Tuesday 7 April 2009
TALK TO HAMAS
Shlomo Avineri gets it right:
According to Hamas, the Jews are responsible for all the ills of modern society - the French Revolution; the Communist revolution; the establishment of secret associations (Freemasons, Rotary and Lions clubs, B'nai B'rith) designed to help them gain control of the world by secret means. They control the economy, press and television; they are responsible for the outbreak of World War I, which they initiated in order to destroy the Muslim caliphates (the Ottoman empire), to get the Balfour Declaration and set up the League of Nations with the aim of establishing their state. They also initiated World War II in order to make a fortune from selling war materials; they use both capitalism and communism as their agents...
But perhaps it is nevertheless worthwhile talking to Hamas - not about its contribution to peace but rather about what is stated in its covenant. Perhaps those who espouse the view that we must talk with Hamas will first talk with it about these subjects? Who knows, perhaps it will change its principles? I do not expect this to happen exactly, but I am certainly curious to know what those who think Hamas is the key to peace in the Middle East will say about these things.
And perhaps they are actually correct, perhaps Hamas is the key. If that's the case, it's difficult to expect that peace can be established in our region.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
GENOCIDE WITH YOGHURT
Here's a book review that shows how history has the ability to reach out of the past and rattle us, no matter how much we pretend to be forward-looking.
Last month, while I was visiting my father in Florida, we had dinner one night with my aunt. We were discussing the way Jim Jones had poisoned 900 of his followers with cyanide-laced Flavor Aid in 1978, and suddenly my aunt was explaining that another way to poison someone is with a yogurt smoothie. "That's how the Turks poisoned your grandmother's classmates in Constantinople in 1915," she said. "They poisoned the tahn."
This story was new to me, and I am 47. But as a second-generation Armenian American, I've found that it's not uncommon for one of these UFO horror stories to materialize out of nowhere over coffee.
Thus begins Chris Bohjalian's review of Armenian Golgotha, by Grigory Balakian. It hardly sounds like a pleasant read, but well may be a necessary one, especially if you're of the persuasion that knowing history and engaging with it is preferable to having it spring on you unawares.
Hitler, by the way, knew his history. He repeatedly told that what he learned from the Armenian genocide was that no-one cared at the time, and no-one remebered afterwards.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
USING INTERNATIONAL LAW IN VAIN
A law professor named George Bisharat yesterday published a pseudo-learned op-ed about how criminal Israel is. Since his terminology was legalese, and I'm not a legal expert, I decided not to comment on his screed. Fortunately, the folks over at Powerline are all attorneys, and John Hinderaker decided to have a look. His verdict:
There was once a time when it would have made sense to wonder why the New York Times would publish such drivel. Now, publishing left-wing drivel is the paper's business plan. Bankruptcy impends.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
RACISM. APARTHEID. T-SHIRTS AND GENERAL CONFUSION
Remember those horrendous IDF T-Shirts? And it's common knowledge that Israel treats its Arab citizens abominably. So here's a story from Haaretz this morning that demonstrates it all. An Arab professor at Haifa University was thrown out of a restaurant when he complained that a bartender was wearing a shirt encouraging the killing of Palestinian children. Ha! Gotcha.
Though if Israeli Jim Crow is that bad, how is he a professor at Haifa University? No matter.
Until you read beyond the headline, where all the damage is, into the article itself. The proprietor of the restaurant is himself an Arab, and he was the one arguing with the client. He insists he threw no-one out, rather the professor stalked out. The (Arab) restaurateur may have said to the (Arab) professor "IF you're a Palestinian, go to Palestine", implying that he, the (Arab) restaurateur prefers to remain an Israeli. And then there's this:
Hajaj said the bartender had never served in the army and was unaware of the message his shirt conveyed. As a result of the incident, the bartender is no longer working at the restaurant.
Now I'm really confused. If the bartender never served in the IDF, where did he get the T shirt? If he can't read its message, who is he? A Phillipino, perhaps? And if he's blameless, why has he been fired? Could it be that Hajaj, the restaurateur, didn't want the attention of the authorities to his practice of employing illegal residents?
I'm speculating, of course. But that's the issue. Something happened at Hajaj's restaurant over the weekend, but what it was we don't know. Haaretz has cherry-picked enough of the facts to make Israel look bad, put them in its headline, added a partial description in the item itself, and demonstrated that it cares not at all about its level of journalism.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)
BOYCOTT ISRAEL...AT ANY PRICE !
Even if it means not diagnosing skin cancer. After all, Israel itself is a cancer of sorts, and must be broken. Anyway, this particular discovery is not yet a certainty, so let's hurry up and divest from research projects with Israeli academics. That way the project will fail, and we'll never know if any good might have come from it, so won't need to have any pangs of regrets for our righteousness.
taken from:Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)