Tuesday, 27 January 2009

WHERE DID THESE SO-CALLED JOURNALISTS GET THEIR TRAINING ? THE GESTAPO ?



Just Say No!


Shevat 1, 5769, 26 January 09 11:02

by Arlene Peck


(IsraelNN.com) When are they going to learn to just say, "No"?


A few years ago, I clandestinely went into a local mosque, just to see what they were talking about. It was a visitors day and I visited.


I do those things sometimes. Usually to my own detriment, such as when I was picked up by the KGB in Russia in 1976 and accused of bringing prayer books and mezuzahs to the synagogue. Once, I even snuck into Gaza with an Arab pretending to be a Christian women's newspaper writer to get the real story. I got it. But, that's another column. Anyway, this time I went only a mile or so from my home to the neighborhood mosque. And today I see in Gaza the results of what I learned there. The people inside weren't the screaming fanatics that you see shouting, "Jihad!" In fact, they were well dressed and articulate.


What interested me was a comment made by one of the fathers who rose that day to speak to his audience. He said, "Our children are now in the universities. We have done well. Now, we must direct them into the right fields. We must encourage them into three fields: education, media and, of course, politics."


Maybe that was on my mind too much during the presidential campaign, when I first heard the man with the Muslim name, Barack Hussein Obama, was running for president. Yet, so many of my wealthy Jewish neighbors, and especially my friends from Israel, seem to have complete faith in his leadership. I hope they're right. I keep thinking of The Manchurian Candidate.


My perception also was exacerbated, I suppose, because Ayn Rand, the brilliant author of Atlas Shrugged, was my mentor during my college years and her writings made such an impression on me. She was totally against the welfare state and believed that once socialism is the law of the land, communism isn't far behind. It frightens me that we have just voted in socialism.


So that, folks, is why, when I read the obvious hostility against the Jewish state in the Los Angeles Times I'm not too surprised. In fact, I check to see the names of those writing the articles and most times they are, surprise, Muslims. I think it's so cute that after all these years, they still refuse to refer to the savage terrorists as what they are and they write about the Hamas murderers as "fighters". The murderers who bomb are still suicide bombers and never homicidal killers. I just read a column that stated, "The military wing of Hamas attacked an Israeli tank." Good heavens, see how semantics can form an opinion? I would have written, "The Islamic savage terrorists, etc."


The newspapers are filled with human interest stories about how the hospitals across Gaza remained overwhelmed with dwindling supplies and patients stacked in crowded rooms. They lamented how difficult it was for severely wounded Palestinians to be transported outside the hospital enclave for treatment. Wonderful. Where did these so-called journalists get their training? The Gestapo?


One would think that during their extensive articles about how big bad Israel is putting the Arab children and hospital patients in danger, they might mention now and then that the Hamas leaders, like roaches, hide under schools, hospitals and kindergarten playgrounds. When they send out a rocket, these vermin plan it at a time that they know the Jewish children will be on their way to school. The papers don't mention Hamas targeting Israeli children and civilians.


I recall the numerous times that I watched CNN set up scenes to cast the Jewish State in any negative light possible. Now, they are crying that Israel kept the press out? Good! Because liberalism has taken over, I believe, in good part thanks to Muslim writers who have been trained to go into the three fields I mentioned earlier (media, education and politics). The Israelis are smart to keep the battlefields closed. All wars have incurred a degree of media control.


I watch the evening news of Barbie dolls and talking heads who couldn't find Israel on the map, and only know about it from flash cards and teleprompters that they read from, while they intone, "Both sides must stop fighting." Thank this culture which truly never misses the opportunity to miss an opportunity that they are still insisting that Israel open its borders to enemy traffic, while the enemy continues to lob their rockets into Israeli towns.


Any other country is allowed to respond to danger to their citizens. Israel, too, I suppose, as long as their response isn't longer than a week, or two. We Americans have been in Iraq how long? Seven, eight years? And the end still isn't in sight. Yet, ten minutes after Israel's response, the anti-Semitic State Department, coven of Islamic and leftist officials, is meeting for emergency sessions to figure out how to end the war. For G-d's sake, when are the government and people of Israel going to stop acting like a banana republic?


It's time to realize that the only friends Israel and the Jewish people have that they can truly count on are themselves.


I know that there are a great many good Christians out there who truly love Israel, but I've seen how little help they extend to their own people. I remember being in Lebanon in 1982 and watching the Lebanese Christians being rescued by the Jews. I didn't notice their Christian brothers rushing over to save them when they were being slaughtered by the Muslims.


So, when are they going to learn to just say, "No"?


Despite touting otherwise, Bush and Company were not our friends, and I fear the situation is going to be even worse when the new team gets started. At least Bush never announced that he would sit and negotiate with a terrorist organization and give them the credibility of a real state.


Maybe Obama should just go sit down with the Taliban first and give them a hug.


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taken from : B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)

TRAGI-COMIC RELIEF, AGAIN



The BBC is in major trouble since the top honchos there decided not to broadcast a call by various so-called human rights organizations to help the populace of Gaza. The Guardian is FURIOUS, and since many of the staff of the BBC read the Guardian as their paper of choice (hmmm...), the fury is apparently expressing itself in internal clashes at the BBC. The New York Times tells the story in a comparatively calm tone, here.


According to the NYT, the BBC has in the past broadcast similar appeals for the victims of genocides in Rwanda, Darfur and Congo. A curious line-up, don't you think? Was the operation in Gaza a genocide? Why not broadcast similar humanitarian pleas for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka, Kashmir, Thailand, Burma, Nahr-el-Bared in Lebanon, Somalia, and all sorts of other places where the number of civilian victims in armed conflicts in 2008 all significantly surpassed those in Gaza, without being genocides? I know, I'm becoming tedious, sorry.


Of course, the real debate is about the impartiality of the BBC: everyone agrees it isn't, but different people think it isn't in different directions. Some think the BBC is anti-Israel, others think it's controlled by the Elders of Zion. Which is interesting, because a few years ago the BBC ran an internal investigation into precisely this question, and has never agreed to publish its results.


Personally I think that if the BBC were scrupulous about telling the truth, there wouldn't be a problem in broadcasting this particular plea for assistance: in a world in which everyone knew the realities of the Israel-Arab conflict, because the BBC reported on it well, there wouldn't be any problem in a call for aid to the civilians who suffered so severely (they really did) from the most recent round of violence, which was carefully planned and then provoked by Hamas which booby-trapped thousands of homes that now need to be replaced by tents.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

OBAMA'S AN IMPERIALIST



And, seen from the perspective of the Guardian, a worse epithet is hard to come by.


I wrote about this pathology of many European intellectuals a while back. Today, upon completion of the first week of the Obama administration, one of the Guardian stalwarts, Richard Seymour, piles his venom on the new president and lots of other people these past two centuries for thinking that perhaps some communities and nations may not be capable of English-style democracy on their own, and castigates them for thinking anything they might ever do would have any positive effect anywhere. Reading him you sort of get the feeling what he really wants Western powers to do is just go dig themselves holes and die.


Amusingly, Mr. Seymour's e-mail address is leninstomblog@gogglemail.com, and if you wonder where that comes from, it leads you to his blog, titled Lenin's Tomb; he signs his posts as Lenin. I spoof you not.


Reality check: the only reason Lenin is not near the very top of the list of mass murderers of the 20th century is that he died young, and his horrendous regime was eventually taken over by the even worse Stalin, who then didn't die young.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

Israel Matzav: Chinless ophthalmologist willing to talk to anyone 'without preconditions'#links#links

Israel Matzav: Chinless ophthalmologist willing to talk to anyone 'without preconditions'#links#links

Monday, 26 January 2009

Israel Matzav: Video: Hamas 'family values'#links#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Video: Hamas 'family values'#links#links#links#links#links

SLAVE LABOUR UNDER THE THIRD REICH

German government pays for shocking Holocaust survivor testimonies to be published online


By Allan Hall


The videotaped testimony of Nazi slaves has been published online for historians and students to learn of their ordeal.


Six hundred forced labourers pressed into the service of the Third Reich’s war machine give their testimony in a multi-million pound project paid for by the German government.


They form a small part of the 12million enslaved by the Nazis to toil for the state while Germany’s male population fought in the armed services.


The Nazis were different from other slave-owning societies, like the ancient Romans or the plantation owners of the deep south in America, in that their slaves were not valued commodities but units to be abused, starved and often worked to death.


The 341 men and 249 women featured in the videos tell of working in concentration camps or munitions plants under gruelling conditions for little or no pay, miserable living conditions and exposure to hunger and disease.


'Their suffering should not be forgotten,' said Guenther Saathoff, the head of the Remembrance, Responsibility And Future foundation managing the £4.1billion fund.


Some 1.66million people from nearly 100 countries received compensation from a German government fund between 2001 and 2007.


Saathoff said the online video project was launched because the former forced labourers were seeking more than reparations.


'The victims did not want only money that was owed to them - they also wanted to tell about things that no one wanted to hear about for decades,' he said.


In one account, a Hungarian Jew called Henry Friedman in his 80s who has lived in Atlanta, Georgia, since the war's end said he was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.


Friedmann told of being beaten and how he was forced to work at a huge arms factory in Budapest in 1944, before he was assigned to transports for German troops fighting the Russians in the countryside.


'We were taken by the Germans to an outpost, and we were given orders that every day we would assemble at 3am and would climb the mountain and would be over there from between three till five, six the next morning,' he said.


'At that time, in the mountains, it was maybe 40 below zero. No clothing, not the right clothing. When we finished supplying the hot food, we brought down on stretchers the wounded or dead Germans to the base of the mountains. That would be our job.'


He said Jews suffered particularly brutal treatment among the workers.


'In case someone gets hurt, don't even ask for any kind of bandage or anything because you're a Jew - you're not entitled to - which meant that if you're lost or hurt, you have to freeze to death or bleed to death,' he said.


The documentary project began in 2005.


Survivors ranging in age from 65 to 98 were recorded on video primarily in Eastern Europe but also in the United States, Israel and South Africa.


A third of them, mostly Jews or Roma, were forced to work in concentration camps in particularly degrading and frequently life-threatening conditions.


A former slave labourer, Felix Kolmer, said the online archive would make increasingly rare personal accounts of the Nazi programme available to researchers, teachers and students.


'Victims will finally get the public recognition and attention for which they have often waited in vain over the last decades,' said Kolmer, who is also vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee, a Holocaust survivors group.


The project can be viewed at: www.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de

taken from : Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1126971/German-government-pays-shocking-Holocaust-survivor-testimonies-published-online.html)

Israel Matzav: 'Foreign media coverage in Gaza a disgrace to the profession'#links#links

Israel Matzav: 'Foreign media coverage in Gaza a disgrace to the profession'#links#links

Israel Matzav: IDF commander: 'If you're going to be captured, fall on a grenade'#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: IDF commander: 'If you're going to be captured, fall on a grenade'#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Jane's: Hamas to probe Gaza failings#links#links

Israel Matzav: Jane's: Hamas to probe Gaza failings#links#links

Israel Matzav: Who should pay for stopping rocket shipments to Gaza?#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Who should pay for stopping rocket shipments to Gaza?#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Europeans tiring of 'Palestinians,' call Hamas a terrorist movement#links#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Europeans tiring of 'Palestinians,' call Hamas a terrorist movement#links#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Google promotes the 'Palestinian holocaust' meme#links#links

Israel Matzav: Google promotes the 'Palestinian holocaust' meme#links#links

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinian' child abuse: 'Heroic resistance' hides in bunker blows up mock Israeli tank#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinian' child abuse: 'Heroic resistance' <strike>hides in bunker</strike> <i>blows up mock Israeli tank</i>#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: How many trucks are enough?#links#links

Israel Matzav: How many trucks are enough?#links#links

Israel Matzav: The charities are guilty, not the BBC#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: The charities are guilty, not the BBC#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinian Authority' sheltering and paying Islamic Jihad terrorists#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: 'Palestinian Authority' sheltering and paying Islamic Jihad terrorists#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Israel to open crossings AND trade 1,000 terrorists for Shalit?#links#links

Israel Matzav: Israel to open crossings AND trade 1,000 terrorists for Shalit?#links#links

Israel Matzav: Video: How to make a Hamas hero#links#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Video: How to make a Hamas hero#links#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Leftists furious over religious materials distributed to IDF soldiers#links#links

Israel Matzav: Leftists furious over religious materials distributed to IDF soldiers#links#links

Israel Matzav: American universities cancel overseas programs in Israel#links#links

Israel Matzav: American universities cancel overseas programs in Israel#links#links

MORE ON RACHEL IMENU



Posted by Mordechai Friedfertig


Did Rachel Imenu really reveal herself in the war or not? In other words, who is obligated to prove it – the one who claims that she did appear or the one who claims that she did not appear? The simple answer is based upon the halachic principle: "Ha-motzi me-chavero alav ha-ra'ayah - The burden of proof rests upon the one who demands the money," i.e. the burden of proof rests upon one who makes a claim which veers from the usual. The usual is that Rachel Imenu does not appear in war. Rachel Imenu was not in our first war when Yehoshua bin Nun waged war against Amalek. She was not in the war of Moshe Rabbenu against Sichon and Og. She was not in the war of Yehoshua bin Nun to conquer the Land of Israel. She was not in any of the wars of the Judges. She was not in the wars of King Shaul and of King David. She was not in the wars of any of the Kings of Israel. She was not in the war of the Hasmoneans. She was not in the war of Bar Kochba. She was not in the War of Independence, the Six-Day War or the Yom Kippur War. She was not in any war. The presumption is that she does not go out to war. Now, there are those claiming that she was there. It is possible, but it must be proven. How? We need to hear from the soldier who claimed that it happened. We need to question him before a Beit Din according to the Halachah: Do you really see her? Maybe it was an Arab woman? Maybe it was a Jewish woman captured by the Arabs and she was reminded that she was a Jew? Maybe you imagined it? As long as it has not been investigated, it has not been proven. Up until now, I have not heard anything.


I was therefore happy when a friend told me what he saw with his own eyes. During the war, a bunch of reservists were sitting around a fire on a freezing-cold night with warm jackets which they brought from home. A few regular soldiers arrived and they were frozen to the bone. The reservists did not hesitate to take off their jackets which were almost more precious to them than their weapons and gave them to the other soldiers. This is Rachel Imenu! Rachel Imenu gave up Yaakov - who was the most precious thing to her – for her sister. I am not saying that a jacket and a spouse are comparable, but this act at its source comes from Rachel Imenu.


In David's lament for Yonatan, he says: "Your love was more wonderful to me than the love of women" (Shmuel 2 1:26). The Targum (the Aramaic translation) says: "the love of two women." A Chasidic Rebbe once asked: Who are these two women? His answer: Rachel and Leah. David was saying: "Yonatan, your love for me in which you were willing to forego the kingship flows from the love of two women - when Rachel was willing to forego for Leah." Giving up a jacket is obviously not like giving up the kingship, but it is still flows from Rachel Imenu.


And Rashi explains at the beginning of Parashat Va-Yechi (Bereshit 48:7): Why wasn't Rachel buried in the Cave of Machpelah or even in Beit Lechem, but by the side of the road? So that when we were on our way to Exile she would be an aid for her children, as it says: "A voice is heard in Ramah. Rachel cries for her children…there is a reward for your actions and your children will return to their border" (Yirmiyahu 31:14-16). But couldn't she be an aid from Ma'arat Ha-Machpelah – it is only a little farther away?! I heard one Rav explain that for the sake of her children Rachel gave up being buried in Ma'arat Ha-Machpelah. We see that Rachel Imenu was willing to forego and we must do the same. The Exile was on account of "Sinat Chinam – Baseless Hatred" and the Redemption will be on account of "Ahavat Chinam – Baseless Love." In this way, Rachel is an aid for her children. She teaches us "Ahavat Chinam – Baseless Love." Every soldier who entered the Gaza Strip did so with self-sacrifice to save other Jews. This is not a jacket, a spouse, the kingship or a spot in Ma'arat Ha-Machpelah, it is risking one's life. Therefore, Rachel was there. She was with every soldier who entered with self-sacrifice for the sake of his brothers. It truly was Rachel!


For more on this issue see:


Past Post by Rav Aviner:
www.ravaviner.com/2009/01/rachel-imenu-our-foremother-rachel-in.html
Ha-Rav Mordechai Eliyahu:
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3659308,00.html
Ha-Rav Ovadiah Yosef:
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3661283,00.html


taken from : Torat HaRav Aviner (http://www.ravaviner.com/)

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T UPSET THE MUSLIMS




It seems lately as if all our laws can be reduced to one single law, "Whatever You Do, Don't Upset the Muslims."


9/11 proved that defending ourselves against terrorism takes a backseat to Muslim sensitivities. The cartoon controversy proved that for the West, Freedom of Speech takes a backseat to offending Muslims, whether by censorship or by self-censorship. The Citibank bailout proved that we will spend 25 billion dollars to bail out a company whose two biggest shareholders are a Saudi Prince and the UAE government-- the same folks who financed Al Queda.


Sure we could have shown some backbone. Sure we could have done the right thing in all 3 cases, but it was more important not to upset the Muslims.


For Europe that attitude is almost understandable. Having filled European country after country with Algerians, Moroccans, Pakistanis and Turks, emptying the rest of the ugly bag of Muslims and Mohammeds across countries where people once reasonably expected to be able to walk through their own neighborhoods without coming across a Mosque preaching "Death to the Infidels" in screeching accents, you have two choices, drive them out or tiptoe softly past them.


The sound you hear next is hundreds of millions of people in Europe tiptoeing very softly to avoid annoying Mohammed who's busy beating his wife while listening to taped lectures from his favorite Imam on how to beat your wife right, the Quranic way. Except the wife he's beating is actually that woman that artists like Delacroix used to draw to represent the values of liberty and the soul of the republic. It's a metaphor that Muslim rappers themselves are eager to articulate, particularly in France, symbolized by a woman and despised for it by the cockroaches infesting France's banlieues.


Europe imported its Muslims and then tried to integrate them to become one big happy family. Now Europe has accepted that it won't be wearing the pants in this marriage, and Mohammed is bringing in a horde of relatives to take over the formerly gracious manor, filling it from top to bottom with squalor, violence and hate. Drug dealing on the front porch, a car theft ring in the garage, prostitution out back, rape in the basement, burglary in the living room and a mosque in the attic reminding them all to go to prayers. That is the real face of the New Britain, the New France and the New Europe.


While Europeans occasionally dare to speak about a Muslim problem, they won't for long. If you let the cockroach problem in your house get bad enough, you stop having a cockroach problem, and the cockroaches start having a people problem. Soon enough Europe won't have a Muslim problem, Muslims will have a European problem... and if anyone wonders how they will take care of it, a short look at the way Sudan, Indonesia, not to mention most of the Middle East have taken care of their Christian problem should answer that question. Men may have qualms about killing cockroaches, but cockroaches have no qualms about killing men.


America however which still has a Muslim problem, instead of Muslims having an American problem, has imported this international case of Stockholm Syndrome. No Muslims had to riot to insure that the Danish cartoons would never appear in the American press, unless censored in a way usually reserved for obscene images. The press did it themselves, bowing their heads to Mecca and following that supreme law which has now displaced court and constitution, Thou Shalt Not Offend the Muslim.


Stockholm Syndrome or A Bad Case of the Dhimmis, means that anyone who offends a Muslim is at fault. Take a Muslim off a plane when he acts suspiciously, and it's the fault of the airlines for not wanting their planes to be run into New York landmarks. Draw a cartoon a Muslim doesn't like, and it's a clear case of provocation. Hang an Israeli flag in your window while a bloodthirsty mob of Turks bays for Jewish blood in Berlin, and the police will come in and take it out. Because it isn't the Muslim mob that's at fault. You are.


If mobs of white men and women gathered in major American cities holding up posters and chanting "Kill All Jews" and "Go Back to the Ovens", there would be nationwide outrage and condemnation. But when Muslims do it, the press has nothing to say about it, except that Israel fighting terrorists inside its own borders and working to rescue its own soldiers held hostage, is to blame.


Before All Else, Thou Shalt Not Offend the Muslim. Even when he's trying to kill you. Especially when he's trying to kill you.


It isn't just in Berlin, or Paris. It's in New York City too.


"I went back to my apartment where I met my boyfriend who had also just returned from the second Pro Israel rally on 39th Street & 7th Avenue. We walked outside the building and across a major midtown avenue on the West Side to buy some groceries. He was still carrying the Israeli flag and we were both wearing baseball caps with the American flag and USA on the brims. A large number of Muslims were milling around since it seems that their rally had reached its end point and was dispersing. Six Muslim men were being photographed with posters with the words, "Praise Hamas and Hezbollah, Reopen the Ovens" and were taking photos of themselves and their posters. Seeing us with the Israel flag, they began screaming, “You’re assholes, Kill the Jews, We are going to kill you, This is OUR country," etc."


That's the West Side, not Oslo or London or a suburb in France. But it's not just New York City. It's also Charlotte, North Carolina.


"On Sunday, January 11, 2008 a portion of my daughter's youth group from church attended a Christian concert festival called "Winter Jam" at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was expected to be a great time and it was once they entered the building. Unfortunately the group of ten to twelve year old children paid for their moment of fellowship and worship with every step they took towards the entrance."


When the youth group tried to enter the event, they were surrounded by a group of "Palestinian" protesters against Israel. The protesters surrounded the American children, screamed profanity and called them horrible names such as "baby murderers," while waving signs of what was portrayed as "mangled" children from "Palestine." In order to enter, the children had to be surrounding by adult chaperons and pushed through.


Instead of the police department honoring my request, I was left on the phone and bounced from one employee to another. I eventually landed on the phone with a police representative who called himself "Dante" and refused to give a last name. In lieu of filing a report, "Dante" talked to me like a two year old and declared that the protesters where "well within their rights" and that it was "their freedom" to do these things. I was eventually bounced on to another person by "Dante" before my telephone finally went dead."


And it's Ft Lauderdale, and all across America. The latest round of fighting in Gaza has given Muslims a chance to show off their hate, and to test how far they will be allowed to go. So far the message they've been given is "Clear Sailing".


Our advantage over Europe is that we have more time to prepare. But time is a finite quantity. In spirit and in their pocketbooks, America's leaders have already bowed their heads to Mecca. As Europe has demonstrated, the rest quickly becomes a legal formality.


Watch the immigration floodgates open, as the Democrats work to solve the Red State problem by importing the Third World into formerly conservative states. Wait a few years until Obama nominates Noah Feldman, the architect of the Iraqi constitution, and America's biggest promoter of Sharia law, to the United States Supreme Court, to replace his mentor Justice David Souter. The worst is yet to come, and it's happening because we refuse to be offensive, we fear to shout the truth and stand up to the political thugs who have seized control of our culture and are leading us and our civilization in a Death March toward the sea.


Free people do not fear giving offense, because freedom of speech is one of the core freedoms that any open society values. It is slaves who learn to fear giving offense, who carefully watch their masters, learning what they can say and what they cannot. When free people learn to fear their words, they learn to be slaves.


Whatever you do, don't just upset the Muslims... make them mad as hell.

Israel Matzav: Shocka: Hamas tried to hijack ambulances during war#links#links

Israel Matzav: Shocka: Hamas tried to hijack ambulances during war#links#links

Israel Matzav: 'Good terrorists' from Fatah sentence 'collaborator' to death#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: 'Good terrorists' from Fatah sentence 'collaborator' to death#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Investigation: IDF didn't fire on house where doctor's three daughters died#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Investigation: IDF didn't fire on house where doctor's three daughters died#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Summing up Operation Cast Lead#links#links

Israel Matzav: Summing up Operation Cast Lead#links#links

Israel Matzav: How Israel helped spawn Hamas#links#links

Israel Matzav: How Israel helped spawn Hamas#links#links

Israel Matzav: Obama and the Saudis#links#links

Israel Matzav: Obama and the Saudis#links#links

Stop Raping Israel: Hands off of Israel

Stop Raping Israel: Hands off of Israel

REVEALING AN EVIL STATE OF MIND



One evening during the fighting a young man from Sderot came up to Jerusalem and gave a talk at a public forum. He told about the debilitating effects of living under fire for eight years. How suppliers of his grocery store preferred not to make deliveries so the locals needed to go to the large supermarket outside town because they were better stocked. How he did his best to fire no-one after an employee who could have been his father burst into tears when informed there wasn't enough income to keep him on the books. How families broke apart under the never-ending strain. How his twins aged five, who have never known a life free of sirens panicked when on a trip to the quiet north they heard a distant ambulance and didn't have their safe protected corner to escape to.


It made his audience embarrassed for having lived their lives disregarding all this.


Gideon Levy published another screed on Friday. You don't have to go read it; it's the usual jumble of inaccuracies, facts strung together in the opposite chronology from reality, lots of ideology and hatred... the usual. But he did have a revealing slip, one that his editors in the Hebrew paper version promoted from the text to the caption under the picture. Describing the Hudna period of semi-calm since last summer, he tells


The fact that the residents of the south experienced a period of calm, almost without Qassam rockets, was blurred....Yes, there were Qassams and mortar shells - few, unnecessary, barren - which should have been forgiven with wisdom.

Perhaps the single most important thing about the operation we just waged is that we finally roused ourselves form our cruel lethargy and made it clear that there's no such thing as an acceptable level of violence against some of us that the rest can overlook and pretend not to see. We're responsible for all of us.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

Sunday, 25 January 2009

Israel Matzav: Shiny Happy Dhimmi#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Shiny Happy Dhimmi#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Zahar injured during final days of Cast Lead?#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Zahar injured during final days of Cast Lead?#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Gazans run for cover as IAF jets fly over#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Gazans run for cover as IAF jets fly over#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Support the 'Palestinians' by supporting Israel#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Support the 'Palestinians' by supporting Israel#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Pope reprieves Holocaust-denying excommunicated Bishop#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Pope reprieves Holocaust-denying excommunicated Bishop#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Those Gaza crossings#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Those Gaza crossings#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Gaza and Jenin: The same propaganda?#links#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Gaza and Jenin: The same propaganda?#links#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Mofaz: 'So long as Gilad Shalit doesn't see the light of day, Haniyeh won't see the light of day'#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Mofaz: 'So long as Gilad Shalit doesn't see the light of day, Haniyeh won't see the light of day'#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Good news: More Americans watched Jihadi TV during Gaza war#links#links

Israel Matzav: Good news: More Americans watched Jihadi TV during Gaza war#links#links

Operation Cast Lead Music Video HQ

THE FAITHFUL IDF

LET THE IDF WIN

Saturday, 24 January 2009

NEW YORK TIMES :NO ISRAEL



The NYT has an op-ed by none other than Muamar Qaddafi, in which he invents an imaginary history of the Jews and the Arabs, and explains that peace in this land will be achieved only by creating a state shared by Jews and Palestinians. Isratine, he calls it. I cannot say what prompted Qaddafi to write the column, or what role it plays in intra-Arab politics.


Most people at the NYT probably disagree with his positions, as do most readers (though it's interesting to note that the article is second on the list of popular articles). The editors of the paper will trot out the standard boilerplate about giving a platform to all opinions including the ones they really don't like, so that their readers can judge for themselves etc. etc. None of which can change the fact that the most important newspaper in the United States has published an article calling for the destruction of the Jewish State.
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

Israel Matzav: How Hamas uses mosques and schools for cover#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: How Hamas uses mosques and schools for cover#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Remembering George Mitchell#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Remembering George Mitchell#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Haniyeh and A-Zahar still hiding?#links#links

Israel Matzav: Haniyeh and A-Zahar still hiding?#links#links

Israel Matzav: Awww. Iran running out of uranium#links#links

Israel Matzav: Awww. Iran running out of uranium#links#links

Israel Matzav: Al-Beeb refuses to air Gaza ad UPDATED with video#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Al-Beeb refuses to air Gaza ad UPDATED with video#links#links#links

The Torah Revolution: UN cars

The Torah Revolution: UN cars

ITALIAN PARLIAMENTARIAN SPEAKS OUT FOR ISRAEL



Time to buy more Italian wine… and travel to Italy.
Good news. Fiamma Nirenstein, a journalist and some-time resident of Jerusalem , is a new Member of the Italian Parliament who is outspoken on Israel 's behalf. She writes below that there is increasing understanding of what Israel is facing in its current war.

Dear friends,
We didn't expect what you see now in the picture. This is the square of the Italian Parliament in Rome, Piazza Montecitorio: you can see the Palace on top of the square, and in front a lot of Israeli flags.That was yesterday night from 6,30 to 9,30 pm. What you cannot see here, is the extraordinary number and variety of members of the Parliament, about 100 from all political sides, that took the stage during our marathon: for about three hours we have been speaking about the role of Israel, its right to self defense, its moral height, its fight in name of all of us, of our civilization and values, against the wild hate of the Islamic jihad represented by hamas.
It seems to me that for the first time in the too long history of the arab Israeli conflict, apart from a minority of crazy leftists and fascists that took the street on anti-Semitic slogans, we have obtained a huge consensus about one critical point: this is not an episode of a local conflict, there is nothing in it that reminds the land for peace theme that has characterized the Palestinian issue. This is an episode of the attack against the western world, and Iran has a lot to do with it.
The change of attitude is great: the dictatorial religious nature of Hamas and the democratic, civilized nature of Israel are seen face to face for what they are al least by the European elite at large, dead and wounded notwithstanding, and there rises an identification with Israel against a regime that uses human shields and promises slaughter of Jews in its charter.
What happens today, at least in Italy , is the defeat and fall of the leftist ideologies: ideology has been the fig leaf that has allowed to justify all the most violent crimes and most disgusting verbal attacks. If Arafat launched the terrorist Intifada, if he promoted the martyrdom of children in public speeches, the ideologists were ready to justify him with the issues of occupation, the Palestinian misery and loss of any hope. Not the same with Hamas.
History, in Italy , has brought to a profound crisis the ideology of revolution and the justification of any cruel attack against a pretended unjust imperialist order. That time is in good part over, nobody will see Hamas as the resolution of the problem and not as the problem itself.
I also think that the word "peace" has lost that healing meaning that it had until yesterday. The new non-ideological point of view sees that there is no peace when one of the contenders doesn't want it, and that even if the world in the short run asks for a truce, in the long run requests a defeat of Hamas.
Well, yesterday night many people, Ministers and Members of Parliament, composed a very new, interesting puzzle of opinions. I think that when you are not overwhelmed by exotic thirdworldism, the images of children educated as hate machines, the speeches of jihad leaders, from Ahmadinejad to Nasrallah, to Hanje, that deny the holocaust and promise death to Jewish and Christians too, have on us a result of great disgust.
Westerners, thanks God, can still be disgusted by an uncivilized level of political speech. But most of all, in the Parliament square, many of the Parliament Members said: "I love Israel ".
You can't imagine how many.
Fiamma Nirenstein
taken from : B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)

Parshat Va'era: Love and Discipline

Parshat Va’era: Love and Discipline

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Parshat Va'eira

Parshat Va’eira

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Friday, 23 January 2009

CHUTZPADIK HATERS








During the recent conflict in Gaza, anti-Israel rallies were held worldwide. They were noted for their sheer ferocity and aggressiveness. During these rallies, slogans such as "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" and "Burn Jews as fossil fuel" were chanted. Another feature of these rallies were signs comparing Israel to the Nazis. A favourite tactic of Israel-bashers is to make comparisons between the IDF and the Nazis, thereby delegitimizing the State of Israel. Israel is demonized as apartheid and racist, guilty of the original sin of being in existence. By claiming such a state is the epitome of racist evil, Israel's foes legitimize her destruction.
Close to 70 years ago, one third of world Jewry were brutally murdered in the greatest crime ever committed in human history. The Jews of Europe were dehumanized, forced into ghettos, chocked and gassed, and then burnt in ovens and crematorium, while the world stood by silently. Once the war came to an end, the world realized the depths of depravity and evil to which it had sunk and resolved never to repeat the horrors of the Shoah. Today, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the wicked Nazis who wantonly spilled Jewish blood are leading the campaign against the Jewish state. Instead of regretting their crimes, they have been denying and minimizing the Holocaust. Racked with guilt over their grandparents complicity to murder, they have decided to downplay and belittle the Final Solution with cynical and obscene comparisons between Israel and the Nazis. As witnesses to the Holocaust are dying out and becoming ever more rare, such historical revisionism cannot go unchallenged, especially as anti-semitism continues to rise in Europe and America. For the Jewish people, it seems to be 1939 all over again.
The German National Democratic neo-Nazi party announced that it will be holding a solemn vigil in downtown Berlin for the victims of 'the Gaza holocaust'. The NPD has seats in the national parliament, and has gained significant support both at the local and federal levels. "Joint hatred of everything Jewish is unifying neo-Nazis and Islamists... German-Palestinians protestors unashamedly admitted that they would vote for the NPD during the next election," Charlotte Knobloch, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, warned in her speech at a pro-Israel rally earlier this month in Munich. In a similar vein, the Spanish government has cancelled its Holocaust memorial ceremony in protest of the supposed 'genocide' in Gaza. Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right," a local City official told Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper. Other European countries have taken to Holocaust references. A Norwegian diplomat stationed in Saudi Arabia sent a mass-distributed email stating that "the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are doing the same thing to the Palestinians, as the Nazis did to their grandparents," using her official Norwegian Foreign Ministry address.
This abuse of history is so sick and twisted. Whatever one's opinion on the Gaza conflict, there is no comparison between the systematic campaign and extermination and annihilation waged by the Nazis against the Jews and a military struggle between a sovereign nation and terrorists. It is an insult to the victims of the Holocaust to equate them with civilians killed unintentionally in the cross-fires of battle. Apparently, anti-semitism and Holocaust denial allows history and events to be perverted. The same countries that happily delivered up their Jews for destruction are denying the grossness of their crimes, and allowing such a travesty to occur again.
Since the beginning of the Israeli operation in Gaza a few weeks ago, anti-semitism has flared up worldwide. Jews in Europe and North America have suffered the worst wave of anti-semitism since the Second World War. In Britain, there have been over 220 anti-semitic incidents, including bombings and vandalization of synagogues, Jewish institutions and kosher restaurants. Jews have been beaten up on the streets. In France, dozens of synagogues have been bombed as well as Jews threatened. Over Shabbat in Chicago, 5 synagogues were defaced. A homemade bomb was found outside of a Chabad House in Florence. In Rome, a trade union has proposed and put forth legislation to identify and boycott Jewish-owned businesses. Protesters have marched violently through Jewish areas in Antwerp and Paris and Italian police had to prevent protesters from entering Venice's historical ghetto area.
The hateful and ridiculous comparisons between Israel and the Nazis have made Jews targets once again. While any person has the prerogative to disagree with the specific policies of the State of Israel, accusing Israel of 'genocide' in Gaza is akin to blood libel. Those who besmirch Israel attempt to demonstrate the state as so evil that the only solution to the conflict is a Final one. According to their logic, such an apartheid racist state must be dismantled and destroyed. All decent and moral people must renounce their moral inversion and recognize that this is a conflict between terrorists and a democratic state. There are no similarities between those who shoved Jewish children into gas chambers, and Israeli soldiers trying to prevent jihadi rockets from falling on civilian targets. Those who are condemning Israel for defending itself are of the same stock as those who sat by while the Jews of Europe were being murdered. It appears that the world never learns.
taken from : For Zion's Sake

FEAR NOT, ISRAEL

ISRAEL HERE AT HOME

Sometimes I think that people has gone mad. An awful disease has taken possession of the minds of europeans. They can, no more, differentiate right from wrong or fantasy from reality.
Once more, a stratagem clouds their vision so what they can see is only what a deceitful foe wants.
Governements and public opinion are being misleaded, lured into a trap they should know very well. Antisemitism. Yes, Europe, nowadays, is ready to make the same mistakes that in the past brought war and death to the continent.
Recent events show that authorities are more preoccupied in not to offend the sensibility of the muslim minorities even at the cost of the civil liberties of the europeans.
Fortunately there are still people who can think by themselves. People who can see the danger approaching and still have the courage to denounce it .
This article was published in the portuguese weekly publication "Expresso" (17/01/09) and was writen by Henrique Raposo. Here's the translation :
ISRAEL HERE AT HOME
Western Europe has two intelectual sports that turn around the figure of the "jew". In the historical jogging, typical european only talks of the Holocaust's victims. "History" and "Holocaust" are synonymous in old Europe's dictionary. In the international politic's jogging, europeans spend their lives criticizing Israel's actions. Besides, a good part of the europeans thinks that criticizing Telaviv is the same as having a sustained thought about international politics. But amounting these most sonorous official joggings, we are going to find a third european sport related to the "jew". But this third sport is a concealed and silent one. I am, as obvious, talking about of the "politically correct" jogging; that who bleaches the antisemitism of the muslims living in Europe. However, this matter never deserves to be made noteworthy in the european agenda.
Since September 11th. Jewish communities in France, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Germany had been violently attacked by radical muslims. Answering this, european authorities advised jews to hide the signs of their jewishness. In face of such an immense kindness, many european jews are immigrating to Israel. And what does journalists and politicians say about this problem ? Nothing. The antisemitism of european muslims is a tabu. A tabu that results from the epistemological fascism imposed by the politically correct. In this strange intelectual ambient, to criticize radical islam is the same as being "racist", and pointing the finger at islamic antisemitism can only be the sign of a deep "islamicophobia". Here is, therefore, the remarkable contradiction imposed by the semantic fascism that everyone knows by the nickname of "politically correct": we can talk about the antisemitism of the europeans who died in 1945, but we are prohibited to comment the antisemitism of the muslims who live here and now. In 2009 the "good european" must hyperbolize the white man's antisemitism (located in our memory) and, at the same time, must bleach islamic antisemitism (located in our everyday life)

Thursday, 22 January 2009

THOSE POOR BBC FOLKS



Jahn Kampfner is the the boss of Index of Censorship, a British groups who describe themselves thus:


Index on Censorship is Britain’s leading organisation promoting freedom of expression. Our award-winning magazine and website provide a window for original, challenging and intelligent writing on these vital issues around the world. Our international projects in media, arts and education put our philosophy into action.



An admirable group, you'd think, engaged in the kind of things we instinctively support, an agency we automatically commend. Or at least, that's what you'd think. Until you look at their homepage and notice that the third of three "News in Brief" items is about how Fatah in Ramallah has arrested a journalist for decrying that the Ramallites aren't allowed to demonstrate about the events in Gaza (which, by the way, isn't true - they did for a few days, until the demonstrators stopped coming). Far be it from me to defend Fatah, but it does seem to have been fact that at the same time Hamas types were arresting, torturing and even killing fellow Gazans they felt had been perhaps not on their side in the recent violence.


At which point you begin to wonder who these folks really are, and what their agenda is. But I leave that for a future investigation which I probably won't do.


Anyway, last week Mr. Kampfner wrote a column (at the Guardian, where else?) which I missed at the time, bemoaning how the BBC has been cowed and no longer dares tell the story of the Israel-Palestine conflict as it really is.


Language, as any propagandist knows, is the most important tool. Hamas fighters are called "militants". That, I am told, is a halfway house between "terrorist" and more sympathetic labels such as "guerrillas". The Israeli army is often referred to by its formal title, the Israel Defence Forces. The bombardment of Gaza has regularly been described as "the Israeli operation". Such language denudes coverage of impact.


In a perfect world, it would be "Hamas freedom fighters facing fascist Israeli murderers", I suppose. Someone's gotta assist the poor Palestinians, after all, given their awesome power:


Led by Regev, a charismatic, Australian-born spokesman, Israel has amassed a formidable public relations operation. Following the failures of the Lebanon war it has created a National Information Directorate. The power of the message has long been at its strongest in the US, where academics and journalists know that criticism of Israel may harm their careers. (My italics).


All in all, it's a rather illuminating example of how such people see the world.


taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

A CONCEIT OF COURAGE



Daniel Bolomey, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Swiss Section, yesterday published a large and expensive ad in Haaretz, in English, praising a group of Israeli and Jewish groups for speaking out against the war. His letter includes the following:

Over the last few days and weeks, you have all spoken out against the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza and the logic of military violence. We know just how difficult this has been - and still is - and are deeply impressed by your courageous commitment.
It must have been terrifying to live in Gaza during the operation. It was certainly frightening to be among the 1,000,000 Israeli civilians made to race to their shelters, even if they knew that by so racing they probably really were taking themselves out of physical danger. I can tell from experience how unpleasant it was to have a family member in the thick of the fighting.
For the life of me I can't tell what courage might be required for people in democratic Israel to speak their mind. Pretending it was tells us something fundamental about how these people understand reality
taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

ONE WHO IS FEARFUL AND FAINTHEARTED



Posted by Mordechai Friedfertig


Q: What does a soldier do if he is afraid to go into war?


A: Although in an optional war "one who is fearful and fainthearted" may remain at home, we are now in an obligatory war and "one who is fearful and fainthearted" also goes to battle. But why would we want "one who is fearful and fainthearted" in battle? Answer: When the Land of Israel is in danger and the Nation of Israel is in danger, a person who is weak also says: "I have courage!" It is true that a soldier is sometimes scared, but this is until he shoots the first bullet and then he is filled with strength and courage. He has no time to be scared. He is constantly active. A person once caused some mayhem on the Temple Mount and there were a multitude of Arabs on the street. At that exact time, I was driving by the Old City with other people in the back. The Arabs attacked the car, broke the windows and started to hit me inside the car. I continued driving in a zigzag between the Arabs. I arrived at the Dung Gate, turned off the car, took out the key and promptly fainted. I woke up in the hospital with a pleasant doctor with a kippah and a short, pointy beard stitching my head. I said: "What a miracle that I passed out after I stopped the car. If I would have fainted before that, they would have slaughtered me and the others." He said: "It is not a miracle. When a person is exerting effort, he will not pass out. When he finishes exerting effort, he passes out." A person in the midst of a war is therefore not emotionally free to be scared. He is trembling will fear when he is waiting to go into battle because he is not doing anything. When he is active, he is not worried because he is doing something.
taken from : Torat HaRav Aviner (http://www.ravaviner.com/)

Israel Matzav: Iran gets delivery of S-300 parts#links#links

Israel Matzav: Iran gets delivery of S-300 parts#links#links

Israel Matzav: The obligatory Khaled Meshaal victory speech post#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: The obligatory Khaled Meshaal victory speech post#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Confirmed: Hamas inflated casualty numbers; UPDATE: IDF denies story#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Confirmed: Hamas inflated casualty numbers; UPDATE: IDF denies story#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: Hope and change, Norwegian style?#links#links

Israel Matzav: Hope and change, Norwegian style?#links#links

Israel Matzav: IDF intelligence maps show how Hamas uses civilians as human shields#links#links

Israel Matzav: IDF intelligence maps show how Hamas uses civilians as human shields#links#links

Israel Matzav: The disproportionality canard#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: The disproportionality canard#links#links#links#links

Israel Matzav: NOW they remember Gilad Shalit#links#links

Israel Matzav: NOW they remember Gilad Shalit#links#links

UNIVERSAL TORAH : VA-EIRA

UNIVERSAL TORAH: VA-EIRA


By Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum
Torah Reading: VA-EIRA Exodus 6:2-9:35



"WITH MY NAME YKVK I WAS NOT KNOWN TO THEM"


At the end of last week's parshah of SHEMOS, we saw how, precisely when Moses started the process of Geulah (redemption) by asking Pharaoh to send away the Children of Israel, the latter responded by intensifying their oppression and servitude. This caused even Moses to question his mission: "Lord, why have You done evil to this people? Why have You sent me?" (Ex. 5:22).


Our parshah of VA-EIRA opens with G-d's answer to Moses. It contains a profound teaching about faith. G-d promises, and it is up to G-d to deliver! He can be relied upon absolutely to do so -- in His own good time. Even in the thickest darkness, we must have faith that G-d will redeem us. We must understand that the darkness is most intense just before the morning.


In G-d's answer to Moses, He says that He appeared to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as "the Eternal G-d" but "WITH MY NAME YKVK I WAS NOT KNOWN TO THEM" (Ex. 6:3). What does this mean? It is a fact that the essential name of HaShem, YKVK -- expressing the perfect unity of G-d within and beyond all phenomena -- was indeed known to the patriarchs, as we see many times in Genesis. However, as pointed out by Rashi here, the Hebrew text (NODA'TI) does not mean, "I did not make it known to them". Rather, it implies: "I was not known and RECOGNIZED for my quality of truthfulness. as HaShem Who am faithful in proving the truth of My words. For I promised them but as yet I have not fulfilled the promise" (see Rashi).


An integral part of faith in G-d is to have faith that He will bring about everything He has promised through His prophets, even if we cannot see how this can possibly come about. The Exodus from Egypt is the proof of this faith, for G-d had promised the patriarchs what He was going to do: "And also the people that they will serve I will judge, and afterwards they will go forth with great wealth" (Gen. 15:13-14). At the height of Egyptian power and arrogance, it seemed impossible that this could come about. But in this and the coming parshiyos telling the story of the Ten Plagues and the Exodus, we see that G-d indeed brought it about.


No less essential a part of the promise than the redemption from Egypt was that G-d will "bring you to the Land that I swore to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, and I WILL GIVE IT TO YOU AS AN INHERITANCE -- I AM HASHEM" (Ex. 6:8). It is not sufficient for the Children of Israel "go out from Egypt", even in the spiritual sense of being released from the chains of servitude to the evanescent material world. G-d's plan for a perfect world will be fulfilled only when the Children of Israel dwell securely in their own Promised Land, fulfilling all the commandments that are bound up with the Land. We must have complete faith that G-d will bring this about.


* * *


KAL VA-CHOMER - "Light and stringent"


When the Children of Israel could not hear Moses' message of redemption because of "shortness of spirit and hard work" (Ex. 6:9), Moses wondered: "If the Children of Israel did not listen to me, how will Pharaoh listen to me?" (ibid. v. 12).


Moses' argument is based on making an inference from a "light" case -- the Children of Israel -- to a "stringent" case: Pharaoh. In Hebrew such an inference is known as KAL VA-CHOMER, "light-and-stringent". In the written text of the Five Books of Moses there are ten cases of arguments using KAL VA-CHOMER (Rashi ad loc.) The ten cases are listed in the Tannaitic commentary on Exodus, "Mechilta". The argument of KAL VA-CHOMER is one of the most important of the hermeneutical methods by which the sages derived teachings by inference even though they are not written explicitly in the Torah text. KAL VA-CHOMER is the first of "thirteen rules of Torah interpretation" set down by the tannaitic sage, Rabbi Ishmael. These have become part of the daily order of prayer, being recited at the conclusion of the sacrificial portions prior to PSUKEY DE-ZIMRA, the verses and psalms of the morning service. Besides Rabbi Ishmael's thirteen, there are other hermeneutical rules, such as the Thirty-Two rules of Midrash collected by Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosi HaGalili (printed in the KLALIM, "rules" of the Talmud, after Tractate Berachos).


As in the case of Moses' argument by KAL VA-CHOMER that Pharaoh would not listen, all the other rules of interpretation are themselves contained in the biblical text. It is through the application of these rules that extensive parts of the Oral Torah were developed by the early sages and rabbis. When rules like KAL VA-CHOMER are applied to the text, it is possible to infer new teachings that are not explicitly written in the text but are logically implied. The legitimacy of this method of argument is sanctioned by its use in the Biblical text itself, as here. This shows the essential unity of the Oral and Written Torah.

* * *

THE TEN PLAGUES

In the event, G-d took on the "harder" task of bringing down Pharaoh and breaking his stony heart. This was what would make the Children of Israel listen! This was accomplished through the Ten Plagues. The gripping account of the first seven plagues occupies the greater part of this week's parshah of VAYEIRA, while next week's parshah of BO bring us to the climax with the last three plagues and the Exodus itself.

Many have sought to explain the sequence of plagues according to some rationale. One of the most celebrated explanations is that mentioned by Rashi on Ex. 8:17, quoting from Midrash Tanchuma Parshas BO #4, a Tannaitic source:

"Our Rabbis of blessed memory said: The Holy One blessed be He brought the plagues upon them using the tactics of worldly kings. When a region rebels against a king of flesh and blood, he sends his legions to surround it. The first thing he does is to shut off their water supply. If they relent, all the better! If not, he brings against them criers with loud voices... then arrows. barbarian hordes. He hurls heavy weights at them. shoots burning oil. fires cannon. rouses multitudinous armies against them. imprisons them. kills their great ones. In the same way, the Holy One blessed be He came against the Egyptians with the tactics of kings. With the plague of blood He stopped up their water supply. The "criers" were the frogs with their loud croaking. His "arrows" were the fleas. His "barbarian hordes" were the wild animals. The "heavy weights" were the "heavy pestilence" that killed their livestock. The "burning oil" was the boils. The cannon shots were the hail. The "multitudinous armies" were the locusts. The Egyptians were "imprisoned" through the plague of darkness. Finally, He killed their great ones in the plague of the first born."

A kabbalistic explanation of the sequence and rationale of the plagues is provided in the writings of the ARI in Sha'ar HaPsukim (the Gate of the Verses) Parshas Va-eira. The Ten Plagues correspond to the Ten Sefiros, ascending from the bottom of the "ladder" to the top. Thus the seven plagues recounted in this week's Parshah of VA-EIRA correspond to the seven "lower" sefiros, from Malchus-Kingship up to Chessed-Kindness, while the three plagues recounted in next week's Parshah of BO correspond to the top trio: Binah-Understanding, Chochmah-Wisdom and finally Keser-Crown. According to this explanation, the Ten Plagues came as successive manifestations of the 10 different aspects or "attributes" of G-d's kingly power over all the world (the ten sefiros of MALCHUS -- or "NUKVA" -- of ATZILUS). In this way the arrogant supremacy of worldly power, the "Evil MALCHUS" -- the force that conceals G-dliness -- was broken. Behind the nightmare to which Egypt was subjected -- apparently the very opposite of SEDER, "order" -- lies the supreme order of the Sefiros.

* * *

THE PHARAOH WITHIN US

"Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and when he stumbles, let not your heart exult. Lest G-d will see and it will be bad in His eyes" (Proverbs 24:17).

We may not laugh over Pharaoh's downfall, because there is a Pharaoh in each one of us. This is the stubborn MELECH (king) who rules in our hearts, in our ego, our vanity and pride. I. me.!

Writ large in the drama of Moses coming against Pharaoh in the name of G-d is the story of our inner lives, our daily conflicts and struggles in the test of free will to which we are all subjected. One side of us -- Moses, "conscience" -- knows what we should do. But another side -- Pharaoh, "the evil urge", the king riding the chariot -- resists. There are constant ups and downs in the trial of free will. Today one "wants to" -- Pharaoh relents. Tomorrow, he hardens his heart again and resists.

Does it need plagues to beat this Pharaoh down? Or can we find better ways to get free and to take our destiny into our hands?

Shabbat Shalom! Chodesh Tov Umevorach!

Avraham Yehoshua Greenbaum

--
AZAMRA INSTITUTEPO Box 50037 Jerusalem 91500 Israel

5 things Israel should never apologize for

5 things Israel should never apologize for

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RACHEL IMENU (OUR FOREMOTHER RACHEL) IN THE GAZA WAR AGAINST HAMAS



Posted by Mordechai Friedfertig


[Q&A from Rav Aviner's video blog]Question: Rumors have spread about a woman presenting herself as our foremother Rachel appearing to Tzahal soldiers and warning them of explosives, booby-trapped houses and terrorist ambushes within the Gaza Strip during the war. Is this true?

Answer: In truth, Rachel Imenu was certainly with us during our long Exile as the Maharal explained in his book "Netzach Yisrael" (end of chap. 1 and beginning of chap. 34). He wrote that Rachel is the power that sustained the Nation of Israel during the course of the Exile and returned us to our Land as it says: "Withhold your voice from crying…and your children will return to their border" (Yirmiyahu 31:15-16). And Rashi explained at the beginning of Parashat Va-Yechi (Bereshit 48:7): Why wasn't Rachel buried in the Cave of Machpelah or even in Beit Lechem, but by the side of the road? In order for her to protect the Nation of Israel while we were on the way. This is the inner power which binds the Nation together. After all, it is a miracle and wonder that we were able to remain steadfast for two thousand years in the Exile. We were a lamb among seventy wolves and we are now returning to our Land. But regarding the idea that Rachel personally revealed herself to this person or that person, on such matters it is said: "A fool will believe anything." There are two types of extremism: one type of extremism is to deny miracles, and another type of extremism is to believe that when someone tells you about a miracle that there really was one. We need to check. It is possible that they may have been imagining. Sometimes a person imagines things, even a sane person. Sometimes one is under pressure, tired, hungry, and thinks he sees something that isn't there, and later fosters it in his memory. This is called FMS – false memory syndrome. It may have been a non-Jewish woman. There are also good Arab women – not all of them are, but there are some. And maybe someone dreamed up this idea to strengthen faith, and to say: "You see? There are people that go to war and there are people that don't go to war but they pray, and Rachel came to save us on account of their merit." Therefore, we need proof for such matters. There were soldiers who fell in battle and Rachel was not there. There were also soldiers who won battles due to their great dedication and wisdom and courageousness to fight, and Rachel was not there. This means that Rachel was not there in the image of a woman guiding them and telling them go this way or that way, shoot here or shoot there. But Rachel was certainly there in the sense in which we explained: the inner power which sustains the Nation of Israel and returns us to our Land.

See www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3659308,00.html for a news story about Rav Aviner's answer and that Ha-Gaon Ha-Rav Mordechai Eliyahu prayed for Rachel Imenu to help. Rav Aviner gave this answer before this story has spread about Rav Eliyahu.
taken from : Torat HaRav Aviner (http://www.ravaviner.com/)

THE TERM "OCCUPIED TERRITORIES"



Posted by Mordechai Friedfertig

[from the book "Responsa of the Intifada" - p. 43]


We do not recoil from the term "occupied," since the Rambam explained based on various verses in the Torah that we are commanded to conquer the entire breath of our Land and not to leave even a part of it (Sefer Ha-Mitzvot of Rambam, Positive mitzvah #4 according to the Ramban). It is certainly preferable to enter into our Land in a peaceful manner, with the agreement of the non-Jews who are temporarily located there and with their recognition that this Land is ours. But if this is not the way it occurs, we are obligated to conquer our Land. This is the War of Liberation or Independence, which is an honored concept among all the nations of the world. The Ramban emphasized that this mitzvah also applies during the Exile, but to our distress, we were unable to fulfill it on account of our lack of ability for two thousand years, and now that the ability has returned to us, this mitzvah has also returned to us. We are not going to conquer foreign lands like Yemen or Algeria, only our Land which belongs to us. There is therefore no difference between the occupied territories that are located on one side of the "Green Line," which were conquered during the War of Liberation, and the occupied territories on the other side of the "Green Line," which were conquered during the Six-Day War. This "Green Line" has absolutely no spiritual, ethical, halachic or national meaning. We certainly do not have just any "territories," but territories of the Land of Israel, territories of the Holy Land, which Hashem gave us and which we now occupy because of the loving-kindness of Hashem.
taken from : Torat HaRav Aviner (http://www.ravaviner.com/)

SO WHAT WAS ACHIEVED ?



A friend and supporter of Israel who lives far away and can't follow the Hebrew media writes to ask what was achieved, if at all. Knowing his fundamental positions, it's a legitimate question, not a taunt.


Of course, the problem with blogging, and punditry in general, is that we lack even minimal perspective, but he's asking now, not in five years, so here's an attempt to answer.


The internal Israeli arena. The Gaza operation achieved two extremely important goals, while possibly missing a third. The first important goal is re-establishing Israeli solidarity. We're in this very long war as a nation and community, not a collection of individuals. Yet since the 2nd Intifada was beaten, in 2002-2003, when most of us returned to normal lives, the citizenry of Sderot and its neighbors haven't. Perhaps someday I should write about the debilitating effect years of rocketry had on Sderot, but not today. The point is that the rest of us pretended it wasn't happening. The longer this went on, the more debilitating it became. The most blatant demonstration of this was how the very organizations which exist in order to express and enhance social solidarity and awareness, disengaged completely from the weak part of society that lives down there; once we went to war, most of them vehemently castigated us (and castigate us still) for our cruelty to the Palestinians, with nary a word for the Sderotians. (Go read Grossman's article yesterday). But the problem was with mainstream Israel, not the pathetic Loony Left. Mainstream Israel learned to live with the Sderotian's suffering: we can't stop Hamas because they're embedded in the populace of Gaza, so the Sderotians should stop kvetching.


Can you think of a more insidious and debilitating trend? The Gaza operation brought us back to our senses: we're here for all of us, and since defending some of us requires the determination and willingness to sacrifice of the rest, so be it.


The second internal goal was that we reaffirmed for ourselves that we know how to act. The multi-layer fiasco of the 2nd Lebanon War in 2006 had cast this in doubt. The multi-layered success of the Gaza operation proved to us that it's a matter of willpower, but also of professionalism. Someone has to collect the intelligence about the enemy; someone has to plan distribution of food in towns under fire - and all the many layers in between. There are hundreds of them. Many of them malfunctioned in 2006 - it was astonishing how many. Most of them did rather well in January 2009. I have no doubt that everyone involved is now sitting down to learn the details of what just happened, so as to do even better next time. There will be a next time, we all know, and it could well be Tel Aviv being rocketed with big missiles, rather than Sderot with little ones, so there's still lots of necessary preparation. Only this time, we know that we know how to do it.


The failure, at least so far, was in getting Gilad Shalit back. I don't know why we failed, and it's possible that the operation changed the dynamics with Hamas so that he'll soon be exchanged for hundreds of their people, but it hasn't happened yet. As of this morning, we failed in getting him back, a failure which goes back to the issue of solidarity, and it's bad, that failure.


Still, the overall picture is positive. As I've often written here, ultimately, the historical explanation for the extreme longevity of the Jews and the tenacious successes of Israel, is that the Jews and the Israelis are determined to exist and succeed. That's the key. The Gaza operation bolstered that significantly.


The Palestinians. What did the operation achieve with them? We need to distinguish between at least two, perhaps three different groups of Palestinians.


First, Hamas. The paper edition of Haaretz this morning has an item (which I can't find on their website, which is eternally and abysmally exasperating and I wish they'd fire someone already) according to which Khaled Meshal admits the Hamas tactic was to withstand a three-day Israeli attack and then declare victory; "We didn't expect the Israelis to be so determined and destructive" he says. This is the same Khaled Meshal who as recently as last Thursday was declaring great Hamas victories and no Hamas losses, even as the news of our killing their Siam fellow was running across the bottom of the TV screen.

(As an aside: the Hamas tactic assumed Israel would behave exactly as David Grossman demanded we behave, when he wrote on the 3rd day that we'd made our point and should now stop, and he was translated into lots of languages and published worldwide).


Will Meshal's suprise be translated into a reluctance to shoot at Israelis? Only time will tell, but the example of Hassan Nassrallah is encouraging.


Second, the PA. As we all know, Fatah was mostly cheering the IDF, for doing to Hamas what they can't do. I don't know if that's a good thing. More significant, however, the PA under Salam Fayad seems to be delivering the Israelis a growing degree of security on the West Bank, and the populace a growing measure of economic growth (now of all times!) and general normality. The differences between Israel vs. the West Bank and Israel vs. Gaza couldn't have been more stark. Will the PA manage to translate this into beneficial political results? Who knows. Perhaps.

Third, the Palestinian people. This is the second time in a decade that we've demonstrated to them that they can't bring us to our knees with violence, and on the contrary, when they try too hard we turn very nasty. Not as nasty as they would be if the tables were turned, not even remotely so, which they seem to recognize, but still: when we're angry we're definitely nasty. So now they have two models to choose from.


(And no, I don't fear that we've just created a new generation of hate-filled young Palestinians determined to commit suicide murders. I don't see how they could possibly hate us more than they already did, and I never forget that the months immediately following the Declaration of Principles in September 1993 saw the steepest rise in Palestinian violence ever, to be surpassed only in Fall 2000 after Barak offered to dismantle most of the settlements).


The Arab world: The Gaza operation did a fine job of accentuating what educated observers knew anyway. That there's a deep split between some Arabs who hate and fear their own crazies, and those who either are the crazies or think the crazies can be used. The world needs those crazies to disappear, since they are the enemies of mankind. Ultimately, they can be defeated only by the rest of the Muslim world. I don't see how the operation did any harm; conceivably it might have done some good. There were persistent items in the Israeli media telling that many Arabs were whispering to the Israelis that they could smash Hamas, but only if they didn't bungle it as in Lebanon with the Hezbullah. I don't think we bungled this time, but I also don't think it will make much difference. It is the Muslims and Arabs who will have to defeat their demons. We can't do it for them. Nor can Obama.


Europe: As a number of readers discussed on this blog, the European response may have been better, all in all, than the European media would have liked. Certainly there was nothing written in the Guardian during the operation that would explain the visit of six European heads of government to Israel earlier this week, a mostly friendly and supportive visit. Either the heads of government know things from their intelligence briefings that aren't in the media, or they know that their voters aren't believing their own media, or both.


And yet. A few years ago it was fashionable to choose a year from the 20th century and postulate ourselves into it (We're in 1938. No, we're in 1941. No, we're in 1945. No, you idiots, we're in 2003). Well, in some disturbing ways, we're in 1909. That's the period when an educated minority was putting its finishing touches on a Weltanshauung of hatred, which had flagrant antisemitism at its very core. Nazism, as its students all know, was not an invention of some maniacs after the German defeat in The Great War and the subsequent political and economic turmoil. The ideas of Nazism were all fully developed years before World War One began.


A hundred years later, an educated minority has a Weltanschauung of hatred, and flagrant antisemitism is at its core. This is disquieting, or should be. The Gaza operation didn't invent them, nor did they need it to formulate their poison, but it brought them out into the open (once again). Since everyone knows who they are and where they are, perhaps everyone should do something about them. ("Everyone" won't).


Finally, the crucial question: did the operation change something with the folks of the incoming Obama administration. Well, I certainly can't say, can I? Can you? Yet I expect it didn't. If they needed last week's news to learn about the Israeli-Arab conflict, they're fools. I doubt they're that.


(Yes, I've noticed. I'm not doing a very good job at desisting from blogging, am I. Tomorrow).


taken from : Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations (http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/)

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