Israel Matzav: Who will praise Israel for its help in Haiti? You won't believe it

Who will praise Israel for its help in Haiti? You won't believe it

On his Fox News program on Sunday night, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee praised US aid for Haiti and lashed out at those who claim that the United States is doing nothing to help.

Speaking on his FoxNews television program, Huckabee noted that “once again, in the face of a horrible human tragedy, it’s Americans who show up first, do the most, and expect the least in return.”

“When it comes to a time of human tragedy,” Huckabee continued, “it’s the United States that will export its most precious commodity – its generosity. Within hours of the horrific earthquake that hit Haiti, Americans were pouring record donations into the relief efforts… The U.S. military dispatched ships, planes and thousands of personnel… American relief workers lined up to go to Haiti and risked death and disease to help people they don’t even know.”

“I realize that other countries are helping and providing resources – but the next time some pipsqueak punk politician like [Venezuelan dictator] Hugo Chavez or Iran’s nutjob of a president Ahmoud Medinajad [sic] whines about how evil we are, we ought to tell them to put up or shut up.”

“… When the earthquake struck, American went to Haiti. As for our critics, they can go to hell.”

Indeed. On Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the United States of 'occupying' Haiti under the guise of aid. But the US has provided far more than Venezuela has provided.

Here are what some other countries have done for Haiti:

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, one of the richest countries in the world, has sent a message of condolence to Haitian President René Préval. Some Arab countries have “pledged” help, such as $1 million pledged from both Kuwait and Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates says it will “shortly” send a plane with humanitarian assistance. Qatar, with the third largest gas reserves and the second highest GDP per capita in the world, has dispatched 50 metric tons of aid to the hundreds of thousands of homeless and injured Haitians.

Arutz Sheva (the link above) asks who will praise Israel for its aid to Haiti (which the article lists). Well, someone has.

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Lance K). What you're looking for is in the last minute.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

At least the Americans know that we're there.

Israel Matzav: Who will praise Israel for its help in Haiti? You won't believe it

Israel Matzav: JPost correspondent assaulted in Tehran

JPost correspondent assaulted in Tehran

The JPost's Sabina Amidi is back in Tehran for the first time since June. Here's a small part of her report.

Among the regime's opponents - activists and those less prominent alike - it is stressed that they are not campaigning for defeated reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi but, rather, against the regime for its ostensible betrayal of Islam.

"The regime's violence against Islamic institutions is an affront, a betrayal of the very essence of our country," said a young soldier stationed in the capital.

"I don't believe in Mousavi because I have heard he is working for America, Israel and the British. My problem is that this country is losing its self-respect and its respect for correct Islamic values."

He added: "The son of [Ayatollah Vaez-Tabasi] the religious leader of the Imam Reza mosque in Mashad," a central site of pilgrimage, "has left Iran for America with his pregnant wife. Even Mr. Ahmadinejad's supporters like Tabasi don't trust our country enough to allow their kids to stay here."

...

While it is impossible to predict how the widespread bitterness, and the regime's often brutal response to protest will play out, it is hard to imagine that the ongoing use of force to stifle opposition will prove effective in the long term.

I was myself assaulted violently by a plainclothes security officer during this visit, falsely accused of spreading opposition propaganda. To my relief, a police officer intervened. If it was not for him, I don't know where I would be today.

"I can't just stand back and watch the violence," my rescuer said to me afterwards. "At times it is too much."

It doesn't sound like much has changed in Iran at all since last summer, nor like anything will change even if the opposition wins.

You will recall that the Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance complained in November about Sabina's presence in the country. Stay safe Sabina.

Israel Matzav: JPost correspondent assaulted in Tehran

Israel Matzav: Jerusalem District Court allows Israelis to sue 'Palestinian' terrorists

Jerusalem District Court allows Israelis to sue 'Palestinian' terrorists

The Jerusalem District Court has issued a ruling that makes it easier for Israelis to sue 'Palestinian' terrorists in Israel.

The Jerusalem District Court, in an unprecedented decision, has ruled that legal papers can be served against individuals representing terrorist groups without having to deliver the suit personally to the terrorist group. Previous suits filed against the Palestinian Authority in the United States and in Israel have amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, and the new open door for more lawsuits could help cripple the terrorist organizations politically and financially.

The decision overrules a lower court ruling and opens the door for individual lawsuits by victims of terror groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, according to the Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin).

“One cannot very well travel into the Gaza Strip to hand Hamas the papers,” explained the Law Center. “It is far too dangerous to enter Jenin, where Fatah's bomb factories are located, and try to catch them at work. Moreover, there are not many process servers willing to deliver a complaint to Hizbullah for us in southern Lebanon."

The District Court reasoned that a terrorist organization is similar to a business corporation, allowing its de facto representatives to be served legal papers.

Unfortunately, it's much more likely that it will drive the 'de facto representatives' who are actually located in Israel into hiding. We'll probably see a lot more press conferences like the Hamas one at the top of this post. Or we'll see the IDF driving up to terror headquarters to serve summonses.

Israel Matzav: Jerusalem District Court allows Israelis to sue 'Palestinian' terrorists

Israel Matzav: Good news: Israeli company sells computer system to Iran

Good news: Israeli company sells computer system to Iran

An Israeli information technology company is selling an online business management system to the Tehran Chamber of Commerce despite restrictions in both countries against doing business with each other.

Yehoshua Meiri, a spokesman for the Ramat Gan-based company DaroNet, said his company had sold Teheran's Chamber of Commerce more than 70 licenses providing for the use of DaroNet's signature business Web site management software.

The $1 million deal, signed last month at DaroNet's European headquarters in Belgium, involved a down payment of $200,000, to be followed by 10 payments throughout the year.

"The deal is signed and delivered," Meiri said. "They can't go back on it now."

And how did they get around the fact that Israeli companies aren't allowed to sell to Iran?

Meiri said his company only realized it was selling the system to an Iranian entity when it was asked to translate the system into Farsi. The contract was signed with a European businessman from the Netherlands representing the Teheran Chamber of Commerce.

I want to make something clear up front: In general, the Israeli government is more than happy to have Israeli companies sell to countries that are our enemies. I once represented a company that was selling to Malaysia and had set up a separate entity to do that. Over the years, I have been involved in business (or attempts to do business) in that country as well as in many countries across the Arab world (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria and the Emirates all come to mind). But not Iran and not Syria. How can Israel expect other countries not to sell high tech (especially high tech!) equipment to Iran when we ourselves are doing so?

I hope Daronet is prosecuted. It's obvious that they knew darned well to whom they were selling.

Read the whole thing. And for those who don't read Hebrew, the first number at the top is their phone number (substitute +972-3 for 03 outside of Israel) and the second number is their fax number.

Israel Matzav: Good news: Israeli company sells computer system to Iran

Israel Matzav: How long will it take to count the vote in Massachusetts?

How long will it take to count the vote in Massachusetts?

Even though I'm in Israel, I've been following the Massachusetts special election for the Senate quite closely. I have noted previously that I support Republican candidate Scott Brown (pictured). I found this article in the New York Daily News quite disturbing.

“The tell us that it takes 10 days to count the vote in Massachusetts, so I’m sure they’ll be doing a very slow count,” Engel said, only half joking.

And I thought that it was only the Middle East where political parties cheat. Silly me.

Israel Matzav: How long will it take to count the vote in Massachusetts?

Israel Matzav: What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong with this picture?

Blogger Scaramouche reports on how she was frisked at Toronto's Pearson International Airport (Hat Tip: Jihad Watch).

The you-must-be-freakin'-kidding-me aspect of my first frisking, in Toronto (apart from the fact that men and women were divided into two lines so that everyone could get up close and personal with a same-sex frisker) was the garb of the "security" official directing those of us in the chick line to the chick-frisker who would do the deed: she was wearing a heavy duty hijab.

Yes, that's right. Yours truly, anti-jihad warrior, was ordered to hop to it (apparently, I wasn't moving quickly enough for her taste) by a "security" official who displays her devotion to the sharia worldview for all to see; someone who, though she may not agree with Abdulmattalab's exploding gotchies modus operandi is in synch with its religio-ideological underpinnings. Hijab gal is supposed to keep us infidels safe from the likes of BombPants.

What's wrong with this picture?

You obviously haven't flown through London lately. At Heathrow, it seems like most of the security is made up of what they so sweetly call 'South Asians.'

Israel Matzav: What's wrong with this picture?

Israel Matzav: Three Fatah terrorists arrested, planned 'significant attack'

Three Fatah terrorists arrested, planned 'significant attack'

Well, at least that's what this two-sentence report says.

But it's the second sentence that's most interesting.

The IDF estimates that Fatah also initiates attacks to thwart the Shalit deal.

In other words, Fatah hates Hamas more than they hate us Jooos, but they don't dare attack Hamas, so they attack us Jooos instead.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Three Fatah terrorists arrested, planned 'significant attack'

Israel Matzav: 'Gestures' to 'Palestinians' over?

'Gestures' to 'Palestinians' over?

I'd have a little more faith in this if it were coming from someone who was demanding 'concessions' in the first place, like Ehud Barak. Barak and company seem to be dominating this government so far. But for what it's worth, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says that Israel is done making 'concessions' to the 'Palestinians.'

"From our position we are finished with the arsenal of gestures," he said. "There will not be any other gestures."

Lieberman rejected two ideas that have recently been broached to lure the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiation table - the reopening of Orient House and the halt of Jewish construction in east Jerusalem.

"Right now we are waiting for gestures from the Palestinians," he said.

Well, good luck with that.

Lieberman made the statement during a press conference with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store. That press conference also yielded this exchange.

One of the issues that came up in the September meeting, but not on Sunday, had to do with the Norwegian Culture Ministry's marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nazi-sympathizing Norwegian author Knut Hamsun (1859-1952), who in 1945 wrote an obituary for Adolf Hitler in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten and called him a "warrior for mankind."

Nevertheless, at the press conference Store was asked about the issue and said that Norway made a distinction between Hamsun's writing and his political views.

"We had a year marking his literature, but also used the year to put into the right perspective the hopelessness of his political views," Store said.

Lieberman, however, took issue with this, saying that he could not accept the fact that someone who sent the medal for his Nobel Prize for literature to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels as a sign of admiration, and eulogized Hitler, could be legitimized in any sort of way, "not as a man, and not as a writer. Any attempt to distinguish between his personality and his literature, I think, is artificial," he said.

In a morally bankrupt world that continues to insist on calling Nazi supporters great writers and heroes, can we really expect that there will not be continued pressure on Israel for more 'concessions' to a terror organization? This is why Israel needs a strong government that is willing to stand up to the pressure and say no. So far, I haven't seen that from this government.

Israel Matzav: 'Gestures' to 'Palestinians' over?

Israel Matzav: But of course: 'Moderate' Fatah to murder land sellers

But of course: 'Moderate' Fatah to murder land sellers

But of course. President Obumbler and the Euroweenies favorite terrorist, 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen threatened on Sunday to murder 'Palestinians' who sell land to the evil Joooos. He also bragged about how with the help of their allies in the West, the 'Palestinians' have gotten the Jooos to negotiate against themselves.

In a speech to the Revolutionary Council, Machmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) said that Palestinians have not moved from their basic positions since 1988, while Israel has began to talk about a state with temporary borders.

He also said the PA would pursue Arabs who sell land to Jews.

Is anyone in the Knesset listening? What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: But of course: 'Moderate' Fatah to murder land sellers

Israel Matzav: US doesn't want a wimp for an ally

US doesn't want a wimp for an ally

Former Israeli consul general for Houston, Texas, Yoram Ettinger, says Israel has to be defiant once in a while because the United States doesn't want a wimp for an ally.

Let's go to the videotape. The interview with Ettinger starts at 4:36.

He spoke with Arutz Sheva TV following reports that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asked permission from the Obama government to build 700 housing units in Jerusalem. In the above video, Ettinger states that “respect to Israel is upgraded as a result of defiance,” as has been demonstrated in previous disputes between Jerusalem and Washington.

He also reiterated what he calls "the demographic lie” that claims that the demographic forecast of an Arab majority in Israel is a justified reason for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Ettinger is not exaggerating. Consider this. In late 2006, the United States cut off all technology transfers to Israel. The reason? The US was disappointed that Israel did not attack Syria during the Second Lebanon War and was disappointed with Israel's performance in that war generally.

When was Israel's star the brightest in American eyes? After the Six Day War, when Israel had pummeled all the Arab armies. It has been going downhill ever since because we have been weak and indecisive and therefore a less deserving ally.

No, the US does not want a wimp for an ally. When will we wake up and start behaving like a valuable ally?

Israel Matzav: US doesn't want a wimp for an ally

Israel Matzav: Shin Bet: 2009 was a very good year

Shin Bet: 2009 was a very good year

According to the Shin Bet General Security Service (equivalent to the FBI and the Secret Service rolled into one), 2009 was a very good year for Israel.

According to the Shin Bet's 2009 annual summary, this was the first year in which no suicide attacks were executed in Israel.

The number of casualties in battles and rocket attacks also declined, according to the summary. Most occurred during Israel's Cast Lead military operation in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009.

Israel registered 15 casualties in 2009 - 9 of them during the Gaza operation - as opposed to 36 in 2008. The Shin Bet said 234 injuries occurred, of which 185 were during Cast Lead, as opposed to 679 in 2008.

Rockets launched against Israel declined to 566 in 2009 from 2,048 in 2008. Of these, 406 were launched during the military operation.

The number of suicide attacks has been low in recent years compared to the 53 committed in 2002 and 35 in 2001.

Why was 2009 such a good year? On the Gaza front, it was because of Operation Cast Lead, which left Hamas reeling.

And in Judea and Samaria it was because of yet another year of the IDF arresting terrorists and getting in the way of their plans. And yes, because of the 'security fence.'

But the Obama administration wants to change all that. What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Shin Bet: 2009 was a very good year

Elder of Ziyon: Canada cuts funding to anti-Israel groups

Elder of Ziyon: Canada cuts funding to anti-Israel groups

DoubleTapper: IDF in Haiti Receives Paise From International Press

IDF in Haiti Receives Paise From International Press

CNN has done a story praising Israel and the IDF for the medical aid they are providing in Haiti following the devastating earthquake.


The medical teams, all members of the Israel Defence Force, flew in all the equipment needed for conducting surgery and they were the only medical team to do so. The other field hospitals contain no more than stretcher beds and medical teams who administer first aid, and they are not prepared for complex surgery. As a result, all of the other medical aid units from other countries that arrived to help are sending patients with life-threatening injuries in need of operation to the Israeli field hospital. Israel's dedicated young men and women are working around the clock to save lives.

ABC praised the Israeli mission which had assisted a birth using a complicated procedure. The network’s reporter, himself a trained doctor, came across a woman on the point of giving birth. First he tried to assist, but when he discovered the baby was turned sideways, he knew there was trouble. This baby had to be born via C-section and even then there were risks. He consulted experts in the U.S. but they wrote back things like “this baby will be IMPOSSIBLE to deliver alive in Haiti.” Then he remembered the Israeli field hospital, called the Israeli consulate in New York and was directed to the IDF camp. The mother’s life, it turns out, was also in extreme danger as she was suffering from pre-eclampsia, the biggest killer of pregnant women in Haiti.

“I understood that they were looking for the Israeli mission,” said Joel Lion, Israeli consulate spokesman. “I called the military attaché in Washington to get the address of the mission… then, via Blackberry, I managed to get the coordinates and direct them there.”

When they arrived at the hospital, the young woman was taken in and eight hours later a healthy baby girl was born.

ABC reported extensively on the story and even sent a letter of thanks to the Israeli representative in New York. “They were very moving moments. It was amazing to be party to saving life and bringing a baby into the world. And most amazing was that it was all directed via a cell phone,” said Lion. “We will pass on the expressions of thanks to the doctors and the wonderful staff at the Israeli field hospital in Haiti.”

There are more than 100 patients awaiting surgery by the skilled hands of IDF doctors and nurses.

Another baby was born in the IDF Field hospital under life-threatening conditions –the mother named him Israel.

From CNN: “At a U.S. medical facility in Port-au-Prince, families were “with their loved ones who they were so excited to see alive, only now to watch them die a slow, painful death from their rotting flesh because the infections are out of control and they need surgery,” Furin said.
“I’ve been here since Thursday. No one except the Israeli hospital has taken any of our patients,” she told CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen.

Cohen visited the Israeli hospital and said it was “like another world,” with imaging equipment and other machinery. “They have actual operating rooms, and it’s just amazing.”

DoubleTapper: IDF in Haiti Receives Paise From International Press

Love of the Land: It won’t just go away

It won’t just go away

Now Lebanon
New Opinion
18 January '10

When asked about the Irish question, Oliver Cromwell was alleged to have said, “If we forget about it, it will go away.” That was in 17th century England; over 300 years later the English are still trying to answer the Irish “question”. If the great parliamentarian were alive today, he might have a word or two to say to the Lebanese, many of whom appear to have forgotten about quite a lot.

For a while many of our politicians have kissed and made up with their so-called former rivals, and while senior diplomats have echoed their respective nations’ approval of the reconciliations, there is still the little “question” of Hezbollah, its weapons and its martial posture, which, if the rhetoric of the last few days is anything to go by, is becoming increasingly belligerent. In fact such is the level of saber rattling that we have to ask ourselves who is running the show in Lebanon.

Sunday saw the wrapping up of a three-day Arab and international forum in Beirut on supporting the Resistance. In the final statement, the delegates called for Arab states to announce the failure of the Middle East peace process and adopt a “confrontational” approach with Israel. Nothing new there you might say, but it was the call for the “strengthening of resistance culture in educational curriculums, literature and arts” that will send a shiver down the spines of Lebanese who have witnessed firsthand what the Resistance has achieved in recent years.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: It won’t just go away

Love of the Land: Good news: Israeli company sells computer system to Iran

Good news: Israeli company sells computer system to Iran

Carl
Israel Matzav
18 January '10

An Israeli information technology company is selling an online business management system to the Tehran Chamber of Commerce despite restrictions in both countries against doing business with each other.

Yehoshua Meiri, a spokesman for the Ramat Gan-based company DaroNet, said his company had sold Teheran's Chamber of Commerce more than 70 licenses providing for the use of DaroNet's signature business Web site management software.

The $1 million deal, signed last month at DaroNet's European headquarters in Belgium, involved a down payment of $200,000, to be followed by 10 payments throughout the year.

"The deal is signed and delivered," Meiri said. "They can't go back on it now."

And how did they get around the fact that Israeli companies aren't allowed to sell to Iran?

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Good news: Israeli company sells computer system to Iran

Love of the Land: How many Gaza civilians were killed by Hamas rockets?

How many Gaza civilians were killed by Hamas rockets?

Elder of Ziyon
18 January '10

Palestine Press Agency reports that the house of Ibrahim Naji Sumairi was damaged by a Qassam rocket that fell short in the southern Gaza town of Qarara, and that his family was saved from a "certain death" by sheer luck. The rocket sprayed shrapnel all around the home.

Which brings up a question that the PCHR and B'Tselem and Goldstone did not try to answer: How many of the civilians killed in Gaza were actually killed by fire from Palestinian Arab armed groups? In the days before Cast Lead, two girls were killed in Gaza, and others were injured in separate rocket attacks.

These were not isolated incidents. In fact, in the month before Cast Lead began about 6% of the rockets fired landed in Gaza itself. During Cast Lead, some 800 Qassams were fired towards Israel, and the percentage that landed in Gaza itself is unknown, but we can safely assume that the number would have been even greater than 6% as the people launching the rockets were in a greater hurry than usual.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: How many Gaza civilians were killed by Hamas rockets?

Love of the Land: De la Démagogie en Amérique

De la Démagogie en Amérique

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
18 January '10

In Tocqueville's days, traveling to America was such a big deal that you had you write a book about it –especially if you were an aristocrat with political ambitions in post-revolutionary France. Hence the masterly and classic De la Démocratie en Amérique.

Today, even writing a blog upon returning from the new world would seem preposterous; yet I venture to claim that my recent journey there makes a worthwhile story.

I happened to be in Washington DC right after the "deadline" set by the Obama Administration on Iran had been missed. With a few exceptions, most people on Capitol Hill barely took notice that America's credibility and deterrence were being tested. Congress' attention was primarily focused on healthcare reform as well as on some explosive underwear made in Nigeria.

Iran continues to produce stocks of enriched uranium. It was offered a deal by which Russia and France would have taken much of its stock of low-enriched uranium and turned it into special higher-enriched fuel for a Teheran-based research reactor. The deadline for taking that offer was the end of 2009, and Iran rejected it.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: De la Démagogie en Amérique

Love of the Land: Anything but Jewish

Anything but Jewish

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror
17 January '10

Examples of Arab disregard for historic Jewish sites and artifacts could easily fill a book, and it wouldn't be a problem to fill an additional volume with examples of Arab denials of the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the region. In the most recent example, Jordanian authorities apparently felt no embarrassment at claiming the Dead Sea Scrolls are "our antiquities," and the Palestinians no qualms in asserting the scrolls are "part of Palestinian heritage."

In an apparent attempt to bolster these claims, Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab recently shared his memories of "Growing Up in Bethlehem With the Dead Sea Scrolls Story" with readers of The Huffington Post.

Kuttab professes to be particularly upset by Israeli claims that "the scrolls have no connection to Jordan or the Jordanian people" but are instead "an intrinsic part of Jewish heritage and religion." Kuttab seems to think that these Israeli claims are easily invalidated by his own childhood memories of being told the story about the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls by a Beduin goat herder - who then asked an Arab cobbler to make sandals out of them. Fortunately, the cobbler realized that these scrolls could be valuable, and according to Kuttab, they eventually were passed on to a high-ranking official of the Syrian Orthodox Church, who managed to sell them for a fortune.

So much for the deeply-felt Arab attachment to this unique historic treasure.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Anything but Jewish

Love of the Land: Freedman tries Pavlov

Freedman tries Pavlov

Israelinurse
CiF Watch
17 January '10

“No Eastern land occupied by a sedentary population has as uncertain a water-supply as Palestine. Its Mediterranean climate leaves it without any rain for about half of each year, on the average. Since Palestine is at the southern end of the rainy westerly winds, its rainfall becomes progressively more scanty as one goes south towards the Negeb. Winters with inadequate rainfall are both frequent and unpredictable, and disastrous famines have thus been common throughout its history.”

The above words were written by the famous archaeologist W.F. Albright in his fascinating book ‘the Archaeology of Palestine’ in 1949, but Seth Freedman would have us believe that water shortages in this part of the world are not only relatively new, but somehow deliberately engineered. In his familiar florid style, Freedman recounts his visits to encampments of the Jahalin Bedouin tribe and with typical British romanticism – a sort of ‘Lawrence of Suburbia’ – dramatically depicts the suffering of these noble tribesmen at the hands of the dastardly Israeli regime.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Freedman tries Pavlov

Love of the Land: Radical Arab MKs: What would Abraham Lincoln do?

Radical Arab MKs: What would Abraham Lincoln do?

David Gleicher
Opinion/JPost
17 January '10

Both Liat Collins and Danny Ayalon, in their recent Jerusalem Post columns "The democratic dilemma" and "Civic responsibility should not be optional" respectively, raise the issue of how the government should respond to the anti-Israel actions of our radical Arab Knesset members. As a student of history, whenever I read about this problem, I think of Abraham Lincoln, the greatest American president, and his response to the activities of Representative Clement Vallandigham (pronounced veLANdigam).

When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Vallandigham was a Democratic congressman, representing Dayton, Ohio. Some background for non-American readers: The Civil War involved the attempt of the southern slave-holding states to secede from the Union and form their own country, the Confederate States of America. Vallandigham, though personally opposed to slavery, believed that the federal government had no constitutional right to prevent the secession of the southern states. Naturally, he was even more adamantly opposed to the use of military force to pull the South back into the Union. Vallandigham was the leader of the "Copperheads," the anti-war, pro-Confederacy Democrats of the North.

In 1863, Gen. Ambrose Burnside, in charge of the military district of Ohio, issued an order declaring that public declarations of sympathy for the enemy would not be tolerated. Vallandigham was not deterred, and increased the provocative language of his speeches, charging that the war was being fought to free slaves, not to save the Union, and that the president was "King Lincoln" who should be removed from the presidency. He also declared that he "did not want to belong to the United States."

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Radical Arab MKs: What would Abraham Lincoln do?

Love of the Land: Full Report: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Hatred on the Huffington Post

Full Report: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Hatred on the Huffington Post

Welcome to the ugly side of the most powerful blog in the world.

Huff-Watch
FrontPageMag.com
14 January '10

[Editors’ note: The following is an introduction to, and summary of a new investigative report by Huff-Watch: "The Stimulus And The (Approved) Response: Anti-Semitism and Israel-Hatred on Huffington Post." Click herefor the full report.]

---

In its four years of existence,The Huffington Post (aka “HuffPost”) has grown from obscurity into the world’s most-visited blogsite, and one of America’s most popular news sites. It now has more monthly visitors than the Washington Post, and is supported by some of the largest advertisers in the world. Its representatives have been allowed to ask questions at presidential press conferences, and one was even given preferential treatment. It now enjoys access to, and influence over, the top levels of the U.S. government. Top members of the U.S. Senate are among HuffPost’s official bloggers, including John Kerry, Carl Levin, Chris Dodd, Barbara Boxer and others.

A significant reason for HuffPost’s success and “legitimization” are its claims that it is a nonpartisan “newspaper,” dedicated to “ferret(ing) out the truth,”and “debunking the left-right way of thinking.”

HuffPost also claims to be non-partisan in its moderation of user comments. Arianna Huffington, the site’s founder and Editor-In-Chief, claims HuffPost has “a zero tolerance policy” for hate speech, and that it acts vigilantly to keep its comment threads free of offensive content, 24-7.

Unfortunately, HuffPost consistently “frames” news stories in such a way that incites anti-Israel perceptions and hatred. Further, in violation of its own policies, it approves and tolerates user comments submitted in response to these stories that contain incendiary, hate-filled libels against Israelis and Jews, as well as links to anti-Semitic hate websites.

(Read full report)

Love of the Land: Full Report: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Hatred on the Huffington Post

Love of the Land: AP's Erasing of the Erasing of Iraq's Jewish History

AP's Erasing of the Erasing of Iraq's Jewish History

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
17 January '10

"Iraq reclaims a Jewish history it once shunned" proclaims the headline of Rebecca Santana's AP article today. Good news, right? The lengthy article ostensibly examines the intentions of the Iraqi authorities seeking the return of Iraqi Jewish archives taken and restored by Americans during the Iraq war, and includes the claims by Iraqi authorities that they genuinely seek to preserve "our cultural heritage."

Meanwhile, completely unmentioned by the AP, Iraq's Antiquities and Heritage Authority is reportedly erasing all signs of Judaism at the holy site of Ezekiel's tomb. Just two days ago the Jerusalem Post reported:

For centuries Jews, Christians and Muslims came to Al-Kifl, a small town south of Baghdad, to visit the tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel and pray.
The distinctive Jewish character of the Al-Kifl shrine, namely the Hebrew inscriptions and the Torah Ark, never bothered the gentile worshipers. In the 14th century a minaret was built next to the shrine, but the interior design remained Jewish. The vast majority of Iraq's Jewish community left some 60 years ago, but Shi'ites took good care of the holy site.
Until now.

Recently "Ur," a local Iraqi news agency, reported that a huge mosque will be built on top of the grave by Iraq's Antiquities and Heritage Authority, while Hebrew inscriptions and ornaments are being removed from the site, all as part of renovations.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: AP's Erasing of the Erasing of Iraq's Jewish History

Love of the Land: Punishing the Innocent Instead of the Guilty

Punishing the Innocent Instead of the Guilty

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
17 January '10

You have to admire Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s negotiating savvy. Someone less shrewd might have assumed that with the whole world seemingly desperate to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks, the party that refused would be penalized. Abbas correctly calculated that by refusing to talk, he could reap concrete benefits even before negotiations began.

He has already secured a 10-month settlement freeze from Israel. Initially, that was supposed to be matched by gestures toward normalization from Arab states. But the Arab states refused; Washington declined to press; and in the end, Israel gave something for nothing.

Yet Abbas still said no. So now the world is busily seeking more unilateral Israeli concessions to entice him to the table. Haaretz reported today that at a Quartet meeting last Wednesday, the European Union and Russia proposed demanding that Israel allow Orient House (the PA’s de facto foreign ministry) and other PA government offices to reopen in East Jerusalem. That is effectively a demand that Israel concede Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem even before the talks begin: while embassies are located in foreign countries, government offices are usually located in one’s own.

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Love of the Land: Punishing the Innocent Instead of the Guilty

Even Wetter Desert

Even Wetter Desert

Dr. Benny Shalmon, an ecologist in Eilat, explains: This is the first large storm in the southern third of the Negev since the late 1990s. Some years there's no rain at all, often there's a drizzle here or there. It takes a good storm, that fills the gullies and the waterholes and thoroughly wets everything, to give the desert ecosystem a push to last for another few years.

Those with any choice in the matter might want to schedule a hike to the southern Negev this spring. It will be washed and green, as much as a desert can be.

(It's also an area where no Palestinians lived, ever, and there's no bi-national conflict to be seen. Just desert, with all the harsh beauty that entails.)

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

A Wet Desert

A Wet Desert

For those of you who lived in dryness-challenged environments, here's how it works with deserts. There's very little rain, so there's very little vegetation. Very little of those means there's very little good topsoil. Very little good topsoil and vegetation means that when it does rain, there's very little capture or absorption of the water. Ergo, when it rains, it floods. When it rains hard, like it has been since yesterday evening, the floods are powerful. How powerful? Well, they can tear away a paved road in minutes, and can flip over a heavy vehicle and send it downstream in seconds.

That's more or less the whole theory. Not complicated, if you think about it for a moment. The thing is, rain storms such as this one don't happen very often (it's a desert), maybe once or twice a decade, depending on size. This one may yet turn out to be even rarer than that: sometimes there are storms of a once-or-twice-in-a-century magnitude. Statistically, by the time a large one rolls in, some folks will have acquired their new SUV in the interval, or they'll be driving a truck they didn't have last time around. Inevitably, some fool will puff up his chest and drive across the roaring water. After all, it's only, what, a few hundred feet? You can see the other side, and it doesn't even look deep. What do you want me to do, sit here and wait 24 hours? I'm a busy man.

Every time there's a storm in the desert, some fool needs the air force to get out of the trouble a six-year-old could have told him not to get into in the first place. If he gets out. In this case, one fellow did, one is dead, and the third is missing. (The video gives only a vague hint of the power, but it's still impressive).

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Freedom of Demonstration

Freedom of Demonstration

Regular readers will know I'm hardly a fan of our far-left organizations who falsely use the language of human rights in our national discussions. Sometimes, however, they're right, and in the present case, it was the stupidity of the police which cast the mantle onto them and forces people such as myself, who really do care about human rights, to defend them.

For the past few months there have been demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah, an area about one block to the East of Route One where there are Jewish graves from the Mishnaic era and from which Jews were violently evicted by the Jordanians in 1948. If you think political matters can be resolved by wielding laws (I don't) you'll have to accept that the legal stand of the Jews who have been moving into Sheihk Jarrah over the past 15 years or so is rather solid, and the recent spate of activity and demonstrations is pure politics with very little to do with human rights or law. Anyway, that's how the courts see it.

None of which detracts from the right of people to object. It would be nice if they clearly stated that their objection is political, but even if they don't, and pretend otherwise, they still have the right to express their opinion. As a society we must be scrupulous in defending their right. On Friday afternoon a police officer arrested 17 demonstrators, and it took more than 30 hours to get them out. The fact that Hagai Elad, the boss of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel was one of the 17 gave the event a high profile, but the event would have been equally wrong if no-one had ever heard of any of the arrestees. Eventually, late Saturday night, the case reached a judge, and she rejected the position of the police. Hopefully whoever is in charge will take note and take heed, and such things won't happen again.

What does this say about Israeli democracy? The editorial of Haaretz proclaims that

The only conclusion is that the police have decided to wage war on the demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah and use force to end the protests, something they have neither the right nor authority to do.

I don't see how this can logically be so. It's a possible conclusion, yes, though the police won't be able to go very far with it if the court objects, which means they've cooked up a stupid policy and will now be forced to back down. But it's clearly not "the only conclusion". It might be the particular police officer, on his own authority, made a serious misjudgment. Perhaps he was convinced things were about to spin out of control and he responded as best could, while the court saw it differently, as courts and police officers often do all over the world. Perhaps the officer who should have been in charge was called away unexpectedly because his mother in law was hospitalized and his replacement wasn't briefed on the situation. I'm making this up, of course I am, but so is the editor of Haaretz.

The bottom line is that freedom of demonstration has been defended, as it must be, though 17 people wrongly spent 30-some hours in detention and didn't enjoy it at all.

ORIGINALLY POSTRD BY Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

A Soldier's Mother: The Difference Between Life and Death

A Soldier's Mother: The Difference Between Life and Death

Elder of Ziyon: Canada moves money away from UNRWA

Elder of Ziyon: Canada moves money away from UNRWA

Elder of Ziyon: Which newspaper was hacked again?

Elder of Ziyon: Which newspaper was hacked again?

Elder of Ziyon: How many Gaza civilians were killed by Hamas rockets?

Elder of Ziyon: How many Gaza civilians were killed by Hamas rockets?

Elder of Ziyon: Details on Gaza strawberry and carnation exports

Elder of Ziyon: Details on Gaza strawberry and carnation exports

Elder of Ziyon: Iranian gov't buys software from...Israel?

Elder of Ziyon: Iranian gov't buys software from...Israel?