Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday said he plans to attend the Mediterranean Union summit in Barcelona next month, despite threats that Arab states would boycott if he is present at the meeting, Israel Radio reported.
Arab countries are threatening to boycott the June meeting of leaders of Mediterranean countries if Lieberman attends.
The threat to boycott the Barcelona summit, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to attend, was initiated by Egypt and Syria. They have informed both their Spanish hosts and France, which co-chairs the sponsoring organization, the Union for the Mediterranean, that Arab leaders will stay away if Lieberman shows up.
The Union for the Mediterranean was established in July 2008 by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in an effort to promote economic, scientific and cultural projects among countries bordering the Mediterranean. Egypt co-chairs the organization with France. The summit was scheduled for June 8 in Barcelona by virtue of Spain's rotating presidency of the European Union.
Netanyahu has already confirmed his attendance, and Lieberman had been expected to join him.
European diplomats told Haaretz that the threat to boycott the summit constitutes an intensification of the boycott Arab countries have imposed on contact with the Israeli foreign minister, given that Netanyahu, not Lieberman, is heading the Israeli delegation. They added that there is disappointment and even anger in Europe over the Arab countries' stance.
Senior Israeli officials confirmed the threat of a boycott. "The Arabs are not prepared to be in the same room with Lieberman, or to take the risk that they would have to be photographed with him or shake his hand," said one.
The feeling at the Foreign Ministry is that the Arab threat could lead to the summit either being canceled entirely or convening at a lower level, with officials of ambassadorial rank only. If this is the result, it would be seen as a humiliation not only for Spain and France, but for the European Union as a whole.
OSAMA bin Laden’s family is making a fortune in America renting out a $26million Bel Air mansion to adult movie makers.
At least five porn films have been made in the nine-bed, ten-bathroom luxury home once owned by Wizard Of Oz producer Arthur Freed.
Neighbours in one of the world’s most glam gated communities include Liz Taylor and Avril Lavigne.
But they will not have seen Ibrahim Muhammad bin Laden, an older brother of the al-Qaida leader, who is named as owner of the luxury Bel Air Road property in land registry files.
He and his family fled America after the 9/11 terror attacks.
Records reveal Ibrahim to be the third owner of the Mediterranean-style home since the death in 1973 of triple Oscar winner Freed, who also produced 50s classics Singin’ In The Rain and Show Boat.
The films now being made there include last year’s porn flick Educating Alli, starring Alektra Blue.
It was one of at least five hardcore DVDs shot there by porn studio Wicked Pictures.
Here are some popular Palestinian Arab surnames, and their meaning in English:
al-Masri - the Egyptian al-Mughrabi - the Moroccan al-Djazair - the Algerian al-Yamani - the Yemeni al-Afghani - the Afghan al-Turki - the Turk al-Hindi - the Indian al-Hourani - the Hauranite (from southern Syria) al-Kurdi - the Kurd
I have yet to hear of anyone with the surname "al-Filastini."
Two weeks ago I mentioned that the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation was complaining about Zionist desecrating part of the Al Aqsa compound (actually, south of the Temple Mount) with noisy concerts and semi-naked women. The story was picked up by other Arab media outlets as well.
It turns out that they published pictures of these unspeakable desecrations on their iaqsa.com website. Prepare to be shocked!
If you squint very hard and liberally use your imagination, you can almost see the half-naked women. It helps if you are foaming at the mouth at the time with anger.
By the way, there is an Arab school on the Temple Mount itself where Muslim kids play ball on the holiest site in the world. Jews walking respectfully around the site of the Temple is an unspeakable desecration, but kids playing games are fine - since they are Muslim.
Dipping my toes into the cesspool of ultra-left publications, I see an article written by a "Dr. Salim Nazzal" about the "naqba." It is similar to articles of this type written hundreds of times before, by Israel-haters to their receptive audiences, where fact-checking is unheard of in the face of their Truth.
This paragraph stood out for its sheer idiocy:
In the behavior psychology theory we learnt that in order to understand what a group (Zionists in this case) are doing now, we have to know what they had previously planned to do. Such actions are goal directed behavior and can only be accounted for if we know who set the goal, and for what purpose.
The answer is simple; Zionist Jews said clearly that they planned while they were still in their Eastern European homelands to murder and expel Palestinians, while the native Palestinians were not even aware of what these Zionist Jews were planning.
Since Dr. Nazzal is acting as a amateur psychologist for all Zionists, I will do the same to him (as I suspect that my qualifications are at least as relevant as his.)
The idea that Zionism is a movement that is, foremost, meant to murder and expel natives from their land is a perfect example of Palestinian Arab paranoia.
The World Health Organization says that a person has a paranoid personality disorder if he displays three of the following attributes:
1. excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs; 2. tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights; 3. suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of others as hostile or contemptuous; 4. a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping with the actual situation; 5. recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual fidelity of spouse or sexual partner; 6. tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude; 7. preoccupation with unsubstantiated "conspiratorial" explanations of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large. All of the bolded items are prevalent in Palestinian Arab society, and the essay by Dr. Nizzal is a prime example of this condition. (Number 5 may or may not be prevalent, but that is not relevant here.)
While I think that these criteria broadly describe the Palestinian Arab public, in Dr. Nizzal's case it also applies particularly to him. In another essay he wrote for Palestine Think Tank he betrays his own personal paranoia, which may be tragic from a mental health perspective but I must confess I find it amusing.
At the beginning I got “strange” e-mails which hinted towards assassination and the like. The Zionist character in these e-mails was obvious. I simply paid no attention. I know Zionists fear the voice of the victims.
The intimidation e-mails never stopped. And each time I changed my e-mail they continued to try to intimidate me in the new e-mail and sent viruses almost all the time my computer is on.
The same thing happened regarding my phone and my cell phone, where I used to get unknown phone calls at night very often. I had to change them and keep their numbers secret. My lawyer advised me to keep all suspicious e-mails as evidence for the police in case my lawyer takes the case to court.
Last summer I went with my family to Cyprus to spend one week vacation. I found out that they are following me even there. I did not believe myself unless I was sure of that. When we came home to Norway I found that the roses in the garden were cut and thrown on the ground, and a tree was half cut by a knife to be easily seen. Under the tree there was a lighter which I had never seen before. The lighter was obviously put there as a symbol of fire.
I informed the Norwegian police, and the Norwegian intelligence service. I also informed the academic circles, and the media in Norway and the world stating clearing that Zionists were behind this. I made it clear that if they aim to stop my voice they will for sure fail. My voice is the voice of the children I saw with their bodies torn out by the Israeli F16. My voice is the voice of all Palestinians who long to go back home and to be free and to live in peace. My voice is trying to convey the story of my nation who did no wrong to anybody, but who paid heavily with 61 years of the pain of exile, 41 years of occupation and injustice.
One month ago I decided to stop writing articles because I needed time to work on a book. I am a historian in the first place and not a political analyst. But I was anxious that if I stopped writing they might think they had scared me.
Here we have it all - the feeling of self-importance, the delusions that Zionists care so much about this bozo that they are spending all their time harassing him with phony phone calls and computer viruses and following him on vacation.
The guy is nuts, but he - an educated man! - represents an entire culture that shares the same paranoid delusions.
The fact that Palestine Think Tank publishes these delusions as if they are real shows how "normal" this kind of thinking is considered in PalArab circles.
Morocco's main Islamist opposition party has called for gay singer Elton John to be banned from performing at a festival in Rabat later this month, a party leader said Friday.
"We categorically reject the appearance of this singer because there is a risk of encouraging homosexuality in Morocco," the head of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) parliamentary group, Mustapha Ramid, told AFP.
"The problem is not with the singer himself but the image he has in society," another leading party member, Lahcen Daoudi, added.
"Moroccan society has a negative perception of this singer and we must take it into consideration."
[Elton John will perform in] Morocco this month despite calls from the country's main Islamic party for the gay star to be banned, organizers said Monday.
Artistic director Aziz Daki told AFP that cancelling the concert on the grounds of John's homosexuality would "undermine the respect of privacy" and "breach certain values that the international Mawazine festival is based on."
I heard that the Islamists tried to compromise with the singer, asking him to change the lyrics to "Saturday Night's Alright for Jihad."
According to the Jewish calender, tomorrow will be the 43rd anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem. Which means that tonight is the 43rd anniversary of the battle on Givat Hatachmoshet, Ammunition Hill.
Between 1949 and 1967, while Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan, there was an Israeli enclave about a mile to the east of the border, in the Jordanian part of town. This was Mount Scopus, with the campus of the Hebrew university and Haddassh hospital. There was an agreement whereby every two weeks 200 Israelis would cross Jordanian territory to the enclave, and sit there until the next group replaced them two weeks later.
Throughout the whole period everyone knew that sooner or later the war would resume, and that when that happened Israel would try to reconnect the mountain with the city. To prevent this the Jordanians built a series of fortifications in that mile, and its centerpiece was Amunition Hill, an apt name borrowed from the days after the British conquered the city in 1917 and General Allenby stored his army's ammunition there.
The picture shows the 1949 lines, to which I've marked Ammunition Hill in red, and just for the context, Shaikh Jarrah in green. From the one to the other would be a four minute walk if it weren't for the highway of route 1 which takes some time to cross.
On the night between June 5th and 6th 1967 the paratroopers, backed by a few tanks, made their attack, directly on the Jordanian fortifications. The section of the battle on Ammunition Hill raged from about 2am to 5:30, early next morning. It was face to face combat, between the best forces each side had. 71 Jordanians were killed, and 35 Israelis: most of the defenders died, as did a quarter of the attackers.
A story I heard not long afterward told that in the early morning the IDF troops gathered the fallen Jordanians into a pit and covered it, with a makeshift sign that read "Here lie 71 brave Jordanian soldiers".
A few hours later the paratroopers were at the Kotel.
In 1968 the military band of Central Command (Pikud Merkaz) recorded a song about the battle. It's not the best music we've got, and the lyrics are more dramatic than profound, but it has stuck in the communal memory and everyone can sing its refrain and snatches of the story. The final narrative line: "I don't know why I was given a medal, all I wanted to do was to get home in one piece" has acquired mythical stature, though often overlaid with irony and irreverence.
Hebrew lyrics English translation "It was then the morning of the second day of the war in Jerusalem. The horizon paled in the east. We were at the climax of the battle on Ammunition Hill. We'd been fighting there for three hours. A fierce battle was under way. Fatal. The Jordanians fought stubbornly. It was a position fortified in an exceptional manner. At a certain point in the fight there remained next to me only four soldiers. We went up there with a force of two platoons. I didn't know where the others were because the connection with Dudik, the platoon commander, was cut off still at the beginning of the battle. At that moment I thought that everyone had been killed."
At two, two-thirty We entered through the stony terrain To the field of fire and mines Of Ammunition Hill
Against bunkers which were fortified And 120mm mortars A hundred and some boys On Ammunition Hill
The pillar of dawn had not yet risen Half a platoon lay in blood But we were already there at least On Ammunition Hill
Among the walls and the mines We left only the medics And we ran ahead without our senses Towards Ammunition Hill
"At that same moment a grenade was thrown from outside. Miraculously we weren't hit. I was afraid the Jordanians would throw more grenades. Someone had to run from above and cover. I didn't have time to ask who would volunteer. I sent Eitan. Eitan didn't hesitate for a moment. He climbed up and began to fire his machine gun. Sometimes he would overtake me and I'd have to yell to him to remain in line with me. That's how we crossed some 30 meters. Eitan would cover from above and we would clear the bunkers from within, until he was hit in the head and fell inside."
We went down into the trenches Into the pits and channels And towards the death in the tunnels Of Ammunition Hill
And no one asked where to Whoever went first fell One needed lots of luck On Ammunition Hill
Whoever fell was dragged to the back In order not to disrupt the movement forward Until fell the next in line On Ammunition Hill
Perhaps we were lions But whoever wanted still to live Should not have been On Ammunition Hill
"We decided to try blowing up their bunker with a bazooka. The bazooka made a few scratches in the concrete. We decided to try with explosive material. I waited above them until the guy came back with the explosives. He would throw me package after package, and I would lay them one by one at the entrance of their bunker. They had a system of their own: first they threw a grenade, afterwards they fired a volley, and then they rested. Between volley and grenade, I would approach the entrance of their bunker and place the explosives. I triggered the explosives and moved away as far as I could. I had four meters in which to move because also behind me were [Arab] Legionnaires. I don't know why I received a commendation, I simply wanted to get home safely."
At seven, seven-twenty To the police school Were gathered all those who remained From Ammunition Hill
Smoke arose from the hill The sun in the east rose higher We returned to the city, seven From Ammunition Hill
We returned to the city, seven Smoke arose from the hill The sun in the east rose higher On Ammunition Hill
On fortified bunkers And on our brothers, men Who remained there aged 20 On Ammunition Hill
The You Tube video I've embedded was taken on the hill, which stands still as it did that morning, a memorial to the soldiers who died taking Jerusalem.
It's a story of a professor and his student, of a Nazi and a persecuted Jew, of forgiveness that shouldn't have been offered - or perhaps, it's merely about hormones. Even if it was the hormones of Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Richard Cohen has some interesting thoughts:
Taken together, this is a thoroughly frightening couple -- two of the 20th century's great philosophers, their genius contradicted by their inexplicably appalling lives: One embraced Nazism, the other excused him for doing so. In one critical area, they were no different than a goon and his gal. By way of caution, there ought to be statues of them in every city square, and billboards of them looking down on the naive who think, as Alan Greenspan once romantically did of financial markets, that man is rational.
There are much worse problems in the world than hung parliaments in the UK, rioting tax evaders in Greece, nasty Israelis and their frightening neighbors, and even polluted marshes in Louisiana. Problems to make you weep.
[Am Ve-Artzo vol. 2, pp. 251-252 - translated by Rabbi Gil Student]
Question: There is a custom in the Diaspora, in order to show unity with the State of Israel, to sing Ha-Tikvah on Israel Independence Day and Jerusalem Reunification Day, and at weddings and bar mitzvah parties, together with the anthem for that country. I remember, however, when I studied in Israel that we never sang "Ha-Tikvah" on Israel Independence Day but, rather, "Shir Ha-Ma'alot" with the tune for "Ha-Tikvah". Some say that it is a disgrace to the Nation of Israel that there is no reference to G-d in its national anthem even though many other countries praise G-d, such as Britain's "G-d Save the Queen". I heard an opinion to replace the word "Chofshi" (free) [towards the end of "Ha-Tikvah"] with the word "Kodshi" (holy), thereby hinting to G-d without separating oneself from the general population, since no one can hear this difference while singing... Answer: It is true that there is no mention of G-d in "Hatikvah." There is, however, nothing against G-d either and there is national value in it. Therefore, there is certainly no prohibition against singing this anthem. We definitely have more important songs of faith in G-d and also in nationalism, like "Shir Ha-Ma'alot" and "Shir Ha-Emunah" that Rav Kook wrote. If the entire community is singing "Ha-Tikvah," however, one should not separate from them but should join them, since through this they are demonstrating their connection to the Land and State of Israel, which is a big obligation, even though there are better ways of doing it. There is therefore no need to change "Chofshi" to "Kodshi," since being free is also something of value. There is a mitzvah that this Land [of Israel] should be under our rule and not that of another nation, as the Ramban wrote, so there is certainly a mitzvah to be free in our Land...
I have problems with my husband. His behavior is inappropriate in many areas, so I point it out. We got married in order not to keep everything inside and obviously to help one another improve. But I point it out in a non-insulting way. When we were first married, I did say it in an insulting way, and he called me a witch and he was kind of right. I then learned not to point it out in front of other people, even if he said something stupid or acted in an inappropriate matter. I also learned not to say anything when I am angry. I noticed that when I did this, I did not speak about what happened. I was frustrated and just tried to prove I was correct. I now wait until I calm down. And before I say anything, I make it clear to myself that the goal is to build a shared life together. I also try to give him the benefit of the doubt. Many times I scolded him only to find out that I did not see the whole picture. I now try to see if I can understand the situation in a different way, perhaps I am taking things out of context. Only if I am unable to give him the benefit of the doubt do I say anything – gently.
On the 28th of Iyar 5727 (June 7, 1967), the dream became a reality. With fire and blood, Jerusalem fell and with fire and blood Jerusalem arose again. Finally, the 2000 year old prayer of "Next Year in Jerusalem" had been answered. Jerusalem, the centre of the Jewish people, which had been cut off from Israel when it was re-established in 1948, was reunited. The pledge made by our ancestors by the rivers of Babylon as they were marched off into captivity, of "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem!" was fulfilled by their descendants in the Israeli Defense Force.
Jerusalem is the very heart of the Jewish people. Since King David first conquered Jerusalem and made it into his eternal capital, Jerusalem has occupied a foremost place in the souls and essence of the Jewish people. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Tanach. It was here that King Solomon built the First Temple which stood for 410 years, where the returnees from captivity in Babylon built the Second Temple and where we await the rebuilding of the Third Temple, may it be speedily in our days. At a time when London was barely a forest clearing and Rome was only a collection of villages on the Tiber, Jerusalem was already in Jewish hands, seat of the Jewish kings. Long before Paul preached his gospel or Islam swept across the world, Jerusalem was already firmly implanted in the Jewish conscious for thousands of years.
When the wicked Romans cruelly suppressed the Jewish revolt in 70 CE, they razed Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. They drove the remaining Jews from the land and renamed it 'Palestinae', after Israel bitter biblical enemies. Victoriously, they marched the spoils of the Temple throughout the streets of Rome and minted coins declaring triumphantly "Judea Capta"- Judea is defeated. On the site of the destroyed city of Jerusalem, they built a pagan city dedicated to the idols of Rome. The Caesar and his legions were certain that the pesky capital of Jews, which had caused them so much pain and unrest, would never rise again.
Despite this, the Jew never forgot Jerusalem. In all of the lands of his dispersion, whether in Warsaw or Marakesh, Baghdad or the Pale of Settlement, like a magnet the Jew was drawn towards Jerusalem three times a day and lifted his eyes in prayer, beseeching the Almighty: "And to Your city Jerusalem return in mercy and dwell in it as You have spoken". In the middle of the night, Jews arose in lamentation and mourning over the destruction of their Temple and their holy city. Every single year, the Yom Kippur fast and the Passover seder would end with the solemn vow and fervent hope of "Next year in Jerusalem!". The Jew may have been in Iran or Lithuania, Yemen or France but his heart resided in Jerusalem.
In 1948, when G-d saw fit to return sovereignty to His people over His land, the Jordanians attacked Israel and occupied the eastern portion of Jerusalem. They marched every single Jew out of the Old City and proceeded to dynamite and desecrate every synagogue and study hall. The Jordanians used the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives as latrines and used the Western Wall as a garbage dump. Jews were denied access to their holy places for these 19 years.
On the 28th of Iyar, 5727, after being attacked by three combined Arab armies dedicated to "throwing the Jews into the sea", the Israeli army liberated Jerusalem from its Jordanian occupiers. Israeli paratroopers stormed the city and secured it. The earth-shattering call came out: "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" The Chief IDF rabbi blew the Shofar and recited the shehecheyanu blessing as tears poured down the faces of even the most secular soldier as he kissed the stones of the Kotel, realizing the historical significance of the moment. Jerusalem, despoiled and abused by Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Mamluks, Turks and Arabs, had returned to its owners, the Jewish people. Never again would Jerusalem be empty of Jews. The Temple Mount is in our hands! Jerusalem is in our hands!
Today there is talk in the international community of the partitioning and division of Jerusalem. There is strong pressure to once again wrest the city from Jewish hands. However, the promise made by our ancestors in Babylon remains valid, "if I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning; let my tongue cling to my palate if I do not raise Jerusalem above my greatest joy." We today are guardians of this vow. One united Jewish Jerusalem forever. All of the forces in the entire world will never again separate us from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people. It is from Jerusalem that we derive our strength and our existence.
"And it shall be at the end of the days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains, and it shall be raised above the hills, and all the nations shall stream to it. And many peoples shall go, and they shall say, "Come, let us go up to the Lord's mount, to the house of the God of Jacob, and let Him teach us of His ways, and we will go in His paths," for out of Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." May we speedily see the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Yishayahu in our days.
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
(Robert A. Heinlein quotes)
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