Friday 12 March 2010

Israel Matzav: Sabbath music video

Sabbath music video

Here's Hanan Yovel singing Psalm 126, which we sing before the Grace After Meals at every Sabbath meal.

Let's go to the videotape.



Shabbat Shalom everyone.


Israel Matzav: Sabbath music video

Love of the Land: BDS Party Crashers

BDS Party Crashers


Jon
Divest This!
09 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

As with previous pieces I’ve written on what BDS does to civil society, it’ll take a couple of paragraphs to get to a recognizable point. So bear with me if you can stand it…

For the fourth year in a row, I attended the variety show at my kid’s elementary school. Neither boy performed (although my older son did share the MC role with another fifth grader). While most numbers are what you would expect (a lot of piano, some Hanna Montana-inspired song and dance numbers, the Star Wars theme on cello), there were a few nice surprises (including a killer kindergartener Hula Hooper and two groups dancing to the closing theme of Slumdog Millionaire).

Best of all, the show was a mere 36 acts (as opposed to 52 last year, with a legendary 90-act show in the distant past that ended only when a group of parents gouged out their own eyes with a vaudeville hook).

Now while I sat at rapt attention for the entire 90-minute performance, I’m forced to confess that my mind started to wander at around the half-hour mark, mostly towards the subject of what I could do to mess with next year’s show. (Getting my seven year old to read Ginsberg’s Howl in its entirety was what I eventually settled on.)

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: BDS Party Crashers

Israel Matzav: What Biden's visit proved

What Biden's visit proved

Jennifer Rubin got this one right.

If Biden’s visit proved anything, it is that diplomatic activity can be counterproductive, inflaming rather than reducing conflicts and deflecting attention from more productive activities. Consider this: is the U.S.-Israeli relationship in a worse or better shape after Biden’s visit? The answer is obvious, as should be the conclusion: sometimes it’s best if everyone stays home.



Israel Matzav: What Biden's visit proved

Israel Matzav: In Ramat Shlomo, they wonder what the fuss is about

In Ramat Shlomo, they wonder what the fuss is about

In Ramat Shlomo (bottom left) this week, most people are wondering what the fuss is about.

Eli Diskin, a Ramat Shlomo resident and real estate developer who was involved with the first wave of building that swept the neighborhood in the early 1990s, told The Jerusalem Post that 1,600 new housing units “wouldn’t even be enough” to deal with the overflowing population of the neighborhood.

“I don’t think it even needs to be explained,” Diskin said.

“Construction in Ramat Shlomo began in 1993, and now there are 2,200 families or roughly 16,000 people living here,” he continued.

“Each family averages between seven and eight members, and frankly, there is nowhere left for people to live. If someone gets married, if they have more kids, where are they supposed to go? They have to leave the neighborhood,” he said, adding, “And if we can’t build here, where are we supposed to build?”

Diskin’s sentiments were echoed by every other Ramat Shlomo resident who spoke to the Post on Wednesday.

“If this is not an inseparable part of Jerusalem, than what is?” asked Pini Gamliel, a shopkeeper on the neighborhood’s HaAdmor M’Lubavitch Street. “Where do they want us to put our houses?”
The numbers I have heard - for the record - are 22,000-23,000 people with an average of eight children per family. And then there are all the people renting storage rooms made over into small apartments.

Nearby, at a Chabad synagogue constructed as an exact duplicate of the entrance to the hassidic movement’s famous yeshiva at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn [the red brick building that is prominent in the picture. CiJ], Mendy Hechtman told the Post that he felt American diplomats and others critical of the decision to continue building in Ramat Shlomo should come and see the neighborhood for themselves.

“Once you get here, you can easily see that this is simply another neighborhood in Jerusalem,” Hechtman said. “But the media makes it seem like this is some kind of far-removed settlement, when in reality it’s right next to Ramot.”
Yes, Ramot, which is several times its size, is further out than Ramat Shlomo.

What you can't see here, but which is obvious even to amateurs like me, is how important the ridge on which Ramat Shlomo sits would be in the case of any military conflict. That's because it overlooks - and has a clean shot - at every major highway in the city. To give one example, there's a road going across the bottom of that second picture which is known as "Road 9." Road 9 runs (look at this on the top map) from French Hill to the entrance to Ramot. It has three exits: Ramat Shlomo, the 'Cedar Tunnel' road that connects with the Jerusalem - Tel Aviv highway, and the road that is Menachem Begin Boulevard criss-crossing the city to the south and Route 443 to the north. Those roads are critical for city traffic.

What I will try to get pictures to show you on Sunday is how an army unit stationed atop Ramat Shlomo would have a clear shot at every one of those roads (and more).
Israel Matzav: In Ramat Shlomo, they wonder what the fuss is about

Israel Matzav: The 'Israel Lobby' isn't Jewish

The 'Israel Lobby' isn't Jewish

This is a fascinating theory.

The power of Likud-supporting American Jews both in the Jewish community and in American politics generally has much less to do with the success of Likud’s ideology among American Jews than it does with the broad, pre-existing alignment between the ideas of the Israel lobby and general American public opinion.

Take AIPAC. From where I sit, AIPAC isn’t powerful because of the Jewish votes it can sway. Most Jews have views on Israel that are closer to the J-Street lobby vision than to the AIPAC line, and if a vote among America’s Jews decided our Israel policy the policy would be significantly to the left of where it is now. It’s not even because of the money; ‘pro-Israel’ PAC money is a drop in the vast and ever-expanding river of American campaign funding.

A group like AIPAC enjoys power and recognition not because it controls or even represents the votes of Jews. AIPAC’s power rests on gentile ideas and support; if a politician gets loudly and publicly labeled anti-Israel by AIPAC and its allies that politician will get hammered in the next election because so many American gentiles want their politicians to support the Jewish state. AIPAC works like the NRA; it is the publicly accepted voice on an issue about which the public has strong views.

Politicians don’t fear the loss of National Rifle Association PAC money nearly as much as they fear the loss of millions of pro-gun votes at the next election. This, I think is why AIPAC is so powerful. To be convincingly labeled an anti-Israel politician is the kiss of death almost everywhere in the United States — just as to be anti-gun is the kiss of death. American gentiles consider AIPAC and those affiliated with and endorsed by it to be reliable guardians of pro-Israel policy; politicians don’t want to cross a force with this kind of hold on the public.

Read the whole thing.

Intuitively, it makes sense.

Israel Matzav: The 'Israel Lobby' isn't Jewish

Israel Matzav: Netanyahu goes dhimmi

Netanyahu goes dhimmi

When the Churva synagogue re-opens on Monday, one very important guest will be absent: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Hat Tip: Shy Guy).

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not plan to attend the historic reopening of the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday. A senior diplomat told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew news service that the PM will absent himself in order to avoid conflict with the United States or the Palestinian Authority.

The prime minister will address crowds at the Hurva ceremony by video instead. The diplomat who spoke to Arutz Sheva would not divulge the exact content of Netanyahu's address, but hinted, “we're not sure that the nationalists are going to like what he intends to say.”An official statement from the Prime Minister's Office confirmed that Netanyahu would not attend the Old City ceremony, but said his absence would be due only to time constraints. “The Prime Minister has a very full schedule these days,” the statement said.

So he's going to build 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo (in a few years, when he gets around to it), but he's going to give up on the nation's heart, the Old City of Jerusalem? If this is true, what a putz!

By the way, I would love to know this 'diplomat's home country. It might bear on the story's credibility.

UPDATE 3:29 PM

Here's more:

What really is the "fact" that the radical editorial writer ignored is that Jews who believe otherwise, that the city is actually all Israel's, are perhaps 98% of all world Jewry, excluding maybe Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni and Rahm Emanuel. Not only that but there is a common misconception. The claim is made is that Israel unnaturally "expanded" the city when it absorbed eastern areas after 1967.

But if we review the UN recommendation of November 29, 1947 to partition the Mandate area, we will see that the borders of Jerusalem, as a corpus separatum, extend to Shuafat, past Abu Dis and to Bethlehem as well as to Motza, larger than the municipal boundaries today. So what are they talking about, these concessionists who wish to yield, surrender and kowtow?

In not showing up, Netanyahu will not be taking advantage of a wonderful opportunity to say this. To remind the world of Jerusalem's place in the soul of the Jewish people, its religion, culture, literature, art and history. To recall to his listeners that not only was the Hurva Synagogue destroyed by Arabs, but another 30 or so synagogues were desecrated after 1948, and that thousands of graves on Mount of Olives were destroyed and that on the Temple Mount, the Waqf authorities are destroying and ransacking Jewish artifacts.

We, as Zionists, as Jews returning to our homeland, build. We create. They destroy.

And we let them destroy.


Israel Matzav: Netanyahu goes dhimmi

Israel Matzav: Good news: Defense Ministry to conduct mass arrest of 'freeze violators'

Good news: Defense Ministry to conduct mass arrest of 'freeze violators'

The Defense Ministry is going to start Phase 3 of its enforcement of the 'settlement freeze' on Sunday: Mass arrests of people who violate the 'settlement freeze.'

Stage 3 of the IDF’s operation, aimed at implementing the settlement freeze, is also called the “criminal stage,” since it provides for the arrest and indictment of settlers who obstruct the work of the Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria in distributing stop-work orders, as well as settlers and contractors who illegally build in the settlements.

...

Under the plan, inspectors arriving at settlements to enforce the freeze will be accompanied by large police forces, which will arrest anyone who tries to prevent the inspectors from entering the gates of the community. In addition, criminal charges will be pressed against the owners of lots where construction is taking place in violation of moratorium regulations, as well as against contractors, and possibly against regional council chiefs if they are aware of the activity.

Two comments: Where is Ehud Barak going to find the budget to do this? And wouldn't it be great if all the Right wing MK's (who are immune from prosecution) showed up to be arrested on Sunday?

Israel Matzav: Good news: Defense Ministry to conduct mass arrest of 'freeze violators'

Israel Matzav: Clinton to headline AIPAC

Clinton to headline AIPAC

As I'm sure many of you have heard already, Hillary Clinton is going to headline the AIPAC conference at the end of the month. Here's an interesting thought about it.

Some pro-Israel organizations view Clinton as an ally against a White House they see as less friendly to Israel, and she's going to have to be careful not to let any daylight between herself and Biden.

Between herself and Biden? What does that mean? Since when does Biden make policy? After all, we all know that his condemnation of Israel earlier this week was just following orders.


Israel Matzav: Clinton to headline AIPAC

Israel Matzav: Inspector Tamim orders spies to leave Dubai

Inspector Tamim orders spies to leave Dubai

Dubai police chief Inspector Tamim (which means naive in Hebrew) has ordered all 'spies' to leave his desert paradise.

"Those spies that are currently present in the Gulf must leave the region within one week. If not, then we will cross that bridge when we come to it," Tamim reportedly said. When asked whether the spies he was talking about were holders of European passports, Tamim said "Europeans and others," but offered no further details.

A Gulf newspaper, Al-Khaleej, quoted Tamim saying foreign spies had better depart the emirate "or they will face extreme measures," according to a report from the Alarabiya.net Web site. The report does not indicate whether the police official outlined any specific measures to be taken against spies who remained after the ban takes effect.

Some foreign intelligence officials believe the people most likely to be affected by the spy ban—assuming Dubai authorities are serious about it—are "undeclared" spies—intelligence officers and informants who are supposed to be operating in the Emirates using undercover identities, rather than spies whose identities have been officially declared to the Emirates government and who therefore likely have status as accredited diplomats. The CIA declined to comment.

And I'm sure those 'undeclared spies' are busy packing their bags even as we speak. Good luck with that.

Israel Matzav: Inspector Tamim orders spies to leave Dubai

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinians' seethe over Churva synagogue

'Palestinians' seethe over Churva synagogue

The Old City of Jerusalem's Churva synagogue, which was destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948, has been restored and will be rededicated on Sunday and Monday. This has given the 'Palestinians' more reasons to seethe.

Naturally, the Muslims are furious at Jews daring to rebuild a synagogue in a spot that they had lived continuously for well over two thousand years. As I reported a few months ago, what really bugged them was the height of the structure, because in Islamic tradition mosques should always be the tallest buildings in the area. Since the Jewish Quarter is on a hill, the Hurva dome will be higher than the domes on the Al Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock.

Now, however, they have a new reason to seethe. Ever since Ha'aretz reported a (pretty much unfounded) rumor that the Vilna Gaon had predicted that the Third Temple would be built on March 16, 2010, they have been convinced that Israel has evil plans. Saraya, the Islamic Jihad newspaper, says that Hurva is being built on an Islamic neighborhood, and says that the construction of the Third Temple will commence on March 16th. The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation says that the Hurva dedication will take place on Sunday and Monday, also to be followed by the public start of the building of the Third Temple, as well as more Jews "storming" Al Aqsa for Passover at the end of the month.

It should only happen. Heh.

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinians' seethe over Churva synagogue

Israel Matzav: Sullivan calls Israel an apartheid state

Sullivan calls Israel an apartheid state

Just add this to the list of offensive statements by Andrew Sullivan.

I cannot read Netanyahu's mind. But I can observe Israel's actions. They intend to occupy and colonize the entire West Bank for ever. They may allow some parceled enclaves for Palestinians, but they will maintain a big military presence on the Eastern border of West Bank, and they will sustain this with raw military power and force. I certainly cannot see any other rationale for their actions these past few years that makes any sense at all. Many Israeli politicians now use the term "apartheid" for this future.

An intent to remain in Judea and Samaria 'forever' including on the 'Eastern border of the West Bank' does not constitute apartheid. It constitutes self-defense. That's what the US Army said right after the Six Day War. Of course, some people would like to forget that now.

Israel Matzav: Sullivan calls Israel an apartheid state

Israel Matzav: US Presbyterians to call for end of State of Israel

US Presbyterians to call for end of State of Israel

Oh, but this isn't anti-Semitism. Not at all.

/sarc

The document has yet to be published, but the church news service revealed it regurgitates the most specious anti-Israel canards. It even puts a footnote on the phrase "the right of Israel to exist."

It reads: "The phrase 'the right of Israel to exist' is a source of pain for some members of our study committee who are in solidarity with Palestinians, who feel that the creation of the state of Israel has denied them their inalienable human rights."

How to stop Israel's sins, in the mind of the Presbyterian special committee?

The U.S. ought to employ "the strategic use of influence and the withholding of financial and military aid in order to enforce Israel's compliance with international law and peacemaking efforts." Meaning tighten the screws on an ally until it stops defending itself from terrorism.

No similar tactics are recommended against anyone else in the region. Not against Hamas, which fires rockets at Israeli homes and schools. Not against Iran, which pursues nukes and dreams of erasing Israel. Not against Hezbollah.

As for the manifesto by Christian Palestinians known as Kairos Palestine, the news service said the panel endorsed its "emphasis on hope, love, nonviolence and reconciliation." Saying nothing of how the manifesto ridicules the notion of Palestinian terrorism by putting quotation marks on the word. For example: "The roots of 'terrorism' are in the human injustice committed and in the evil of the occupation. These must be removed if there be a sincere intention to remove 'terrorism.'"

Read the whole thing.

May the writers of this 'manifesto' rot in hell.

Israel Matzav: US Presbyterians to call for end of State of Israel

Love of the Land: What has Gaza gained since Hamas won four years ago?

What has Gaza gained since Hamas won four years ago?


Michael Young
The National (UAE)
11 March '10

As Israel and the Palestinian Authority prepare to resume indirect talks, through American mediation, some are insisting that the Islamist movement Hamas must be brought into the process. Hamas, the argument goes, is capable of obstructing progress in negotiations, so that only by engaging the group can the United States and the international community avoid such an outcome. The rationale is naive.

It is naive, above all, because it overlooks the extent to which Hamas has undermined the core principle guiding the regional strategy of the Palestinians until the death of Yasser Arafat. Under its late leader, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation defended what was known as the “independent Palestinian decision”, which meant ensuring the Palestinian cause would not fall under the control of individual Arab regimes. Among Mr Arafat’s bitterest rivals was Syria’s President Hafez al Assad, who repeatedly sought, and failed, to bring the PLO under Syrian authority.

Hamas has been far less successful than Mr Arafat in exploiting Arab contradictions. Where the one-time PLO chairman was able during the 1970s to play Arab regimes off against one another, and even blackmail states for concessions, Hamas evolved in a very different environment. The movement opposed the Oslo process during the 1990s, and when it failed and Israel reoccupied the West Bank in 2002, Hamas was able to take advantage of the renewed tension, and the growing discredit of Mr Arafat and his Fatah movement, to gain politically in Palestinian areas.

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: What has Gaza gained since Hamas won four years ago?

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz Flubs the Facts on Arabs in the Knesset

Ha'aretz Flubs the Facts on Arabs in the Knesset


Yishai Goldflam
CAMERA Media Analysis
10 March '10

The charge that Arabs suffer inequitable treatment in Israeli society — usually simmering on a back burner — flares up anew from time to time.

There is certainly a place for newspaper articles and opinion columns that address concerns within Israeli society, not only between Arabs and Jews but also amongst Jews themselves — between native Israelis and newcomers, between men and women, between Ashkenazi and Sepharadi Jews, and in general, between different groups of people. It is a phenomenon that is certainly not unique to the state of Israel, but which exists in every Western democratic society and even more so in non-democratic societies and countries — one that is, and should be, covered in newspaper columns.

But such media commentary should distinguish between legitimate perceptions based on fact and those based on incorrect information. And no respectable newspaper should lend its pages to a polemic founded on fiction.
This, however, is exactly what the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, did when it provided a platform to Salman Masalha – "a researcher of Arab culture, a poet and a translator," according to the newspaper blurb – to spread false allegations against the State of Israel. ("Israel's apartheid doesn't stop at the West Bank," March 3, 2010)

The writer begins his column with the observation that "poetry and lies have much in common." But while Masalha uses the comment to denigrate Israel's Declaration of Independence as a disingenuous document, the observation is much more relevant as a description of how he, as a poet, crafted a thoroughly dishonest Op-Ed.

For example, Masalha outrageously asserts in the middle of his column:

The alienation is also evident with regard to the central government. This is the only democratic country in the world where one-fifth of the citizens - who are declared to have equal rights, at least on paper – have no representation in the government or in "provisional and permanent institutions...." [emphasis added]


One would expect a respectable writer and intellectual — and even more so, a respectable newspaper editor — to think twice before publishing such an overtly false statement. The inclusion of such an assertion indicates an overall disrespect toward readers who are apparently deemed ignorant of basic and obvious facts – namely, that Arabs are represented not only in government but in nearly every profession in Israeli society.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Ha'aretz Flubs the Facts on Arabs in the Knesset

Love of the Land: Thoughts to Ponder: A Phenomenon called Israel

Thoughts to Ponder: A Phenomenon called Israel


Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Cardozo Academy
12 March '10
(1st Post, 30 April '09)

Throughout the many centuries, historians, philosophers and anthropologists have struggled with the notion called “Israel” more than with nearly any other topic. While trying hard to place Israel within the confines of conventional history they constantly experienced academic and philosophical frustration. Whatever definitions they suggested, they would always discover that these definitions would break down due to some serious inconsistencies. Was Israel a nation, a religion or an altogether mysterious entity which would forever stay unexplainable? Sometimes it was seen as less than a nation and more as a religion, only to be challenged by others who believed the reverse to be true. Again others claimed that it could not fit into any of these categories.

What was clear was that it was impossible to fit “Israel” into any specific definition or known scheme. It resisted all historical concepts and generalities. The uniqueness of Israel necessarily thwarted the people’s natural desire for an explanation since explanation always implies arrangement in categories. Anything which flies in the face of such an attempt is alarming and most disturbing. This fact became even more obvious once the Jew was forced out of his country by Titus the Roman and specifically after the collapse of the Bar Kochba rebellion. It was at that moment that the Jew was hurled into the abyss of the nations of the world. Since that day the Jew was confronted with a new condition: Ongoing insecurity. While mankind at large has always been confronted with moments of insecurity, it was the Jews to whom destiny has denied even the smallest share of a dubious security which others possess. Whether Jews were aware of it or not, this people always lived on ground that could at any moment give way beneath its feet.

Since 1948 Israel became once more a country. But many forgot that it also became a country. That it became again a country, but not only a country. All the other dimensions, such as nationhood, religion, mystery, the lack of definition and insecurity continued to exist. Today, the people of Israel does not find itself exclusively in the land of Israel and instead of one Israel, the world now has two. But the second new Israel has up till now been seen as responding to the demands of history, geography, politics and journalism. One knows where it can be found. At least one thinks that one knows where it is to be found. But it becomes clearer and clearer that the new and definable Israel is now seriously on the way to become as much a puzzle and mysterious entity as the old Israel always was. In fact it already is.

Throughout its short history, the State of Israel has gone through the most mysterious notions modern man has ever seen. After an exile of nearly two thousand years in which the old Israel was able to survive in contradiction to all historical criteria, it returned to its homeland. There it found itself surrounded by a massive Arab population which was and is incapable of mentally making peace with the idea that this small mysterious nation lives among them. After experiencing a Holocaust in which it lost six million of its members, it was not permitted to live a life of tranquility on a tiny piece of land. Once more the Jew was denied the right to feel at home in his own country. From the outset Israel was forced to fight its enemies on all fronts. It was attacked and condemned for fighting for its very existence and defending its population. Over the years it had to endure the policy of double standards employed by the international community.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Thoughts to Ponder: A Phenomenon called Israel

Love of the Land: Criminal Naivete: A 1936 Article Shows The Costs of Believing Dictators' Lies

Criminal Naivete: A 1936 Article Shows The Costs of Believing Dictators' Lies


Graphic: Stephen Hughes

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
07 March '10

There needs to be a much clearer understanding of why the West—and especially its political elite and intellectuals—has so much trouble comprehending the world, especially the Middle East.

Two of the most important themes are naiveté and the conviction that no one can really be a revolutionary, willing to die for an ideological belief. Radicalism is simply illogical in their eyes and an extremist is simply a moderate who has not yet been sufficiently engaged in dialogue or offered enough concessions or goodies.

So officials, journalists, and experts proclaim that an Islamist Turkey has no choice but to be friendly to the West, and Iran’s regime must act “logically” and not be aggressive; that the Palestinians must want to make real peace with Israel and that Hizballah is now a moderate party playing Lebanese parliamentary politics only; that Syria without doubt has to be ready to throw Iran overboard to be buddies with America; and so on.

It’s a good educational tool to look at how this basic type of thinking has worked in the past. Some time ago, I posted the 1920s’ New York Times article explaining that Adolf Hitler was going into retirement in Austria and wouldn’t be a problem in future. Now we have another example. But first I want to emphasize that the point here is not to laugh at the mistakes made by people in the past—everyone makes mistakes—but to consider why mistakes were made so they can be avoided in present and future.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Criminal Naivete: A 1936 Article Shows The Costs of Believing Dictators' Lies

Love of the Land: There is a reason Israel doesn't roll over when Mahmoud Abbas bats his eyelashes

There is a reason Israel doesn't roll over when Mahmoud Abbas bats his eyelashes


Stephanie Gutmann
Telegraph.co.uk
11 March '10

Like many of my friends in Israel I am still scratching my head over the announcement by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai that he will grant construction permits in contested East Jerusalem — just as Vice President Biden swanned into town to play Big White Peace Broker between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The announcement seems to have temporarily sabotaged talks that Biden was eager to set up… now, chop-chop (Air Force Two is idling on the runway for goodness sake!) and he has reacted in his characteristic over-the-top way, by saying that the lack of an agreement over Palestine, is “endangering US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Oh please. Like what’s really irking the Taliban and Al-Qaeda is the placement of borders over in Palestine. If there was a “final status agreement” everybody would settle down and take up crocheting. The VP’s comment reveals some profound confusion about how the region works.

Almost everyone — Israeli and Palestinian alike — admits in private that with Hamas busy stock-piling Iranian weapons and tightening its law enforcement and Sharia noose on the citizens of the Gaza Strip, there was little chance either side’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas or Bibi Netanyahu, would commit to terms that change the status quo significantly. Both, in their own way, are quite preoccupied with very large existential threats. Whether a border is moved a few miles to the east or west seems quite trivial. A permanent status agreement is merely a trophy the Obama-ites would like to hang on their wall. Both leaders, to a certain extent, will help their friends in the US keep the office walls looking perky, even though those ever-waffling American friends are increasingly less useful to either side.

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: There is a reason Israel doesn't roll over when Mahmoud Abbas bats his eyelashes

Love of the Land: The Illusion of Divided Jerusalem Solutions

The Illusion of Divided Jerusalem Solutions


Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
11 March '10

How did the philosopher get out of the pit?

He assumed a ladder and climbed out.

And that's pretty much what people do when they assert that dividing Jerusalem is workable.

Let's make this clear.

It doesn't matter how neat the collection of dotted, hatched and other lines and colored zones may appear on the map.

Nor does it matter what kind of alphabet soup titles you can come up with for the various and sundry international forces to be deployed on the scene.

Or even the dazzling security gizmos included in the plan.

At the end of the day, the moment you allow yourself to go beyond best case assumptions, these schemes all collapse.

The geography is simply too tight and intertwined to support it.

What's the fallback position?

Interesting question: Beyond the rhetoric, does the Palestinian leadership realize that if they stand firm on Jerusalem at the negotiating table they may never reach a deal?

Are the Palestinians going to wager their destiny on international acceptance of a unilaterally declared state with a divided Jerusalem and that that acceptance can ultimately push Israel out? (Hint: there are many important countries that could give a damn about Jerusalem, but have reasons much closer to home not to want the precedent a unilaterally declared state would be),

Or do they have a face saving fallback position?

Can the Palestinian leadership, for example, find a way to develop a strong national pride in their possession of the authority to appoint the Mufti of Jerusalem and pay the salaries of the Waqf on the Temple Mount?

Yes. There are ways down the tree.

And the biggest favor that third parties can do for the Palestinians is to let them know that they are, indeed, up on a tree when it comes to their demands and expectations for Jerusalem.

Love of the Land: The Illusion of Divided Jerusalem Solutions

Elder of Ziyon: Saudi court sentences "sorcerer" to death

Elder of Ziyon: Saudi court sentences "sorcerer" to death

U.S. Jews to Biden: Leave Jerusalem Alone - Jewish World - Israel News - Israel National News

U.S. Jews to Biden: Leave Jerusalem Alone - Jewish World - Israel News - Israel National News

Hurva to Reopen After 62 Years Without Netanyahu - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Hurva to Reopen After 62 Years Without Netanyahu - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Al-Jazeera Airs Footage of Israeli Captives - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Al-Jazeera Airs Footage of Israeli Captives - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Surprise Closure on Judea, Samaria; Airstrike in Gaza - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

Surprise Closure on Judea, Samaria; Airstrike in Gaza - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

MK Orlev: Govt. is Strangling Beit El - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

MK Orlev: Govt. is Strangling Beit El - Politics & Gov't - Israel News - Israel National News

Students to Tour Historic Jerusalem - Education - Israel News - Israel National News

Students to Tour Historic Jerusalem - Education - Israel News - Israel National News

Amit Travolsi - Musician and Soon-to-be IDF Combat Soldier - A7 Exclusive Features - Israel News - Israel National News

Amit Travolsi - Musician and Soon-to-be IDF Combat Soldier - A7 Exclusive Features - Israel News - Israel National News

Amit Travolsi - Musician and Soon-to-be IDF Combat Soldier - A7 Exclusive Features - Israel News - Israel National News

Amit Travolsi - Musician and Soon-to-be IDF Combat Soldier - A7 Exclusive Features - Israel News - Israel National News

Israel Matzav: Obama's 'engagement' with Syria means repression for Syrians

Obama's 'engagement' with Syria means repression for Syrians

I'm amazed they took time to notice, but Human Rights Watch reports that repression has increased in Syria in the last three months, as the United States and other Western countries have expanded their outreach to the Assad dictatorship.

On March 2, 2010, Military Intelligence in Aleppo stormed the apartment of Abdel Hafez Abdel Rahman, a board member of the unlicensed Kurdish human rights group MAF (“Right” in Kurdish), and detained him with another MAF board member, Nadera Abdo. Other members of the group said that the detention is tied to Abdel Rahman’s activities for the group MAF. While the security services released Abdo on March 6, Abdel Rahman remains in detention.

Security services have also detained bloggers, journalists, and writers. On December 27, 2009, State Security called in Tal al-Mallohi, 19, a secondary school student, for interrogation, reportedly for articles she wrote and distributed on her blog. A few days later, the security services confiscated her computer and detained her. A Syrian human rights activist told Human Rights Watch that she remains in detention. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine what article the security forces deemed objectionable.

On November 22, State Security detained without explanation Ma`en `Akel, a journalist at the newspaper Thawra. Syrian activists following the case said `Akel apparently was detained for investigating government corruption. Security forces finally released him on February 23 without charging him with a crime. On January 7, security forces detained another journalist, Ali Taha, and a photographer, Ali Ahmad, in the Sayyida Zaynab neighborhood of Damascus. They were released on February 7, without having been charged. Both work for the satellite TV station Rotana, which mainly focuses on social life topics.

On February 10, border police detained Ragheda Sa`id Hasan, who had been a political prisoner in the 1990s for her Communist Action Party membership, as she tried to cross into Lebanon. Three days later, unidentified individuals entered her apartment and confiscated a copy of “The New Prophets,” a manuscript in which she describes her experience as a political detainee, as well as publications issued by various Syrian opposition parties. She remains in detention.

Human Rights Watch urges the United States and the Europeans to raise human rights issues with the Syrians at every opportunity. Good luck with that. The Obama administration has already proven time and time again that it doesn't give a damn about human rights.

Israel Matzav: Obama's 'engagement' with Syria means repression for Syrians

Love of the Land: An Answer to the Question of "Vastly Different Approaches"

An Answer to the Question of "Vastly Different Approaches"


GI
CAMERA/Snapshots
11 March '10

As we noted in an early Snapshots blog post, Danny Seaman wonders "why ... the media adopt such vastly different approaches" when reporting on Israel, as compared to the rest of the conflict-filled world.

Walter Russell Mead has similar questions about the world's treatment of Israel. In his blog at The American Interest Online, Mead writes that he is "genuinely puzzled why people who in other contexts have quite interesting things to say manage to trip up in such foolish and self-defeating ways when the I-word comes up."

But he seems to have some theories.

I am always nervous around people who stridently insist that racism has disappeared in mainstream American life and only lingers on in weirdo subcultures; I feel the same way about people who say that anti-Semitism is no longer a significant feature of western culture. I am especially leery when people who loudly and implausibly assert that anti-Semitism isn’t a problem anymore make harsh and unbalanced criticisms about the world’s only Jewish state.


(Read full post)

Love of the Land: An Answer to the Question of "Vastly Different Approaches"

Israel Matzav: Would Israel shoot down a plane full of 'dignitaries'?

Would Israel shoot down a plane full of 'dignitaries'?

I'm sure you all recall the SS Moonbat, which the Israeli Navy kept away from Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Now, ISM/Free Gaza 'organizer' Paul Larudee has a couple of new ideas. One of them involves trying to land a DC-3 in Gaza.

- Break the siege of Gaza by AIR. Fly an airplane into Gaza. DC3 airplanes don't need much flat land or road to land on. Harder to divert an airplane than a boat - especially if one or more famous people are on it. Takeoff location must be kept secret.

- Break the siege of Palestine (ie Israel) by coordinating the arrival on the same day into TEL AVIV airport of more than 100 Palestinians holding US and European passports. Alert the media. Bring things to show the media such as deeds to land, keys, old family photographs. Coordinate with local lawyers skilled at delaying deportation. Fly non-Israeli airlines, which are unlikely to cooperate with Israeli security by stopping the passengers.

I would not bet that the IAF will not divert that plane. Unless you have a pilot who is willing to commit suicide, the IAF should be able to force the plane down.

And the government will have no problems sending all those moonbats in the second plan back home however long it takes. Let's see the publicity hounds survive for a couple of days without their cell phones.

Read the whole thing.


Israel Matzav: Would Israel shoot down a plane full of 'dignitaries'?

Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Overnight music video

Tonight, I went to a Bar Mitzva, my third of the week (on top of the wedding Tuesday night, and weddings last Wednesday and Thursday nights - it's been busy).

Here's Mordechai Ben David singing the Ramban (Nachmonides)'s wise advice to his eldest son. The Hebrew version of the letter the Ramban sent is here and an English translation is here. I used to study this letter with one of my sons every morning when he was younger.

Let's go to the videotape.


Israel Matzav: Overnight music video

Israel Matzav: Europeans seethe as H&M opens in Israel

Europeans seethe as H&M opens in Israel

As the 'Palestinian' loving Europeans seethed in anger, Swedish fashion house H&M opened its first Israeli store in Tel Aviv's Azrieli Center on Thursday. The store was mobbed.

Hundreds of enthusiastic shoppers waited outside the first local H&M store on Thursday, as the Swedish-owned fashion house opened their first store in Israel in Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Center.

Immediately after the count down, dozens of customers ran into the store, practically trampling two baby strollers in their rush to enter, Channel 2 reported. Passersby managed to save the babies while shoppers continued to flow into the store.

“This place looks like the site of a terror attack,” one shopper told the television station.

Meanwhile in Europe, anti-Israel organizations in Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the UK, Austria, Canada and Ireland were planning to demonstrate on Thursday evening against H&M’s decision to open shops in Israel.

According to Army Radio, a young Jewish man named Jonathan Sanchek, organized the protests. “This protest is about H&M opening in Israel, while it continues the occupation and in settlement construction. The Goldstone Report was published recently, and we think that one cannot open a store in Israel until it starts obeying international law,” the radio station quoted him as saying.

Well of course the guy organizing the demonstrations in Europe. What did you expect?

H&M plans to open a second store in Jerusalem's Malcha mall soon.

Israel Matzav: Europeans seethe as H&M opens in Israel

Love of the Land: Let's launch 'Arab Apartheid Week'

Let's launch 'Arab Apartheid Week'


Michael Freund
Opinion/JPost
11 March '10

In nearly three dozen cities across the world, a coordinated series of events is being held this week with the express aim of demonizing Israel. Now in its sixth year, the annual hate-fest known as “Israel Apartheid Week” has sought to portray the Jewish state as a bastion of bigotry, inequality and discrimination.

The organizers do not mince words in describing their objectives, asserting on their Web site that they aim “to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns” against the Jewish state. This, they confidently declare, is a key part of “the battle to end Israeli apartheid,” whatever that means.

Naturally, behind the sloganeering stands a clear political platform, one which essentially seeks to dismantle the Jewish state by stripping it of territory and flooding the country with millions of Palestinian refugees through the so-called right of return.

The first step in this campaign, of course, is to equate Israel with the evils of apartheid-era South Africa, thereby laying the groundwork for increased diplomatic and economic pressure to make far-reaching concessions. And so, as usual, the only democracy in the Middle Eastonce again finds itself on the receiving end of yet another indefensible canard, accused of one of modernity’s greatest political sins without any basis or justification.

SIMPLY PUT, this slur cannot be allowed to stand. It is an insult to Israel and its democracy and dangerously analogous to asserting that Zionism is a form of racism. If allowed to take hold in the public’s consciousness, it could have far-reaching and extremely damaging effects on support for Israel in the near- and long-term. In the past, the typical response by pro-Israel activists to such charges has been to go on the defensive, responding to the slanders and explaining in great detail the myriad differences between democratic Israel and the racist regime that once ruled South Africa.

Well, I say the time has come to stop playing defense and to bring the offense out onto the field. We need to turn the tables and fight back against our opponents by taking the struggle toward their end-zone.

A good place to be start would be to organize an annual “Arab Apartheid Week,” which would highlight the decrepit state of human and political rights throughout the Arab world.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Let's launch 'Arab Apartheid Week'

Love of the Land: Israel in the Hot Seat Again — for Building Homes

Israel in the Hot Seat Again — for Building Homes


P. David Hornik
Pajamasmedia.com
11 March '10

Here we go again. What has Israel done now? With Vice President Joe Biden here for a visit, the Israeli Interior Ministry “announced that approval had been granted to build new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox community of 20,000 north of downtown Jerusalem, which borders the Palestinian village of Shuafat.” Biden reacted to the shocking news with: “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in east Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of [Israeli-Palestinian] proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.”

Other condemnations followed like clockwork. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman made known that “the secretary-general condemns the approval of plans for the building of 1,600 new housing units in east Jerusalem.” Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said that “it is now clear that the Israeli government is not interested in negotiating, nor is it interested in peace.” He added that “massive American pressure is required in order to compel Israel to abandon its peace-destroying behavior.”

(Read full article)


Love of the Land: Israel in the Hot Seat Again — for Building Homes

RubinReports: Explaining the Middle East: A Lecture

RubinReports: Explaining the Middle East: A Lecture
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