they brook no rational response.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has used a visit to Turkey to equate Gaza to a "prison camp" and condemn Israel for its response to the Gaza flotilla incident.
Speaking during his first visit to Turkey as prime minister, in which he is calling for Turkey's inclusion into the European Union, Cameron insisted that Israel's inquiry had to be swift, transparent and rigorous.
"The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable and I have told Prime Minister Netanyahu, we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous.
"Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp," he told the Turkish parliament on Tuesday...
Cameron's absurdity has engendered a great deal of unfriendly notice I'm happy to say. Here are a number of links:
Robin Shepherd: New UK Premier David Cameron employs extreme rhetoric against Israel
Barry Rubin: In Speech to Turkey, PM David Cameron Goes Full Idiot
Melanie Phillips: Weep for Britain: 1940 this is not
Legal Insurrection: I Apologize Profusely
Gateway: British PM Cameron: Gaza a "Prison Camp"
Jonathan Hoffman: Wham Bam Cam Slammed!
Related, I guess, and interesting: Turkey working to prevent Lebanese sail to Gaza
Boy am I behind. Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday and into today? Miss me? (Don't answer.) You won't mind if the next few entries are more link than comment, OK?
Hot on the heels of the release of the video of his debate with the Muslim American Society/Islamic Society of Boston's M. Bilal Kaleel, M. Zuhdi Jasser comes out with this excellent piece at Daily Caller concerning the MAS, the ISB, and taking the defending our own Charles Jacobs from his Rabbinical critics: Time to take sides
...From the inside, many if not most of our mosques in American Islam are suffering deeply from the unopposed hegemony of Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and toxic foreign petrodollar interests. For exposing this 'tough love,' reformists often pay a heavy price. This is not "fear-mongering." It is reality.
Governor Deval Patrick, Rabbi Gurvis, and other leaders should not elevate Islamists like Imam Abdullah Faaruuq and his team. By doing so, they make reformists irrelevant and kill any hope for a battle of ideas.
Make no mistake. I encourage Boston leaders to engage Muslim communities. But, engagement should be critical of any Islamist origins and goals. If the Governor and a coalition of rabbis do not have the courage to take on the ideas and foreign entanglements of Islamists, who will? If they cannot recognize that American Muslims are far more diverse than the MAS and ISBCC care to portray, who will?...
Monday, July 26, 2010
Credit to the radio caller I heard on my drive home for that title.
Taxes for thee, but not for me...Sen. John Kerry skips town on sails tax
Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I.
Isabel - Kerry's luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage - was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.
But instead of berthing the vessel in Nantucket, where the senator summers with the missus, Teresa Heinz, Isabel's hailing port is listed as "Newport" on her stern.
Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven - like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau - for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners?
Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000...
"We, are the makers of taxes, Teresa." - a revised Henry V
Don't miss the bigger point: The super rich never care about raising taxes because they have a million and one ways of avoiding them. In fact, supporting increased taxes provides them with a chance to strike a self-righteous pose and make it look like they're willing to sacrifice like the rest of us when the truth is that they know they'll never have to pony up.
Kerry, confronted [link via Sister Toldjah]:
...There's nothing more to say about it. I have said-- wait a minute, let's get this very straight, I've said consistently we will pay our taxes, we have always paid our taxes. It's not an issue. Period. We've always paid our taxes; we'll pay our taxes...
Beside the point. The greater point is not whether there's anything illegal going on (though it would be pretty sweet if there were), it's just whether Kerry is will to put his wife's wallet where his votes are:
...When asked "Did you berth the boat in Massachusetts?" he replied, "That depends on who owns it."
Then, he said to his driver, "Can I get out of here please?"
From Free Tarek Mehanna:
He planned on shooting up a Massachusetts shopping mall, but he couldn't get automatic weapons. He planned on training for terrorism in Yemen, but the terrorists wouldn't let him play their reindeer games. Worry not, however, the United States prison system will be happy to accept his application.
The NEFA foundation has just released a concise backgrounder on the case: (Target: America) "The Boston Cluster and Extended Connections: Case Study on Homegrown Radicalization" [PDF]
The NEFA Foundation has released the 26th report in the "Target: America" series; a PowerPoint presentation on a cluster of men originally from the Boston area and their associates. Members of this cluster sought to join Al-Qaida forces overseas to kill Americans and also contemplated an attack in a shopping center in the United States. Several participated in jihad by circulating jihadist propaganda to other Americans.
This case study provides insight into how U.S. citizens who sympathize with terrorists make connections with like-minded people on the internet, and through school and community activities. This case also provides insight into how American citizens arrange to access terrorist training camps overseas.
The brief invokes Mehanna, Ahmad Abou-Samra, Daniel Maldonado, now deported Imam Masood, the Islamic Center of New England, and the Muslim American Society (MAS).
As always, good background is also available at the Americans for Peace and Tolerance web site.
Two U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C Hornet aircraft assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 312 fly in formation after taking on fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft assigned to the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron over Afghanistan July 8, 2010. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Andy M. Kin, U.S. Air Force/Released)
My first reaction on reading down the list of things supposedly exposed was, "Huh? That's it?" I mean, didn't we already know all this already? But leave it to the press to try to sensationalize things in an attempt to undermine a war effort. (That the original leaker should be found and hung prosecuted to the full extent of the law is another issue altogether.) Max Boot seems to agree: Wikileaks, Insignificant
The Pentagon Papers they're not. The New York Times and the Guardian, among others, are touting the massive leak of 92,000 classified documents relating to the Afghanistan War, which was unearthed by the Wikileaks website. What bombshells do these secret memos contain? Pretty much none, if you are an even marginally attentive follower of the news.
In fact, the only new thing I learned from the documents was that the Taliban have attacked coalition aircraft with heat-seeking missiles. That is interesting to learn but not necessarily terribly alarming because, even with such missiles, the insurgents have not managed to take down many aircraft -- certainly nothing like the toll that Stingers took on the Red Army in the 1980s...
Read the rest.
Also, Barry Rubin: Devastating Secret Documents on Afghan War: Tell Us What We Already Know
Daniel Halper has some interesting graphics from the New York TImes comparing the costs, in dollars, then in percentage of GDP, that are quite interesting: Cost of War.
The Times says "The Current Conflicts Are the Second- Most Expensive..." but that's not really the full truth:
The Times's headline ("The Current Conflicts Are the Second- Most Expensive...") doesn't capture all the information here. As the accompanying article states, "$1.1 million per man or woman in uniform in Afghanistan versus an adjusted $67,000 per year for troops in World War II and $132,000 in Vietnam."
For this high cost, the Times blames technology and "the price of maintaining a better-trained and higher-paid force," but it's also an indication of something else: The military is an all-volunteer force.
But the real story is in the chart, not the accompanying article. The actual cost of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is extraordinarily low, when seen as a percentage of GDP. Whereas World War II constituted 35.8 percent of GDP spending, and whereas World War I made up 13.6 percent of GDP spending, the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (or what the Times calls "Afghanistan/Iraq/post-9/11) made up only 1.2 percent of GDP in 2008. The chart helpfully compares this to other wars: It falls in between the Mexican War (1847) and the Spanish-American War (1899).
Now, in these comparative terms, it seems that spending for these wars is not nearly high enough, considering the enormous consequences of defeat in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]
Though Deputy Alcira Argumedo is not a member of the governing party, today's Pagina/12, the Izvestia of the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, generously donates space to her in today's edition of the paper. Deputy Argumedo is superficially concerned with the current spat between Venezuela and Colombia but what's really on her mind is something else; the Jews.
The Deputy starts like this:
In order to interpret the gravity of the conflict between Venezuela and Colombia about the possible presence of FARC guerrillas (sic) in Venezuelan territory it's necessary to broaden our focus to the wider region, and to the Middle East, bearing in mind the alliance between the government of the United States - a power in rapid decline - and the rightist Israeli government, which has as its objective the recovery of their predominance in both zones.
Okay, let me see, the government of Israeli wants to regain its predominance in the northern part of Latin America. It once had such predominance? That's news to me. Never mind, maybe I'm reading too uncharitably, maybe she means the USA wants to regain its predominance in the northern part of Latin America and the Israelis want to become top dogs in their region again and that's why the supposed alliance exists. Okay, but even assuming Israel isn't already cock of the walk in the Middle East, a faith held to be true by all decent Guardian and Pagina/12 readers, how would it recover that status by meddling in the almost war between Colombia and Venezuela. The Deputy doesn't say.
She goes on:
Continue reading "It's The Jews! Another Comforting Signal to Iran From Buenos Aires"Sunday, July 25, 2010
Another excellent video from the folks at FreeMiddleEast:
This money is more than just unaccounted for, it exacerbates the problem, encourages corruption and stagnation and, being fungible, subsidizes a culture of terror and hatred. How much faster would Palestinian civil society have gotten around to state and infrastructure building without our "help?"
Dare I use the "AS" word? This via Harry's Place (with commentary worth clicking through to), Norm Geras brings us news of the views of Oliver Stone from behind the UK Times pay wall. With apologies to Norm, like Harry's I'm lifting Norm's post in full: Stone for a brain
There's an interview with Oliver Stone in today's Sunday Times, and therefore behind the paywall. Those of you without a sub will just have to take my word for it that he comes across as a not very likeable sort of chap; and my impression is that this is also the impression of his interviewer Camilla Long, although I may be wrong about that. Oliver Stone doesn't seem like a man I would want to count among my friends.
Despite this, I will put such personal impressions and inclinations to one side, and try to judge him in a detached way on the basis of his quoted words. And on this basis I would say that his opinions are contemptible and brutish. Here are just two or three of them:
He describes America's attitude to Iran as "horrible". "Iran isn't necessarily the good guy" - his incongruously dark eyebrows shoot up - "but we don't know the full story!"
Ahhh, those hidden facts which might throw a different light on the repression of Iranian oppositionists, on the rapes and the tortures.
The 10-part documentary [which Stone is planning] will address Stalin and Hitler "in context", he says. "Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support."
He also seeks to put his atrocities in proportion: "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30m."
Why such a focus on the Holocaust then? "The Jewish domination of the media," he says. "There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years."
No one who has taken any close interest in the history of the Second World War could be unfamiliar with the extent of Russian suffering and death under German occupation. So 'more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people' is a purely apologetic trope, since at that level of human catastrophe the insistence on maintaining a sense of proportion about five to six million Jewish dead is a plain attempt to diminish. And what follows that is then standard anti-Semitism: the Jews control the media and they work hard at it; and this is what accounts for the focus on the Holocaust (rather than any features of the genocide itself).
As I said, and without regard to Stone's personal qualities: contemptible and brutish. (Thanks: DH.)
The bit about Iran was loathsome but unsurprising -- we know Stone is a fool, a leftist (again, with apologies both to Norm and to Harry's, both of whom -- which? -- consider themselves "of the left"), a conspiracy theorist and a moral reprobate -- I'm just not sure I was aware of the depths he was plumbing. I think that the most disturbing part is not what it says about Stone, an individual, but what it exposes about the truth of a certain growing sector of the left that now feels sufficiently confident to speak in this way without shame or discomfort.
[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]
El País today runs yet another of its habitual anti-Israel opinion pieces. Today's example of the genre is by Javier Valenzuela, who says that:
In the 1948 Israel was founded in more than three quarters of what had been that [British] mandate...
If you ignore the fact that in 1922 the British divided the territory under their control into two and gifted by far the larger part to the Hashemite family and that Israel accepted the UN partition plan of 1948 while the Palestinians and surrounding Arab states rejected it you may regard this as true.
... leaving 22% for the Arabs: East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
Note the use of the term "the Arabs". On the one hand Israel, a post-colonial nation state, on the other, "the Arabs", an inchoate mass of humanity. And this from a writer who would undoubtedly regard himself as a friend of the Palestinians. Note further what's elided here; the territories referred to fell into the hands of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and what was then the Kingdom and later became the Republic of Egypt. The complete absence of Palestinian sovereignty in these lands only came to be regarded as problematic once Israel conquered them.
Valenzuela goes on to describe the tears of joy the Oslo Accords caused him to cry and the sequence of events that, as he sees it, led to their failure:
But then came the assassination of Rabin, the suicide attacks in Israel...
No mention of the fact that Rabin was succeeded by the even more dovish Peres and that his government was destroyed by mass civilian casualty attacks carried out by those he declines to name; the same Palestinians who had signed the Oslo Accords.
... the slaughter of Palestinians in Hebron...
I presume he's talking about the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein. However, that happened in February 1994 while Rabin was murdered in November 1995.
... Sharon's provocation...
I guess he's talking about his visit to the Temple Mount rather than his removal of Israel settlers from Gaza, an event mentioned nowhere in this text.
...the Second Intifada, the death of Arafat, the rise of Hamas, the radicalization in Israel, the splits and the parting in two of the Palestinian camp....
No consideration that there could have been any causal factors for the Second Intifada other than Sharon's ill-advised visit to the Temple Mount. The Palestinians couldn't have had their own reasons for it. There's is but to react, to lash out, Israel even (especially?) in the eyes of outspoken friends of the Palestinians is the only actor in the conflict possessed of real political subjectivity; no better example of this than the way the Palestinian split is described above; it just kind of happened, no one willed it, no one is to blame for not stopping it from happening nor for not repairing it once it had.
And so on and so forth. Valenzuela eventually gets round to endorsing a one state solution, the polite person's way of referring to the end of Jewish self-determination.
It's dull indeed to have to keep refuting spiteful drivel like this article but still, it's necessary too.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
I finally had a chance to watch the video of the entire event, as the Muslim American Society/Islamic Society of Boston's M. Bilal Kaleem took on M. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy at the Ford Hall Forum and I'm glad I did. Jasser is terrific and understands exactly what the problems are that need to be faced as Islam comes to America. Highly recommended. Here is the entire debate:
If you wish to watch at YouTube, click here to start with Part 1. Jasser begins his remarks in Part 5 if you want to skip right to that.
James Carroll is the moderator but don't let that deter you. He's fine here.
The debate is amicable enough, but Dr. Jasser doesn't hesitate to call out MAS's Kaleem on what he feels are their failings. Jasser gets to the heart of the matter, aiming his remarks as an internal criticism of Islam's issues, while Kaleem's remarks on the wonderful ecumenical truths of Islam would be better suited to a sermon in some of Islam's less enlightened places (the spots that really need the lessons in Islam's tolerant nature). In this situation and before this audience his remarks simply serve to avoid the issues -- issues Jasser goes to with razor efficiency. Considering Kaleem's organization, not Jasser's, just built the Northeast's biggest mosque, this is a little bit disturbing.
[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]
This is a remarkable story in human terms but there is an extremely important point for understanding the Middle East embedded in it as well.
On June 14, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a police car travelling on a road, en route from Beersheba to Jerusalem. One policeman, Yeheshua Sofer was killed. Two others were wounded. Sofer was due to be married in three months. It took a month but members of the cell were finally captured. They spoke quite freely about this attack and others they had planned for killing Israelis.
During the interrogation, one of the leaders remarked that only two weeks earlier his six-year-old daughter had been given a free operation in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to remove a tumor from her eye. The operation had been paid for by an Israeli organization.
Reading this, I recall a number of similar past instances. In one famous case, the Palestinian who later attacked Israel had been saved from injuries inflicted by another Palestinian in a quarrel. There have also been examples of terrorists playing on the sympathy of Israelis claiming they needed medical attention--especially in one bloody attack on the Gaza-Israel border--not to mention the use of women and children to smuggle weapons or even to carry out suicide attacks.
The Western reader--if he doesn't go in for some elaborate theory in which somehow Israel is still to blame--might see this and other such cases as examples of human ingratitude, the kind of thing often found in private life. There is also a psychiatric explanation: the person involved is in some way deranged, causing him to behave in an "illogical" manner.
Continue reading "The Terrorist Whose Daughter Was Cured"
. I've never actually gotten around to seeing the movie, but that album's a gem. Maybe it has to do with some early memories of hearing it play through the wall in my sister's room on her first stereo (which she sold not long after to my parents' chagrin). I still own it on vinyl. The Boney M business has brought it to mind again. Here's the whole album, in track order, excepting the final two tracks which are a replay of You Can Get It If You Really Want and a partially instrumental version of The Harder They Come. Some treasures here:
[The rest of the songs are below the fold.]
Continue reading "Saturday Sing-Along: The Harder They Come"[The following, by Dexter Van Zile, is crossposted from CAMERA's Snapshots.]
In the course of my work, I have become increasingly worried about the message offered by mainline Protestant churches (and some quarters of the Roman Catholic Church) about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not only is the narrative offered by these institutions distorted, it has a negative impact on the safety of Jews throughout the world.
My concerns, which are still coalescing, can currently be summarized as follows:
1. There is a continuum of anti-Israel rhetoric. One end of the continuum is marked by hate toward Israel and Jews rooted in deeply hostile beliefs about the nature of the Jewish people. The other end is marked by polite de-legitimization through an obsession with Israeli policies and silence about the behavior of its adversaries.
The hateful end of the continuum is occupied by anti-Israel extremists in the Middle East and their supporters in the West who portray Israel as a cancerous entity that prevents the Muslim and the Arab peoples in the region from reclaiming their rightful place in history. Under this logic, Israel must be destroyed. Jewish sovereignty is a bad thing because of the nature of the Jewish people.
This brand of anti-Zionism is largely fueled by Muslim teachings regarding the Jewish people and the land. Under these teachings, Jews are enemies of God and Islam who should be subject people. Muslim tradition also states that land previously governed by Muslim rulers should never be relinquished to non-Muslims.
Continue reading "Israel as the Ram in the Thicket"[The following, by Geary, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
Nobody's perfect and every country has its dirty linen; Israel is no exception. But even the most distracted visitor to CiF won't have failed to notice how the Guardian gets its rocks off by sniffing around - quite exceptionally - for Israel's. If it can't find any, it'll employ one of its crew of "As-a-Jews" to wash some in public (if you've ever thought, for instance, "What is the point of Seth Freedman?", now you know). But should you point out on CiF that many of Israel's sworn enemies never ever wash their smalls and that the stench cries out to heaven, you will - as sure as paint dries - be accused of whataboutery
We've recently been treated to the spectacle of one Mya Guarnieri (who?- quite) using Israel's immigration policy - a carbon copy of that of most European countries, even though Israel inhabits a rather more dangerous part of the world - as proof of the unique "inhumanity" of the country. Come again? I hear you say. We're talking about a region of the world where it's common practise to sequester migrant's passports, beat them, even keep them under lock and key, where expulsion without recourse is quite normal. But should you think to write this on CiF, you will be accused of whataboutery: "Don't come up with 'what about Saudi?' or 'what about Lebanon?' - it's Israel we're currently (as ever) dumping on".
Continue reading "Whataboutery? No, dear Reader. It's through-the-looking-glass mote-and-beamery"If George Bathurst-Norman is an anti-Semite, that's all very interesting, though I'm hardly comfortable reading about British officialdom investigating a colleague over remarks he made from the bench about Israel. Does it affect our thinking either way if they acquit him of the "charge?" We can read it for ourselves. More interesting to me is the question of just how it was that this man was brought out of retirement for the sole purpose of hearing this one case, and why it was, given his biases, that he heard the case at all. And was his summing up and conduct of the trial itself inappropriately prejudicial of the outcome? These strike me as the real questions. I can make the decision on whether he's a Jew hater on my own: Judge faces anti-Semitism probe after speech attacking Israel helps free arms factory protesters
A senior judge was under investigation yesterday after being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in court that may have swayed his jury into acquitting a group of protesters.
Judge George Bathurst-Norman was said by critics to have persuaded a jury to clear a group of campaigners who smashed up a factory making parts for Israeli warplanes.
Summing up in the criminal damage trial, he compared Israel to the Nazi regime and accused the country of ignoring international law.
The judge added that 'there may be much to be admired' about the chief protester, and that 'in the last war he would probably have received a George Medal'.
The Office for Judicial Complaints, which deals with objections over the conduct of judges and magistrates, confirmed that an inquiry into how Judge Bathurst-Norman handled the trial of five political activists at Hove Crown Court in June is under way.
Its findings will be considered by Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge and Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, who have the final say on any disciplinary action.
A number of complaints are said to have accused the judge not just of anti-Israel rhetoric but specifically of anti-Semitism.
The case involved a group of activists who broke into and vandalised a Brighton factory run by engineering firm EDO MBM.
The company was making parts for use in the bomb-aiming equipment on Israeli F16 warplanes.
The invasion shut the factory for a week and caused £187,000 worth of damage. But five men and women who appeared in court claimed they had done nothing wrong under criminal damage law.
The law says someone is not guilty of causing damage if they believed it was necessary for the immediate protection of someone else's property.
It is framed to protect, for example, someone who smashes a neighbour's door down if they believe their house is on fire...
Via The Flea:
Friday, July 23, 2010
The UN said Friday that organizations wishing to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip should do so by land and not attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the territory by sea with flotillas, AFP reported.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky made the statement at a press briefing amid reports that a flotilla of two vessels from Lebanon was planning to leave for Gaza on Friday or Saturday.
"Our stated preference has been and remains that aid should be delivered by established routes, particularly at a sensitive time in indirect proximity (peace) talks between Palestinians and Israelis," said Nesirky.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday that the planned Lebanese flotilla is an "unneccsary provocation" and Israel holds the Lebanese government responsible to prevent the ships from trying to sail to break the Israel-imposed sea blockade on Gaza.
The Israel Navy was on high alert on Friday amid predictions that a flotilla of two vessels from Lebanon were preparing to depart for the Gaza Strip in an effort to break the Israel-imposed sea blockade by the end of the week.
Barak said that if the cargo the ships were carrying was of a humanitarian nature it would be allowed into Gaza via the Ashdod Port and land crossings Israel controls into Gaza...
Some great storm photos at The Big Picture.
Well, if past experience is any indicator, this is positive, as these BDS people have a tendency to discredit anything they associate themselves with: Linking Palestine Solidarity to Arizona Boycott
Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace (PJJP) activists are taking lead from Palestinian-led organizations, such as US Palestinian Community Network and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, in connecting Palestine solidarity work to the support of communities in Arizona. It is becoming increasingly clear that the struggle against Arizona's recent xenophobic and racist legislation--SB 1070 and SB 2281--is fundamentally linked to the struggle for justice in Palestine.
We believe that groups working in solidarity with Palestine should move forward in this crucial time to show their support for the Arizona boycott, while at the same time supporting Palestinian and Arab organizations already working on issues of immigration, racial profiling and Islamophobia in the U.S. We believe that supporting the boycott of Arizona is linked to the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel because of the clear parallels in struggle. These include:*
- The use of legal and extra-legal racial profiling to inhibit and limit movement (Arizona's SB 1070)
- The silencing of indigenous history and voices (Arizona's SB 2281)
- The militarizing of immigration enforcement
- The use of border walls to regulate the movements of indigenous and immigrant people
- The fact that the Israeli company Elbit Systems built both the wall along U.S.-Mexico border and the Israeli apartheid wall
- The use of identification papers as a tool for policing and monitoring communities
- Widespread support to use boycott campaigns as a key tactic of resistance...
Take note Jewish Communal organizations: Jewish Community Condemns Arizona Law, Urges National Comprehensive Immigration Reform [PDF]
Oh the company we keep. I am looking at you in particular, Boston JCRC/Nancy Kaufman. When you get into issues you have no business being into, you risk being used by unsavory characters. Better to stay on mission, no?
Update: For more in the pointless gestures department, aka, "People who can't just focus on their own jobs", the Andover Teachers' Union is back in the news: Editorial: Teachers union weighs in on Arizona law
We're sure that residents of Arizona, fed up with federal inaction on illegal immigration, will be shaken to the core to learn that the teachers of Andover do not approve of their actions.
In a pointless, purely political gesture, the executive board of the Andover Education Association voted to disapprove of the Arizona law that permits police officers in that state to question those they stop about their immigration status. The board suggested that its 800 members boycott traveling to Arizona "until such time that the state stops racial profiling which may adversely impact members of this association," according to union President Tom Meyers.
Political gestures are a particular forte of the Andover teachers union, which several years ago supported a teacher's effort to indoctrinate students with pro-Palestinian propaganda on the Middle East, without an accompanying Israeli perspective...
That's right. And yes, that's Tommy "The Commie" Meyers, still up to his old tricks. This is the same man that aided and abetted Ron Francis in his efforts to bring a group of anti-Israel radicals into the Andover High School (who proceeded to collect emails from the students to be contacted later).
Fractured - This observation from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the floor of a large impact crater in the southern highlands, north of the giant Hellas impact basin. Most of the crater floor is dark, with abundant small ripples of wind-blown material. However, a pit in the floor of the crater has exposed light-toned, fractured rock. The light-toned material appears fractured at several different scales. These fractures, called joints, result from stresses on the rock after its formation. Joints are similar to faults, but have undergone virtually no displacement. With careful analysis, joints can provide insight into the forces that have affected a rock, and thus yielding clues into its geologic history. The fractures appear dark, which may be due to dark, wind-blown sand, precipitation of different minerals along the fracture, or both.
[The following, by Ben Cohen, is crossposted from Z Word.]
Over at the consistently excellent CST blog, Mark Gardner reports on a telling moment at the Palestine International Festival in Ramallah. When 70s disco icons Boney M got up to do their thing, organizers of the festival asked them not to perform their traditional floorfiller, a cover of The Melodians number, "By the Rivers of Babylon." Why? Because the song contains the words of Psalm 137: "Yea we wept/When we remembered Zion."
Mark writes:
Its not a sex thing or a sexism thing because "Bang Bang Lulu", "Baby do You Wanna Bump", "Gloria, Can you Waddle" and "Love for Sale" were ok.
Its not a colour thing or a nationalist thing, because "Brown Girl in the Ring", "White Christmas" and "Ra Ra Rasputin" were ok.
Its not a Christian or even a Voodoo thing, because "Mary's Boy Child", "Hark the Herald Angel" and "Voodoonight" were ok.
It's not an artistic merit thing, nor a flares thing, nor a...I could go on...but lets cut to the serious bit. It was a Jewish thing. Not a political thing, nor even an anti-Zionist thing, but a Jewish thing: or rather, an anti-Jewish thing.
It is one thing to demand a boycott of Israel, but it is quite another to demand a boycott of popular cultural references to the historical Jewish longing for Israel, or Zion.
Interestingly, the Jewish longing which Mark refers to, with its motifs of captivity, exile and redemption, has resonated powerfully with many black artists down the years. I have an extensive vinyl collection of classic roots and dub reggae albums from the 1970s; go through the track listings on any one of them and you are more than likely to find a song title containing the word "Zion." Sadly, this music is apparently now verboten for the Palestinians, courtesy of their culture guardians, who are obsessed with purging anything that might legitimize the Jewish connection to the land of Israel.
Here, then, is the original version of "By the Rivers of Babylon," by The Melodians. Enjoy.
[Martin Solomon adds: This here is my favorite version of the song, bar none.]
The truth takes time to research, while Goldstone's slipshod report have traveled around the world 100 times already:
A report entitled "Gaza Operations Investigation: Second Update" was presented by Israel to the UN this week. It is a response to accusations of "war crimes" raised by the Goldstone Report in the wake of the 22-day-long Operation Cast Lead, which began in December 2008.
Peruse the 40-page report. It is posted in English on the Foreign Ministry's Web site. Doing so will enhance your understanding of the ethical dilemmas faced by the State of Israel in its fight against terrorism. It will also boost your appreciation for the high moral standards of the IDF's rules of engagement.
The Al-Maqadmah mosque incident, mentioned in the report, is a case in point. On January 3, 2009, a number of Palestinian civilians were killed by an IDF missile that struck the entrance to the house of prayer in Beit Lahiya. Justice Richard Goldstone's "Report of the UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict" accused Israel of possible war crimes related to these deaths. After an exhaustive investigation, however, the IDF found that the missile strike had been directed at two terrorists observed firing Kassam rockets at Israeli cities in the South. The other casualties were both unintended and unforeseeable.
A number of factors combined to cause these unfortunate fatalities. There was a "ticking bomb" element...
Of course, because these matters are always more complicated than the average undergraduate seminar makes them out. Read the rest at the link.
The world is always moaning about the poor Palestinians, but when it comes time to pony up the dough...not so much: Hong Kong? Singapore? Don't hold your breath
Five years after Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Palestinians living there are still waiting for the housing projects and factories the international community promised them.
The areas where most of the settlements once stood have yet to be transformed into apartments and working places for thousands of unemployed Palestinians who used to work in the Jewish communities.
Promises that the Gaza Strip would be turned into the Middle East's Hong Kong or Singapore sound today like a joke to many Palestinians...
Oh and then there's this...disengagement 2:
...Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's new plan for a further disengagement, where Israel would stop supplying the Gaza Strip with water and electricity, has left both Hamas and the PA wondering about Israel's true intentions.
The Palestinians' biggest fear is that "disengagement 2" would solidify the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and make it permanent. They see the new plan as an Israeli attempt to create a separate Palestinian entity in the Gaza Strip that would be completely cut off from the West Bank.
"Israel wants to turn the Gaza Strip into a small Palestinian state," charged Hamas legislator Salah Bardaweel. "This is a dangerous plan because it's also designed to absolve Israel of its responsibilities as an occupation force."
As far as the PA is concerned, the first disengagement was a disaster because it boosted Hamas's popularity and paved the way for the movement's victory in the 2006 election and its subsequent violent takeover of the Gaza Strip.
For Hamas, "disengagement 2" is bad because it would further isolate the Islamist regime. Hamas is worried that a complete disengagement would prompt the international community to stop holding Israel responsible for the miseries of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. It's as if Hamas is saying, "Please Israel, stay here in one form or another because we need to hold you responsible; otherwise, the people will start asking us difficult questions."
Sounds like a plan!
[The following, by Matt, is crossposted from The Brothers of Judea.]
I made some comments on Mr. Krinsky's recent article that I thought might be worth sharing in this medium. If you haven't already read the article, use the link above to get the gist of it.:
Mr. Krinsky, there's ONE simple reason why leftists are anti-Israel: They have swallowed the Palestinian narrative whole.
Around the time of the 1980s, a shift occurred in Arab-Israeli relations. The Arabs changed their rhetoric from "rah, rah, rah, we're going to destroy the Zionist entity" to "Oh, the mean old Zionist entity is attacking us for no reason." They began to shift their role in the conflict from attacker and victimizer to victim. And no group did this more effectively than the Palestinians.
The left bought this line hook, line and sinker. They completely believe the idea that the Palestinians are innocent victims and Israel is the cruel aggressor. They are so invested in this worldview that any evidence that deviates from this narrative, such as historical facts like the Hebron Massacre and the Palestinian rejection of the 1948 plan or modern events like rejections of negotiations and suicide bombings, are either Zionist propaganda which couldn't possibly be true or completely justified because of Israel's behavior. You would think the left would have an open mind to all sources of information, but in this case they are willing to make an exception.
The entire system of leftist morality is built upon victim and victimizer. If you're on the left, you root for the victim, no questions asked. In the I/P conflict, there's no question who's the victim and who's the victimizer, the Palestinians are brown, poor, and less armed, the Israelis are strong and white. Done.
Something else the left does is they twist discussion of "the Israel Palestinian conflict" into "what's wrong with Israel". You'll see it on this thread soon enough if you haven't already. Instead of talking about what Israel and the Palestinians have done wrong and what Israel and the Palestinians have to do next, the discussion becomes exclusively about what Israel has done wrong and what Israel needs to change.
This is related to the "victim" box the Palestinians are placed in. Because they have the title of "victim", the Palestinians don't need to do anything for peace and everything they do is irrelevant. For example, Abbas refuses to directly negotiate and has been for the past few months. But instead of criticizing him for stopping the peace process dead in its tracks, the left has shifted to complaining about Gaza, the flotilla, and the construction in East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians are not expected to work for peace by the left (or by anyone really), so they don't. If peace hasn't happened yet, it's exclusively Israel's fault because only Israel is expected to do anything for peace.
Here's a perfect example:
Palestinians can and are criticized. However, Israel remains the aggressor and the occupier.
DING DING DING!
See, everyone? Saltzman pays lip service against the Palestinians, but reminds us that Israel is "THE aggressor" and "THE occupier". The players in this conflict are placed into their neat little boxes, and morality is allocated accordingly. Israel is wrong and the Palestinians are right. Why? Because Israel is the occupier. To the leftist mind, it's as simple as that.
That being said, I'm not sure how many on the left are truly anti-Semitic. I think they are willing to use anti-Semitic tropes thinly disguised as anti-Zionism, but they are so sure of their own a) morality and b) righteousness that they truly possibly believe that the statement,"The Jews control all the world's money" is anti-Semitic but the statement "AIPAC runs the White House" isn't. We see that on these boards all the time, someone will make a "merely anti-Zionist" comment, someone will call them out on it, and you'll get fifty posts complaining about "the anti-Semitism card".
The left may not be anti-Semites at heart, but they are more than willing to use anti-Semitic tropes and defend anti-Semites who just happen to be "on their side".
From killing Americans to staking out territory without so much as a "Sorry 'bout that." This will, apparently, allow them to say "no" from a higher diplomatic rank: PLO Mission in Washington permitted to fly Palestinian flag
...Although not fully fledged diplomatic recognition, this step raises the status of Palestinian representation in the United States to equal that of PLO representation in many European countries and Canada. In addition to the name change, the PLO office will now be able to fly the Palestinian flag, and new procedures will be in place to facilitate PLO employee's ability to perform their jobs...
U.S. upgrades diplomatic ties with Palestinians in bid to woo Abbas
...Prior to this decision, the PA mission in Washington was at a very low level from the point of view of protocol: Its diplomats did not have diplomatic immunity, and it was not even allowed to fly the PLO flag at the entrance to its offices.
Now, its diplomats will enjoy diplomatic immunity and its offices will be able to display the PLO flag...
They did ask the Israelis if they had any objections. They didn't. That can be viewed in two ways: Polite, or an attempt to pass the buck on responsibility.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
[The following is a lengthy report on an event held at Workmen's Circle, Boston on Tuesday evening, "The Gaza Blockade -- Is It Good for the Jews?" Workmen's Circle is the leftist "secular" Jewish organization which has crossed our path here multiple times before. I'm happy to note the discussion concerning Solomonia you will see below, most likely engendered by Hillel Stavis's postings here, for whom the expulsion of the Workmen's Circle from the mainstream Jewish Community (and the cutting off of any CJP funding) has been a particular interest. You'll begin to understand, if you don't already, why it is so outrageous for this group to get Jewish organizational funding as you read and also understand that Alice Rothchild -- a Workmen's Circle official -- is one Boston's most vile anti-Zionist activists.
This is written by Dov Shazeer, who attended the event.]
I attended the Workmen's Circle event entitled "The Gaza Blockade - Is it Good for the Jews".
There was a three person panel, each of whom were allotted 12 minutes for an initial presentation. The moderator stated that after the presentations and until 9:30pm there would be a period for questions and comments.
There were 40 - 50 people in attendance. The room was L-shaped, double wide in the front. There were about 15 rows.
All three panelists held official positions with Workmen's Circle. Alice Rothchild was introduced as an official of Workmen's Circle and an expert on Gaza. The other two, Mitchell Silver and Mike Felsen, were introduced as J Street members and officials.
I did not take notes. I had come to hear a view on Gaza which I expected to be different from mine and to find out about the Workmen's Circle offerings on Yiddish; since I speak Yiddish to two of my grandsons. I did not expect to hear what I did hear; I did not expect to be writing this. So here is a caveat. Where there are quotation marks I am paraphrasing to the best of my recollection. Also none of the panelists used the word "evil". I use the word "evil" to represent descriptive adjectives, nouns, phrases, and sentences which the panelists did utter which accused Israelis and Israel of the very worst actions.
ALICE ROTHCHILD PRESENTATION
It was a slide show of several dozen slides. There was a history which noted only Israeli evils; Israel invaded at this time and at that time, Israel destroyed this, Israel destroyed that. Israel used Gaza for cheap labor, Israel controls everything in Gaza. Many statistics and from every imaginable U.N. agency as well as "peace groups" about the terrible humanitarian situation. Many pictures and stories of people's suffering; she's been to Gaza and has seen it.
I don't believe she said the word Hamas once (I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure). Not a single mention of suicide bombings, not a single mention of rocket attacks. The 2nd or 3rd slide from the end was a graphic with a photo with perhaps a masked Palestinian; Alison (that's what they call her) said something like "there are militants in Gaza, but we need to present the other side as well, not just about militants". That was the shortest slide in her presentation; I estimate that it was shown for less than 5 seconds.
Alison stated several times that there are people in Gaza getting rich off of the tunnels and that this is somehow evil; I couldn't understand why it was evil but I assume she doesn't approve of capitalists.
One slide was a photo on which Alison commented that someone told her that Gaza was an "open air prison". Alison made a big deal that she disagreed with that statement. I expected her to say it was not as bad as all that. She said, and I paraphrase throughout because I did not take notes "in a prison, the guards at least have a responsibility to take care of the prisoners, the Israelis take no responsibility for their horrendous actions". Then she went on with her explanations that Israel is very, very evil.
Continue reading "Guest Report: Workmen's Circle Panel Discussion Event Summary"Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A U.S. Navy SEAL platoon hangs beneath an HH-60H Seahawk helicopter assigned to the "Red Wolves" of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 84 during a special patrol insertion/extraction (SPIE) demonstration at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek - Fort Story, Va., July 17, 2010. The demonstration is part of the 41st UDT/SEAL East Coast Reunion celebration, which is held to honor UDT/SEAL history, heritage and families. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Matt Daniels, U.S. Navy/Released)
Alan Dershowitz has published a blistering indictment of J Street's MacCarthyite tactics on The Hudson Institute's website. As we noted earlier, the latest J Street television/internet ad is designed to divide Americans and the American Jewish community by imputing sinister motives to liberal, Zionist voices like Dershowitz's.
Meanwhile, J Street's ongoing campaign to convince the Treasury Department to investigate Jewish American charities has produced the desired results: Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian writer and militant has published an article in Foreign Policy Magazine entitled, "Time to Crack Down on Settlement Funding." Munayyer is no stranger to hyperbole and outright falsehood. A frequent contributor to FP Magazine and The Guardian, he advocates the stealth, "one state" solution (i.e. the "no state" solution for Israel). Ergo, a perfect match for J Street.
Yousef Munayyer
Munayyer claims that
"Ever since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, the United States has held that the transfer of Israel's civilian population into those territories is illegal and contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention, an agreement that both Israel and the United States are party to."
Of course, the Reagan doctrine on settlements refutes his statement as do the policies of all Presidents since Reagan. From time to time, Presidents like George H.W. Bush considered expanding settlements "obstacles", but no President has gone so far as to pursue their "illegality" under the Geneva Convention. Moreover, the various agreements between Israel and the Palestinians - with the exception of the "Roadmap" which stipulates "settlement outposts" and "settlement freeze" - specifically do not include "settlement" language.
As to the legality of settlements, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has published the definitive analysis.
J Street's "Pro Israel" agenda strikes again.
[Crossposted from JStreetJive.]
[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Many academics have hitherto given a free pass to the Arab Middle East, dressing up its collaboration with the Nazis as pragmatic 'anti-colonialism'. But leftist and liberal conventional wisdom has been unravelling in the face of irrefutable evidence that Arab and Muslim Jew-hatred was, and remains, ideological. In this interview with Karl Pfeifer, first posted on Harry's Place, Professor Jeffrey Herf is convinced that a paradigm shift is taking place.
Continue reading "Historians run out of excuses for Arab-Nazi alliance"Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Every now and then, the real face of J Street reveals itself. When it's not functioning as Kapo, informing on fellow Jews to an openly hostile Obama administration, it almost comically persists in pushing its "Pro Israel" brand. This weekend the lies and facade melted away in Chicago. Hoping to shore up the sinking campaign of Jan Schakowsky, a "J Street Right or Wrong" Obamaton, Jeremy Ben Ami swung into the windy city. But he got more than he bargained for.
Joel Pollak Confronting Jeremy Ben Ami in Chicago
Joel Pollak, who hopes to replace Schakowsky in Illinois' 9th congressional district confronted Ben Ami and his recent campaign to convince the Treasury Department to investigate Jewish charities that contribute to groups beyond the Green Line in Israel. As we pointed out here, J Street has evinced no interest whatsoever in allowing any sunlight to penetrate its own dubious fundraising via The New Israel Fund, one of its affiliates. The NIF continues to fund groups like Adalah and The Association for Civil rights in Israel, which undertake programs that openly advocate the dissolution of the Jewish State. Moreover, groups like CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America which have refused to identify Hamas as a terrorist organization are apparently off limits to Mr. "Pro Israel." Some Islamic charities operating in the United States have even been indicted and convicted of terror- supporting activities. It would seem that for these groups Ben Ami checks his investigative magnifying glass at the door.
"Why not investigate Islamic charities that fund anti-Israel views?"
Here is Ben Ami's response:
"I don't give a shit about Islamic charities." (oops, forgot the *!*&$!)
A casual observer might conclude that Mr. Ben Ami was expressing contempt or, at the very least, indifference to Islamic charities. That's certainly not the way to open an honest dialogue with our Muslim brothers and sisters.
Pollak then went on to challenge Ben Ami:
"If you showed the same enthusiasm in opposing Iran and Hamas as you do in fighting Alan Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel, and Joe Lieberman, perhaps J Street would be more popular."
Who's the "Obstacle to Peace?"
In response, Ben Ami called Lieberman "an obstacle to peace." Just how far J Street will go in toadying up to the Obama administration is evidenced by the Chicago appearance. The answer is that there is no position too extreme or Israel- hating for J Street to adopt. Like the court Jews of the past, Ben Ami and J Street will go beyond any slanders against their fellow Jews to enhance its position in the corridors of power.
[Crossposted from JStreetJive.]
From Divest This!
BDS projects tend to come in waves or fads. In the early 90s, campus petitions were all the rage, then Mainline Protestant churches were targeted followed by student governments and - most recently - aging rockers and food co-ops.
Part of the reason behind this ever-changing list is the fact that BDS is a relatively nimble "movement," forever ready to dance away from defeats and capitalize on even the most trivial wins. And since there are so many more of the former than the latter, divestment advocates must forever find new targets of opportunity once too many loses begin to give them a reputation as losers within a certain community.
Which is why yesterday's announcement that a food co-op (in this case, the Olympia Food Co-op in Olympia Washington) has chosen to impose a boycott on Israeli goods was only somewhat surprising.
The location for one of the few examples of a boycott taking place in the US makes sense (Olympia is home to Evergreen College, home of ISM victim Rachel Corrie and one of the only colleges in America that's gotten a student divestment vote through after a decade of BDS efforts on campuses). But the details of how the boycott was decided were surprising, given what happened in Davis California just a few months ago.
In March of this year, the Davis Food Co-op, like Olympia Co-op, was faced with a group of members who wanted the store to refuse to sell Israeli goods. Unlike Olympia, the decision being asked of the board was whether to put such a boycott to a member vote which led to public debates and hearings on the subject before the Co-op board made its final decision.
We'll get to that decision in a minute, but before we do it's interesting to note that Olympia avoided the public controversy during the decision-making process by simply making their decision without much (if any) public awareness that the matter was being discussed. And so, once again, we have another institution whose members woke up one day to discover that an organization they have been a member of for years is now being touted by anti-Israel activists across the globe as fully onboard the BDS, Israel=Apartheid, propaganda bandwagon (talk about surprises).
As described before, the reasons Davis decided to turn down requests to put boycott on the ballot were extremely interesting and are worth reading in full here. While disappointed boycott supporters claimed the Davis board's decision was driven by Jewish community pressure and fears of legal reprisals, in fact their decision was based on principles relating to the co-op community itself, notably:
* That the boycotters were demanding that they (an unelected group of people with no fiduciary or other responsibility to the co-op as a whole) be allowed to make decisions for the entire co-op (including the board, managers and members) based on their own political agenda
* That supporting a boycott vote implied agreement with the boycotter's characterization of the Middle East and acceptance of BDS tactics as representing the entire Co-op, not simply the opinions of a subset of members advocating for a boycott
* That the boycott would fly in the face of principles of the co-operative movement, including the Rochdale principles regarding political and religious neutrality and the Cooperative Principle regarding cooperation between co-ops (including Israeli co-ops)
Davis' stance also highlighted that co-operatives that have failed to live by these principles and apply sound and careful judgment to where and when it will engage in political activity have created poisoned atmospheres leading to divisiveness, alienation of members, resignations and other harmful results.
Now it's possible that the leaders of the Co-op in Olympia know all this, but are willing to ignore principles articulated not just by Davis but by the global cooperative movement in order to make a political stance that they (and they alone) know is in the best interest of their community. But it's equally likely that this is just one more example of a group of single-issue partisans bullying an organization that lacks failsafe mechanisms (such as ways of determining if members agree with a political policy) to make a decision BDS activists tell them is their only choice.
Now that the BDSers have gotten their way, they will (as always) be on their merry way, firing off press releases and posting on newsites and blogs across the planet that Olympia Food Co-op (not simply its leaders, but every man, woman and child who shops there) is all aboard the BDS propaganda express. As usual, it will be left to those members to deal with the wreckage, and the co-operative's leaders to explain that they have taken a principled stance when they, in fact, have just been played for suckers.
Monday, July 19, 2010
[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Volunteer guides in training at the Anne Frank exhibition in Fez
Moroccans have never heard of Anne Frank. Now all that is changing, with an exhibition in Fez about the famous Jewish diarist from Amsterdam, intended to combat Holocaust denial. However, the exhibition tries so hard to 'relativise' the Holocaust, that visitors ask why Anne Frank should have been singled out for attention from other victims of discrimination. Via the View from Fez blog (with thanks: Michelle):
Continue reading "Anne Frank exhibition comes to Morocco"Just what is a humanitarian crisis anyway? Lack of food and basic necessities? But that's not the case in Gaza, where both the statistics and the visual evidence show time and again that there is no lack of the basics. A health crisis of epic proportions? Again, not the case in Gaza, where by multiple measures Gaza health metrics are better than other area nations.
And now, more visual evidence that in Gaza we're not exactly talking about a replay of the Warsaw Ghetto. at Elder of Ziyon: Grand Opening of the Gaza Mall and More heartbreaking pictures from the Gaza Mall. Also Tom Gross: A nice new shopping mall opened today in Gaza: Will the media report on it? And some photos at Rotter.net. Video games, water features, well stocked shelves.
The Free Gaza people are a joke. In spite of electing and being led by a genocidal terrorist group, Gazans continue to receive medical treatment, hard currency, energy, and all manner of necessities from Israel. There is an economic hardship there, unemployment, but they can blame their regressive regime and its terrorist and religio-fascist priorities for the stunted nature of the country, as well as the massive international welfare they receive which serves as a continuing impediment and disincentive to productive enterprise.
[The following, by Israelinurse, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
July 7th saw Rachel Shabi propping up notions of Palestinian victimhood yet again, this time by resurrecting the decade-old canard of Camp David being a 'trap' which undermined the peace process as often propagated by various Palestinian leaders, as well as by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley.
Shabi's revisionist view (which rejects the well-documented history of what actually occurred at Camp David), is best viewed in the context of the extensive commentary about the talks provided by the man who was actually the chief U.S. negotiator and Special Envoy to the Region - Dennis Ross. In an interview with Fox News in 2002, Ross went into great detail about the reasons for the collapse of the Camp David talks (July 11 to 24, 2000) and the subsequent initiatives.
Continue reading "Shabi's Scaffolding of Immutable Palestinian Victimhood"I have not posted anything about this to date for a number of reasons.
First is that I tend to shy away from commenting on internal Israeli legislation and politics. It is hard enough understanding all the issues and coming to a sensible feel for the implications of our own domestic American legislative matters in a situation where I know and understand the motivations of most of the major players. How much more difficult is it to comment on internal Israeli matters, when Israeli internal politics are if anything, even more convoluted and confusing than our own? Generally, a healthy respect for the decisions of Israeli democracy is called for from those of us living abroad and little more.
Second and related is that it's exceedingly difficult to know whose description and analysis of the law and its implications and motivations to trust. Given that there are so many agendas at work, both within Israel and abroad, my choice of "narrator" for understanding the matter has been a difficult one. There are issues of Israeli coalition politics, American leftist Jewish perspectives that are well known to have an agenda pitting them against Avigdor Lieberman's party (the party sponsoring the Knesset bill), issues of the religious versus the secular... As a secular American Jew who nevertheless makes a regular case for the need for a Jewish State I've had my concerns, but I've been suspicious of the agendas of some of the hysterical dispatches I've been receiving from people in the American Jewish Community and haven't been willing to buy into that, either. Today I got another one from Nancy Kaufman, who is apparently still employed by Boston's JCRC, to the same effect. Yes, Netanyahu has come out against the legislation but, see above, this can have any number of political reasons not necessarily related to the truth of the bill itself.
So I read with great interest this posting at The Muqata that puts the hysteria into some perspective and that strikes me as a pretty reasonable-sounding explanation. This legislation does not affect diaspora Jewry at all, and in fact starts the process of prying conversion matters out of the hands of a small cabal and dispersing it closer to the people affected. That's what I'm reading, anyway. This should particularly be read by those forwarding some of the more overwrought emails I've been seeing around (and it looks like it's not going to pass anyway). Remember that many of these groups, particularly the left-oriented ("non-partisan") American umbrella groups, don't like Yisrael Beiteinu and would like nothing better than to take the opportunity to do Obama's bidding to pry out YB and substitute Kadima in its place: The Rotem Conversion Law
The Rotem Conversion Bill, an important bill, which should have been passed without any problem, has instead has become a political knife that is being used to promote various agendas and attack various people.
Unfortunately, certain people and organizations with very specific religious and political agendas are disingenuously trying to manufacture a storm by upsetting US Jewry with an issue that (a) doesn't affect them, and (b) might actually be better for them - if they moved to Israel and needed to deal with a conversion issue.
The bill was created to resolve some very specific internal Israeli issues - bureaucratic, political, and religious.
As Israel is a Jewish state, issues of Jewish law are important and central to a functioning society, as they are part of our legal system and they also prevent a permanent schism in the nation.
This law is a domestically-applied procedural law that shifts control and certification of who may perform recognized conversions in Israel - and only in Israel.
It does not change the status quo that Israel recognizes non-Orthodox conversions in the Diaspora for the purpose of the Right of Return. It does not have any affect on American Jewry or for that matter have any connection to Diaspora Jewry...
See also Yaacov Lozowick, here.
Update: Another must read at Fresno Zionism: Attacks on conversion bill are misleading
Israel treats his child, removing a cancerous growth from her eye for free, so daddy Hamas goes on a terror rampage and kills an Israeli cop. This is just further evidence that the problem isn't about the availability of consumer goods (more on that in a later post), or access to free medical care, it's about the ideology of terror and hatred that trumps all other concerns: Israel Treats Palestinian Cancer Patient, Father Goes on Terror Rampage
...One of the cell's heads said in his interrogation that just two weeks before he embarked on the attack, his six-year-old daughter was hospitalized in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, where she had a tumor removed from her eye. The operation was funded by an Israeli organization. (YNET)
Walla reports that some of the terrorists in the cell were released from Israeli prisons just weeks before the terror attack.
We provide free medical treatment for the enemy's family, who then 2 weeks later commit terror attacks against us.
We released terrorists from prison as a measure of "good faith" and then they attack us weeks later.
Do we need to vet every Palestinian child with cancer prior to treatment, to see if their parents are planning to kill us?
Obviously, Israel's surgical treatment (and the free funding from an Israeli organization) for a six year old girl with a tumor near her eye, made zero impact on this Palestinian family's commitment to terror against the Jewish State.
More.
Also at Honest Reporting: The Thanks Israel Gets
Of course the Congolese victims are happy to see the Israelis, but the political monsters from Doctors Without Borders...not so much. Priorities: Israeli doctors in Congo to aid burn victims get slammed for occupation
Uvira, Democratic Republic of Congo - Having never visited Africa before, Israeli burn specialist Dr. Eyal Winkler was apprehensive about what was in store for the delegation of five medical specialists which he led this week to Congo. The locals turned out to be good hosts - but working with Western volunteers proved more complicated...
...On Tuesday Winkler arrived at the city of Uvira to treat 50 Congolese who were severely burnt in a fire that claimed more than 230 lives in the nearby village of Sange, where an oil truck had overturned and caught fire. Winkler's five-man squad was the first team of specialists to arrive in the district of South Kivu to treat the injured.
They were there with Daniel Saada, Israel's ambassador to Congo, as an official delegation of the Israeli foreign ministries Mashav aid agency. The team crossed remote border crossings with ease under the supervision of South Kivu's governor, Jean-Claude Kibala. The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, telephoned the delegation to thank them.
But the relationship with the volunteers of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) Netherlands, who arrived at Uvira the previous week, began on a sour note, according to Winkler and the other Israeli specialists.
Winkler said he got the impression that some volunteers for MSF - which has accused Israel of war crimes and obstructing medical care for Palestinians - did not want to be around him or the other team members, Drs. Shmuel Kalazkin, Gil Gragov Nardini and Ariel Tessone, and nurse Noa Anastasia Ouchakova.
"This is the reality today: Doctors from international aid organizations treat a delegation of volunteer Israeli doctors to Congo as though we were occupiers", Winkler told Nati Harush, the foreign ministries deputy chief security officer who accompanied the delegation...
...During their stay, the Israeli medical staff trained Congolese doctors in performing skin grafts. They will leave behind approximately one ton of medical equipment.
John Roy Carlson - not exactly a household name today. Sixty years ago, however, he was the nation's bestselling non-fiction writer. His real name was Avedis "Arthur" Derounian, an Armenian American investigative journalist whose career was ignited by the brutal assassination of Archbishop Leon Tourian at the altar of his church in New York in 1933. The assassins were members of the fascist Armenian, pro-Nazi group, the Dashnags. Young Derounian spent the rest of his life fighting fascism, the Dashnags and, eventually, a burgeoning Islamic Jihadism. His bestselling account of American Nazi groups in the 1930's and '40's was aptly called "Undercover." His penetration of groups like The Silver Shirts, Crusaders for Americanism, The Committee of 1,000,000 and The Amerika Deutscher Volksbund (German American Bund) made up the pages of Undercover and later provided the early House on UnAmerican Activities with invaluable evidence which it used to prosecute these hate groups. Risking his life on many occasions, Carlson was able to get close to the leaders of these often Nazi controlled groups just prior to World War II.
Then, in 1948, presenting himself as an Armenian American, he traveled to the Middle East and - incredibly - fought in Israel's War of Independence - on the Arab side! Of course, he was undercover yet again, reporting honestly - but secretly - about the genocidal nature of the war against the Jews and lauding the Zionists' courage and sacrifices. Decades before Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations" - so demeaned today among Islamists and their fellow travelers - Carlson understood the threat of Jihad not only to the nascent Israel, but to the West as well. One of his chapter headings reads,
The World of the Koran: "Islam Uber Alles."
The book was entitled "Cairo to Damascus" published in 1951. Carlson was the one of the first Western journalists to interview Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al Banna, whom he described as "a short, squat ratty-faced man with puffed cheeks and fleshy nose...He was the most loathsome man I had yet met in Cairo."
With a Flair for the Dramatic, Carlson Toured the U.S. for "Cairo to Damascus"
In addition to profiling the Muslim Brotherhood's "Murshid" or Supreme Guide, Carlson traveled with another Jihadi group, the Green Shirts (later absorbed into The Brotherhood) and its leader, Ahmed Hussein. He entered Jerusalem after the fall of the Jewish Quarter and photographed and chronicled the brutal expulsion of the Jews by the Jordanian Legion. He predicted the ominous march of Jihad because he experienced it from within.
Carlson's Photograph of the Looting of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, 1948
Now, another, unpublished and untitled manuscript has emerged from the Derounian collection housed at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research. It was written in the early 1960's and consists of interviews and observations on the Arab world from Beirut to Baghdad. Perhaps the most fascinating excerpts from the book have to do with Carlson's sojourn in Amman, Jordan. He interviews a number of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and, most importantly, UNRWA officials, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, established in 1949 exclusively for the benefit of Palestinian Arab refugees. No other refugee group since then has been assigned a special UN agency. Currently UNRWA's budget is close to half a billion dollars. All other refugees fall under the jurisdiction of the UNHCR (United Nations High Committee for Refugees). Perhaps most controversial of all, UNRWA has become the unofficial trough for HAMAS. In the words of former UNRWA General Counsel, James G. Lindsay,
"UNRWA has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from the ranks of its staff or its beneficiaries, and no steps at all to prevent members of organizations such as Hamas from joining its staff. UNRWA has no preemployment security checks and does not monitor off-time behavior to ensure compliance with the organization's anti-terrorist rules. No justification exists for millions of dollars in humanitarian aid going to those who can afford to pay for UNRWA services."
(Tip to Elder of Ziyon for the best analysis of UNRWA's first years.)
UNRWA's First Director, Howard Kennedy (L)
Carlson's stay in Amman amounted to a refutation of the decades old refrain of victimhood by the Palestinians - namely, that all the Arabs were expelled by the neo-colonialist Zionists and that a life of squalor awaited the refugees. He conducted extensive interviews with refugees and with an anonymous American UNRWA official. Here are two excerpts from Carlson's original (click to expand):
Carlson's interviews constitute an important element in the contemporary history of the Arab Israeli conflict. We will be excerpting more in the future.
[Crossposted from JStreetJive.]
[Martin Solomon adds: I have blogged extensively of Carlson and his two most famous and important works previously. You may click on the following links to read extensive excerpts from Under Cover and Cairo To Damascus.]
Saturday, July 17, 2010
The guided missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) maneuvers ahead of the guided missile cruiser USS Chosin (CG 65) as Chosin fires a surface-to-air missile off the coast of Hawaii July 11, 2010, during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010 exercises. RIMPAC is a biennial, multinational exercise designed to strengthen regional partnerships and improve multinational interoperability. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Mark Logico, U.S. Navy/Released)
It's the only way to do what should be in Obama's interest -- moving beyond the post-Westphalian order. So argues Walter Russell Mead: Nuking Westphalia: Obama's Deep Convictions Point to War With Iran. An interesting read.
One thing's for sure, there is a lesson we should have learned from the Iraq War. No, not about WMD or any of that stuff, I'm talking about the fact that you shouldn't take a democracy to war without making sure the matter is as bipartisan as possible. Obama needs to bring in the Republicans at the highest level and get them publicly (ultimately) involved and committed to whatever use of force is decided on. You can't have them jumping ship and criticizing the entire effort minutes after the troops are committed as the Democrats did to Bush. It shouldn't be that difficult considering the position of most Republicans already stated. That's the only way to start a war and have the support you'll need to finish it.
Friday, July 16, 2010
A BQM-74E Chukar target drone equipped with jet-assisted takeoff packs launches from the flight deck of USNS Amelia Earhart (T-AKE 6) for an air gunnery exercise in the South China Sea July 14, 2010, during Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Singapore 2010. CARAT is a series of bilateral exercises held annually in Southeast Asia to strengthen relationships and enhance force readiness. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kim McLendon, U.S. Navy/Released)
[The following is a guest post by Ann Green.]
To paraphrase Joe Biden, border security is a big honking deal. When it's a big deal in Massachusetts, it's a huge honking deal. Recently I joined a crew of volunteers holding campaign signs at a busy intersection in Shrewsbury, Mass. for Marty Lamb, candidate for Congress in the third district. In addition to "Lamb for Congress," some of the signs had an added message: "Honk for Secure Borders." And honk they did. While not a scientific poll, this was certainly a random, rolling sampling of citizens. Massachusetts doesn't have a border with a foreign country, but it does have a reputation as being among the bluest of blue states. But these Sunday afternoon drivers made enough noise to rival rush hour in New York City.
Our Swiss cheese borders aren't the only issue on voters' minds, but are high among the public's priorities thanks to the war on terror (I think there still is one), the new law in Arizona, and the administration's thinly veiled plans for amnesty. States like Arizona, which are on the front lines, are dealing with violence from drug gangs, human traffickers and other criminal elements and the crippling drain on health care and education budgets that comes with large populations of illegal immigrants. Americans have been shielded from the truth about the level of violence of Mexican drug cartels, whose members have begun using terror tactics. Let's just say that beheadings are only a part this development.
Continue reading "They're Honking for Border Security - Even in Massachusetts!"[The following, by Adam Levick, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
"People resent the Jews for having emerged from their immemorial weakness and fearlessly resorted to force. They thereby betrayed the mission that history had assigned to them - being a people...that did not get tangled up in the obtuse narrowness of the nation-state." - Pascal Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt
Soon, Jews in Israel and around the world will observe Tisha B'Av, a day of mourning to commemorate the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout their history on the same date on the Hebrew calendar - the ninth day of the month of Av. Tisha B'Av primarily commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples, but on this day we also reflect on the many other tragedies which occurred on this date, from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 to the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto.
Continue reading "Tisha B'Av and Jewish Power"Via Power Line:
Ouch.
Well "Israel is Just Great Day" came and went yesterday and everywhere I went I saw person after person showing their support for the Jewish state by wearing clothing. Thanks to the six-billion plus people who participated, and anyone who wants to take part in a similar "BDS is a Joke Week" scheduled for the first week of August can demonstrate their disdain for the aptly named divestment "movement" by going to the bathroom anytime between August 1st and the 7th.
In the meantime, news is out that Israel may be passing anti-boycott legislation that would fine Israelis who advocate for boycotts directed against the country and punish non-Israeli BDSers by (among other things) potentially denying them entrance into Israel. Despite a certain curiosity regarding how brave the self-declared courageous divestniks might be if their squalid little project was finally associated with some personal cost, in truth I remain reticent about democracies passing laws to punish political activity, no matter how odious. Some further thoughts on the matter can be found here.
And rounding out today's roundup, BDS has scored another spectacular triumph by getting a family-owned grocery store in New Jersey to stop selling Israeli dates. This victory required the participation of family members of the enterprise (which might indicate a unique situation not likely to be replicated with more corporate retailers like Trader Joe's). It also turns out that this boycott is another demonstration of how much easier it is to screw your friends and allies than your enemies in that the supplier of these dates (i.e., the person who will lose direct business with the grocery as a result of this micro-boycott) is a Palestinian Arab. "Sigh" indeed!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
U.S. Army Sgt. James Wilson, a security forces team leader with Provincial Reconstruction Team Zabul, secures the perimeter of a village during a dismounted patrol in the Zabul province of Afghanistan July 13, 2010. (DoD photo by Senior Airman Nathanael Callon, U.S. Air Force/Released)
The IDF has released a pretty well done video (other than the fact that it's spoken in Hebrew and only subtitled in English) showing the complete timeline of the Gaza flotilla incident:
[Via The Flea]
[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]
As I look at the occasional responses to the arguments I'm making by defenders of the Obama Administration, the arguments used to avoid thinking and talking about these issues seriously become increasingly apparent. They generally feature a refusal to discuss the substance of issues and put up instead a barrage of insults, characterizations, and non-logical or non-factual claims.
1. The right-wing argument. This says: you're basically a right-wing person who is against a two-state solution and wants to do mean things to Arabs or Muslims. Therefore, we can ignore anything you say.
People who are conservative or right-wing have their own answers. For me, though, I need merely cite the following points. In American terms, I am not only a registered and life-long Democrat, but I worked for Democrats in both the Senate and House of Representatives; at one time worked at Democratic National Headquarters as a volunteer; worked on several presidential campaigns, was a consultant for a few Democratic senators, organized a Democratic group of foreign policy experts to prepare for the next presidency one of whose members (Madelyn Albright) became the secretary of state.
In Israel, I have always been active in the Labour Party or one of its offshoots, was an outspoken supporter of the Oslo effort, volunteered to teach courses for Palestinian institutions on the West Bank, was at the peace rally where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered in November 1995, and have backed a two-state solution--under the right conditions, of course--for about 20 years.
And, believe me, I have a lot of contacts with Arabs, Turks, Iranians, and Muslims whose worries about Obama's policies are just as intense as my own.
The Turks feel the U.S. government is supporting or being very soft on a regime that wants to crush their democracy and turn their society into something else. The Iranians worry that the U.S. government has been playing into the hands of the dictatorship in Tehran and not helping the democratic-oriented opposition. Some Arabs--especially Lebanese--think U.S. policy is delivering their country into the hands of Hizballah, Syria and Iran. Others feel it won't protect them from Iran and domestic Islamist revolutionaries.
Continue reading "Debating Obama Policy Doesn't Require Screaming But Logic and Honest Discussion"[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
The Sha'ar Shamayim synagogue in Adly St, Cairo
Whatever the true facts of the case, the conviction for fraud of the Egyptian-Jewish leader Mrs Carmen Weinstein has to be seen against the background of increased media antisemitism and hostility to the Jews of Egypt. This MEMRI clip shown on Egyptian TV in October 2009 propagates the age-old antisemitic stereotype of the Jew as tight-fisted and depraved, exploiting ordinary Egyptians for every fils. The Jews of Egypt are said to have liquidated their assets and taken their money with them on their mass departure. In other words, contrary to the provisions of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, it is preparing the ground for denial of Jewish rights: Egypt owes them nothing for their lost property. (With thanks: Lily)
Continue reading "Egypt TV shows Jews as tight-fisted and depraved"[The following, by Ben Cohen, is crossposted from Z Word.]
Periodically, I've written about the loathsome Holocaust denial outfit Press TV (see here and here and here, for example,) a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime that masquerades as a legitimate broadcaster.
In the Jerusalem Post, Benny Weinthal reports the following:
Executives from two public TV channels last week hosted Ezzatollah Zarghami, the president of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, who allegedly has ties to the Revolutionary Guards, prompting criticism on Monday.
On July 4, 2009, Zarghami told the press that the videos of Neda Agha Soltan's death during the 2009 Iranian election protests were all fake and were produced by BBC and CNN. Zarghami has been the head of IRIB, the corporation controlling Iranian national radio and television broadcasting, since 2004. His predecessor was Ali Larijani, now speaker of the Iranian parliament.
"It is not clear which is more bizarre and scandalous: that ARD and ZDF, personally represented by ARD chairman Peter Boudgoust and ZDF director Markus Schächter, received a delegation from the state broadcaster of the Islamic Republic of Iran, led by its head, Ezzatollah Zarghami, as well as the Iranian ambassador in Berlin, Ali Reiza Sheik Attar, for a nice chat at Lerchenberg - or that no one in Germany was interested in this chat. As if it were completely normal," author and journalist Oliver M. Piecha on Monday, wrote on the popular Wadi blog site.
Here's a video of top executives from ARD and ZDF giving Zarghami a tour of the facilities, using their taxpayer funds to provide him top notch hospitality, and shaking his bloodstained hand:
Continue reading "German Broadcasters Romance Press TV"Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Well, that's all over:
The Gaza-bound Libyan aid ship Amalthea docked at the Egyptian port of el-Arish Wednesday night, following a tense period in which conflicting reports had the ship sailing for Gaza despite warnings from the Israeli navy.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had urged the Amalthea to continue sailing for Gaza earlier today, and called for more pro-Palestinian "freedom flotillas."
"The sea and land convoys must continue," said Haniyeh. "We hope we can depend on Islamic nations to help us lift the blockade."
Quartet Representative Tony Blair also weighed in on the Amalthea, calling on the ship to avoid sailing directly to Gaza and dock at a neighboring port. "The most important thing is to avoid confrontation," said Blair.
The IDF on Wednesday confirmed that the Libyan ship had heeded Israel's calls to cease from its course to Gaza, and planned to dock at the Egyptian port of el-Arish...
[The following, by Jonathan Hoffman, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
Some ten days ago I wrote here about the acquittal in the UK of seven defendants who admitted to causing £187,000 of criminal damage at the EDO MBM armaments factory in January 2009, at the time of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The factory was exporting military equipment to Israel.
Until today I did not have the 87 page transcript of Judge Bathurst-Norman's summing-up in the case (Lewes Crown Court, 28/29 June 2010). Remember that these are his comments to the Jury, prior to their deliberation in the Jury room which acquitted all seven defendants.
Earlier, many people suspected that the Judge's comments were biased and this transcript proves the case conclusively. On the evidence of his summing-up, Bathurst-Norman was a member of the defence's legal team, rather than the Judge.
If you do not have time to read this long article, just consider two excerpts:
Continue reading "The Judge Who Thought He Was Defence Counsel"[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Round 2 in the controversy over Righteous Muslims, the subject of a new booklet by the UK-based interfaith organisation, Faith Matters, highlighting the actions of individual Muslims who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
Last week on the weblog Harry's Place I commended Faith Matters for highlighting the role of Righteous Muslims. However, I questioned whether the booklet could mislead by failing to spell out the proper context. Unlike the book by Robert Satloff which inspired it, the booklet fails to provide 'balance' to the saviours in the Arab and Muslim world by mentioning collaborators with Nazism. It says nothing about the elephant in the room - the ideological antisemitism pervading the Arab and Muslim world from the 1930s on. This antisemitic fundamentalism produced a pro-Nazi government in Iraq and led directly to the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of a million Jews from the Arab world. It sowed the seeds of Holocaust denial and virulent, if not universal, Arab and Muslim hostility and rejectionism towards Israel. This ideological legacy is still with us today.
Now Faith Matters founder Fiyaz Mughal has had his say on Harry's Place:
Continue reading "Controversy over Righteous Muslims rumbles on"Yearning to be free...
Cuban Picked Up in Styrofoam Raft Off the Keys
A Cuban man's journey to freedom took quite a bit of ingenuity and nearly ended his life.
On Tuesday, U.S. Coast Guard officers rescued a severely dehydrated man from a homemade boat made mostly of Styrofoam near the Florida Keys.
The unidentified man told authorities he had cast off from Havana on June 20. A picture of the white boat shows a few pieces of metal helped outfit the vessel and a plastic gallon jug was still inside.
The amazing voyage comes just days after the Cuban government began releasing political prisoners in a move that was viewed internationally as a sign things were getting better on the island.
The fact that someone was willing to risk their life on a raft made of Styrofoam might prove otherwise.
[Via Gateway.]
Why, oh why, do they fawn over people like this? Jordan's Queen Rania rejects offer to publish Hebrew edition of her children's book
The book, which has reached the New York Times' bestseller list, touches on such issues as getting to know others, openness and multiculturalism.
Queen Rania of Jordan has turned down several offers to publish a Hebrew version of a children's book she recently wrote. The book, which was published in the United States by Hyperion under the title "The Sandwich Swap" for children between 4 and 8 years old, was co-written with Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Tricia Tusa...
Excuse: 'Well...you know...her society has problems and we have to be sensitive to that, so let's just overlook this little matter..' Sure, when you're one of the Queens of the Nazis you have problems. We're supposed to overlook that?
Update [h/t: Hillel]: Queen Rania's people deny she was even asked. (Can I sue Haaretz for getting me and my commenters all excited?): Jordan Queen Rania never got offer to publish Hebrew translation of her book, say official sources
...Official Jordanian sources on Thursday denied a recent Haaretz report that Queen Rania had turned down several offers to publish a Hebrew version of a children's book she wrote.
Official Jordanian sources said that Rania had never received such an offer from Israeli publishers, adding that requests like these would have been sent directly to the U.S. publisher and not to the writer herself...
...The sources stressed that Jordan was as committed as always to dialogue and tolerance, messages central to the story written by the queen...
...than threaten to call your lawyer and remove all doubt:
Well it sure looks like our pals at The Brothers of Judea, who focus their blog on criticism of The Huffington Post's coverage of Israel and Jewish matters, have managed to demonstrate that they are having an impact by attracting their first legal threat. HuffPo blogger Mya Guarnieri doesn't appreciate criticism it would seem.
Their prior mentions of Guarnieri, here and here, seem to be rather run of the mill blogger criticisms that shouldn't run afoul of any sort of legal line, but as a far-leftist I'm thinking free speech is probably not one of her most heart-felt values.
Obviously they have nothing to fear, and here's to hoping Guarnieri's attorney charges her good for the opinion. The Brothers are obviously not cowed, as they continue to post on her: Mya Guarnieri Loses Touch.
Hawkeye at CiF Watch has his fun with the issue: Bring it on baby, having a bit more of a look at Mya Guarnieri's writing and linking preferences. And Richard Landes as well: On the MO of a "Scourge": Mya Guarnieri deals with criticism. I like that label for people such as she.
Of course there's nothing wrong with seeking legal relief for true cause, it's just that Guarnieri doesn't have any -- cause, that is.
MEMRI has some information on what the old sod has been up to as the timer runs down on the former Islamic Society of Boston trustee's life clock. He's still up to his old tricks: Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi Calls for Jihad of Self-Sacrifice and for Rejecting the Political Process
"We Must Revive What... Hassan Al-Bana Called 'the Death Industry'"
During a May 19-20, 2010 visit to Mauritania, Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi called upon Muslims to sacrifice themselves in order to achieve their rights: "We must revive what the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al-Bana, called 'the death industry' in his article from the 1940s. The ummah today is in need of self-sacrifice for the sake of [achieving] rights, and thus victory will be attained."[1] He added that pressure should be exerted to liberate Palestine and that "the inertia that has harmed everyone can change if the ummah finds the men who excel at dying for the sake of Allah."[2]
In a Friday sermon on the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba, Al-Qaradhawi called for jihad in order to return Palestine to the Palestinians: "The right of the Muslims to Palestine and [other lands] will be [realized] only by force. We can only realize our rights through resistance... We must stand beside our brothers, the mujahideen. I call [on the Muslims] to set forth on jihad, and on all the factions to fight the enemy together as one. There is no room for division and disagreement; we must work together, especially since the war [now] encompasses all levels - military, political, economic, cultural, and religious."[3] Al-Qaradhawi stressed that he himself was praying to Allah to "help him fight the Zionists and cause loss of life among them, and that he be hit by a bullet that will separate his head from his body." He stressed that "the best death a Muslim can hope for is not death in bed, but as a shahid on the battlefield for the sake of Allah."...
Well Sheikhy ole pal, you ain't gonna get that bullet to the neck giving TV sermons, that's for sure.
There's more like that. Not exactly the peace and reconciliation-type is the Sheikh.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
U.S. Sailors aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) launch a RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missile as part of a missile exercise while under way in the Pacific Ocean July 8, 2010, during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010 exercises. RIMPAC is a biennial, multinational exercise designed to strengthen regional partnerships and improve interoperability. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Katherine K. Barkley, U.S. Navy/Released)
[The following, by Ben Cohen, is crossposted from Z Word.]
Over at savedarfur.org, Megan Flemming explains the arrest warrant issued yesterday against the Butcher of Khartoum, Omar Hasan al-Bashir:
The judges found that there are reasonable grounds to believe al-Bashir is responsible for three counts of genocide committed against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.
Here are some good suggestions of action you can take to assist the process of bringing al-Bashir to a prison cell. Why should you? Here's the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Louis Moreno Ocampo:
The 10-judge panel's decision, announced Monday, to charge al-Bashir with three counts of genocide in Darfur "will force the world to pay attention to the reality" on the ground in the embattled western Sudanese province. He added he hoped it would also cement the international community's will to see the Sudanese leader tried in The Hague.
"The ICC decision is the last chance to stop the genocide in Darfur, the last chance to stop President Bashir's current crimes and to prevent further crimes in Darfur or in Southern Sudan," Moreno Ocampo told journalists at a news conference in Paris, where he was attending meetings.
The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have be forced from their homes in Darfur since ethnic African rebels rose up in 2003, accusing Sudan's Arab-dominated central government of neglect and discrimination.
Not everyone, however, thinks this is a genocide. One person in particular believes that, a priori, it can't be a genocide since Muslims are incapable of carrying out such a heinous crime.
"It's not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide," he said in 2009. "That's why we are comfortable with the visit of al-Bashir."
And who is this person, whose comfort zone is deemed worthy of media coverage? Why, al-Bashir's ostensible host at the time - the Sudanese leader ended up postponing - Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The same Erdogan who stormed off a World Economic Forum panel in January 2009, yelling at Israeli President Shimon Peres, "I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. There have been many people killed. And I think that it is very wrong and it is not humanitarian."
Should al-Bashir ever need a place to seek refuge after murdering thousands of the overwhelmingly Muslim Darfuris, he could probably do worse than appeal to Erdogan's long-standing, genuinely held, humanitarian sensibilities.
Apologies to my reader for the month-long obsession at Divest This! with the comings and goings of the Presbyterian Church. While it's interesting to document the BDS virus (and various attempted treatments) running their course through a relatively large organization, a weeks-long focus on the subject means I missed out on both BDS Media Day on July 5th and the BDS Day of Action on July 9.
This puts me in the company of the other 6.8 billion people on the planet because, as nearly as I can tell, these BDS Days dedicated to ginning up media and action generated none of the former, and little of the latter beyond BDS activists from various countries dialing in to tell each other how wonderful they were.
Given that these and other BDS-related anniversary/celebrations are meant to showcase the vast progress "the movement" has been making, one would think that it would include an actual BDS success, rather than just report out how busy and noisy everyone is being on the arbitrary date they have set for their alleged fifth anniversary.
I say "alleged" because BDS should actually be celebrating its 10th anniversary, given that the divestment project started with the 2001 "Celebrate Racism" conference in Durban, not with the PACBI boycott announcement in 2005 that BDSers are currently using to mark the day of their birth (a date which allows them to flush a half-decade of failure from '01-'06 down the memory hole).
With Israel's export-fueled economy expanding at a rapid 3.6% clip the first quarter of 2010, I think it's fair that divestment backers start demonstrating what they've accomplished in real terms, rather than just gather in various cities to pat each other on the back and possibly vandalize a couple of grocery stores.
In the meantime, I'm declaring July 15th to be "Israel is Just Great Day," a new holiday which asks people around the world to demonstrate their solidarity with the Jewish state by wearing clothes. As you walk the streets this Thursday (i.e., on Israel is Just Great Day) in villages, towns and cities around the world, surrounded by people wearing clothing of all colors and descriptions, just remember that every non-naked person you see represents one more person laughing at BDS while celebrating the Jewish homeland.
Hey, why should the divestniks be the only people who get to create their own ever-changing, self-serving metrics for success?
There was some skepticism about the claims by Gen. Paul Vallely in the video I linked to back in this post, Video: Former US General Paul Vallely Warns of Chemical Attacks Against Israel, concerning his claim that Hizballah was said to be tunneling under Israel's northern border. Now comes this article at JPost that would seem to lend credence to the claim: Hizbullah tunnels under border
Concerns are mounting in the defense establishment that Hizbullah may be digging tunnels from Lebanon to Israel to attack a border community or IDF outpost.
While the IDF has been worried that Hizbullah will try to kidnap soldiers - as it has done twice in the past - the latest fears surround the possibility that terrorists will cross into Israel through tunnels, enter a border community like Shlomi and barricade themselves inside a home with civilians.
In addition, there is concern that Hizbullah will use these tunnels to plant explosives underneath and next to IDF posts. This tactic was used successfully in 2004 by Hamas, which detonated an explosives tunnel under an IDF outpost in southern Gaza, killing five soldiers.
Army commanders deployed along the border worry that a future Hizbullah strike would involve not only rocket and mortar fire, as the IDF projects, but also a simultaneous attack aimed at both kidnapping a soldier and infiltrating a border community...
So the claim was not just a product of questionable geology/geography knowledge on Vallely's part.
From Power Line: A Congressman, Held Accountable
If you don't think voters are up in arms about the discriminatory policies of Barack Obama's Department of Justice, check out this video of a town hall meeting held by Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman, CA-27. A constituent asks him about DOJ's dismissal of charges against members of the New Black Panther Party and describes the case accurately. Sherman claims not to have heard about it, drawing fury from the crowd
What is interesting to me is how well-informed the crowd is. Democrats think the liberal media can black out stories like the one about the New Black Panther Party, but they can't, not anymore, and voters are not going to stand for feigned ignorance in their elected officials.
What the video says to me is that the MSM is having a real problem controlling the narrative now. A real problem. The most well informed and most engaged people are now getting their info elsewhere.
But wait, there's more! Absolute knock-down drag-out between Megyn Kelly and Kirsten Powers over the issue. I think Megyn went ballistic a little too quick on her there, but maybe I'm just a little biased toward Kirsten for reasons having nothing to do with politics. (So sue me!)
At Normblog, by Eve Garrard: Table Talk
'Bloody Jews,' he said. 'Bloody Jews, bugger the Jews, I've no sympathy for them.'
I gazed at him, aghast. Where had this suddenly come from?
The encounter I'm here describing took place very recently, in the course of a large academic dinner at a University in another city, not my own one. It was a pleasant occasion, and the people at my table were innocuously and comfortably talking about sociological issues connected with the economic crisis, all completely harmless and (relatively) uncontentious. And then I heard the academic on my right hand side say to the person opposite him, 'Bloody Jews.'
When he saw my appalled stare, he said impatiently, 'Oh well, I'm sorry, but really...!'
'I'm glad you're sorry,' I replied politely, collecting myself together for a fight. But then he asked, 'Are you Jewish?' When I nodded, this academic - whom I'd met for the first time that day - put his arm around me and said, 'I'm sorry, but really Israel is terrible, the massacres, Plan Dalet, the ethnic cleansing, they're like the Nazis, they're the same as the Nazis...'
The encircling arm was offensive enough in its own right, but the Nazi reference was conclusive - it's so manifestly false, and when addressed to a Jew, it's designed to wound; no one makes that equivalence without malicious prejudice. And this, after all, was an academic talking, a professor, someone trained to resist casual stereotypes and easy equivalences...
Read the rest. It could happen here, of course, but it's hard not to register that these stories seem to be Britain day by day.
"Isaac Luria", the shadowy voice of J Street tasked to rally the uninformed, wants Obama's Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner (you know, the tax-evading Geithner) to follow up on the NY Times' non-story about tax exempt U.S. charities funding projects in Judea and Samaria. Even according to the Times story, there's no beef there, and certainly, no legal violations. According to the paper,
"The money goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like, legitimate expenditures under the tax law."
Alex Safian of CAMERA goes into detail here. J Street's "Vice President of Communications and New Media" goes on to say that
"This revelation should raise enormous red flags for the United States Treasury Department, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the law when it comes to terrorist financing and tax evasion."
Apparently unconcerned over funding by many of its constituent organizations, like The New Israel Fund, to groups that openly call for the destruction of Israel and the legitimization of Hamas, J Street is engaged in a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from two current stories that reveal just how Israel-hating the group really is. Building a synagogue or clinic in Ofrah - according to J Street - is terrorism but funding universities in Ramallah that glorify the Sbarro pizzeria bombing of 2001 is just fine with Mr. Luria (or Ms. Luria - who knows who that is?)
First J Street embarrassment:
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) recently came out with a report that compares Israel with the worst regimes of the 20th Century - including Nazi Germany. So what else is new for lefty theologians? What else is new involves the noble Presbyters citing J Street as a "sign of hope." Panic struck their Washington offices and prompted Rachel Lerner, J Street VP to "reject" the report. Yet again, J Street is forced to publicly distance itself from the reality of its constant Palestinian cheerleading and the consequences of its anti-Israel program. How many times does J Street's have to be unmasked before everyone sees its true face? Remember the college branch of the organization that promptly dropped the "Pro Israel" brand from its website? Remember the ringing endorsement of Stephen Walt of "The Israel Lobby" canard?
Next embarrassment: Jeremy Ben Ami's former PR firm, Fenton Communications, abruptly dropped its al Fakhoora campaign. This richly funded program, under the guise of "student education" sought to demonize Israel following Operation Cast Lead and more recently, became the U.S. branch of the Turkish IHH whose thugs precipitated the Mavi Marmara incident on the high seas. One of al Fakhoora's stated purposes was to:
"Assist and train students in researching and compiling information on Gaza student victims and survivors"
Naturally, Hamas' use of human shields in schools, hospitals and private homes was not to be investigated.
The year after Senior Vice President, Ben Ami left the firm, Fenton signed a lucrative PR deal with the Sheikhess of Qatar (those wonderful folks who bring you al Jazeera and Sheikh Yusuf -"burn the gays" - Qaradawi) How about a little investigation there? Over 10 Fenton executives registered as agents of a foreign government to gain the contract. Let Ben Ami answer a few questions about his involvement in this "Pro Israel" adventure. Considering many of the current donors and members of his advisory board (like the "Pro Israel" Robert Malley and Saudi attorney Nancy Dutton) Ben Ami's outreach to the Dons of Doha is entirely conceivable.
Incidentally, the "transparent" J Street - aside from cloaking its spokesperson - is virtually impossible to contact. No phone number is listed and when you finally find a number, you get a recording. Ben Ami's former firm, Fenton, is similarly unresponsive. Six phone calls went unanswered.
[Crossposted from JStreetJive.]
Dozens of people injured by Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel sued al-Jazeera news outlet yesterday for allegedly helping the terrorists aim their deadly missiles.
The Manhattan federal court suit -- which seeks $1.2 billion in damages -- says al-Jazeera journalists "repeatedly and intentionally" transmitted "real-time audiovisual footage" of bomb strikes in the Holy Land during July and August of 2006.
Broadcasts of the "precise impact locations" on the Arab-language satellite network allegedly allowed Hezbollah fighters to adjust the direction and trajectory of their crude projectiles, which lacked any internal guidance systems.
"On several occasions, al-Jazeera personnel in Israel were caught red-handed making such recordings and transmissions, and were arrested by Israeli authorities for violating censorship rules," court papers say.
The IDF has issued its report on the actions it took to stop the last Gaza Flotilla: IDF probe: Army didn't have 'Plan B'
Maj.-Gen Eiland gives 100-page report on 'Mavi Marmara' incident.
A series of operational and intelligence mistakes led to the botched raid in late May aboard the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship that was trying to break the blockade on the Gaza Strip, according to an internal military probe.
The report was released for publication on Monday, as a Libyan-backed vessel was en route to the Gaza Strip, in another effort to break the blockade imposed by Israel. The vessel was expected to reach Israel's territorial waters by Tuesday or Wednesday...
The media has been spinning the results hard to try to show wrongdoing on the Israeli's part, but what it really sounds like is a rather typical military style investigation on how things could have been done better and should be done better next time -- typical of any efficient organization. Tellingly, no one is condemned in the report.
It does contain this bit of explosive news, however, something that puts to rest what had only been circling as speculation previously, and really ought to be the headline:
'Slug dislodged from soldier's knee didn't come from Navy gun'
Eiland's probe also found that shots were initially fired at the boarding commandos from weapons that the passengers had brought with them. The slug that was dislodged from the knee of one of the soldiers was of a different caliber than that used by the navy.
He also detailed the events that led to the seizing of three commandos, who were thrown from the upper to the lower deck and were only recovered about 40 minutes later, after they were spotted standing wounded on the ship's bow and surrounded by a number of activists.
Other commandos opened fire from above and scared off the passengers, enabling two of the wounded to jump into the water. The third, who was severely wounded, was then rescued by commandos who jumped down to the bow from the upper deck.
According to Eiland, the navy did not have technology that would have enabled it to stop the ship ahead of the operation without putting soldiers on board its upper deck to take control of the bridge.
"Such an option did not exist," Eiland concluded in his report...
Previously there was some confusion as to whether the only shots fired by the passengers had come from sidearms they seized from the commandos themselves. That did happen, but now it is known that the passengers had their weapons as well. It is not known how many, as they could easily have been tossed overboard.
[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
As this snippet from Gulfnews shows, it is forbidden for a Jewish man to marry a Muslim woman, but perfectly acceptable for Jewish women to marry Muslim men (invariably they convert to Islam). The reason for this curious double standard, and the Kuwaiti scholar's wrath, could simply be that the wife is expected to take on her husband's religion, and Islam must never defer to Judaism.
(Manama:) A Kuwaiti religious leader has rejected the marriage of a Muslim woman to a Jewish man, saying it amounted to adultery.
"The Islamic text about such marriages is very clear: A Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim even if he is Christian or Jewish," said Dr Anwar Shuaib, the head of Islamic jurisprudence at the University of Kuwait.
On Saturday, former US president Bill Clinton officiated at the wedding of US Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a 45-year-old Jew, and his bride, Huma Abedin, a 34-year-old Muslim.
Huma, a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, had been dating the congressman for about two years. They announced their engagement last summer.
However, the Muslim scholar said that the union should never happen.
"This marriage is null and void and amounts to adultery."
Its position is being tracked in real time at The Muqata. Will it try to run in to Gaza, or will it dock at the Egyptian port of El Arish as it has claimed it would? Let's watch.
You can find the ship yourself, here, and look for the "Amalthea" in the Go To Vessel drop-down list. [h/t: Elder]
Monday, July 12, 2010
From the right. An anti-J Street (that would describe most of the actually "pro-Israel" groups as a matter of fact)... Politico reports: Group to oppose Obama Mideast policy
Leading conservatives will launch a new pro-Israel group this week with a scathing attack on Rep. Joe Sestak, the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, the first shot in what they say will be a confrontational campaign against the Obama administration's Mideast policy and the Democrats who support it.
The Emergency Committee for Israel's leadership unites two major strands of support for the Jewish state: The hawkish, neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of whom are Jewish, and conservative Evangelical Christians who have become increasingly outspoken in their support for Israel. The new group's board includes Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol and Gary Bauer, the former Republican presidential candidate who leads the group American Values, as well as Rachel Abrams, a conservative writer and activist.
"We're the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community," said Kristol...
Indeed. They are a 501c(4), so no funding disclosure is required. There is a concern:
...One official at an American Jewish organization welcomed the group to the degree that it would make criticism of Democrats "mainstream," but also expressed concern that a group with such Republican origins would contribute to a deepening partisan cast to the debate over Israel, with Republicans lining up behind the Israeli government while some Democrats align themselves with Netanyahu's American critics.
Bauer dismissed that notion.
"I encourage our Democratic friends to have a competition with us on who can be more pro-Israel, because I think it's in the interests of the United States and not a political party," he said. "I'm really hoping that people like Sen. [Chuck] Schumer and others will aggressively speak out for Israel at a time like this."...
It's a reasonable concern. It's troubling that support for Israel is becoming increasingly a partisan issue. It's dangerous, but not being helped by groups like J Street, whoever decided that Sarah Palin was more dangerous at the UN than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (remember?), and the fact that the administration is putting unapologetic Zionists on the left in a very difficult position -- a choice between The One and Israel.
Yet that can't and shouldn't stop others from speaking their minds from their perspectives. Left Israel supporters have their work cut out for them.
Jennifer Rubin comments at Contentions: It Is Certainly an Emergency
...To say that the ECI fills a niche would be a gross understatement. There is a gaping hole in the Jewish community's response to the Obama administration and in its defense of Israel. In the past, these groups' close relationship with incumbent administrations has served them well. But as I have written for nearly a year, that tactic is not suited to the current challenges and has proven counterproductive in the Obama era. The need is great to expose, confront, and challenge the administration when it, for example, eggs on an international flotilla investigation or excepts Russia and China from sanctions on Iran or mindlessly pursues engagement with Syria...
Here's their first ad:
h/t: Daniel Halper
Lee Harris has been an influential "big thinker" over the past few years, oft-cited on blogs for his interesting ideas. Putting this one high on the reading queue.
[The following, by Will Spotts, is crossposted from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine. Also see Divest This!: PCUSA - Victory and Nausea]
This is not the post I planned to write.
That post was called "From Fictions to Lies: Institutional Support for the MESC". It was a scandalized reaction to recent official and semi-official Presbyterian strategic moves to push forward the anti-Israel agenda at the General Assembly. I found myself thinking about how best to persuade, how best to counter, how to even get a hearing from commissioners.
Then I remembered a line from the 1968 movie, Lion in Winter:
I'm vilifying you. For God's sake, pay attention.
(I admit it; I'm a sucker for quotes.) When I thought of this, I laughed out loud. It struck me as eminently appropriate; it described both what I was doing in my intended post (and what I have done in one or two others), and what the MESC, the ACSWP, the MRTI, the IPMN, and some presbyteries are doing to Israel and to the Jewish people.
I'm no good at strategy; I detest marketing; I don't even particularly like politics - except as a study in human behavior. I'm just a guy with a blog, spending way too much time (I don't really have), hoping to dissuade people I actually care about from embracing something ugly, harmful, and untrue. At that point, I realized there was nothing I could do to improve the situation - the 219th General Assembly was going to do what it was going to do, and my best response was to wait it out.
So here we are, several days later. The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has adjourned. For good or ill it has completed its work. And for the next few weeks a variety of interested parties will attempt to interpret their actions - both to Presbyterians and to people outside the denomination.
How did they do?
My first reaction is to say, "The lamps are going out in Presbyterian churches all over America; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
But that is unjust. It is not an accurate reaction. It is no more true than the statements that celebrate the miracle at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
More accurately, the 219th General Assembly attempted to split the difference.
Continue reading "Not the Post I Planned [PC(USA)]"[The following, by Barry Rubin, is crossposted from The Rubin Report.]
An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations for the purpose of trying to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons at all would be a mistake. Instead, Israel should plan--and indeed is planning--for a multi-layer campaign of airstrikes, missile defenses, and other measures in the event of Iran ever posing a specific threat of attacking Israel.
Before going into the details of why I'm saying this, however, let me stress that this is not something likely to be a central issue in the near-term future. That is precisely why we should discuss it now.
Let me also emphasize that Israeli plans should be in place such that if there ever would be an imminent threat of an Iranian attack, it should be preempted. What should be avoided, however, is an Israeli attack based merely on the goal of stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons at all. It is far better to risk setting of a major regional war only if there is a need to do so, as happened, for example, regarding the 1967 war, a preemptive attack required for self-defense.
Of course, Iran's having nuclear weapons is an overall danger for Israeli interests, wider regional stability, and U.S. interests. Such a situation would in theory open Israel daily to the possibility of an Iranian nuclear attack. Yet history shows that Israelis would adjust to this situation, if remote as it would likely be, without panic or paralysis. Given a calm analysis, however, and the alternatives, a preemptive attack on Iran possessing a few nuclear weapons and long-range missiles would make matters worse, not better.
Here's why:
Continue reading "Why Israel Shouldn't Attack Iranian Nuclear Installations--Unless It Has to Do So"
Found in Jerusalem: Oldest written document ever found in J'lem
Hebrew University excavations recently unearthed a clay fragment dating back to the 14th century BCE, said to be the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem.
The tiny fragment is only 2 cm. by 2.8 cm. in surface area and 1 cm. thick and appears to have once been part of a larger tablet. Researchers say the ancient fragment testifies to Jerusalem's importance as a major city late in the Bronze Age, long before it was conquered by King David.
The minuscule fragment contains Akkadian words written in ancient cuneiform symbols. Researchers say that while the symbols appear to be insignificant, containing simply the words "you," "you were," "them," "to do," and "later," the high quality of the writing indicates that it was written by a highly skilled scribe. Such a revelation would mean that the piece was likely written for tablets that were part of a royal household.
The find was uncovered in a fill taken from the Ophel area, which lies between the Old City's southern wall and the City of David. The Ophel digs are being carried out by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archeology, through funding from US donors Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York...
More at PaleoJudaica (JPost seems to have updated its headline since he wrote the post. Also, at Commentary, Jonathan Tobin.
Via The Flea, who writes:
The good old days. And not a "human rights" lawyer in sight.
It was possible to stand for some sense of honor at the time, had one had the guts:
The captured U.S. soldiers were interrogated and one of the U.S. officers revealed the story of the mission. This information was then sent to Dostler at the 75th German Army Corps. The following day (March 25), Dostler sent a telegram to the 135th Fortress Brigade ordering that the captured soldiers be executed. Recognizing that the order was harsh [citation needed], officers at the 135th Fortress Brigade contacted Dostler in an attempt to achieve a stay. Dostler then sent another telegram ordering Almers to carry out the execution. Two last attempts were made by the officers at the 135th, including some by telephone. These efforts were unsuccessful and the fifteen Americans were executed on the morning of March 26, 1944. Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten, who refused to sign the execution order, was dismissed from Wehrmacht service because of his insubordination.
[The following, by Israelinurse, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
Another day at the Guardian; another Neve Gordon pro-boycott article; another example of the Durban I delegitimization and demonization strategy at work.
So why now? Well, as recently mentioned on these pages, the Israeli government has finally begun to refuse to take its country's delegitimization lying down and that includes coming to terms with people such as Neve Gordon himself. This means that the BDS supporters, who until now have enjoyed a free rein to promote their demonizing and delegitimizing strategies unhindered both at home and abroad, suddenly have to reckon with opposition to their point of view, and they appear not to like it. Apparently, Gordon believes that hiding behind the Guardian's skirts will help his case, which he presents in this article using two main, albeit very weak, points.
His first point is that Israel is wrong, and until it changes its ways, he has no choice but to punish it. Like some Victorian patriarch from an era gone by, Gordon expounds his 'spare the rod and spoil the child' doctrine which lies behind the promotion of the BDS campaign, all but telling us that this is hurting him more than it is us.
"[T]he occupation will not end unless Israelis understand that it has a price."
The trouble is, of course, that some of us wayward souls who (to his misfortune) are Gordon's fellow citizens remember that the territories only came under Israeli control because three Arab states and their armies, with the support of six other Arab countries and the PLO, tried to annihilate our 19 year-old state. Neither do we forget the 'Three Nays' of the Khartoum Resolutions of September 1967 which slammed the door both on peace and the relinquishing of those territories and thus paved the way to the next terrible Arab-initiated war six years later.
Continue reading "Bullyboy Beef"If you haven't been following, the next ship scheduled to "run the Gaza blockade" is coming from Libya. And though the Israelis and Egyptians have both asked the ship to dock at their ports from where the goods can be transferred into the strip, that doesn't suit the political purpose of the organizers.
OK, this all you can figure. But wait, there's more!
Carl reports: Libyan ship heading for Gaza sponsored (in part) by... Barack Obama?
There's some dispute over its ultimate destination, but a Libyan ship left for this area from a Greek port on Saturday. (Israel Radio reported this morning that Israel's foreign ministry says it's headed for the Egyptian port of El Arish, but the ship's captain says it's heading for Gaza). The ship's crew, which claims to be carrying 'humanitarian aid,' says it's willing to have the ship boarded and inspected at sea, but they're not willing to unload at the Israeli port of Ashdod, as Israel has demanded.
But here's the key. The ship has been sent by the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation. And if you've been following the Illinois Senate race, you may already know that the Obama administration has contributed $400,000 to the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation and to Wa Attassimou, another 'charity' run by a Gadhaffi family member (Hat Tip: Murphywong). And just to top it all off, the Foundation is run by the same Gadhaffi son who brought the Pan Am bomber back to Tripoli...
More at the link.
Gotta watch those Danegeld payments, sometimes they come back to bite you.
[h/t: Fred]
This time it's a challenge from J. Christian Adams: The Ike Brown Case: Is the DOJ About to Fail Another Race-Based Test?
...This story hails from rural east Mississippi: majority black Noxubee County is home to Ike Brown, one of the most lawless purveyors of racial discrimination the nation has seen in decades. (I have written in greater detail about the racially motivated lawlessness Brown used to victimize minority white voters in the county.) Brown canceled ballots cast by white voters. He stuffed the ballot box with illegal ballots supporting his preferred black candidates. He deployed teams of notaries to roam the countryside and mark absentee ballots instead of voters. He allowed forced assistance in the voting booth, to the detriment of white voters. He threatened 174 white voters by declaring that if they tried to participate in an election, he might challenge them and not let them vote. He publicized the 174 names.
Brown ran the primary elections because he is the Democratic Party chairman. At the trial, a woman on Brown's list testified that she was too afraid to vote because she thought she might be arrested.
The federal court found that the publication of the list of 174 names was an illegal form of intentional racial discrimination...
Read the whole story at the link. The question Adams asks is whether his former employers will do the right thing. It's an open question at this point.
Ace has more video of that wonderful New Black Panther Party leader Holder isn't doing anything about: Yeah, So Here's the Guy Eric Holder Decided To Spring Free: Let's Give It Up for Osama Bin Ladin! Yeah, that's right, Osama Bin Laden.
And Michelle Malkin has a good roundup on the history of Holder's DoJ: The U.S. Department of Social Justice
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Via Jeff Jacoby on twitter:
Maybe you have to be a survivor's kid to relate, but this video - "Dancing Auschwitz" - had me in tears. The good kind.
Touching and profound on one level, concerns me on another. The man and his family survived, which is a categorical good, and dancing on what is, in effect, his own grave is a beautiful thing. Yet I can't get it out of my head that many people didn't make it, and that is also a place for them. The background images speak their stories as well.
Auschwitz is a big place.
Update: Some back story: Jewish artist defends YouTube video 'Dancing Auschwitz' (via Yaacov Lozowick.)
I usually post a video on Saturday, but here are a bunch of random linky things this week instead:
A whole bunch of flash games, here, some of them quite familiar, like the original Doom.
This mini-golf game kept me going for awhile, and it's a neat advertising concept.
Holy crap, touchable holograms. I can see where this is going.
Awwww...a baby duck is feeding the carp.
This is tough, I couldn't get far.
I don't care, I'm still buying an iPhone (when my current plan is up).
Touching series of photos.
OK, what are these people doing?
I'm going to make some time to watch this microscopic animation later.
How to carve an awesome pumpkin.
Journey to Mars to scale.
ttfn
The New York Post pretty well gets to the crux of the matter:
President Obama says he knows why polls show Israelis overwhelmingly consider him pro-Palestinian, while less than 10 percent believe he supports the Jewish state.
"Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that created suspicion," he told Israeli TV.
Of course, there might be other reasons why Israelis and their supporters view Obama with suspicion. Such as:
· His public humiliation last March of Bejamin Netanyahu at the White House, when Obama walked out of their talks to go have dinner with his family, leaving Israel's prime minister alone for over an hour, and then refused to release even a photo of their meeting.
· His disturbing comparison, during that "outreach" speech to the Arab world in Cairo, of the Palestinians' "daily humiliations" and "intolerable" situation to the Nazi Holocaust.
· His administration's public demand that Israeli leaders "demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process" -- a demand Sen. Chuck Schumer labeled "terrible" and "counterproductive."
· His continued push for closer US ties with Syria -- an ally of Iran, state sponsor of terrorism and major backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah.
· His decision to join the farcical UN Human Rights Council -- which devotes most of its time to denouncing Israel.
Obama's public reconciliation this week with Netanyahu is welcome, although the timing -- heading into critical midterm elections -- is a tad suspicious.
Supporters of Israel, in other words, are less concerned with Obama's name than with his record. And they believe this president, too, must demonstrate, "not just through words but through specific actions," that he is fully committed to Israel's security.
[The following, by Will Spotts, is crossposted from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine.]
None of the actions will be final until the assembly concludes. Anything can still be "reconsidered". At this point, however, all of the business items related to Israelis and Palestinians have been addressed.
· The paper, "Christians and Jews: People of God" has been referred for a rewrite.
· Divestment has been declined.
· The GA has denounced Caterpillar.
· The GA has declined to find Israel guilty of the crime of apartheid. It added this comment:
While we are deeply concerned with the policies implemented by Israel in relation to the Palestine territories and Palestinians under its jurisdiction, we believe that dialogue is hampered by words like "apartheid."
· The GA approved a modestly less bad version of the MESC report.
· The GA expressed "its extreme disappointment with the U.S. government that ... the State of Israel ... continues to be the recipient of U.S. military aid."
· The GA approved the Belhar Confession.
· The GA rejected the overture from the Presbytery of Grand Canyon on Amending the Process for Forming Social Witness Policy.
The good news: No divestment, no Israel = apartheid, and the modifications to the MESC. [See CAMERA's press release, here. -MS]
The bad news: Everything else.
[The following, by Will Spotts, is crossposted from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine.]
Whatever may happen with the rest of the items on the PC(USA) 219th General Assembly Middle East agenda, it has taken definitive action on one thing. Presbyterians now own it.
The General Assembly has approved the overture from the Presbytery of San Francisco, "On Referring 'Christians and Jews: People of God' and 'Understanding Christian-Muslim Relations'". Well, more precisely, it decided to ONLY refer "Christians and Jews: People of God" for a re-write.
According to its rationale, this overture is based on a communication from the Israel/Palestine Mission Network. This communication is fraught with problems.
This action of the 219th General Assembly cannot be divorced from the rationale or from the IPMN communication that sparked it.
Among its many problems, it contains three elements that stand out.
1. The IPMN displays a strong animosity toward the existence of a Jewish State. The IPMN letter states it in this way:
"What the report fails to recognize is that expansionist forms of political and religious Zionism have been major ideological forces behind the confiscation of Palestinian land and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by every Israeli administration since 1948. The literature on this subject is vast and the reality undeniable. The push by the current government of Netanyahu for recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" is one example of this ideology."
Michael Ramirez:
Via Power Line: Spaceman As Psychotherapist
See also: Ghost of a Flea: Moon-o-theism, Part III: NOMA (National Outreach to Muslims Administration)
Friday, July 9, 2010
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Timothy Hill, commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 32, pilots an F/A-18F Super Hornet aircraft during the squadron's change of command ceremony over USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) while under way in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility July 3, 2010. During the ceremony, Hill relieved Cmdr. Edward Heflin as commanding officer of VFA-32. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Matthew D. Williams, U.S. Navy/Released)
Manufacturers have long recognized the advantage of producing multiple brands that essentially mirror each other. The strategy is market saturation and control. If you control the supermarket shelf, you control the market. J Street's latest production is just such a move. Funded by under-the-radar Soros money, along with its many anti-israel deep pocketed contributors like the Turkish Mehmet Celebi (oddly enough, of Illinois) who helped produce Turkey's epic antisemitic film, "Valley of the Wolves - Iraq" in which Jewish doctors harvest organs from Muslim children and Nancy Dutton, who represents the Saudi Royal family as their lawyer, Jeremy Ben Ami's brainchild has just unleashed a media blitz operating under the name, "Community of Yes." Mimicking everything Obama, they hope to capitalize on the winning "Yes, We Can" theme. "Turning No into Yes on a Two State Solution" is the hastily built website's theme, as usual, exculpating Arabs and blaming it all on the Jews they despise.
It's more of the same J Street rant that the only obstacle to peace in the Middle East are all those nay-saying "right wingers" among American Christian supporters of Israel. For people who profess revulsion of the notion of demonizing "the other", J Street has produced a commercial that does precisely that. The 30 second TV and internet spot goes for the low-hanging fruit (Sara Palin, John Hagee and Rush Limbaugh) that's guaranteed to bring out shudders of fear from liberal American Jews.
The clip begins with..."As chaos and violence in the Middle East grow..." quickly overlaid with a video of IDF commandos descending on ropes to the deck of the Mavi Marmara, clearly suggesting that it is Jewish violence that is impeding the elusive peace process. According to J Street's playbook, there is no Palestinian Arab atrocity that is not caused by Israeli intransigence.
Slight problem for Ben Ami & Co. At least 63% of Americans disagree with them according to a recent Gallup poll. Seems like they're a lot smarter than the "blame Israel first, last and always" crowd on J Street. The spot also absurdly suggests that Jews who recognize the extremist threats coming out of both Gaza and Ramallah are somehow "denying reality."
Will this slick piece of codswallop succeed with American Jews and other Americans? If its past performance is any indication, it will be a flop, driving more and more people to the reality camp, the anti-J Street camp.
[Crossposted from JStreetJive.]
Ros Atkins, Host of "World Have Your Say"
BBC Slayer, Theo Caldwell |
Sakine Ashtiani, Object of the Mullahs' Hatred |
The BBC's World Service produces a call-in show called "World Have Your Say". You can guess the tenor of the show and the majority of the callers: Moral relativists fortified by irate Muslims claiming that the West has no business "interfering" in their traditional culture, Cambridge lefties rattling off the scores of "atrocities" committed by Europe and America (all the way back to the Crusades). You get the picture.
The topic was the imminent stoning to death of Sakine Mohammedie Ashtiani by the Mullahocracy in Tehran. The drill is familiar: Western journalists, especially those in the BBC, invite to the studio Muslims residing in Europe, who enjoy the bounty of free speech, sexual choice and economic opportunity to trash Western culture and spew apologetics for barbaric Islamic regimes like those in Iran, Saudi Arabia or the Sudan. After all, the argument goes, who are we to criticize those states when our hands are just as dirty with capital punishment, torture and the proclivity to invade third world lands. And so, the Beeb takes the point on moral relativism and teaches its audience tolerance for medieval barbarities.
Yesterday, however, the stereotypical, haranguing British host of the show got more than he bargained for when a Canadian editorialist from the Toronto Sun, Theo Caldwell, took the network to the woodshed. The host's other interlocutors were "Layla", an Iranian living in London and "Sinam" a producer for the BBC's Persian service. Listen to an excerpt - it speaks for itself. Bravo, Theo Caldwell! (read his op-ed here.)
[Also see: Ghost of a Flea: Sakine Ashtiani to be Stoned to Death in Iran -MS]
[Crossposted from JStreetJive.]
The Wall Street Journal has posted a statement that appears to be an edited version of the one that appears on The Friends of Israel Initiative web site: Israel: A Normal Country - Hostility to the Jews has been a stain on the Western world's honor for centuries.
The following statement has been signed by Jose Maria Aznar, David Trimble, John R. Bolton, Alejandro Toledo, Marcello Pera, Andrew Roberts, Fiamma Nirenstein, George Weigel, Robert F. Agostinelli and Carlos Bustelo:
Israel is a Western democracy and a normal country. Nonetheless, Israel has faced abnormal circumstances since its inception. In fact, Israel is the only Western democracy whose existence has been questioned by force, and whose legitimacy is still being questioned independently of its actions.
The recent flotilla crisis in the Mediterranean provided yet another occasion for Israel's detractors to renew their frenzied campaign. It was so even before the facts of that tragic incident had come to light. Eyes were blind to the reasons why Israel had to respond to the Gaza flotilla's clear provocation.
Because we believe Israel is subjected to unfair treatment, and are convinced that defending Israel means defending the values that made and sustain our Western civilization, we have decided to launch the Friends of Israel Initiative. Our goal is to bring reason and decency back to the discussion about Israel. We are an eclectic group, coming from different countries and holding different opinions on a range of issues. It goes without saying that we do not speak for the State of Israel and we do not defend every course of action that it decides upon. We are united, however, by the following beliefs, principles and aims:
They get it, Mr. President. It's the substance and the results that count, not the name.
YNet: Obama delivers calming message to Israel
Claudia Rosett: No, the Problem Is Not Obama's Middle Name
Barry Rubin: What's In a Name: Obama Can't Figure Out (Or Pretends He Can't) Why He Worries Israelis
The Hez has been learning their lesson well. They are well prepared for the next war not only with the usual panoply of armaments -- well restocked right under the protective eye of UNIFIL -- but in full prep for the media war where their fifth columnists in the press, the UN, and the NGO's will do their part in giving the rubber stamp of approval to the Lebanese terrorist group's premeditated war crimes. Israel has done an unprecedented document dump showing that they know just exactly how Hizballah has been positioning its weapons among civilians, with the clear intention that those civilians should take as much damage as possible in the inevitable war to come.
Richard Landes describes what's going on: Hezbollah Takes Southern Lebanon Hostage
Hezbollah forces have taken over more than a hundred villages to store their heavy artillery, and their command posts are near schools and hospitals.
In an unprecedented move, the Israeli Defense Forces have released sensitive intelligence information about the situation in southern Lebanon (available at the IDF blog). Hezbollah forces have taken over more than a hundred villages to store their heavy artillery, and their command posts are near schools and hospitals.
This represents a major shift in strategy for Hezbollah since 2006, when they stored most of their weaponry away from habitations, as befits any army that claims to want to protect its own people. But the IDF hit most of their supply in the first days of hostilities.
Hezbollah improvised by hiding behind civilians in order to shield themselves from attack while they fired at civilian targets in Israel. In a notorious incident, when an Israeli missile hit the foundation of a building near Qana in early 2006, Israeli spokeswoman Miri Eisen apologized profusely for the incident -- which the media turned into a ghoulish production -- assuring the world that if Israel had known that there were children in the building, they never would have fired at it.
The unintended results of this open and overriding concern for the safety of Lebanese civilians, combined with the almost addictive need on the part of Hezbollah to target Israel at any cost, has produced the current situation in which Hezbollah has essentially taken the civilians of southern Lebanon hostage. Behind the shield of these civilians, any of whose deaths the media will lay at the feet of Israel, this fanatic Shia militia has assembled an army of some 20,000 soldiers and some 40,000 short-, medium-, and long-range missiles, some hundred of which can hit Tel Aviv. In the case of renewed hostilities, these encampments would be capable of sending over 700 rockets a day into Israel...
Also see Yaacov Lozowick: Hezbullah Prepares for War. As does Israel
And Sky News: Israel: 'Hizbollah Storing Weapons In Towns'
The revelations from from DoJ attorney J. Christian Adams just keep on coming. Now he discloses that the Department of Justice was instructed not to pursue cases where states were failing to remove ineligible voters -- such as dead people, felons, and those who moved -- from the rolls. This administration is certainly doing a fine job of undermining peoples' faith in the electoral system -- a very dangerous matter: Lawlessness at the DOJ: Voting Section Told Not To Enforce Purging the Dead or Ineligible from Voting Rolls
I was at the Voting Section of the Justice Department for over five years. This office is responsible for enforcing most federal election laws which do not involve criminal matters. My previous articles at Pajamas Media have spoken of the DOJ's lawless abandonment of race-neutral enforcement of voting laws, and other outrageous conduct. I will continue to publish here at Pajamas Media more instances of failure to enforce the law equally by the Department.
One such instance relates to the Motor Voter law, and will shock Americans who care about integrity in the electoral process.
The "Motor Voter" law was passed in 1993 to promote greater voter registration in the United States. It did this -- most Americans now know from visits to the DMV -- by requiring states to offer voter registration materials whenever someone had contact with a variety of state offices. These included welfare offices, social service agencies, and motor vehicle departments.
A lesser-known provision also obliged the states to ensure that no ineligible voters were on the rolls -- including dead people, felons, and people who had moved. Our current Department of Justice is anxious to encourage the obligations to get everyone registered, but explicitly unwilling to enforce federal law requiring states to remove the dead or ineligible from the rolls.
In November 2009, the entire Voting Section was invited to a meeting with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, a political employee serving at the pleasure of the attorney general. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Motor Voter enforcement decisions.
The room was packed with dozens of Voting Section employees when she made her announcement regarding the provisions related to voter list integrity:
We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.
Jaws dropped around the room...
[The following, by Margie in Telaviv, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
The above weasel words pretend that all was equal and it was all gentlemanly negotiation. The stench of the blood shed by the Palestinians during the course of their bloody intifada didn't reach Camp David however. Ehud Barak's prime ministership didn't 'run out', the most liberal of governments, offering the most liberal of terms to the Palestinians was forced out by its inability to come to agreement with the kind of people performing and justifying the actions pictured on this page. Moratinos talks of how near the two sides were to agreement. Could it be that that is what terrified the Palestinians, who had run out of excuses not to accept Israel's offers?
A few incidents out of the many, a glimpse of the horrors should suffice. Amazing how people can lie to themselves and to others and attempt to foist their own picture of events on to a gullible public who perhaps didn't pay much attention to events in the first place.
The following two videos are not for those of tender years or tender stomachs, nor are they for those who want to fool the world that the Palestinians didn't behave towards Israelis -- Israeli civilians -- like bloodthirsty barbarians.
Continue reading "Lessons in Whitewashing"[The following, by AKUS, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
Oh, the outrage - what foul play - Russian spies using forged passports to infiltrate the US -- who can we expel??? The Russian ambassador?? Should the US expel someone, or should Britain and Ireland??? Will the Russian Ambassador in the UK and the Russian Ambassador in Ireland be hauled in for an "explanation"??
How did they get these passports?? Did they get the passports from the Mossad's Army Surplus store??? Or, like everyone else, just by stealing them from that factory in Britain where they make them??
It's in the British press - even a few mentions in the Guardian - but I guess I missed the 37 articles with timelines and video clips in the Guardian over this outrageous misuse of British and Irish passports by a friendly country (Russia) and the endless debates in Parliament, and the outrage, and demands for apologies ... oh well - no Palestinians involved - it's not news ...
Continue reading "More false passports!! Oh, the outrage!!!"Thursday, July 8, 2010
U.S. Navy Logistics Specialist 3rd Class Claudia Morales travels to Ancon Beach, Peru, aboard a Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter July 3, 2010, to pickup mail for the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18). The ship is deployed in support of Southern Partnership Station 2010, which is designed to promote information-sharing with navies, coast guards and civilian services throughout the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brien Aho, U.S. Navy/Released)
Bibi was also on Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos.
[The following, by Ben-Dror Yemini, is crossposted in full from MidEastTruth.]
Additional humanitarian aid flotillas from Lebanon, Iran and the West are en route to the Gaza Strip. But the plight of the Turks, Iranians and the Palestinians in Lebanon is worse. Even in Stockholm and Glasgow amidst the festivities. Here are the facts.
Turkey was the most prominent country in the recent flotilla. From there came the Mavi Marmara with members from an organization (IHH) affiliated with Global Jihad. Lebanon is dispatching a ship that is due to arrive, perhaps in the coming days. Even Iran, that bastion of humanitarian justice on Earth, is joining the party. Thus, it would be worthwhile to check what is happening in these compassionate and strong countries, which are showing such noteworthy generosity in dispatching humanitarian aid to a weaker and depressed population. A representative has even arrived from Sweden, Gil Feiler, a former Israeli. Thus, we will also deal with Sweden.
Dead in Turkey; alive in Gaza
Infant mortality is one of the most important indicators in checking the humanitarian situation. It is clear that the situation in Turkey is worse than it is in the Gaza Strip. Infant mortality in Gaza is 17.71 per thousand; in Turkey it is 24.84. The Gaza Strip is in a much better situation than the global average, which is 44 infants per 1,000 births. It is also better than most of the Arab countries and several South American countries, and is certainly better than Africa.
Life expectancy is another important indicator. And here, life expectancy in Turkey is 72.23, whereas in the Gaza Strip it is 73.68, much higher than the global average of 66.12. In comparison, life expectancy is 63.36 in Yemen, 52.52 in Sudan and 50 in Somalia. These countries are crying out for international attention, for aid, for any rescue ship. But none come.
Continue reading "Ben-Dror Yemini: Humanitarian Show"More IDF (previous: IDF Flash Mob in Hebron), this time the ladies get into the act (via GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD):
And here are some Americans goofing around in Baghdad (via Yaacov Lozowick, who has more):
There's a ton of this stuff out there. War is Hours of boredom punctuated with seconds of sheer terror.
You know, like Hizballah. I mean you have got to be kidding. Now the MSU thugs are complaining about their suspension since disrupting events isn't the only thing they do. Oh, OK then.
Maybe they should have thought of that before they did what they did to deserve to be suspended.
UC Irvine's Muslim Student Union says suspension ignores group's religious and charitable activities
Members say political events are just a fraction of the organization's endeavors. The university says the group planned the disruption of the Israeli ambassador's speech, which the MSU denies.
Past and current members of UC Irvine's Muslim Student Union say a move to suspend the club for allegedly disrupting an Israeli official's speech is unduly harsh and overlooks the group's history of religious and charitable endeavors.
The Muslim Student Union, which has been on campus for 20 years, faces a yearlong suspension after the university concluded it planned repeated disruptions of a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in February. The group denies organizing the protest and is appealing the recommended suspension.
Members of the group said political events such as this year's Israeli Apartheid Week, which has been labeled anti-Semitic by the Jewish Federation, the Zionist Organization of America and others, make up only a fraction of the group's activities.
"There were so many things that we tried to do as an organization," said Omar Zarka, who was president from 2007 to 2009. "It's really sad that it would get sidelined by something like this."...
I guess you should have thought of that...etc... Therein follows a litany of sob-stories concerning helpful work that will remain undone, all of which can be addressed in the same way.
So when are the individual punishments being distributed?
Not like us (h/t: Jeff Jacoby on Twitter): Mother of Baby Saved By Israelis Wants Him to Get Well & Kill Them.
The infant is being treated in an Israeli hospital, a charity case, a victim of a genetic illness. The family had no money to pay...
..."I got to her after all the attempts to find a donation for the transplant had failed," [Eldar] relates. "I understood that I was the baby's last hope, but I didn't give it much of a chance. At the time, Qassam rockets falling on Sderot opened every newscast. In that situation, I didn't believe that anyone would be willing to give a shekel for a Palestinian infant."
He was wrong. Hours after the news item about Mohammed was broadcast, the hospital switchboard was jammed with callers. An Israeli Jew whose son died during his military service donated $55,000, and for the first time the Abu Mustafa family began to feel hopeful. Only then did Eldar grasp the full dramatic potential of the story. He told his editor, Tali Ben Ovadia, that he wanted to continue accompanying the family.
...Nevertheless, this idyllic situation developed into a deep crisis that led to the severance of the relations and what appeared to be the end of the filming. From an innocent conversation about religious holidays, Raida Abu Mustafa launched into a painful monologue about the culture of the shahids - the martyrs - and admitted, during the complex transplant process, that she would like to see her son perpetrate a suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem.
"Jerusalem is ours," she declared. "We are all for Jerusalem, the whole nation, not just a million, all of us. Do you understand what that means - all of us?"
She also explained to Eldar exactly what she had in mind. "For us, death is a natural thing. We are not frightened of death. From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You're free to be angry, so be angry."
And Eldar was angry. "Then why are you fighting to save your son's life, if you say that death is a usual thing for your people?" he lashes out in one of the most dramatic moments in the film.
"It is a regular thing," she smiles at him. "Life is not precious. Life is precious, but not for us. For us, life is nothing, not worth a thing. That is why we have so many suicide bombers. They are not afraid of death. None of us, not even the children, are afraid of death. It is natural for us. After Mohammed gets well, I will certainly want him to be a shahid. If it's for Jerusalem, then there's no problem. For you it is hard, I know; with us, there are cries of rejoicing and happiness when someone falls as a shahid. For us a shahid is a tremendous thing."
Our charity, our destruction.
Hmmm...at the Wall Street Journal: Swede Bites Dog
That Sweden's dockworkers' union staged a week-long protest against Israel in the wake of the Turkish flotilla incident is hardly surprising. But the response of a 2,500-strong student union that supports Sweden's leading Moderate Party is worth noting. Last month, the student union showed Israel some welcome support by offering to load and unload Israeli cargo themselves. The students slammed the longshoremen in a press release and declared that "It is Hamas's fault that people are suffering in Gaza, not Israel's."
Their statement contains more clarity on Palestinian-Israeli relations than most anything we've heard lately from Europe's grown-ups. Stockholm has been particularly vociferous in denouncing Israel's efforts to defend itself, with Swedish Foreign Minister and Moderate Party elder statesman Carl Bildt having called for an investigation into Israel, and telling the Swedish press that Israel's Palestinian policy is "catastrophic" and "leads to one problem after another." All of which is pro-Israel compared to statements from Mr. Bildt's colleagues on the left.
Gustaf Dymov, 24, who chairs the contrarian student union, stressed in a phone interview that the offer to scab on the boycotting dockworkers was almost entirely for show--but then, so was the "boycott" itself, since very little cargo actually passes between Israel and Sweden by sea. Mr. Dymov says that's what outrages him the most: "It's very obvious [the dockworkers] did this not out of a will to support the Palestinians but to show hatred toward Israel."
So Mr. Dymov and his compatriots decided to show the love: "We view this as a conflict between Israel, a democratic and free country that deserves our support; and Hamas, a terror organization that has an explicit aim to destroy and kill other people," he tells us.
Given the political mores of contemporary European youth culture, this stance defines courageous rebellion. Too bad, then, that a Moderate Party spokesman was quick to distance his party from the students' cause, telling us over the phone that Mr. Dymov's group is not their official student faction and is "totally separate from the party." Mr. Dymov confirms this, though he notes that his group generally supports the Moderates in other matters, and that Mr. Bildt once chaired the "quite libertarian" student union himself. "That was a long time ago," Mr. Dymov adds.
The Swedish students' dissent has gotten little press, but Mr. Dymov said that what feedback he has gotten has been mostly positive. For anyone who agrees with Mr. Dymov's code to "always stand on the side of free countries and democracies," this student movement comes not a moment too soon.
[The following, by Will Spotts, is crossposted from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine.]
At a PC(USA) General Assembly, committees offer recommendations to the entire GA; these recommendations are usually - but not always - accepted.
· Committee 8 rejected the report on Christians and Jews. They accepted the recommendation from the Presbytery of San Francisco that contained (in an appended letter from the IPMN) blatant lies about the actions of American Jewish organizations. They refer the report for revision to the Office of Interfaith Relations and the Office of Theology and Worship - to rewrite after "broader consultation to include the National Middle East Presbyterian Caucus, PC(USA) partner churches and agencies in the Middle East, relevant mission networks of the PC(USA), the ACREC, and the ACSWP.
In short, Committee 8 insists that anything positive in this report - namely a move by the PC(USA) away from anti-Judaic and antisemitic discourse - be completely gutted.
· Committee 11 has approved the ACSWP Human Rights Report 2010 that takes an inexplicably bigoted stance in uniquely singling out Israel for criticism for religious discrimination and violations of religious freedom.
· Committee 14 has decided:
a. to denounce Caterpillar (and not to divest from Caterpillar). This is a distinction without a difference, but divestment might be regarded as having slightly more symbolic weight.
b. to approve the overture from Chicago expressing extreme disappointment with the U.S. government that the State of Israel continues to be a recipient of U.S. military aid.
c. to reject the overture from the Presbytery of San Francisco finding Israel guilty of the crime of apartheid.
d. to approve a "perfected" MESC report. This report has undergone several changes. Some are purely cosmetic. One looks like an improvement but is actually worse. A couple are clearly changes for the better. One of these is quite significant.
The problem is, the perfected MESC is still highly biased, its recommendations are remarkably weighted against Israel - and these give every indication of having been painstakingly chosen to do the most possible damage to Israel. While the perfected MESC is clearly different than the original, it is a matter of choosing between a very bad report and a somewhat less very bad report. The MESC coming out of committee 14 still poses insurmountable problems for people concerned with basic fairness and accuracy in Presbyterian policy statements.
· Committee 16 has approved the Belhar Confession.
The General Assembly has already acted on the recommendation of Committee 16 and chosen to add the Belhar Confession to the PC(USA)'s Book of Confessions. Because it involves a change to the Book of Confessions, this action must be ratified by the presbyteries.
Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times - He Would Be Proud of the paper's Current Coverage of Israel
Since the patriarch of The New York Times, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, determined that his paper was going to lead the charge against Israel's founding in 1948 (he was a charter member of the infamous American Council for Judaism, the group formed to oppose a Jewish state at the height of The Holocuast) the "grey lady" has maintained its anti-Zionist policy in reporting and, for the most part, in its editorials. Its agenda, cloaked in the familiar guise of "fair and objective reporting" even extended to downplaying The Holocaust while it was occurring. Laurel Leff chronicled the paper's misdeeds in her widely acclaimed book, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper
The Times bias over the years has been expressed in its choice of reporters. Serge Schmemann, Chris Hedges, Deborah Sontag, Max Frankel, and now, Ethan Bronner have all shared the dominant NY Times hostility towards Israel and the concomitant sympathy for Palestinian Arabs. Bottom line: you don't get hired by the Times' Middle East bureau unless you share its anti-Israel positions. Bearing a Jewish name does not imply a pro-Israel point of view at the paper; as historically demonstrated, the opposite is the case. Such a case in point is the current lead reporter, Ethan Bronner. I recall asking him a question when he worked for the Times' sister paper, The Boston Globe in 2000 when Pope John Paul II made his epic visit to Jerusalem. Sheikh Ekrama Sa'id Sabri, Arafat's appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, took the occasion to spew outrageous Holocaust denial sermons and statements. When I asked Bronner why he chose not to write about Sabri, he replied that the story wasn't worth reporting since "everyone knew Sabri's comments." I then asked him why he didn't report on these statements when they first occurred. Bronner declined to answer.
Clearly designed as an attack on the Netanyahu government just as Bibi met with Obama, the world's most influential newspaper published a massive story, Tax Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank two days ago. Obviously an epic in the making, the story was emblazoned across multiple pages complete with detailed maps of the West Bank, clearly intended to indict Israelis and Americans who aid Jews in Israel.
Continue reading "Buried by the Times - Yet Again [Hillel]"Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Events have run their course. (Previous: CNN's Cheerleader for Hezbollah)
Now: CNN Editor Fired for Saying She Has "Respect" for Hezbollah Cleric. She did try to explain away her tweet and play it down, but here's the thing. We've seen the hate that infests that part of the world. We consistently have the deal with the moral equivalences, the obfuscating of the truth, the fantasy that passes for history and reality there. There must be a firewall between here, and what goes on over there, to prevent a slow, creeping decay of morality that allows us to say that there is anything admirable in our context, from someone on a Western news channel, about one of Hizballah's fascist clerics. CNN has done the right thing.
A must-read from Israeli-American Nobelist Robert Aumann: The Blackmailer Paradox - Game Theory and negotiations with Arab countries. Here's the scenario:
Reuben and Shimon are placed into a small room with a suitcase containing $100,000 of cash. The owner of the suitcase offers them the following: "I'll give you all the money in the suitcase, but only on the condition that you negotiate and reach an amicable agreement on its division. That's the only way I will give you the money. "
Reuben, who is a rational person, appreciates the golden opportunity presented to him and turns to Shimon with the obvious suggestion: "Come, you take half the amount, I'll take the other half, and each of us will go away with $50,000." To his surprise, Shimon, with a serious look on his face and a determined voice says: "Listen, I do not know what your intentions are with the money, but I'm not leaving this room with less than $90,000. Take it or leave it. I'm fully prepared to go home with nothing."
Reuben can not believe his ears. What happened to Shimon? he thinks to himself. Why should he get 90%, and I only 10%? He decides to try to talk to Shimon. "Come, be reasonable," he pleads. "We're both in this together, and we both want the money. Come let's share the amount equally and we'll both come out ahead."
But the reasoned explanation of his friend does not seem to register on Shimon. He listens attentively to Reuben's words, but then declares even more emphatically, "There is nothing to discuss. 90-10 or nothing, that's my final offer!" Reuben's face turns red with anger. He wants to smack Shimon across his face, but soon reconsiders. He realizes that Shimon is determined to leave with the majority of the money, and that the only way for him to leave the room with any money is to surrender to Shimon's blackmail. He straightens his clothes, pulls out a wad of bills from the suitcase in the amount of $10,000, shakes hands with Shimon and leaves the room looking forlorn.
This case in Game Theory is called the "Blackmailer Paradox." The paradox emerging from this case is that the rational Reuben is eventually forced to act clearly irrationally, in order to gain the maximum available to him. The logic behind this bizarre result is that Shimon broadcast total faith and confidence in his excessive demands, and he is able to convince Reuben to yield to his blackmail in order for him to receive the minimum benefit...
How does this apply to the Arab-Israeli conflict?
The political relationship between Israel and Arab countries is also conducted according to the principles of this paradox. The Arabs present rigid and unreasonable opening positions at every negotiation. They convey confidence and assurance in their demands, and make certain to make absolutely clear to Israel that they will never give up on any of these requirements.
The trouble for Israel in applying the lessons of this thought experiment is that they have not only their own fifth column, but so-called "friends" in the governments of other countries and lobbying groups like J Street who basically take Shimon's part in the negotiation.
[h/t: Seva]
[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
With thanks: Lily
The launch today of a new booklet by the UK-based interfaith organisation Faith Matters highlighting the role of 'Muslim heroes' who saved Jews during the Holocaust is a welcome attempt to engage Arabs and Muslims with what was not an exclusively a European story. The booklet itself was inspired by Robert Satloff's groundbreaking book Among the Righteous
However, Satloff himself might be disquieted at the unbalanced focus on Muslim heroes. In Tunisia, for every Khaled Abdelwahhab, who sheltered Jews in his farmhouse, there was a Hassen Ferjani, who sent Gilbert Scemla and his two sons to their deaths. Cherry-picking positive stories, while downplaying the negative, only misleads by creating a false history. Is this the way to build meaningful interfaith dialogue?
The booklet, entitled The role of Righteous Muslim Persons, reveals individual acts of heroism towards Jews, The Jerusalem Post reports:
Continue reading "Booklet on Muslim Holocaust heroes can mislead"[The following, by Israelinurse, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
Dominic Behan wrote in 'My Brother Brendan' that "[t]here's no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary". The Guardian seems determined to defy this logic by yet again publishing an obituary of a terrorist with the blood of Israelis on his hands which is full of euphemisms, false equations and whitewashing, proving once more its expertise in post mortem PR.
Why terrorists are deemed to deserve an obituary in the Guardian in the first place is beyond me. Frankly, were I a member of the family of a prominent British politician, academic or author who had to share the obituary pages with the likes of Ahmed Yassin , Nizar Rayan, and now Abu Daoud, I would be highly insulted. It would feel no less offensive than if my loved one had been put in a category with Peter Sutcliffe or Harold Shipman.
The writer of this miserable obituary is 'Middle East Specialist' and former board member of CAABU, Trevor Mostyn. Writing for the Tablet in 2002, Mostyn similarly managed to ignore both the origins of the second Intifada and its Israeli casualties, but was apparently eager to show off this item from his photo album.
Continue reading "Whitewashing Black September"I'm so glad Obama/Holder let these guys off, aren't you?
Ed Driscoll: 'You Want Freedom? You're Gonna Have to Kill Some Crackers'
BREAKING: A Third Former DOJ Official Steps Forward to Support J. Christian Adams (Updated)
Not a bad article at MERIA on the subject, though I think it spends a bit much on preamble: OVERVIEW OF ISRAEL'S RECORD AS AN ALLY. It does remind me of a couple of events I either wasn't aware of or had forgotten, such as:
...In September 1970, the Syrian army invaded Jordan for the purpose of supporting the Palestinian insurrection, which began earlier that month. At first, the United States was unsure about the extent of the invasion. Was it merely a border raid or something more? Yet after a phone call to the U.S. Ambassador from King Hussein confirming that the city of Irbid had fallen to the Syrians and his observation that, "air strikes were imperative to save his country," the United States decided to act to preserve Jordanian independence. The United States did not want to stand by idly while yet another pro-Western nation fell into the orbit of the Soviet Union. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger asked Israel to fly reconnaissance over the battle area and report back the extent of the incursion. Reconnaissance confirmed that the Syrians had invaded in force. At that point, President Nixon made the decision that if conditions deteriorated further, he would request that Israel intervene with air strikes against Syrian forces in Jordan and be prepared to attack Syrian forces with ground troops.
Israel responded by immediately sending two brigades onto the Golan Heights threatening Syria's flank in Jordan. Israel also began a limited mobilization of its reserve units in preparation for action in Jordan. The combination of the threat of Israeli intervention and successful Jordanian airstrikes against Syrian forces near Irbid helped convince Syria that it was advisable to withdraw its invasion forces.
This episode is striking for several reasons. First, at American request, Israel was prepared to expend its blood and treasure to support a country with which it had been at war just three years prior. Second, unlike the threat to Jordan 12 years earlier, the United States did not turn to Britain for help in saving the Jordanian regime but instead reached out to Israel. Last, the approach of some of America's other "allies" during this crisis is instructive. French President Pompidou sent a message to President Nixon expressing his "great concern" about possible American intervention and urged Nixon to weigh his decisions with care. Henry Kissinger noted that, "The message was not especially helpful, nor did we fail to notice France's attempt to dissociate from us in the midst of a crisis."[18] Israeli willingness to intervene had preserved the balance of power in the region. Future and more dramatic Israeli actions would have the same effect.
Nine months prior to the Jordanian crisis, the Soviet Union had provided Egypt with an advanced radar station. Such an advanced radar had never been deployed outside of the Warsaw Pact. Egypt immediately installed the radar near the Suez Canal. The extent of this radar's capabilities was unknown to the West and to Israel. In late 1969, Israel decided that it was imperative to learn the full capabilities of this radar. Therefore, Israel decided to embark on a mission never before attempted. It planned to land commandos near the unit and airlift the entire radar back to Israel for study rather than merely destroy it. The raid was successful and within two weeks after being brought to Israel, the radar unit was shipped to the United States for further evaluation.[19] At the time, this was an enormous intelligence coup for the United States as its aircraft had proven vulnerable to Soviet supplied radars over Vietnam. In addition, it is likely that possession and testing of this intact advanced radar aided the United States in developing stealth technology used in designing the first U.S. stealth aircraft in the 1970s...
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Presbyterian Church (USA) is meeting, so the blog posts worthy of posting are coming at me faster than I can reasonably put them up. Instead I'm going to give you a collection for your perusal, as well as a few links concerning the UK Methodists who have already voted to divest, relying on a tendentious narrative for their justification.
As always, Will Spotts, from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine, is on the job:
Quotes from MESC pre-GA Conversation
CAMERA's Dexter Van Zile is cranking out material:
Presbyterians Debate Middle East Study Report
Presby Establishment Doubles Down on Middle East Study Committee Report
J Street Condemns PC(USA) Middle East Document [Yes, they've gone even too far for J Street!]
Committee Member Rejected Report for Failing to Affirm Israel's Right to Exist
Committee Calls for Caterpillar to be "Denounced" [Gustav Niebuhr against it - Jeff Halper for it...]
Middle East Peacemaking Committee Considering Major Changes to Report
At Divest This!, coblogger Jon Haber is on the ball:
At Fresno Zionism: Presbyterian report could not be more one-sided
And Janet Tassel: The Presbyterians and Their Jewish Problem
Finally, here is some good reading material concerning the UK Methodists:
At Harry's Place: UK Methodists: Justice for Palestine and Israel
From CiF Watch: When you sup with the devil and Press Release from Anglican Friends of Israel
[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
With thanks: Independent Observer
The 19th century settlement of Yemenite Jews in Silwan was established on a bare hillside outside the walls of Jerusalem (Photo reproduced with help from Robert Avrech of Seraphic Secret)
The Observer is helping to spread the myth that Jews and Arabs lived happily together in the Jerusalem village of Silwan. In its obituary of 4 July 2010 of the PLO terrorist Abu Daoud, it wrote:
Mohammed Daoud Oudeh was born in the Silwan quarter of east Jerusalem, where he claimed to have mixed happily with Yemeni Jews. He taught mathematics and physics to Palestinian schoolchildren and qualified as a lawyer. He remained in Silwan until Jerusalem was occupied by Israel during the June 1967 war. Moving to Amman, he joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation, then followed a training course in Cairo to help form the PLO security apparatus in 1968.
But Abu Daoud would have been born just two years before the last of the Yemenite Jews of Silwan had been advised to evacuate the village by the British, following bloody disturbances during the Arab revolt and Arab attacks in 1921 and 1929. The Elder of Zion blog explodes the myth that Arabs mixed happily with Yemenite Jews, quoting this Wikipedia entry:
"In 1884, the Yemenites moved into new stone houses at the south end of the Arab village, built for them by a Jewish charity called Ezrat Niddahim. This settlement was called Kfar Hashiloach or the Yemenite Village. Construction costs were kept low by using the Shiloach as a water source instead of digging cisterns. An early 20th century travel guide writes: In the "village of Silwan, east of Kidron ... some of the fellah dwellings [are] old sepulchers hewn in the rocks. During late years a great extension of the village southward has sprung up, owing to the settlement here of a colony of poor Jews from Yemen, etc. many of whom have built homes on the steep hillside just above and east of Bir Eyyub,"[15] The Yemenite Jews living in Silwan were evacuated on advice of the British authorities in 1938, during the Arab revolt.[16] After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Silwan was annexed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.[17] It remained under Jordanian occupation until 1967, when Israel captured the Old City and surrounding region. "
Elder of Zion rightly asks why the 19 years of Jordanian occupation give Arabs a greater right to Silwan than the 100 years when Jews lived on the site.
* On 23 June Ynet News reported that ten Knesset members from right-wing factions had expressed their willingness to join Jewish residents in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan and help them evacuate Arab families living in a building which previously served as a synagogue for Yemenite Jews.
The 11 MKs claimed : "Israel is not carrying out its duty according to a verdict of the head of the repossession department. We wish to inform you that we plan, together with the Temple-treasury loyalists, to implement the legal right to carry out the demolition and evacuate the squatters from the synagogue.
Via Mick, this is what passes for educational programming on Arab TV: MEMRITV: Egyptian Expert on "Jewish Religions" Ahmad Al-Gundi: Bloodthirstiness and Racism Are Innate Characteristics of the Jews (link is to video)
Following are transcripts from an interview with Dr. Ahmad Al-Gundi, an Egyptian expert on "Jewish Religion," which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on June 28, 2010.
Ahmad Al-Gundi: Do contemporary Jews have any relation to the ancient Israelites, in terms of race? It is assumed that the ancient Israelites had certain physical characteristics, like the length and width of their bodies, the shape of their heads, and the color of their skin, their hair, and their eyes. These characteristics are assumed to always pass down from father to son. Jews today include the Negroes, the yellow-haired, and the blue-eyed. In other words, they include a variety of human races. Therefore, it is not true that the modern Jews are related to the ancient Israelites.
The only connection between these people and the ancient Israelites - after the Babylonian Captivity, or even before it, with regard to the people who generated crises throughout history - has to do with religion, not race.
[...]
Interviewer: Why are [the Jews] so bloodthirsty and racist?
Ahmad Al-Gundi: It seems to be their innate character. Prof. Rashad Al-Shami published a book in the World of Science series, titled The Jewish Character and the Hostile Spirit. This book demonstrates how deeply the hostile spirit is embedded in this character.
It would be no exaggeration to say that the Koran noted this even earlier, when it talked about how they ignite civil strife and wars among people.
This seems to be related to their nature. Psychological research is called for...
As Mick says:
Levels of irony here. The interviewer, perfectly demonstrating his own racism, blithely asks why Jews are so racist: the interviewee, assuming an air of scholarly learning, demonstrates his own stupidity. Sadly, it's not a comedy show.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Someone is getting in trouble for this:
[h/t: Israellycool and The Muqata.]
I'm going to give you a little snip of this big think piece from Lee Harris, but really, you may as well go read the whole thing because it's terrific:
...Intellectuals routinely give undue weight to people's ideas. They tend to believe that ideas cause attitudes, though it is far more often the other way around. The discipline known as social psychology recognizes attitude's primacy. Furthermore, as its name implies, social psychology focuses on attitudes that groups of individuals share: the group can be small, like an office, or quite large, like an entire culture. The work of two American social psychologists, Julian Rotter and Martin Seligman, offers perhaps the best introduction to unraveling the social psychology of the natural libertarian.
In 1966, American psychologist Julian Rotter published a paper that introduced the concept known as locus of control. Human beings, according to Rotter, could be divided into two basic groups: those who believed their locus of control was within themselves, and those who see themselves as under the control of forces located outside themselves, such as luck, or fate, or other people whose will cannot be resisted. The first group, called internals, believe that they are the masters of their own destiny; they tend to be high-achievers, optimistic about their ability to improve their lot, and to discard bad habits. They believe in willpower and positive thinking. They are determined to control their own lives, for better or worse. Members of the second group are called externals. They look on themselves as victims of circumstances, the playthings of fate. If they go to bed drunk, light up a cigarette, and burn their house down, they explain the disaster as another instance of their bad luck, and not their poor judgment, much less their bad habits. On the other hand, if a drunk driver hits an internal, the internal will scold himself that he should have been more alert at the wheel, he should have seen the drunk coming and swerved in time to avoid him.
Rotter discovered that certain groups tended to be dense with internals, while others tend to display the social psychology of the external...[The rest.]
[h/t: Jon Haber]
Pretty intense first video from this new project:
It's a scandal!!
But it's only Hamas doing it to other Arabs, so it doesn't count.
If you've seen a list before now that purported to show what items were and were not allowed into Gaza, odds are you weren't seeing anything official, simply lists compiled by NGO's based on what people told them they could or couldn't get in. Now the Israelis have issued an official statement on what's allowable: Gaza: Lists of Controlled Entry Items. In fact, construction material, for instance, has been and still is allowed in as long as it is overseen by someone other than Hamas and tied to a particular project.
Honestly, this music video by Yedida Freilic isn't exactly to my taste, but people seem to really be enjoying it, so...
Update: Yaacov Lozowick has an interesting anecdote to go with this video.
It doesn't say the cause, but apparently it wasn't a violent end, which is unfortunate. I'll hand it to CNN for not using weasel words and describing the perps as "Palestinian terrorists," but no points for Mr. Abbas who, after all, is simply reflecting his society's value system: Suspected Munich massacre mastermind dead, reports say
Abu Daoud, the man who claimed to be the mastermind behind the massacre that marked the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died, according to the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority.
On September 5 of that year, Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes who were taken hostage.
Daoud, also known as Mohammed Oudeh, died Friday night, the WAFA news agency reported Saturday. The former Palestinian politician and commander in the Fatah and Palestinian Liberation Organization movements was 73.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent his condolences to Daoud's family, WAFA reported.
"He wrote in his letter to his family, 'He is missed. He was one of the leading figures of Fatah and spent his life in resistance [against the occupation] and sincere work as well as physical sacrifice for his people's just causes,' " the news agency quoted Abbas as saying.
In the early hours of the attack in Munich, eight Palestinian terrorists entered the Olympic Village in the German city.
They stormed the apartments housing the Israeli athletes and took control. Hours later, the world woke up to the image of a masked man on the balcony of the Olympic Village...
...In 2006 -- around the release of Steven Spielberg's "Munich" -- he gave several interviews in which he indicated he had no regrets about the Munich attacks.
"I regret nothing," he told Germany's Spiegel TV. "You can only dream that I would apologize."
Daoud also published an autobiography, giving a first-hand look at the rise of the Palestinian resistance leading up to the attack at Munich. The book is titled "Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist," as well as, "Palestine -- A History of the Resistance Movement, by the Sole Survivor of Black September."
Yeah, well, not exactly surprising is it?
Read at Honest Reporting: CNN's Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs professes her respect for an extremist sheikh and spiritual father of a terrorist organization.
Also not surprising considering this is the woman, Octavia Nasr, Richard Landes pointed out was fawning over the social media use by the Gaza Flotilla people: Evidence of Sickness in the World of Social Networking
Nice little video from the folks over at CiF Watch:
Say, I hear Gaza has water shortage problems, too:
Took a me day today and headed in to the Charlestown Navy Yard in the 90+ degree heat with the family. It's been Navy Week and today was the last day to get aboard a couple of the modern vessels in town for the occasion (thanks to Boston Maggie for publicizing this). We got there early and were one of the first tours aboard USS Hawes which was docked right near USS Constitution and USS Cassin Young -- the two ships on permanent display down there, so I figured we could get a three-fer in without too much trouble. Sadly, most of the masts are down on the Constitution at the moment for general repairs. We also took a jaunt up the Freedom Trail to the Bunker Hill Monument. (Not as good as I remember since they closed the old museum that used to have a show with wax figures. A spotlight would go on each display and the description would run. The one with the dude beheaded by a British cannonball always flipped me out as a kid. I also seem to recall something about a bit of brains on someone's shoulder. Memorable!)
The tour of the Hawes (the only US Navy ship authorized to fly the Jolly Rodger) was a real treat. Hawes is due to be decommissioned after this cruise. They're phasing out the entire class of frigates. Here are some pics and even a little video:
USS Cassin Young from the Hawes gun deck.
USS Hawes from the stern of the Cassin Young.
A helpful reminder from the manufacturers of safety shoes.
From the USS Constitution museum. Some things never change.
Finally, here's a little video intro to the Hawes' 76mm gun:
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
The Price They Paid [Snopes]
Some real good trombone right here (via Sippican Cottage):
And on topic around here: America's Founding Fathers and Judaism
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Best thing ever:
[Via: The Flea.]
[The following, by Charles Jacobs, appears in The Jewish Advocate.]
The recent kerfuffle - or is it a firestorm? - within the community here over how to deal with a radicalized Muslim leadership is a reflection of serious tensions within the global Jewish community. Sadly, the Middle East conflict is morphing into a religious and ideological conflict. With the Islamist government of Turkey betraying its historic relationship with Israel and America, the Muslim world is becoming more fully aligned against Israel.
Most Jews can see this, even though they also see some Islamic governments are maintaining relationships with the Jewish state. Jews also see an ideological Left in solidarity with the Muslim world. This Muslim/Left alliance, after all, organized the Gaza flotilla and is causing havoc to Jews in various European cities. Jews are leaving Malmo, Sweden, and Antwerp, Belgium, and continue to be the target of "youths" (code word for Muslim thugs) in France and Germany.
Continue reading "Charles Jacobs: Obama-speak and Israel - Plus: Another letter in support"[The following is a guest post by Ann Green.]
In honor of our nation's birthday I read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I offer a few observations. {When I use quotes, I left in the capitalizations as they appear in the text.}
I found my reading to be especially relevant at a time when the Federal Government is grabbing power as fast as it can. It is very clear that the overriding goal of the Founder Fathers was to restrict the power of government over the individual. "Governments are instituted among men," the Declaration states, "Deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed." The preface to the Bill of Rights tells us, "The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added." The focus is not on what rights people have so much as it is on what the government cannot do.
Think how few members of the United Nations are governed by the consent of the governed. Yet we take these despots seriously as our partners in diplomacy.
Continue reading "A Look at the Declaration and Constitution in 2010: What Would the Founders Think?"Yeah, you know the drill. New Mufti, same as the old Mufti (and the one before that, etc...). From Palestinian Media Watch: PA Mufti: "Enemies of Allah," the Jews, threaten Al-Aqsa
The Palestinian Authority-appointed Mufti in the Friday sermon from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, called on Palestinians to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Israel's so-called threats to destroy the mosque. Significantly, the Mufti used the religious hate term, "enemies of Allah," in referring to the Jews.
Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine:
"The Al-Aqsa Mosque is threatened by the plans of the enemies of Allah [the Jews], who have violated all faith and religious laws, and even deviated from their humanity."
[al-msjd-alaqsa.com (Al-Aqsa Mosque Forum), June 25, 2010]
On Jan. 29, 2010 in the sermon on official PA TV, the cleric preached similar demonization of Jews, using it to introduce his call to kill the Jews:
"The Jews, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger! Enemies of humanity in general, and of Palestinians in particular... The Prophet says: 'You shall fight the Jews and kill them..."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 29, 2010]
Click here to see the PMW bulletin on PA TV sermon on "Jews are the enemies of Allah and humanity."
Last week a PA TV host in a conversation with a child likewise referred to the Jews as "our enemies."
The PA Mufti made a similar accusation last month, when he told the PA daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that Israel was planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to build its "alleged temple" on the ruins [May 22, 2010].
Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) have generated and sustained religious hatred by disseminating the libel that Israel is attempting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This libel is often combined with the call to "defend Al-Aqsa" from the Jews.
Click here to view more examples of this recurring libel on the PMW website.
Friday, July 2, 2010
[The following, by Zach, is crossposted from The Brothers of Judea.]
A commentator, below, named Bruce Levine pointed me to an MJ Rosenberg article from December 2009 at Talking Points Memo. It's informative because Rosenberg not only peddles his usual anti-AIPAC line but relies on shoddy journalism to make that happen...again. It's short so I'm going to use a screenshot just in case it disappears, but here's the original link.
Here is the article that Rosenberg links to from Ha'aretz. The quote about "a thorough background check" is unsupported by any kind of evidence, which leads me to conclude that the author of the article was being facetious. In other words, although the American Jewish community might thoroughly look at candidates that they think might be anti-Israel a "background check" doesn't literally happen.
Continue reading "MJ Rosenberg At TPM"[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Who exactly will worship in the 600-seat Maghen Avraham synagogue in Beirut when it opens next year? The man behind its restoration, and self-styled community leader, Isaac Arazi, exaggerates the numbers of Jews living in, and passing through, Lebanon. In fact, the community at its peak never exceeded 14,000. Jews left in response to antisemitism from 1948 on, and not as the article says, as a result of the 1975 civil war.
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Restoration of Beirut's only synagogue will be completed in October and religious services will be held there in 2011 for the first time in more than three decades, the leader of the country's Jewish community said.
"We started from zero with this project and now we hope with the restoration we will be able to once again rebuild a community in Lebanon," Isaac Arazi, 67, said June 24 in an interview in Beirut.
The Maghen Abraham Synagogue in Wadi Abou Jmil, the city's historic Jewish quarter, opened in 1926 and once hosted a thriving community that has been eroded by decades of civil war. Prospects for stability have improved since elections a year ago were won by the pro-Western coalition of Saad Hariri, which formed a national unity government with rival Hezbollah and the Muslim group's Christian allies.
[The following, by Adam Levick, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, who penned an essay in the radical anti-Zionist magazine, Counterpunch, in 2002, in which he expressed understanding and empathy for those who are anti-Semites - describing it as a natural reaction to what he described as the inherent "Racial Supremacy" embodied by the Jewish state - would seem an odd choice to offer insights to readers of The Guardian on the challenges of achieving peace in the Middle East.
White's book on "Israeli Apartheid" refers, not to the post '67 occupied territory, but to the 1948 boundaries of the state. Indeed his thesis is that "Apartheid" and "Ethnic Cleansing" was necessary components of the Zionist enterprise. He said, "For political Zionism to come to fruition...it was necessary to carry out as large a scale as possible ethnic cleansing of the country's unwanted Arab natives. But even in 1948...Israel was unable to fully 'cleanse' the land of the Palestinians. As a result, Israel's fallback position was to implement an apartheid regime of exclusion and discrimination."
Continue reading "Ben White's latest anti-Israel "analysis""Thursday, July 1, 2010
[The following, by Ben Cohen, is crossposted from Z Word.]
Why? Read about it here. As for the response, this powerful statement from the UK Board of Deputies of British Jews says it all:
Statement from Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council: Methodist conference
30 June 2010 - This is a very sad day, both for Jewish-Methodist relations and for everyone who wants to see positive engagement with the complex issues of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Methodist Conference has swallowed hook, line and sinker a report full of basic historical inaccuracies, deliberate misrepresentations and distortions of Jewish theology and Israeli policy. The deeply flawed report is symptomatic of a biased process: The working group which wrote the report had already formed its conclusions at the outset. External readers were brought in to give the process a veneer of impartiality, but their criticisms were rejected. The report's authors have abused the trust of ordinary members of the Methodist Church, who assumed that they were reading and voting on an impartial and comprehensive paper, and they have abused the goodwill of the Jewish community, which tried to engage with this issue, only to find that our efforts were treated as an unwelcome distraction. This outcome is extremely serious and damaging, as we and others have explained repeatedly over recent weeks. Israel is at the root of the identity of Jews and of Judaism, and as an expression of Jewish spiritual, national and emotional aspirations, Zionism cannot simply be ruled as illegitimate in the way that the Methodist Conference has purported to do. This smacks of breathtaking insensitivity, as crass as it is misinformed. That this position should now form the basis of Methodist Church policy should cause the Conference to hang its head in shame, just as surely as it will cause the enemies of peace and reconciliation to cheer from the sidelines.
The Obama-Hillary-CENTCOM team is the fertilizer. The crop is Rob Malley, Susan Rice and Mark Perry. With a sleight-of-hand that Houdini would envy, Obama has practiced the pull towards-push away trick towards these Israel-unfriendly operatives that is inexorably pointing to an even stronger animus towards the Jewish State than has been demonstrated up to now.
Malley, the Arafat crony and prevaricator (not to mention his prominence on J Street's Board of Advisors - that's like enlisting David Duke to sit on the board of the NAACP) publishes ad nauseam pieces in the traditionally anti-Israel New York Review of Books while the NGO queen, Power, has not retreated one step from her advocacy of UN military intervention in the West Bank. The administration needs these surrogates to carry out its next "solution" to the Middle East conflict. And that, in a word, would be "engagement." We've seen how effective Obama's engagement fetish has been with the mad mullahs of Tehran. Having failed to apply effective sanctions on Iran's apparently unstoppable drive for nuclear weapons, he seems to have no compunctions about imposing potentially lethal "solutions" on Israel.
Mark Perry, the theatrical Middle East analyst is the latest guy at bat to push Obama's engagement obsession. Administration policy seems to be: "if it didn't work with Iran let's make it not work with Hizballah and Hamas." Obama and his "soft power" team are convinced that outcomes are irrelevant - it's all about "process."
Perry has a flair for the dramatic, beginning almost every performance with a patter of embarrassing name dropping (excerpt from a talk at Harvard as guest of Sara Roy, Hamas proponent):
But as this clip demonstrates, Perry has been engaging in self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to advocating engagement with terrorist groups. The fundamental question is how significantly the military has come to be influenced by advocates and terrorist "engagers" like Perry, Malley and Khalidi.
Continue reading "Centcom and the Frog [Hillel]"It's an area of Jerusalem over which there is much contention. Here's an excellent and brief post on the subject: Kfar Hashiloach ("Silwan"), 1891 and 1932. When Jews are ethnically cleansed, the world is quick to ratify the fact.
[The following, by Will Spotts, is crossposted from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine.]
Antisemitism no longer exists; it is a problem of the past that affects Israelis and Jews as a "psycho-trauma", but it poses no serious threat today.
I first really became aware of the PC(USA)'s Israel problem when the General Assembly voted for divestment in 2004. I took it as harmless bandwagonism - a misguided attempt to seem relevant by copying fashionable, college campus activism. But I was startled enough to actually look into it - to read the GA minutes, to see what the ACSWP (in its now defunct Church and Society Magazine and in its history provided to the GA), the Washington Office, and the Presbyterian News Service had to say about Israel.
I detected bias - both in terms of a remarkable singularity of negative focus on Israel (about 20 times that spent on China, Iran, or North Korea), and in terms of presentation of facts (that either omitted relevant details, oversimplified events, or presented outright falsehoods). But, to be honest, I was not that concerned with anti-Israel bias. I regarded it in the same way I regard most political bias.
But something else in the Presbyterian literature (and in the literature or Presbyterian partners and sources) did concern me. I encountered significantly anti-Judaic themes (by which I mean hostility to Judaism as a religion); some anti-Jewish themes (by which I mean generalizations of negative character traits to the Jewish people); and several blatant examples of historic antisemitic themes (language of contempt, the use of crucifixion and other explicitly Christian imagery to demonize Israeli Jews, notions of Jewish control of the US and other governments, assertions of Jewish control of media, the use of the Khazar meme).
This problem was so pervasive that it needed (and still needs) to be confronted; the anti-Jewish themes, aside from being loathsome, are also dangerous. Yet every time the issue is raised it is brushed aside. The people who push these anti-Judaic, anti-Jewish, and antisemitic themes immediately protest: "criticism of Israel is not antisemitic." They sometimes go farther (as in the case of the MESC Report):
Continue reading "Presbyterian Fiction #3: the End of Antisemitism"[The following, by Will Spotts, is crossposted from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine.]
The Rev. Ronald Shive, chair of the Presbyterian Church's Middle East Study Committee has finally cleared up the MESC's stance on Israel as a Jewish state:
We have reaffirmed time and time again, and this report reaffirms emphatically, the right of Israel to Jewish nation, as a homeland for Jewish people. We are emphatic there. We did not state as the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. This is nuanced. The question is, do you have to be Jewish to have full rights. If you say 'Jewish state,' it can imply that and you can have second class citizens. We never attempt to delegitimize Israel...I love America. I love Israel. Everybody on the committee would say 'we love Israel.'
If you don't find that clear and forthcoming, it is no doubt because you fail to understand Presbyterian nuance.
Apparently, Rev. Shive differentiates between a Jewish nation and a Jewish state. Although I suspect that was most likely a slip of the tongue. I think ... my best translation of Presbyterian nuance would be: the Middle East Study Committee emphatically reaffirms the right of Israel to exist as a homeland for Jewish people.
Though, in the actual MESC Report the writers included a footnote that seems to undermine the emphatic nature of even that commitment:
The phrase "the right of Israel to exist" is a source of pain for some members of the 2009-2010 Middle East Study Committee, who are in solidarity with Palestinians who feel that the state of Israel has denied them their inalienable human rights.]
What Rev. Shive acknowledges that the MESC refuses to say is that the PC(USA) supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state - i.e. the PC(USA) supports the right of the current State of Israel to continue to exist.
Apparently, the Middle East Study Committee graciously grants permission for some Jewish people to live in the geographic region currently called Israel. The MESC does, however, unequivocally support the existence of a Palestinian state. So ... here's the nuance: Palestinian state, yes; Jewish state, no. The MESC does not indicate whether or not it thinks Jews should be permitted in its envisioned Palestinian state.
Will Spotts
[The following, by Israelinurse, is crossposted from CiF Watch.]
As was admirably documented by the Reut institute several months ago, anti-Israel activity operates on two fronts. The paramilitary actions of various Palestinian and other anti-Israel factions are complimented by an extensive campaign of delegitimisation, of which the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement is but one branch.
- The Resistance Network, based in the Middle East - and comprising nations, organizations, and individuals - rejects Israel's right to exist on the basis of Islamist or Arab-nationalist ideology under the leadership of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas;
- The Delegitimization Network, primarily comprising organizations and individuals in the West - mostly elements of the radical European left, Arab and Islamic groups, and so-called post or anti-Zionist Jews and Israelis -negate Israel's right to exist based on a variety of political and philosophical arguments.
At long last the Israeli government is now starting to grasp the importance of the non-military campaign against Israel and 25 members of the Knesset from seven different parties have come together to try to take action against the promoters of BDS both at home and abroad. However, the thought of Jews defending themselves against attackers from within and without appears to be too much for JNews Director Miri Weingarten, who launched her campaign against the proposed legislation both on her own organisation's website and on the virtual pages of CiF on June 30th.
Continue reading "Battling the Boycotts"David Kenner at Foreign Policy: King Abdullah wants to wipe Israel and Iran off the map
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah probably refrained from expressing at least half this sentiment in his meeting today with President Obama: On June 5, he reportedly told French Defense Minister Hervé Morin that "There are two countries in the world that do not deserve to exist: Iran and Israel."
The scoop comes from Georges Malbrunot, a French journalist with Le Figaro. Malbrunot, a respected Middle East correspondent who spent four months as a hostage of the Islamic Army in Iraq, goes on to report that two sources, from diplomatic and military circles, have confirmed the story. He suggests that the anger directed as Israel was the result of the IDF raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla, which occurred just days before this outburst. (Hat tip goes to the eagle-eyed correspondents at Friday Lunch Club).
Update: Of course, the White House statement following the Obama-Abdullah meeting reaffirmed both leaders' sincerest hope that the current round of proximity talks will lead to "two states living side-by-side in peace and security."
This legal decision is simply shocking: Jury clears activists who broke into Brighton arms factory
Five activists who caused £180,000 damage to an arms factory were acquitted after they argued they were seeking to prevent Israeli war crimes.
The five were jubilant after a jury found them not guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage to the factory on the outskirts of Brighton.
The five admitted they had broken in and sabotaged the factory, but argued they were legally justified in doing so.
They believed that EDO MBM, the firm that owns the factory, was breaking export regulations by manufacturing and selling to the Israelis military equipment which would be used in the occupied territories. They wanted to slow down the manufacture of these components, and impede what they believed were war crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinians.
After being acquitted, one of them, Robert Nicholls, told the Guardian: "I'm joyful really, at being a free man. The action was impulsive really, we just wanted to do something that would make a real difference to the people of Palestine."
Another, Ornella Saibene, said: "I've felt very peaceful all the way through the trial because I'm proud of what I've done. It was the right thing to do."
They are the latest group of peace and climate-change activists to successfully use the "lawful excuse" defence - committing an offence to prevent a more serious crime - as a tactic in their campaigns. The acquitted are Nicholls, 52, Tom Woodhead, 25, Harvey Tadman, 44, Ornella Saibene, 50, all from Bristol, and Simon Levin, 35, from Brighton. They had decided to act last January after three weeks of Israeli military manoeuvres against Gaza in which many Palestinians were killed. According to a UN investigation by former South African judge Richard Goldstone, Israel committed war crimes by deliberately attacking civilians during the offensive known as Operation Cast Lead.
In his summing up, Judge George Bathurst-Norman suggested to the jury that "you may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered in that time".
The judge highlighted the testimony by Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, that "all democratic paths had been exhausted" before the activists embarked on their action...
Oh, well, since they exhausted all "democratic paths" then I suppose they had only one method left to get their way: violent fascism. Lovely. And the next step is that anyone who runs a business that these lovelies wish to target will have no choice but to resort to what Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley euphemistically referred to as "self help," since the law is no where to be found.
Yisrael Medad has more on the rather unsurprising background of the judge (he was born in Jaffa). And be sure to read Elder: More on the British judge who hates Israel (Zvi) and Melanie Phillips: Hell on earth is a court in Hove.
Related, at Israel Matzav: Why did the Bobbies take so long to show up? Israeli goods destroyed at TESCO in Wales
Yes, I believe that's news. Via Mick Hartley, a college professor named Jasbir Puar shows that when it comes to a choice between protecting homosexuals from death and smashing the Jewish State, she knows what side she's on: Israel's gay propaganda war
...Israeli pinkwashing is a potent method through which the terms of Israeli occupation of Palestine are reiterated - Israel is civilised, Palestinians are barbaric, homophobic, uncivilised, suicide-bombing fanatics. It produces Israel as the only gay-friendly country in an otherwise hostile region. This has manifold effects: it denies Israeli homophobic oppression of its own gays and lesbians, of which there is plenty, and it recruits, often unwittingly, gays and lesbians of other countries into a collusion with Israeli violence towards Palestine.
In reproducing orientalist tropes of Palestinian sexual backwardness, it also denies the impact of colonial occupation on the degradation and containment of Palestinian cultural norms and values. Pinkwashing harnesses global gays as a new source of affiliation, recruiting liberal gays into a dirty bargaining of their own safety against the continued oppression of Palestinians, now perforce rebranded as "gay unfriendly". This strategy then also works to elide the presence of numerous Palestinian gay and lesbian organisations, for example Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (PQBDS)...
This is of course exactly what we'd expect from the Jew-obsessed Guardian, but the comment thread is not what you'd expect at all. Not that it's good, mind you, it's just that as far as giving Israel some credit, the readership at least seems to understand that there are areas where that is possible.
I've updated the post below with two more Massachusetts Republican hopefuls who have taken strong pro-Israel positions: Marty Lamb and Gerry Dembrowski: Video: Jewish Audience Erupts for Barney Frank Opponent. Also: What the Candidates Are Saying About Israel [Bielat, Perry, Lepor, Bender, Meas, Brown] Update: Lamb and Dembrowski
