Monday 1 March 2010

Love of the Land: Something's seriously wrong at York University

Something's seriously wrong at York University




David Frum
National Post
27 February '10

Next week, York University will once again open its halls and classrooms to “Israel Apartheid Week,” so-called. This year as every year, militants and activists will use the taxpayer-funded facilities of York to vilify the Jewish state. Well, that’s free speech, isn’t? Everybody gets to express his or her point of view, no matter how obnoxious, right?

No, not right. Not at York. At York, speech is free — better than free, subsidized — for anti-Israel haters. But for those who would defend Israel, York sets very different rules.

In advance of York’s annual hate-Israel week, the campus group Christians United for Israel applied to use university space to host a program of pro-Israel speakers. The university replied that this program could only proceed on certain conditions. It insisted on heavy security, including both campus and Toronto police — all of those costs to be paid by the program organizers. The organizers would also have to provide an advance list of all program attendees and advance summaries of all the speeches. No advertising for the program would be permitted — not on the York campus, not on any of the other campuses participating by remote video.

These are radically different and much harsher terms than anything required from the hate-Israel program. The hate-Israel program is not required to pay for its own security. It is free to advertise. Its speakers are not pre-screened by the university.

The pro-Israel event, scheduled for this past Monday, Feb. 22, was cancelled when the organizers declined to comply with the terms. A university spokesman told the Jewish Tribune that it insisted on the more stringent requirements on pro-Israel groups “due to the participation of individuals who they claim invite the animus of anti-Israel campus agitators.”

The logic is impressively brazen: Since the anti-Israel people might use violence, the speech of the pro-Israel people must be limited. On the other hand, since the pro-Israel people do not use violence, the speech of the anti-Israel people can proceed without restraint.

(Read full story)



Love of the Land: Something's seriously wrong at York University

DoubleTapper: British Cyclist Deliberately Run Over in Saudi Arabia

British Cyclist Deliberately Run Over in Saudi Arabia

A British man has been killed after youths allegedly rammed a car into a group of friends who were cycling in Saudi Arabia.

John Currie, who worked for BAE Systems – formerly British Aerospace – is believed to have been one four cyclists who started being "cut up" by local youths in two cars on a main road on the outskirts of Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

Initially, it is understood that one of the cars clipped a cyclist causing him to fall off his bike. Then, however, one of the drivers is alleged to have turned around and deliberately ploughed his car into the cyclists.

Mr Currie, 54, a human resources worker, is said to have been smashed against the vehicle's windscreen in the incident on Thursday, and later died from his serious injuries. His widow, Pauline, was returning to Britain this weekend.

The couple, from Chester, Cheshire, are believed to have two grown-up children. Mr Currie's body will be flown home for a funeral service.

In the past 15 years, there have been a number of terrorist attacks on British and other western nationals in Saudi Arabia by Muslim extremists. Several westerners have been killed – and even more injured – in a series of bombs and gun attacks. Radicals are angry that US and British oil companies and their staff are operating on Saudi soil.

In one incident, Simon Cumbers, 36, an Irish freelance cameraman, was shot dead and Frank Gardner, the BBC's security correspondent, was critically injured by apparent al-Qaeda sympathisers as they filmed in Riyadh in 2004.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) confirmed the death on Saturday. A spokesman said: "A British national, John Currie, died in a road traffic accident on Feb 25 and we were informed. We have offered consular assistance to the family." Sources at the FCO said it would be for the Saudi authorities to determine if there was a "guilty party" involved in the incident.

BAE has also confirmed Mr Currie's death. The company employs 4,500 staff in Saudi Arabia, including around 2,000 Britons.

A company spokesman said: "We can confirm that John Currie was a BAE Systems employee who worked for the HR team in Saudi Arabia and was involved in a road accident last week. Our thoughts and feelings are with his family and friends. The Saudi authorities are now investigating the case and it would be inappropriate for BAE Systems to comment any further."

Company sources say that the arrest of an individual in such circumstances would not necessarily mean that criminal charges will follow. "Under Sharia law – the Muslim law – the driver is arrested even if it is an accident," said one source. "Under Sharia law too, he may have to pay a certain amount [to the family of the victim] depending on whose fault it was."


DoubleTapper: British Cyclist Deliberately Run Over in Saudi Arabia

RubinReports: NY Times: Last Week Explains How Iran Getting the Bomb is Good for America; This Week Explains How the Qadhafi Regime is Good for Libya

NY Times: Last Week Explains How Iran Getting the Bomb is Good for America; This Week Explains How the Qadhafi Regime is Good for Libya

By Barry Rubin

Nowadays, nothing is too ridiculous to say about the Middle East, especially in the New York Times. Following up running an op-ed explaining how Iran getting nuclear weapons would be good for the United States (the scariest part is that the author works for the U.S. Air Force) the once-great newspaper of broken record now gives us a long article about how great the Libyan regime and son-of-Qadhafi are. Here you can see the pattern that prevails elsewhere: taking for granted as truth the lies that dictatorial regimes and radical movements tell while endlessly explaining that just about everyone in the world except Usama bin Ladin is a moderate.

Clearly, the newspaper has learned nothing from its coverage--which at the time won a Pulitzer but is now viewed as shameful--of all the wonderful features of the Stalinist regime in the USSR during the 1930s.


RubinReports: NY Times: Last Week Explains How Iran Getting the Bomb is Good for America; This Week Explains How the Qadhafi Regime is Good for Libya

Costumes and Lightbulbs

Costumes and Lightbulbs

Purim is the day of the year when Israelis dress up in costumes, like Halloween in the US. The children I saw were in the usual: policemen, Queen Esther, that sort of thing. Among the adults, however, the most popular costume by far was something with a wig/three passports/tennis gear. Ive never seen so many Mossad agents out on the street in my life.

And then there was this variation on the "how many XXX to fix a light-bulb" joke:

- How many Mossad agents to fix a light-bulb?

- Light-bulb? There wasn't any light-bulb.
Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Love of the Land: Resistance and Rockets: Hamas Targeting of Israeli Civilians

Resistance and Rockets: Hamas Targeting of Israeli Civilians


Jeffrey White
The Washington Institute for
Near East Policy
25 February '10

Recently, Hamas has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove that it did not attack civilian targets in Israel during the December 2008 to January 2009 Gaza conflict. But a review of the organization's own media -- including the website of its military arm, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (www.qassam.ps), and the Hamas-associated monthly journal Filastin al-Muslima (www.fm-m.com) -- shows that Hamas knowingly and repeatedly fired on Israeli population centers in southern Israel. To accept Hamas's latest claim that it did not launch rockets at civilians is to deny its numerous past claims to the contrary.

Claim vs. Conduct

On February 3, 2010, Hamas released a fifty-two-page response to the UN's Goldstone report regarding its conduct during the Gaza war (called the "Battle of al-Furqan" in the organization's commentary). According to this document, the killing and wounding of Israeli civilians was unintentional -- Hamas forces had targeted only military installations during the fighting. This claim was based on a supposed internal investigation conducted by Hamas and led by its justice minister, Faraj al-Ghoul.

(Read full report)

Love of the Land: Resistance and Rockets: Hamas Targeting of Israeli Civilians

Israel Matzav: Good news on the water front

Good news on the water front

Our first rainy winter in five years has brought the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) back above what's called the 'lower red line' - the line below which pumping water could be dangerous. It rained almost straight from Thursday night to Monday morning to clinch the wet winter. Even if we get no more rain the rest of the season, the level should rise a bit more from melting snow in the Golan Heights. But there's still a long way to go for the Kinneret to be full.

The “red line” is located 213 meters below sea level. In recent years, the government added a “black line,” at 215 meters below sea level, beyond which water absolutely should not be drawn.

In 2009, the water level in the Kinneret sunk to 214.37 meters below sea level following five years of drought and was dangerously close to the black line at the end of last summer. However, the reservoir still lacks 13 feet of water before dams would have to opened to prevent local flooding.

Water Authority officials said Sunday that the Kinneret had risen by more than nine centimeters since Thursday. The heavy rains that began falling late last week caused flooding in the Arava region, and left most northern areas and the northern and central Negev with an annual accumulated rainfall more than 100 percent of the average for the entire season. Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva and Tel Aviv have received nearly 100 percent of their average accumulated rainfall this year.

Forecasters predict that scattered showers will continue Monday, followed by warmer and drier weather the rest of the week, with the exception of the possibility of light rain in the north on Wednesday.

And there's still about a month of the rainy season to go.


Israel Matzav: Good news on the water front

Israel Matzav: Iran threatens to freeze Europe

Iran threatens to freeze Europe

As Europe considers voting in favor of new sanctions against Iran, Iran is threatening to freeze Europe if the sanctions pass.

Brigadier-General Hossein Salami of Iran's Revolutionary Guard warned Sunday that Iran has the power to cut Europe's energy supply. The warning was issued as European leaders prepared to debate sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

"Iran sits on 50 percent of the world's energy, and if it wants, Europe will spend the winter in the cold,” Salami told Iranian troops in the city of Kerman. His speech was published by the Iranian Fars news agency.

...

Salami also mentioned Iran's missiles. The country has recently tested long-range missiles, and announced just weeks ago that it had launched a satellite-capable rocket.

"Our missiles are now able to target any spot which the conspirators are in,” he said.

Guess what happens to people who are intimidated by bullies.

Israel Matzav: Iran threatens to freeze Europe

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Temples Before Cities?

Temples Before Cities?

Via one of Andrew Sullivan's assistants, here's an article about an archeological finding poised to change the story of the rise of Man. It about the dig at Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey, where an extravagant complex of temples was constructed 11,500 years ago, centuries before the earliest know city, and with no city anywhere in sight. Klaus Schmidt, the chief archeologist, claims the need to have a temple ignited civilization rather than vice versa, the rise of civilization called forth religion.

Schmidt (55) has been digging there for 15 years, and expects to stay the rest of his life, yet he understood the full significance of the site in the first 60 seconds of his first visit.

The site is such an outlier that an American archeologist who stumbled on it in the 1960s simply walked away, unable to interpret what he saw. On a hunch, Schmidt followed the American's notes to the hilltop 15 years ago, a day he still recalls with a huge grin. He saw carved flint everywhere, and recognized a Neolithic quarry on an adjacent hill, with unfinished slabs of limestone hinting at some monument buried nearby. "In one minute—in one second—it was clear," the bearded, sun-browned archeologist recalls. He too considered walking away, he says, knowing that if he stayed, he would have to spend the rest of his life digging on the hill.

The human mind is even more complex than its past.



Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Temples Before Cities?

Israel Matzav: Campbell defended yet another Hamas and Hezbullah supporter

Campbell defended yet another Hamas and Hezbullah supporter

Philip Klein weighs in with evidence of yet another Hamas and Hezbullah supporter who was defended by Tom Campbell.

Let's take the example of another supporter, Abdurahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, whose views in support of Hamas and Hezbollah were well known -- and captured on videotape back in 2000. Yet Campbell was still defending him even as other politicians were running for cover.

Here is a video (originally from the Investigative Project on Terrorism) of Alamoudi rallying a crowd at Lafayette Park in Washington, DC on October 28, 2000, declaring, "We are all supporters of Hamas" and "I am also a supporter of Hezbollah."

... a week after the rally, Campbell publicly claimed that Alamoudi "had never supported violence nor encouraged anybody to engage in it."

...

Now, some may be inclined to praise Campbell for his tolerance toward Muslims, but clearly Alamoudi is another example of Campbell using the wrong person to make his stand. In 2004, as reported by the Washington Post, "A federal judge yesterday sentenced Muslim activist Abdurahman Alamoudi to the maximum 23-year prison term for illegal dealings with Libya that included his involvement in a complex plot to kill the Saudi ruler."

Read the whole thing. Ouch.

UPDATE 9:30 PM

And more Muslim extremist supporters here.


Israel Matzav: Campbell defended yet another Hamas and Hezbullah supporter

Israel Matzav: Barak on Israel's differences with the US on Iran

Barak on Israel's differences with the US on Iran

Laura Rozen has an interesting account of Defense Minister Ehud Barak's appearance at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy on Friday.

Noting the slew of recent high level U.S. officials visiting Israel – CIA director Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, National Security Advisor Jim Jones and NSC Iran strategic Dennis Ross, Deputy Secretaries of State Jim Steinberg and Jack Lew just in the past month, as well as the upcoming visit of Vice President Joseph Biden – Satloff asked Barak about how well he thought the U.S. and Israel were coordinating on the Iran issue.

Barak listened to Satloff’s question and then said, "Let’s take a few more questions and I will answer them" in a bunch. And Satloff, the event host and moderator, laughed and said, "Well, answer that opening question and then I can call on members of the audience and take several questions" in a bunch. And Barak smiled, acknowledging the laughter, and then said, again, "Let’s take a few more questions." Until it became quite clear that Barak did not want to answer Satloff’s question about the state of U.S.-Israel relations on Iran, and this was not based on a cultural misunderstanding of the format procedure. Barak would not budge, and stood at the podium waiting for Satloff to take more questions.

So, checked, Satloff took questions from a few more members of the audience, including from the Institute’s David Makovsky, a co-author with the NSC’s Ross on a recent book on Mideast peace making, before Barak began to answer several questions.

Asked by a Middle Eastern correspondent, why Israel couldn’t live with a nuclear Iran, Barak said Israel welcomed U.S. leadership in seeking international sanctions on Iran. But he added, that with all the instability the U.S. is currently managing including a nuclear Pakistan and North Korea, Afghanistan, draw down in Iraq, etc., as well as an overloaded domestic agenda, it was his impression that Washington believes that while it’s highly undesirable, at the end of the day the U.S. could live with a nuclear Iran. While for Israel, Barak said, it would be a “tipping point” in the strategic equation in the region. It would lead to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other countries seeking nuclear weapons, Barak said, the effective end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, and the threat that a nuclear terrorist attack from an unclear address would be more likely.

Read the whole thing. I believe that Barack Obama will eventually receive a 2:00 am phone call telling him that Israel has just attacked Iran.


Israel Matzav: Barak on Israel's differences with the US on Iran

Israel Matzav: Obama and Clinton trying to please 'international opinion'

Obama and Clinton trying to please 'international opinion'

Hillary Clinton explained to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week that the Obama administration has spent the last 13 months 'reaching out' to Iran, so that when 'reaching out' failed, the US would have a broad-based coalition to support it on sanctions. Barry Rubin challenges that statement, saying that not one country has decided to support sanctions as a result of Obama's policies. China and Russia are still opposed altogether, while much of Europe will only go along with sanctions if they pass the Security Council - which will not happen without China and Russia's approval.

Rubin points out this is all part of a mistaken play to 'international opinion being made by the Obama administration. To prove her point, Clinton claims that other governments agree with Obama's lack of support for the Iranian revolutionaries.

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--which give 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.



Israel Matzav: Obama and Clinton trying to please 'international opinion'

Israel Matzav: Reminder: I'm on Chai FM in South Africa at 5:35 pm local time

Israel Matzav: Reminder: I'm on Chai FM in South Africa at 5:35 pm local time

Israel Matzav: Seen in Meah She'arim

Seen in Meah She'arim

Yes, this picture was taken in Meah She'arim (I know exactly where) and I don't believe it's a photoshop. I got it from Lance K and from the Beguiling Avigayil (Daughter # 1 Child # 1)

Well, if they can use Christmas lights in the Succa (which lots of Israelis do without knowing what they are), why not?

Israel Matzav: Seen in Meah She'arim

Israel Matzav: How's that 'engagement' with Syria going Barack?

How's that 'engagement' with Syria going Barack?

President Obama's 'engagement' with Syria is not going well. On Friday, the State Department called in the Syrian ambassador to ask that Syria 'immediately' stop supplying arms to Hezbullah after that was all Ehud Barak could talk about in Washington. It seems unlikely that request will be fulfilled.

And last week's visit to Damascus by Under Secretary of State William Burns was apparently a disaster.

Haaretz has learned that Burns' visit to Damascus ended unsatisfactorily for the U.S. administration. During Burns' meeting with Assad, the Syrian leader denied all American claims that his regime was providing military aid to terrorists in Iraq, or to Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups.

Assad essentially told Burns that he had no idea what the American was talking about.

Read the whole thing.

What could go wrong?


Israel Matzav: How's that 'engagement' with Syria going Barack?

Israel Matzav: IAF training for rapid refueling

IAF training for rapid refueling

The Israeli Air Force is training to refuel its jets on the runway with the engines running to conserve fuel and allow planes to depart more quickly for bombing runs to Iran.

In preparation for long-range missions and possible conflict with Iran, the Israel Air Force has expanded its training programs to include rapid refueling operations on runways.

It’s a dangerous practice since the aircraft’s engines are running while the fuel nozzle is still connected to the jets. The training is for both pilots and ground crews and it is being done to enable the aircraft to carry as much fuel as possible for long-range missions.

Fuel nozzles are traditionally disconnected from fighter aircraft while they are still parked in hangers and before they are rolled out to the runway, where they usually wait for several minutes before takeoff and while burning fuel. The new protocol includes keeping fuel trucks on the runway, having ground personnel reattach the nozzle and fuel the aircraft to the maximum fullness, disconnecting seconds before takeoff.

“We understand that many of our threats and challenges require us to develop a long-range capability,” one senior IAF officer explained. “Part of our preparation includes knowing how to fuel our aircraft so they can have as much fuel as possible.”

Hmmm.


Israel Matzav: IAF training for rapid refueling

Elder of Ziyon: Hamas leader disowns his son

Elder of Ziyon: Hamas leader disowns his son

Love of the Land: Guess who missed Iran's atrocities?

Guess who missed Iran's atrocities?


Steve Huntley
Chicago Sun-Times
26 February '10

For months, the streets of Tehran ran red with blood. After June's fraudulent presidential election, Iran's security forces and paramilitary thugs arrested, beat, shot and murdered protesters whose only crime was to be fed up with dictatorial rule. Those unfortunate enough to land in prison were raped, forced to lick toilet bowls, tortured by, for example, having their fingernails ripped out, and killed, some from abuse and some from show executions. All this is common knowledge because the whole world is watching, right?
Well, not exactly. Though the horrors of a theocratic-military regime brutally crushing dissent were spread via media around the world, all that has happened in Iran seems to have escaped the notice of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Thanks to a just-released report by U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based monitor of the United Nations, we know the council has not introduced, much less adopted, a single resolution condemning Iran. Nor has it held a single special session on the crisis. Nor has it mandated any investigations.

As reprehensible as the council's neglect of innocent Iranians is, it is not an isolated case. An analysis of 30 council resolutions showed that a majority, 18 of them, "turned a blind eye to the world's worst violations" of human rights, reports U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.

For instance, the U.N.'s rights agency cited Sudan in 2009 for "progress" on human rights -- you know, Sudan, home of the Dafur genocide. It ignored such infamous human rights abusers as Russia, China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Nicaragua and Egypt, among others. In one resolution, the council launched a frontal attack on free speech by defining any discussion of terrorism committed in the name of Islam as a form of "defamation of religion" and "Islamophobia."

It's not that the council doesn't see bad actors in the world, it's just that the bad actor nearly always turns out to be -- you guessed it -- Israel. More than 80 percent of its condemnatory resolutions -- 27 out of 33 -- have been aimed at the Jewish state. A council double-standard offers cover to Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist murderers.

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: Guess who missed Iran's atrocities?

Love of the Land: What about Ezekiel's tomb, Irina Bokova?

What about Ezekiel's tomb, Irina Bokova?


Bataween
Point of No Return
01 March '10

UNESCO's Director-General, Irina Bokova, has 'expressed concern' at the Israeli government's plan to include in its renovation programme the biblical heritage sites of the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's tomb in Hebron. We've yet to hear any expression of concern from Mrs Bokova at Iraq's planned islamicisation of Ezekiel's tomb, or indeed news that control of renovation works has passed to UNESCO, as promised by the Iraqi authorities. This lucid article in The American Thinker reminds us that Ezekiel's tomb, like the Prophet Ezekiel in his own lifetime, is in the forefront of a cultural war:

A short fifteen-minute drive outside Kerbala, Iraq, one can witness the frontlines of the clash between East and West, Islamism and progress. There, in the small town of Al-Kifl, lies -- at least at the time of this writing -- the 2,500-year-old Tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel. But for the first time in recorded history, the Tomb is threatened not by the collateral damage of war, nor the ignominies of thieves and bandits, but by a planned, government-authorized, and taxpayer-funded demolition.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: What about Ezekiel's tomb, Irina Bokova?

Love of the Land: Out of Zion came the lifesavers

Out of Zion came the lifesavers


Judy Siegel
Health and Sci-Tech/JPost
27 February '10

Shaare Zedek Medical Center staffers who treated Haitian earthquake victims describe how procedures and conventions are adapted when a hospital is a collection of tents amidst chaos.

Some of the pillars of sound medical practice have to fall by the wayside when doctors and nurses treat desperate victims of mass catastrophes at a field hospital set up in the middle of hell. None of the sick or wounded is asked for his informed consent; providing privacy is an undreamed-of luxury; patients may be chosen according to who can be discharged soonest; cesarean sections are avoided if possible; and highly complex treatments are not given to victims who haven’t a chance of survival outside.

But other features of normal hospital procedures were used by members of the Israel Defense Forces team that flew to Haiti less than 24 hours after the horrific earthquake that shook Port-au-Prince six weeks ago. The doctors appointed an ethics committee to decide which victims should be admitted and which had a reasonable chance of survival. At least one of the staffers served as a medical clown to make patients smile in lieu of speaking their language. And each patient was discharged – usually to the street – with a CD containing his personal medical file, including x-rays and scans, for use in the event that he received professional follow-up later in the poorest country in the Americas.

The Israeli facility, set up as neatly arranged tents in a soccer field in the capital’s center and opened within hours of arrival, was staffed by a 121-member team with 40 doctors, 20 nurses, 20 paramedics and medics, 20 lab and X-ray technicians and administrators. Three of the physicians and one of the nurses who served there were staffers of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, while another worked with a separate nonprofit group in the disaster area. They thus constituted the largest delegation from any single Israeli hospital.

Two weeks ago, some 300 Shaare Zedek staffers crowded into the medical center’s Steinberg auditorium at 8 a.m. to attend an in-house clinical conference presented by the five who had returned from Haiti, armed with objective medical reports and emotional commentary and photos.

(Read full story)


Love of the Land: Out of Zion came the lifesavers

Love of the Land: British Baroness: Israel Went to Haiti to Harvest Organs

British Baroness: Israel Went to Haiti to Harvest Organs

"Jihad Jenny" Tonge whips up ancient blood libels yet again.


Carol Gould
Pajamasmedia.com
28 February '10

If you think the title of this article is an early April fool or if you are Jewish and think this story is a Purim shpiel, you will be disappointed.

British Baroness Tonge, also known as “Jihad Jenny,” has been bellowing to the world that Israel must clear its name after being accused by a Palestinian newspaper of making its way to earthquake-hit Haiti in order to harvest organs. Over Valentine’s Day weekend the Liberal Democrat Party sacked the baroness, who is also a physician, as shadow health minister. Since then there has been talk of her being sacked as party whip. Her comments were published in the Jewish Chronicle of February 12 after the Palestine Telegraph, of which she is a patron, ran a story about Israel harvesting organs. She said to the JC: “The IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.”

Okay, I can already hear the jokes about Israel harvesting passports for junkets to Dubai, but the concept of body-plundering is a throwback to the murderously anti-Semitic blood libel legacy of British and European history, when Jews were accused of harvesting Christian blood for use in religious rituals. (Jew-hatred reached a fever pitch after the York massacre and they were expelled from England in 1290 until readmission in the seventeenth century.)

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: British Baroness: Israel Went to Haiti to Harvest Organs

Love of the Land: "Israeli Apartheid" Week

"Israeli Apartheid" Week


CAMERA

"Israeli Apartheid" A Campaign Against Human Rights

Every March, extremists converge on campuses across the country. For a week or two, they strive to sow divisions, encourage prejudice, and incite hostility.

They come as part of "Israeli Apartheid Week," a series of lectures, exhibits and events that single out Israel for fierce attack. Students are told the Jewish state is, by nature, a racist, colonial and oppressive state. They are told Israel should be boycotted, and even destroyed. They are told this by ideologues who distort facts about country while ignoring genuine oppression in the Middle East and across the world.

One need look no further than the event's title to understand its malignant nature. The canard that Israel is an apartheid state is an assault on the country's very legitimacy. South Africa's racist, apartheid regime was rightfully dismantled, and this campaign seeks absurdly to cast Israel — the Middle East's most progressive state and only liberal democracy — as being guilty of similar policies and equally deserving to be dismantled.

Apartheid Week is an affront to Palestinian and Israeli moderates who seek to reach peace through compromise and mutual recognition. It opposes equality and tolerance by seeking to do away with the Jewish people's right to self-determination. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that Israel, which he described as "one of great outposts of democracy in the world", has an "incontestable" right to exist. Apartheid Week's push against King's truth can only impede the dream of peace and justice in the Middle East.

Read through this site to learn more...


Love of the Land: "Israeli Apartheid" Week

Love of the Land: The Obama-American public Israeli disconnect

The Obama-American public Israeli disconnect


Yoram Ettinger
Op-Ed/JPost
27 February '10

A recent Gallop poll shows that Israel maintains its good standing with the US public, despite Obama’s ‘even-handed’ approach toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, his attempts to force Israel into sweeping concessions, and in defiance of the US media and academia.

The findings of the February 19, 2010 Gallup poll put President Barack Obama at odds with the US public, when it comes to attitudes toward the Jewish state, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Arabs, Muslims and Islamic terrorism.

For example, Israel maintains its traditional spot among the five most favored nations by 67 percent of the US public, despite Obama’s “even-handed” approach toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, in spite of his attempts to force Israel into sweeping concessions, and in defiance of the US “elite” media and academia.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority is ranked – along with Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan – at the bottom of the list, favored by only 20% of the US public.

According to an August 10, 2009 Rasmussen poll, Israel is ranked as the third most favorable ally (70%), preceded only by Canada and Britain. The low regard toward Egypt (39%) and Saudi Arabia (23%) demonstrates that Americans remain skeptical – at least since 9/11 – of Arabs and Muslims, even as these countries are portrayed by the media and the administration as supposedly moderate and pro-American.

Moreover, only 21% of adult Americans expect that the US relationship with the Muslim world will improve in a year, while 25% expect that it will get worse.

APPARENTLY, US public attitude towards Arabs and Muslims has hardly been impacted by Obama’s highly-publicized outreach to Muslims, as demonstrated by his speeches at Turkey’s National Assembly in April (“…the Islamic faith has done so much to shape the world, including my own country…”), at Cairo University in June (“Islam has always been a part of America’s story…”) and at the UN General assembly in September (“America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others…”).

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: The Obama-American public Israeli disconnect

Love of the Land: The Northern Tinder Box

The Northern Tinder Box


Jonathan Spyer
GLORIA Center
28 February '10

The war of words is continuing. The latest salvoes were fired last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and his Lebanese ally and client Hassan Nasrallah. Ahmedinejad reportedly told Nasrallah that if Israel attacks Hizballah, the response should be sufficient to lead to the closure, once and for all, of the Israeli 'case.' In the same week, Nasrallah promised attendees at a 'Resistance Martyrs Day' celebration that his movement would target Israel's infrastructure in the event of further hostilities. The Hizballah leader mentioned airports, factories and refineries as possible targets.

Hizballah second in command Naim Qassem joined in this week, describing Israel as 'worse than Nazism,' and the 'leader of international crime under the sponsorship of the U.S. and major world powers.' Qassem reiterated his movement's rejection of any diplomatic option vis a vis Israel, saying that "What was taken by the force of occupation can only be regained by the force of the resistance."

The self-confident, warlike tones of these leaders are by now familiar. But what, if anything, is revealed by these most recent statements?

Some analysis has suggested that the heightened rhetoric may presage an attempt by Iran to heat up the northern front in response to the hardening international stance to Iran's nuclear program. While nothing should be ruled out, a number of factors should be borne in mind in this regard. Hizballah and its backers are well aware of the broad contours of Israel's likely response in the event of further aggression by the movement on the northern border. The message has been adequately transferred that a future conflict would not remain within the parameters of a localized Israel-Hizballah clash in southern Lebanon.

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: The Northern Tinder Box

Love of the Land: U.S. Government Rewards Syria; Syria's Client Threatens to Kill Americans

U.S. Government Rewards Syria; Syria's Client Threatens to Kill Americans


Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
28 February '10

Forgive me for writing so much about U.S.-Syria events but it is such a remarkable story that it deserves a lot of attention and it really does reveal a great deal about the problems of current U.S. foreign policy. And read on to the end because there’s been a shocking new development.

Imagine: the United States gives concessions to Syria, most recently the announced return of its ambassador to Damascus. The ambassador was removed after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Syria has not cooperated fully in the investigation; it is suspect number one in the murder. Meanwhile, Syria continues to finance, train, arm, and transport terrorists going into Iraq to kill Americans (as well as Iraqis, of course). So nothing has changed but the United States is acting as if the matter has been resolved.

Of course the administration has reasons for behaving the way it does—though not always good ones. It wants to pretend there’s an easy way out over Iran by pulling Syria away from Tehran (despite Syria confirming and strengthening the alliance every day); hoping Syria won't escalate during Iraq pull-out (and ignoring it every time Damascus sponsors a major terror attack there); trying to prove that engagement works and avoiding conflicts.

Of course the problem is that this feeds Syrian arrogance and bad behavior. If you’ve never followed the speeches of Syrian leaders and the media there, you can’t imagine how they think: We are the center of the earth! America needs us and we don’t need them! Long live the resistance to destroy Israel and kick the United States out of the Middle East.

But, as I noted here and here, the latest American concession was met by a Syrian punch in the teeth: the summit of Iran, Syria, and Hizballah, the renewed threats and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad openly ridiculing the U.S. effort to moderate his policy.

(Read full post)


Love of the Land: U.S. Government Rewards Syria; Syria's Client Threatens to Kill Americans

Elder of Ziyon: Dubai police chief: UAE to stop Jews from entering country

Elder of Ziyon: Dubai police chief: UAE to stop Jews from entering country

Chesler Chronicles » A Feminist Hawk in the Big City

Chesler Chronicles » A Feminist Hawk in the Big City

Love of the Land: Intelligent sheep with foreign passports

Intelligent sheep with foreign passports


Fresnozionism.org
27 February '10

As you may know, next week is “Israeli Apartheid Week” on campuses around the world. Airline tickets from Israel to London must be on sale for the event, because

A Tel Aviv University professor is set to open this year’s “Israel Apartheid Week” taking place at three London university campuses.

Adi Ophir, an associate professor at TAU’s Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science, will open the event on Monday. “Israel Apartheid Week” takes place at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics and University College London.

In a talk titled “Anatomy of rule in the occupied Palestinian territories,” Ophir, who is author of the book The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, will share a platform with Sari Hanafi, an associate professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut…

Ending the week of events will be Israel-born filmmaker Eyal Sivan, who will answer questions following the screening of his film Yizkor: Slaves of Memory.

The event program describes the film as “a portrait of the Israeli society that has never been shown before” that looks “in depth at this imperative that is imposed on the children of Israel.”


(Read full post)


Love of the Land: Intelligent sheep with foreign passports

Elder of Ziyon: Fox Business pushing investment in Syria

Elder of Ziyon: Fox Business pushing investment in Syria

Elder of Ziyon: Bizarre Mabhouh sideshow

Elder of Ziyon: Bizarre Mabhouh sideshow

Elder of Ziyon: Hamas claims yesterday's bomb was no big deal

Elder of Ziyon: Hamas claims yesterday's bomb was no big deal

Elder of Ziyon: How PalArab press translates an AFP article

Elder of Ziyon: How PalArab press translates an AFP article

Elder of Ziyon: Gaza tunnels on sale!

Elder of Ziyon: Gaza tunnels on sale!

Elder of Ziyon: Purim miracle: Rabbit gives birth to elephant in Jenin

Purim miracle: Rabbit gives birth to elephant in Jenin

From Ma'an:

A 19-year-old rabbit raiser in Jenin said he was "shocked and terrified" when his newest animal gave birth to what he described as a tiny baby elephant on Sunday.

Muhammad Alawna raises rabbits as a hobby on his small farm north of Jenin, and works construction in Israel during the week.

“I was concerned when I saw a black baby elephant next to nine white baby rabbits," Alawna told Ma'an, adding that the creature died only five hours after it was born. He said he was baffled as to how the elephant was produced.

The mother rabbit, Alawna explained, is a Dutch breed which he bought six months ago from a farmer in the northern West Bank village of Jaba in Jenin district.

I haven't yet figured out the Mossad connection, but you just know that they are behind this somehow.



Elder of Ziyon: Purim miracle: Rabbit gives birth to elephant in Jenin

Torat HaRav Aviner: “I am Depressed”

“I am Depressed”


01
מרץ
2010

["Be-Ahavah U-Be-Emunah" – Tetzaveh 5770 – translated by R. Blumberg]

Question: I am depressed, and I am depressed by the fact that I am depressed. Will I ever get out of it? People tell me, “Move on! Get a grip! Take control! Stop babying yourself! You can break out of it if you want.” And this depresses me all the more. Is it really enough for me to WANT to get out of it for me to succeed? I am suffering so much. My mood is so terrible. I am sunken in despair. Nothing interests me. Nothing is fun for me. I feel worthless. I feel like no one loves me, like no one wants me near them. I’ve become a rag, depressed and in pain. Can I get out of this? Will I ever see the light of day? Will my smile ever return?
Answer: You’ve got a lot of reasons to be optimistic. There’s no reason to suffer, and mental anguish is no less real than physical pain. Most of the time, the problem can be solved or alleviated. You’ll break out of it, because you haven’t resigned yourself to your plight. You want light. That’s a sign that inside you are strong. Within an ocean of pain there is a powerful island of health that can slowly be expanded. But first of all, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault. The causes of your depression are complex: chemical changes in the brain, heredity, a response to difficult occurrences from childhood or from the recent past, severe economic crises, a broken home and low social status.
You are not guilty. You are not interested in being depressed. You do not enjoy being depressed. You would pay all the money in the world to break out of it. Hush up the people who chastise you, and don’t chastise yourself. Don’t fall into deep ruminations, prying too deeply into yourself. You’re not alone with this problem. 5.5% of this country is like you, consisting of 7% of all women and 4% of all men. Obviously, other people’s suffering is no consolation to you, but you should still be aware that you’ve got many people in the same boat, and they’re not guilty either. Not everyone is the same. Depression finds expression in many different forms: having no appetite, or too much appetite, sleeping too little or too much, losing or gaining weight, diarrhea or constipation, aggressiveness or passiveness, anger or sadness, low self-image and self-hatred, loss of ability to concentrate and memory loss, negatively judging others and being overly self-critical, and a lost list of many other forms of pain and suffering. What they all have in common is that the people with these problems are not guilty.
I do believe you that you have tried everything to get out of it, and that you are still trying by your own efforts, just you haven’t succeeded. People don’t always succeed at this on their own, so go for professional help. Don’t be embarrassed. You didn’t choose this for yourself, and you’re allowed to get help. Afterwards you’ll get better and you’ll help others. Tell the professional everything that is happening to you, even if it seems stupid to you. He won’t make fun of you. He won’t castigate you. He certainly won’t behave like the Puritans in America who placed hard work on a high pedestal – which was obviously justified – and severely punished the depressed people for the crime of sloth, as the most severe crime.
First go to a family doctor skilled at providing depressed individuals with their initial treatment, so he can locate physical causes and diagnose physical symptoms. Then go to a clinical psychologist, and even if that doesn’t help, go to a psychiatrist so he can prescribe medications. Don’t be embarrassed to take medications. They don’t stigmatize you as being insane. When there is a chemical imbalance in the brain, anti-depressants restore that balance. Today there are really excellent medicines, wonder drugs that reveal the divine image within science. There is no reason to fear side effects. Obviously, don’t take these medications on your own without a doctor’s recommending them. By the way, even a family physician is entitled to prescribe anti-depressants, or a psychiatric social worker.
Don’t be afraid of psychologists, either. The cognitive approach helps you to think positively, to melt away your depressed thoughts logically, to get used to seeing the present and the future in an optimistic light, and to stop blaming yourself for your failings. You might wonder: “What do I need a psychologist for? All this thinking I can do on my own!” Indeed, even working with a psychologist, you do it by yourself. He only helps you to do it by yourself, his being experienced and objective. By the way, alternative treatments have not proven effective in psychological research. Yet bio-feedback treatment, despite its sounding “alternative”, is totally scientific and produces good results in numerous psychological realms.
Moreover, if you see that your friend is sunken in depression or anxiety, please be so kind as to convince him to go for professional treatment. As stated, however, don’t chastise him, but provide him with support, love and friendship. That’s what friends are for.
We rabbis are not doctors, psychologists, or social workers. All the same, we can give you some advice on good things to do that don’t require professional knowledge. 1. Activities. Stay busy with as many activities as possible. That way you’ll take your mind off you situation.
a. Physical activity. Obviously, this is good for one’s physical health, but it also causes the release of endorphins, which kill pain and improve one’s mood. Run, swim, ride a bicycle.
b. Creativity. Draw and write. Churchill, who suffered from depression even though he seemed the opposite, began painting when he was forty years old after a very severe political setback.
c. Volunteer. Help others who suffer from depression or other problems. When you concentrate on the problems of others, you will forget your own problems. You will also have self-satisfaction from doing good, and you will feel content.
In his medical writings (translated from the Arabic by Dr. Sussman Muntar), Rambam wrote to the King of Egypt regarding his son, the prince, who was deep in depression, that he should study moral treatises and fulfill what they said.
2. Sociality. Spend time with friends. Once more, don’t spend time with friends who chastise you, but friends who offer you support and love and encouragement. That way you’ll break out of your loneliness, which, itself, can put a person into depression. And if you can’t find friends, then adopt the sort of pet that becomes friendly with people, like a dog or cat.
3. Happiness. Rambam writes that depressed people should sing, play musical instruments and go on trips to beautiful places (Shemoneh Perakim, Chapter 5). As is known, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that one should do anything one can to chase away black depression, even engage in silly talk.
4. Soothing activities. There’s no need to go to India for this. One can find all one needs by regular activities much more cheaply.
5. Sleep. Try to get regular sleep. That regulates life.
6. Study. Read up on depression. Sometimes that itself is depressing, but there are people who find solace in the very act of knowing.
This was some advice. Everyone should pick whatever is appropriate for him. As for you, dear reader, if you have any things that you’ve tried yourself, please write me. You might now ask: “Maybe with the help of all this advice I’ll get out of my depression by myself and not need professional help?” It’s possible. But with professional help, it will go faster. As we say in our prayers, “Cure us SPEEDILY”.
But you will break out of it. Yes you will.



Torat HaRav Aviner: “I am Depressed”

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Compulsive Antisemitism Syndrome

Compulsive Antisemitism Syndrome

Do Jew haters recognize their affliction? Are they purposeful about hating Jews, or do they think their ideas are the only possible way to understand the world? This is an important question, with serious implications, and I'm far too busy in the non-blogging world these days to engage in it. Still, Hawkeye at CiFWatch brings some interesting documentation to bolster the second explanation: systematic deleting of totally innocuous comments on a silly Guardian article. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that these people are so totally detached from rational thought that they've, well, lost the ability to think rationally, and truly believe that disagreements with them must be expunged.

The problem, however, is that there are people around who do disagree with them. CiFWatch, for example. Which means the Guardianistas can't be unaware of dissenting positions, which in turn means they've made a conscious decision...


Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Compulsive Antisemitism Syndrome

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: A Very Long Tale

A Very Long Tale

Yesterday was Purim (in Jerusalem it's today). Purim, Judaism's jolliest holiday, starts from the story of Esther, queen to Ahasveros who may or may not have been Artaxerxes, and tells of a foiled plot to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire. There are various morals to the story, but the historical one is that the Jews and Persians go back a l-o-o-on-g way even if nowadays the Persians call themselves Iranians. Centuries before the Europeans ever met their first Jews, and more than a thousand years before the Arabs burst out of Arabia onto the world stage, the Jews and Persians were deep into their ups-and-down relationship.

Also yesterday, Purim, Ahmadinejad announced (again) that the Jews are the source of all evil:

"Supporters of the Zionist regime who are shouting slogans of human rights and anti-terrorism support systematic crimes of the occupying regime," Ahmadinejad said, adding that "everybody knows that the regime is seeking hegemony over the world." Israel is the "origin of all the wars, genocide, terror and crimes against humanity," he said, and a "racist group not respecting the human principles," IRNA reported. "With God's grace and thanks to the Palestinian resistance, the occupying Zionist regime has lost its raison d'etre," Ahmadinejad said. "The only way to confront them is through the Palestinian youths' resistance, and that of the regional nations."

Look's like we're in a "down" right now.


Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: A Very Long Tale

Canadian Media, Ontario Legislature, Condemn Apartheid Week - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Canadian Media, Ontario Legislature, Condemn Apartheid Week - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Iran: Arab Resistance Key to Demise of World Powers - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Iran: Arab Resistance Key to Demise of World Powers - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Attempted Army Coup Throws Turkey into Crisis - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Attempted Army Coup Throws Turkey into Crisis - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Iran Threatens To 'Freeze' Europe for Backing Sanctions - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Iran Threatens To 'Freeze' Europe for Backing Sanctions - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Fischer, Yaalon Face Chinese Wall' on Iranian Sanctions - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Fischer, Yaalon Face Chinese Wall' on Iranian Sanctions - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Arab Protesters Leave Temple Mount, Muslims Call for War - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Arab Protesters Leave Temple Mount, Muslims Call for War - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Israel and One-State Solution Dominate US Congressional Race - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Israel and One-State Solution Dominate US Congressional Race - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Love of the Land: Britain hardens line in support of Goldstone Report, not one EU member state votes against it at latest UN resolution

Britain hardens line in support of Goldstone Report, not one EU member state votes against it at latest UN resolution


Robin Shepherd
Robin Shepherd Online
27 February '10

In yet another shameful day at the United Nations, Britain has signalled a hardening of its position in support of the Goldstone Report on Gaza. In the General Assembly’s latest vote on Friday, Britain moved from the abstainers camp to join ranks with the likes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan in supporting a resolution to breathe new life into Goldstone for another five months. Not one EU member state joined the United States, Israel, Canada and four others in opposing the move.

The resolution was a follow up to last November’s vote in the General Assembly calling for Israel and the Palestinians to mount credible investigations into allegations contained in the Goldstone Report that both sides, but particularly Israel, had committed war crimes against civilians. Britain abstained in that vote having absented itself entirely at the original vote in the Human Rights Council the previous month. Britain has therefore moved in three stages: absence, abstention, and now support.

Technically all three votes were slightly different in that the first asked participants to endorse the report’s findings, the second called for investigations on the basis of the report and the third provided for an extension of the time period in which those investigations should take place. However, as the United States — which voted against Goldstone on all three occasions — made clear after yesterday’s vote the key principle at issue is whether such a deeply flawed report should be given any legitimacy at all. That, said US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Alejandro D. Wolff, was why the US continued to have no truck with it.

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: Britain hardens line in support of Goldstone Report, not one EU member state votes against it at latest UN resolution

Israel Matzav: Why do Arabs hate Google?

Why do Arabs hate Google?

When you start typing something into Google to search, it gives you suggestions for how you might want to finish your search. The suggestions are based upon what most people search. When you type in "Why do Arabs" you get some interesting suggestions, as Baron Bodissey discovered when he tried it (see the list at left - I tried it and got the same suggestions).

Well, the Arabs are quite upset about this. In fact - surprise - they're seething. And they're going to demand that Google 'fix' it.

Read the whole thing (and this isn't even a Purim post - it's based on an Arab News column from last Wednesday).

Heh.


Israel Matzav: Why do Arabs hate Google?

Israel Matzav: Sarah Palin to move to Sharon, Massachusetts

Sarah Palin to move to Sharon, Massachusetts

Sarah Palin is moving to Sharon, Massachusetts and converting to Judaism.

Let's go to the videotape.



Heh.


Israel Matzav: Sarah Palin to move to Sharon, Massachusetts

Love of the Land: Spinning the death of a terrorist

Spinning the death of a terrorist


Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
28 February '10

The media continue to give prominent coverage to the investigation of the death of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose body was found some six weeks ago in a Dubai luxury hotel. Dubai's police authorities have boasted that it took them just 24 hours to come close to solving the case, and their ostensible professionalism and efficiency have been widely praised after the release of extensive CCTV footage that supposedly shows various teams involved in al-Mabhouh's assassination.

However, it seems that few in the media have been willing to notice what was rightly highlighted in a report by Global Post correspondent Tom Hundley, who pointed out that Dubai "has become a kind of Arabian Big Easy where a senior operative in a powerful political organization can be assassinated in a five-star hotel - and the crime will be hushed up for more than a week while the powers-that-be decide how the story will be spun."

Indeed, it is definitely noteworthy that almost ten days elapsed before Mabhouh's assassination was announced by the UAE government's official press agency, which reported on the day of his funeral that he had been killed by an "experienced criminal gang."

(Read full post)

Related: Video Killer Thriller In Dubai


Love of the Land: Spinning the death of a terrorist

Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Overnight music video

Here's a Purim party in Bnei Brak on Saturday night. Yes, most of the guys are probably drunk.

Let's go to the videotape.



A Freilichen (Happy) Purim to everyone!


Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Love of the Land: Full text of Knesset Law passed 22 February 2010

Full text of Knesset Law passed 22 February 2010


Bataween
Point of No Return
26 February '10

The rights to compensation of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran, 22 February 2010

1.Purpose

The purpose of this Law is to protect the rights to compensation of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran in the framework of peace negotiations in the Middle East.

2.Definitions:

In this Law --


"Refugee Jews from Arab countries and Iran" - who are any of the following:

(1) He is a citizen of Israel*, or lived there before the establishment of the state;

(2) He was a resident of Arab countries or Iran, and left mostly because he was persecuted on account of his Jewishness and his inability to defend himself against such persecution.

(3) He left property** he owned in his country of origin

**"Property" - land, assets, cash, rights, and other property seized by government order.

3. Negotiations to achieve peace

In negotiations to achieve peace in the Middle East, the government must include the issue of providing compensation for loss of property to Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran, including property owned by Jewish communities in these countries.

4.Execution

The Prime Minister is to be in charge of the implementation of this Law.

Signed by

Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister

Shimon Peres
President

Reuven Rivlin
Speaker of the Knesset

* Although the Law applies only to Israeli citizens, a mechanism is being sought to cover Jewish refugees living outside Israel, similar to that for Holocaust survivors
resident outside Israel.

Related: Israel's answer to the Palestinian 'right of return'

Love of the Land: Full text of Knesset Law passed 22 February 2010

Love of the Land: Hitting the wrong target

Hitting the wrong target


Sarah Honig
Sidney Morning Herald
28 February '10

The false-passport row denies Israel's right to act against those trying to destroy it.

FOR average Israelis, members of the silent majority (as distinct from the country's chattering cliquey elite), the false-passports brouhaha abroad is just another sideshow in the international community's theatre of the absurd. In this global burlesque, everything can be turned upside down. The lie is granted equal standing with truth, and flagrant canards frequently gain the ascendancy and are paraded as fact. Values are devalued. Good and evil are interchangeable. Anything goes.

In this environment of intellectual anarchy, Israel's existential struggle stands no chance of being granted anything vaguely resembling a fair hearing.

The case of terror kingpin Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is instructive. After his body was discovered in a Dubai hotel, his own son, Abdel-Rauf, bragged on TV that the late lamented ''fought the Jews, hit the Jews, kidnapped and killed Israelis. He outfitted and dispatched suicide-bombers.'' That evidently made him an object for admiration. Killing Jews is a noble objective, one to take pride in, to revere.

Mabhouh co-founded the Hamas military wing and Hamas declared war on Israel. He was a self-confessed murderer. Last year he boasted on al-Jazeera about his personal culpability in the separate 1989 kidnap-murders of Israeli soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon. He crowed about smuggling into Gaza thousands of Iranian-made missiles for the sole purpose of making the lives of Israeli civilians hellish in the country's heartland, including Tel Aviv.

So when Israelis point to Mabhouh's gory record, it isn't just their biased say-so. It's hardly an unsubstantiated assertion, an excuse to justify assassination. Accustomed and resigned as Israelis are to the world's double standards, they nevertheless watch with renewed amazement as Mabhouh's suspected killers are placed on Interpol's wanted list, where Mabhouh himself never appeared - soaked with blood as his hands were. Has anyone, incidentally, bothered inquiring which passport Mabhouh was travelling under and why he was allowed to enter Dubai on a gun-running mission?

(Read full story)


Love of the Land: Hitting the wrong target

Israel Matzav: Moronic Leftist blogger posts Purim spoof as real story

Moronic Leftist blogger posts Purim spoof as real story

In his zeal to find something wrong with Israel, Leftist Richard Silverstein posted a Haaretz spoof about selling ads to be beamed on the Western Wall as a real story.

Details (with screen capture of the ranting post) here.

Israel Matzav: Obama: 'I'm really a space cadet when it comes to the Middle East'

Obama: 'I'm really a space cadet when it comes to the Middle East'

President Obama has admitted that he's really a 'space cadet' when it comes to the Middle East.

United States President Barack Obama admitted, in a special Purim interview for Arutz Sheva, that he “frankly does not have a clue” regarding the psychology of the Middle East and that “a three year old child with some experience in nursery-school power politics could probably understand the Middle East better than [he does].”

"I really am a space cadet when it comes to Middle East," he said.

Here's part of the interview.

ARUTZ SHEVA: Mr. President, as the Jewish people celebrate Purim, we remember our struggle with an evil Persian official named Haman, and look with foreboding at a new Iranian regime that threatens us with destruction too. Can you promise us that the US intends to apply biting sanctions against Iran before it is too late?

PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: First of all let me say that I am very much in favor of sanctions that bite. As a matter of fact, I think all sanctions bite. They really do. Sanctions are out! Any form of punitive action against a Muslim country is really counterproductive because Islam is a religion of peace and the US is after all a colonialist power. I was just talking to some old madarassah buddies of mine from Indonesia about this on Facebook.

Suddenly beaming, Obama waves at the camera and exclaims: “Hi Bilal and Japoor! Hope you are watching!” He fondles his wine glass pensively and continues.

BHO: Having said that – we have no intention of abandoning Israel to the wolves, so to speak. I have said before and I will say it again: the United States will not stand idly by as Israel is turned into a radioactive parking lot. If and when Iran uses nuclear weapons against Israel, and if we see that there is serious fallout and hundreds of thousands of people die horrible deaths – we will apply sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards.

AS: What kind of sanctions?

BHO: We have already drawn up a plan for barring the families of Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen from Disney World and Disney Land. We will not let them in, clear and simple.



Israel Matzav: Obama: 'I'm really a space cadet when it comes to the Middle East'
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...