Saturday 27 February 2010

Israel Matzav: Israel confiscating VIP ID's from 'Palestinians' who participate in anti-fence protests

Israel confiscating VIP ID's from 'Palestinians' who participate in anti-fence protests

The 'Palestinians' are complaining that Israel has been confiscating VIP passes from 'Palestinians' who participate in protests against the 'security fence.'

Senior Fatah official Tawfik Tirawi claims Israel has confiscated VIP IDs it distributed to half of the members of the organization's central committee.

He says Israel explained its conduct by saying that the members participate in anti-fence protests in the West Bank.

I'm going to count to three and then I want you all to cry together for the poor 'Palestinian VIP's who have to wait in line like everyone else. Is everybody ready? 1... 2... 3... AWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Israel Matzav: Israel confiscating VIP ID's from 'Palestinians' who participate in anti-fence protests

Israel Matzav: 'Israeli apartheid week' is upon us

'Israeli apartheid week' is upon us

The annual 'Israel apartheid week' begins on Monday. It is a week in which Jew hated on American college campuses reaches its annual peak. This year, they decided that one week of Jew hatred isn't enough - so they're having it for two weeks. It starts Monday, March 1 (Purim here in the Holy City of Jerusalem) and ends on Sunday, March 14.

Israel Apartheid Week has become a unifier for many radical groups in North America. But perhaps the most pathetic groups that fall in line behind Israel Apartheid Week are the gay groups. Leonard Stern explains why.

Of all the sponsors of Israeli Apartheid Week, the participation of gay and lesbian groups is most disheartening. Harvard University’s Alan Dershowitz tells an anecdote about the time he gave a speech and spotted an anti-Israel sign in the crowd, held aloft by a gay rights group. Dershowitz reminded the protesters that Israel is the one country in the Middle East where they’d be able to hold a gay rights sign in public and not be lynched.

Israel’s official government website celebrates Eytan Fox, one of the country’s best known filmmakers. Fox’s recent movie The Bubble, about a love affair between two men, Arab and Jew, won an award from the U.S.-based Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, for its sensitive depiction of gay people.

Films like that aren’t being made in Syria or Gaza. Gay Muslims have to flee to democratic countries if they want to come out. Israel itself recently took in a gay Palestinian from the West Bank town of Jenin. The man settled in Tel Aviv, moving in with his partner, an Israeli. Thousands of couples — Arab, Jewish, mixed — show up for the gay pride parade in Tel Aviv.

Yet back in Canada, gay student groups denounce Israel as their enemy. They aren’t protesting against the many Muslim countries where homosexuality is criminalized — where, as Der Spiegel recently reported, men suspected of being gay are found with their genitals amputated and anuses sealed with glue.

(When Israel last year suffered an isolated act of homophobic violence — a gunman shot up a gay nightclub — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly expressed his personal horror.)

Talk about acting against your own self-interest....


Israel Matzav: 'Israeli apartheid week' is upon us

Israel Matzav: Not just t-shirts

Not just t-shirts

The Mossad's alleged role in the liquidation of Hamas terrorist and arms dealer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh hasn't just helped t-shirt sales: It's also helped recruiting efforts.
The Mossad website has become extremely popular in recent weeks, particularly its job openings page, through which one can apply for a position with the agency. Global media reports on Mossad's alleged involvement in the assassination of the Hamas commander has led to a soaring number of civilian applicants who wish to join the secret service.

The agency, which did not post any new job openings for over six months, posted a statement on February 12 – almost a month after the Dubai operation – that read: "You have an opportunity to create a reality in which you play the lead role. If you possess, intelligence and sophistication, you can make a difference and fulfill a national and personal mission. If you can engage, charm and influence people – you may have the qualities we are looking for."

...

As for the job requirements listed, the ideal candidate must hold an academic degree, diverse life experience, good communication skills, flexible thinking and creativity, curiosity, and the ability to work individually and in a team as well as good command of second language. A preference, the ad noted, would be given to those with a background abroad and willingness to leave for an immediate mission abroad, right after the training period.
The Mossad's website is here. The English website is here. Tell them Carl in Jerusalem sent you.

Heh.
Israel Matzav: Not just t-shirts

Israel Matzav: The law of unintended consequences

The law of unintended consequences




Evelyn Gordon expands on a point I made here regarding the results of the European court ruling that denies the benefits of the Israel - EU free trade agreement from companies that manufacture in Judea and Samaria.


Europeans are obviously entitled to put principle above the consequences for Palestinian employment; countries make such decisions all the time. But the fact remains that once again, the biggest victims of efforts to advance the “peace process” will be ordinary Palestinians.

Thousands of Gazans, for instance, used to work for Israeli firms in the Erez industrial zone on the Israel-Gaza border. Today, Erez is a ghost town with no prospect of ever reopening: having withdrawn from Gaza, Israel could no longer protect these firms, and the Palestinians would not.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Palestinians used to work inside Israel; today, almost none do. The second intifada made a massive flow of Palestinians into Israel too risky, and Israelis felt no obligation to employ residents of a state-in-the-making that was waging nonstop physical and diplomatic warfare against them. The Palestinians, after all, cannot simultaneously demand independence from Israel and jobs inside Israel. The result is unemployment that now totals 18 percent in the West Bank and 39 percent in Gaza.

Israel is the region’s strongest economy; it will be years before the Palestinian Authority can match its employment capacity. So unless those who favor Palestinian statehood think that massive unemployment somehow contributes to this goal, they ought to be encouraging Israeli firms to hire Palestinians. Instead, Palestinian terror and international pressure have steadily combined to do the opposite.


Indeed.





Israel Matzav: The law of unintended consequences

RubinReports: Hilary Clinton's Congressional Testimony Shows What's Wrong with U.S. Foreign Policy

Hilary Clinton's Congressional Testimony Shows What's Wrong with U.S. Foreign Policy

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By Barry Rubin

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton explains to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that the Obama Administration needed to spend 13 months trying to engage Iran's dictatorship because that's helped its effort to line up world support for new sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.

Let me get this straight. Russia and China still oppose sanctions. Some European countries and European Union leaders are holding up approval of sanctions. So I challenge Hilary Clinton: Name one country which opposed sanctions a year ago but now has become an energetic supporter because the United States spent a year giving Iran every chance to make a deal. Name one.

She next asserted that Iran's opposition supports Obama’s policy: "They actually think President Obama has struck exactly the right tone and approach, to give heart to the people who are putting their lives on the line, who know that we support their efforts, but also recognize that they've got a long hard road ahead.”

It is possible oppositionists privately flattered the administration by such statements but every public statement I’ve seen says the opposite. It is not exactly a secret that the administration refused to condemn the Iranian regime at the critical moment just after the stolen election, when the opposition's chances of building momentum were best.

And here, too, in Clinton's formulation, is the implication that popularity proves that a strategy is correct, a fundamental mantra of this administration. In fact, although it is only gradually starting to seep out in the media, is the reality that many U.S. allies and supporters abroad are horrified by what's happening (as shown by dozens of articles on this blog).

Then she added one of those little sentences that passes unnoticed but is quite important in its implications (that’s why you read this blog to see things like this that everyone else is missing): “What we're trying to do is to get international opinion that will force the Iranian regime to change its calculations."

International opinion? I can understand why President Barack Obama thinks the United States should not be the world’s policeman but he seems to believe that instead it should be the world’s community organizer.
Contemplate this. You're leader of Iran’s regime. You believe the divine being fully supports everything you do. You've effectively defeated the opposition. You're doing well with international Muslim opinion, which is all you care about. You're making rapid strides toward nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. You have allies like Syria, Hizballah, Hamas, and the Iraqi insurgents. Turkey is moving in your direction. You continue trading profitably with Europe, Russia, and China. Things are going pretty well.

And you're going to be scared by “international opinion?”

Of course, Clinton’s arguments about persuading people by going slow and chatting up Iran--in the appearance that this avoids conflict and problems--are intended for an American domestic audience, not Iran. It is legitimate and inevitable that governments focus a lot on looking good at home. But that should never inhibit at the same time having a good policy that actually deals with the international issues at stake.

And how about those Syrians? A lot of people are confused. The United States made a big concession by returning its ambassador and then Syrian dictator Bashar al-Asad slaps it in the face by inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plus Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah to Damascus and boasts he is Iran's best body, calls for Israel’s destruction, and urges the expulsion of U.S. influence from the region.

Simple. Because he can do it and know that the current U.S. government won’t do anything to him. Indeed, the more trouble he causes, it is reasonable for those in Damascus who govern things to think, the more concessions he will get from the United States.

And where could he have gotten such an idea? From everything the Obama Administration has done so far. Sure it talks tough but never does anything, making itself look ridiculous to the really tough bad guys.

Clinton told the congressional hearing: "I think because we were willing to engage, we have a much more receptive audience than we might have had otherwise,"

But, ladies and gentlemen, we have the proper answer to Clinton’s question as to what engagement has achieved: it has demoralized America’s friends and encouraged its enemies to believe that the United States is a cream puff, a pitiful helpless giant, a paper tiger. And are they wrong?

[Incidentally, the same thing seems to be happening--but receiving far less attention--regarding the administration's engagement effort with Cuba]

[Above is the serious political analysis part. Here begins the elective part of the article which you don’t have to read unless you want to.]

And so, if you will permit me some cultural analogies, while Clinton tells us that the Obama Administration is doing a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “I did It My Way,” this week Ahmadinejad, Asad, and Nasrallah got together as a trio to do Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walking.”

Their version goes something like this:

“You keep saying you'll do something to us.
to show your influence, but we just sneer at you.
You show us you’re more likely just to retreat
And you’ve failed the test we gave you that's quite true.

“These nukes are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these nukes are gonna walk all over you.

“You keep making threats but you’re a weakling,
All you want to do is just engage
You think you can make us do your bidding
But our answer is to escalate our rage

“These nukes are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these nukes are gonna walk all over you.

Are you ready nukes? Start walkin'!”

RubinReports: Hilary Clinton's Congressional Testimony Shows What's Wrong with U.S. Foreign Policy

Israel Matzav: Dubai fauxtography

Dubai fauxtography

Haaretz reports that the Dubai police cannot identify any of the people whose photographs are in the European passports that were used in the liquidation of Hamas terrorist and arms dealer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The reason: All of the photographs were doctored.

The passport photographs of the agents who assassinated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai were doctored so the agents would not be identified, a Haaretz probe discovered Friday.

The discovery casts doubt on claims that the espionage agency that carried out last month's hit on the senior Hamas operative committed grave errors.

Various features of the people in the photographs, such as eye color or the line of a lip, were changed - slightly enough so as not arouse suspicion at passport control, but still enough that the real agent could not be recognized.

According to the Dubai police, only a few of the agents were caught on security cameras without their disguises. However, it had been assumed until now that publication of the photos of the 26 agents had blown their cover. Now it appears that the Dubai police still do not have viable information about their real appearance.

Heh.

That calls for the second part of that Mission Impossible episode (I showed the first part here). Let's go to the videotape.


Israel Matzav: Dubai fauxtography

Israel Matzav: US wakes up to Goldstone reality?

US wakes up to Goldstone reality?

Shavua tov - a good week - to everyone and freilichen (happy) Purim to those of you celebrating tonight, which is just about everyone outside of the Holy City of Jerusalem. We will celebrate Purim tomorrow night, God willing.

Ahead of Friday's UN General Assembly session on the Goldstone Report, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that the report is problematic for the United States as well.

The US secretary of state told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in a testimony Thursday that the Obama administration believed the issues raised by the Goldstone Report must be subject to an internal inquiry. She said she believed Israel has the ability and the institutions to do so and that the Jewish state was carrying out its own inquiry.

Clinton warned that the US would not be the only one to be affected if the Goldstone Report sets the international standards, and that nearly any other country will be found responsible in a similar way. "I share the concern," she said.

Meanwhile, more than 100 Congress members have sent a letter to Clinton, urging the Obama administration to keep the Goldstone Report from reaching the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The letter was initiated by Congressman Ron Klein.

...

“We know you share our concerns about an anticipated UN General Assembly resolution that is expected to refer the Goldstone Report to the Security Council, and ultimately to the International Court of Justice,” said the letter. “This is an extremely troubling development that threatens to undermine the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at a critical time, and is counterproductive to our foreign policy goals.

“We believe that the correct venue for investigating issues related to Operation Cast Lead is not the Security Council or the International Court of Justice, but the world-class Israeli justice system itself," the Congress members wrote.

They also asked Clinton to work to defend the right for self defense of Israel, the US and all free democracies, saying this was a top priority of the American foreign policy.

Unfortunately, Clinton getting it doesn't mean that Obama does. His head is much thicker than hers.

But if the US is held to the same standards as Israel, some of what has gone on recently in Afghanistan could be quite problematic.

Israel Matzav: US wakes up to Goldstone reality?

Love of the Land: A Bronner Botch - It's All in a Name

A Bronner Botch - It's All in a Name


Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
26 February '10

Ethan Bronner displays the subtle bias that permeates our media reality - even if unintended - when on the issue of eastern Jerusalem he writes:-

no utterance escapes politics. All labels and names here are contested. The mayor calls the neighborhood not by its Arabic name of Al Bustan but by a Hebrew one — Gan Hamelech, or the King’s Garden, a reference to the spot some believe King David wrote psalms


Ethan, Bustan in Arabic means Garden or Orchard. The Arabs are foreigners, and have been since 638, and are occupiers, turning Jewish land into what they wish you and other to supposedly consider as Arab land since time immemorial". Hebrew came first.

You see, the Arabs "borrowed" not only the name but the history of the Jews there. It's not even a contest.

(Read full post)


Love of the Land: A Bronner Botch - It's All in a Name

Love of the Land: Targeting Israel, Hitting Palestinians

Targeting Israel, Hitting Palestinians


Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
26 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

A ruling by the European Union’s highest court yesterday is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. The court ruled that the EU’s free trade agreement with Israel does not apply to the West Bank, and therefore, goods made by Israeli firms in the West Bank are subject to EU import taxes.

Legally speaking, it’s hard to quarrel with the ruling: even Israeli law doesn’t view the West Bank as Israeli, as it does East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. But for years, European countries ignored this detail and exempted Israeli firms in the territories from import duties. What has changed is not the law but the politics: seeking to persuade Israelis that “the occupation” doesn’t pay, EU countries recently began taxing such imports. A German importer then sued his country’s tax authorities, prompting yesterday’s verdict.

But as the Associated Press noted, the biggest victims may well be not Israelis but Palestinians. Many Israeli firms moved to the West Bank because they could export to the EU duty-free while also benefiting from cheaper Palestinian labor. Thus, if the new import taxes lower these firms’ profits, hundreds of Palestinians could lose their jobs. And because “Palestinians are largely barred from working in Israel and have few job opportunities in the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, jobs in settlement factories are sought after.”

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: Targeting Israel, Hitting Palestinians

Love of the Land: Gaza and Afghanistan: 'War Crimes' versus 'Hearts and Minds'

Gaza and Afghanistan: 'War Crimes' versus 'Hearts and Minds'


Just Journalism
26 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former British Army commander in Afghanistan, described on Monday what he regarded as the different responses in the international media to the military actions of British and Israeli forces. Speaking at an event in London, and quoted the next day by the BBC, Col Kemp argued that Israel faces greater and more instinctive criticism of its military operations than Britain does.

‘When we go into battle we do not get the same knee-jerk, almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media and international groups, humanitarian groups and other international groups such as the United Nations which should know better... of utter automatic condemnation. We don't have to put up with that.’

Reports from Afghanistan this week make a good test case for Col Kemp’s assertion. At least 27 civilians were killed in a NATO air strike in the Afghanistan province of Uruzgan on Sunday 21 February. Airborne units opened fire on what was believed to be a group of insurgents, but which was actually a travelling party of civilian ethnic Hazaras, prompting a personal apology from General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan. Separately, 12 civilians and three Taliban were killed in a strike in Marja as part of Operation Moshtarak – NATO’s latest offensive in neighboring Helmand province.

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: Gaza and Afghanistan: 'War Crimes' versus 'Hearts and Minds'

Love of the Land: Radical Son

Radical Son


Stephen Brown
Frontpagemag.com
26 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

He is not his father’s son.

In a stunning revelation, the son of a Hamas founder told an Israeli newspaper this week that he once served as an Israeli intelligence agent. Mosab Hassan Yousef, 32, told the Israeli daily Haaretz that he spied for more than ten years on the Iranian-backed terrorist organization that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

In his role as Israeli informant, Yousef is credited with helping arrest high-ranking terrorists. Much more important, however, is that he also saved the lives of “hundreds of innocent people” with the information he provided the Israeli intelligence service, Shin Bet, about pending suicide attacks. “So many people owe their lives to him and don’t even know it,” Yousef’s unidentified Shin Bet handler told Haaretz.

Yousef’s Israeli handler went on to relate how the “Green Prince” – Yousef’s codename, taken from the color for Islam – personally picked out a suicide bomber in a Ramallah square and followed him until an arrest could be made.

Next week, Yousef’s memoir about his experiences in the terrorist organization will be published in the United States. Aptly named Son Of Hamas, the book is described on Yousef’s Facebook site as “a gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices.”

(Read full story)

Love of the Land: Radical Son

Love of the Land: Meluim Nostalgia

Meluim Nostalgia


Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
26 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

I never thought that my last military reserve duty (“Meluim” in Hebrew) would leave me nostalgic. Going to Meluim means dropping your family and work for up to one month every year and going back to your army unit. Typical tasks include doing guard duty in the middle of the night, shooting, helping in the kitchen, patrolling the border, and cleaning the restrooms. Then of course, there is this maddening “hurry-up and wait” pattern: You’re rushed out of bed at 5 am only to be told a few minutes later that something went wrong with the schedule and that new instructions will come –maybe, sometime during the day, nobody knows. Having just turned 39 and being in a combat unit, I no longer have to deal with this. “Good for you” you may say. Actually, what a loss.

The IDF’s reserve duty system is a logistical nightmare for the army and a highly disruptive occurrence for people with a life. And yet, it is one of the best things Israel has ever invented.

Meluim are socially and psychologically healthy. A commandant can be a 25 year-old student giving orders to a 39 year-old professor (who could incidentally be his teacher). A taxi driver can wake up the CEO of a multi-million dollar company at 3 in the morning to switch him on guard duty.


Love of the Land: Meluim Nostalgia

DoubleTapper: Purim Begins Saturday Evening

Purim Begins Saturday Evening

Purim highlights from previous years

تنسيق-الكليات-لعام سكس نيك كس





All about Purim here



DoubleTapper: Purim Begins Saturday Evening
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