Israel Matzav: Michael Ledeen on self-reliance

Israel Matzav: Michael Ledeen on self-reliance

Israel Matzav: Netanyahu to make major foreign policy address next Sunday

Netanyahu to make major foreign policy address next Sunday

Behaving more like an American President than like an Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu will make a major foreign policy address to lay out what the Jerusalem Post calls his 'peace vision' at Bar Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center next Sunday.

The Jerusalem Post has learned that National Security Council head Uzi Arad approached the BESA Center on Friday and asked if it would host the address. The BESA Center had been asking Netanyahu to come speak since his election in February.

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Israel Matzav: Netanyahu to make major foreign policy address next Sunday

Israel Matzav: Hezbullah: 'Hands off our weapons'

Israel Matzav: Hezbullah: 'Hands off our weapons'

Israel Matzav: Hamas converts 46 ambulances to military vehicles, misusing humanitarian aid

Hamas converts 46 ambulances to military vehicles, misusing humanitarian aid

I guess Hamas doesn't need ambulances.

PMW has documented the repeated use of foreign funding by both the PA and Hamas for terror and glorification of terror. The following is another case of well intended humanitarian assistance given to Palestinians that is appropriated for military or terror purposes

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Israel Matzav: Hamas converts 46 ambulances to military vehicles, misusing humanitarian aid

Israel Matzav: Clinton warns Ahmadinejad: 'Watch out for the crazy Jews'

Clinton warns Ahmadinejad: 'Watch out for the crazy Jews'

Appearing on ABC's This Week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel may strike pre-emptively against Iran's nuclear facilities should Israel feel threatened. She also warned of 'massive retaliation' should Iran attack Israel, supposedly the repetition of a position she advocated as a Presidential candidate last year. But if you watch what she says, you'll see that what she's actually threatening is an Israeli retaliation and not an American one.

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Israel Matzav: Clinton warns Ahmadinejad: 'Watch out for the crazy Jews'

Israel Matzav: UK supermarkets may be prosecuted for 'mislabeling' products' origin

UK supermarkets may be prosecuted for 'mislabeling' products' origin

'Palestinian activists' are seeking the prosecution of UK supermarkets for 'mislabeling' the origin of products that they claim were produced in 'settlements' located outside the 1949 armistice lines as either having come from Israel or from the 'West Bank' (the claim being that the latter term 'mistakenly' leads one to believe that the products were produced by 'Palestinians'

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Israel Matzav: UK supermarkets may be prosecuted for 'mislabeling' products' origin

Israel Matzav: The revenants' new best friend?

The revenants' new best friend?

Fifteen years ago, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri was the ultra-Orthodox community's darling of the Left. Deri himself seemed to believe in 'territorial compromise' and was close to Leftist icon Yossi Beilin, and Shas' spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, publicized halachic opinions that stated that it is permitted to turn over land to the 'Palestinians' in order to save lives - allegedly at Deri's behest.

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Israel Matzav: The revenants' new best friend?

Israel Matzav: Video: Sportobama

Israel Matzav: Video: Sportobama

Israel Matzav: IDF foils kidnapping attempt near Karni crossing point; UPDATE: Suicide horses used

IDF foils kidnapping attempt near Karni crossing point; UPDATE: Suicide horses used

The IDF foiled an attempt by 'Palestinian' terrorists to kidnap a soldier near the Karni crossing point in the Gaza Strip this morning. Four terrorists were killed.

Israeli Defense Forces foiled a kidnapping attempt shortly after dawn Monday when Golani troops identified six to 10 terrorists armed with mortar shells and trying to cross the separation barrier near Karni under cover of early morning fog.

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Israel Matzav: IDF foils kidnapping attempt near Karni crossing point; UPDATE: Suicide horses used

President Obama's Favor

Posted by Mordechai Friedfertig at 5:04 AM

08

Jun

2009

[Opening words of Ha-Rav on his radio show]

President Obama has truly done us a great favor, despite what many think, because when people give us trouble, it unites us. The Nation which dwells in the Land is not panicked by threats and dictates. There is obviously a dispute within the Nation of Israel whether to evacuate settlements but when a demand comes from Obama it infuriates many Jews. They say: "This is an inner dispute between us. He is going to tell us what to do?! Furthermore, he doesn't want us to expand existing houses to allow for natural growth. Where should we put our children? – outside in boxes!" The Nation of Israel is therefore strengthened, and he is in fact doing us a big favor.

This obviously does not mean that we do not take into account what the Americans say. But we need to understand: we need them and they need us. Do not think that the Americans help us because of loving-kindness. Everything is based on cost-benefit analysis. They give aid to where it will benefit them. They give us military help because they profit from it. There was once the "Rogers’ Plan" – it is always the same plan to expel us from parts of Eretz Yisrael but they change the name. Rogers said to Prime Minister Golda Meir: If you do not accept the plan, we will not provide you with weapons. Mrs. Golda Meir replied: We will live and see. In the end, they provided weapons. We do not need to panic. They need us just as we need them.

Regarding the money which we receive from the Americans, this is truly a shame and embarrassment which cannot be describe. Have we become beggars? Being a beggar is shameful when it is an individual and all-the-more-so when it is a nation. Why does an American need to provide me with a livelihood? We are an extremely wealthy Nation – the fifteenth wealthiest Nation in the world. We receive a few billion which is a negligible part of our budget. After the establishment of the State we did not have any money to buy weapons and to develop means to provide jobs – it wasn't good then – but I understand why we took money. But now, taking money from America is an illness. This is similar to the people who collect money at the Kotel and they are extremely wealthy. They continue to beg for money there because it is a sickness. There was once a beggar there and his brother said to him: "Stop. I will give you money to establish a business." The beggar said: "Do not judge your fellow until you walk in his shoes. Come to ask for Tzedakah with me at the Kotel and then we will talk." The brother put on rags and stood at the Kotel all day with his brother asking for Tzedakah. The beggar said: "We leave at five." At five o'clock, the beggar said: "It's five, let's go." At that exact moment, wealthy tourists were coming. The normal brother said: "After them." The beggar said to his brother: "You see. One day of collecting Tzedakah and you are already addicted." It is a sickness! And now this sickness has become a national sickness, so that we are asking the Americans for a small percentage of our budget. This is a desecration of Hashem's Name. We should be doing the exact opposite: calculating how much we have received from the Americans and tell them that we are so grateful for their financial aid and we will pay it back little-by-little.

Some people think that if the Americans pressure we have to bow to the pressure. This is incorrect. Since the American see that we are willing to bow to the pressure, they exert pressure. This is a known saying: One who makes himself into a sheep, the wolf will eat him. We must say to the American that we do not interfere in their matters and please do not interfere in ours. We are ready to take advice and to discuss, but please do not dictate to us.

In conclusion: a true story. A President of the US once said: You Jews must stop dreaming of the whole Land of Israel. Two Rabbis wrote him: Honorable President, we are accustomed to you, the Americans, interfering in our affairs and giving us advice all of the time as to what we should do. But it is a huge innovation for you to interfere as to what we should dream.

Therefore, we are informing you that we began to dream about returning to the Land of Israel and building the Land, "When Hashem will bring the exiles back to Zion, we will be like dreamers" (Tehillim 126:1), before your country existed. And now – Baruch Hashem – our dream is beginning to come to fruition. Therefore, we will certainly take into consideration what you say but we are not afraid of all sorts of pressure.

taken from :Torat HaRav Aviner

MONDOWEISS AGITPROP

Mondoweiss Agitprop

There's a lot of talk swirling around the blogosphere about a short video Max Blumenthal made last week in Jerusalem. Blumenthal purportedly wandered through downtown Jerusalem last week, the evening before Obama's Cairo speech, and recorded the sentiments of folks; the result he found and shows is that Jerusalemites have an obscene hatred of Obama the Nigger.

There's been a lot of discussion about how it's unfair to line up some inebriated teenagers (especially American ones who aren't allowed to buy liquor at home but can do so in Israel) and attribute their idiocy to Vox Populi; people who don't like Israel have countered by saying that what people say when they've drunk too much is indicative of what they think but don't say when they're sober (I agree on this, by the way).

My contribution to the discussion, if a discussion it is, is that Blumenthal's collection of interviewees is – at best – odd. He says he wandered through downtown, yet the video is made at two places only. One, Rivlin street, is the haunt of the American one-year-students crowd, though you can find tipsy European tourists there also, and of course some local Israelis. It's one block long, the whole street. The second place was Jaffa street near Ben Yehuda – indeed, the center of town – about a block away from Rivlin. And the whole time Blumenthal's camera was on, he never saw even one single Israeli? How likely is that?

Say you're interviewing the locals at Time Square about some matter, so as to figure out what Americans think. Inevitably, you'll come across a lot of tourists, it being Time Square, but what are the chances you'll find not a single card-carrying American? And if that happens, and you then post your video to Youtube to castigate America, what does that tell us about you?

I've been eying the folks at Mondoweiss for a while, wondering if they're worth some closer analysis; maybe they are, instead of Glenn Greenwald who is proving uninteresting for my purposes.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

THE LEICA FREEDOM TRAIN

THE LEICA FREEDOM TRAIN

A REMARKABLE STORY ABOUT HEROISM IN THE FACE OF DARKNESS:

THE LEICA FREEDOM TRAIN

The Leica is the pioneer 35mm camera. It is a German product - precise,minimalist, and utterly efficient. Behind its worldwide acceptance as a creative tool was a family-owned, socially oriented firm that, during the Nazi era, acted with uncommon grace, generosity and modesty.

E. Leitz Inc., designer and manufacturer of Germany's most famous photographic product, saved its Jews.And Ernst Leitz II, the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch who headed theclosely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe, acted in such a way as to earn the title, "the photography industry's Schindler.

"The 'Leica Freedom Train'

As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in 1933, Ernst Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, askingfor his help in getting them and their families out of the country.As Christians, Leitz and his family were immune to Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws, which restricted the movement of Jews and limited theirprofessional activities.

To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly establishedwhat has become known among historians of the Holocaust as "the Leica F reedom Train," a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in t heguise of Leitz employees being assigned overseas.

Employees, retailers, family members, even friends of family members were "assigned" to Leitz sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kongand the United States . Leitz's a ctivities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938, during which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned acrossGermany.

Before long, German "employees" were disembarking from the ocean linerBremen at a New York pier and making their way to the Manhattan office of Leitz Inc., where executives quickly found them jobs in the photographic industry.*Each new arrival had around his or her neck the symbol of freedom - anew Leica.

The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out ofthis migration came designers, repair technicians, salespeople,marketers and writers for the photographic press.

Keeping the story quiet

The "Leica Freedom Train" was at its height in 1938 and early 1939,delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks. Then, with the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany closed its borders.

By that time, hundreds of endangered Jews had escaped to America,thanks to the Leitzes' efforts. How did Ernst Leitz II and his staff get away with it?Leitz Inc. was an internationally recognized brand that reflectedcredit on the newly resurgent Reich.

The company produced range-findersand other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed hard currency from abroad, and Leitz'ssingle biggest market for optical goods was the United States.

Even so, members of the Leitz family and firm suffered for their good works. A top executive, Alfred Turk, was jailed for working to helpJews and freed only after the payment of a large bribe.

Leitz's daughter, Elsie Kuhn-Leitz, was imprisoned by the Gestapo after she was caught at the border, helping Jewish women cross intoSwitzerland. She eventually was freed but endured rough treatment inthe course of questioning.

She also fell under suspicion wh en she attempted to improve the living conditions of 700 to 800 Ukrainian slave laborers, all of them women,who had been assigned to work in the plant during the 1940s. (After the war, Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honors for her humanitarian efforts, among them the Officier d'honneur des PalmsAcademic from France in 1965 and the Aristide Briand Medal from theEuropean Academy in the 1970s.)

Why has no one told this story until now?According to the late Norman Lipton, a freelance writer and editor, theLeitz family wanted no publicity for its heroic efforts.

Only after thelast member of the Leitz family was dead did the "Leica Freedom Train"finally come to light.It is now the subject of a book, "The Greatest Invention of the Leitz Family: The Leica Freedom Train," by Frank Dabba Smith, a California-born Rabbi currently living in England.

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

OBAMA'S BIZARRE ORATION ...

Obama's bizarre oration....

Speaking Flattery to Power

By Barry Rubin *
June 5, 2009

Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo is one of the most bizarre orations ever made by a U.S. president, not a foreign policy statement but rather something invented by Obama, an international campaign speech, as if his main goal was to obtain votes in the next Egyptian primary.

That approach defined Obama’s basic themes: Islam’s great. America is good. We’re sorry. Be moderate (not that you haven’t always been that way). Let’s be friends.

Here, Obama followed the idea that if you want someone to like you agree with almost everything he says. Obama also gave, albeit with some minor variations, the speech that the leader of a Third World Muslim country might give, justifying it in advance by claiming America is a big Muslim country, after all.

Of course, the speech had tremendous—though temporary—appeal combined with its counterproductive strategic impact. It will make him more popular. It may well make America somewhat less unpopular. But its effect on Middle East issues and U.S. interests is another matter entirely.

The first problem is that Obama said many things factually quite untrue, some ridiculously so. Pages would be required to list all these inaccuracies.

The interesting question is whether Obama consciously lied or really believes it. I’d prefer him to be lying, because if he’s that ignorant then America and the world is in very deep trouble.

If he really believes Islam’s social role is so perfect, radical Islamists are a tiny minority, Palestinians have suffered hugely through no fault of their own, and so on, then he’s living in a fantasy world. Unfortunately, we are not.

The collision between reality and dream is going to be a terrible one. The second problem is the speech’s unnecessarily extreme one-sidedness. Obama portrays the West as the guilty party.

Despite a reference to September 11—even that presented as an American misdeed, unfair dislike of Islam resulting—he gave not a single example of Islamist or Muslim responsibility for anything wrong in the world. Obama could easily have made the same points in a balanced way: you’ve made mistakes; we’ve made mistakes. You’ve done things to us; we’ve done things to you. And having established that I respect you, let me tell you how Americans feel and what’s needed.

But that’s not how he chose to do it. So afraid was Obama of giving offense—and thus not maximizing his popularity-at-all–costs mission—he did the political equivalent of scoring an own-goal. President Bill Clinton said, “I feel your pain.” In effect, Obama declared, “We’re your pain.”So if Muslims are always the innocent victims, isn't Usama bin Ladin and others correct in saying that all the violence and terrorism to date has been just a "defensive Jihad" against external aggression and thus justifiable? Why should anything change simply because Obama has "admitted" this and asked to start over again?

When he cited examples of oppression, Obama listed only Bosnia (where he didn’t even mention the U.S. role in helping Muslims), along with Israel, and also the Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Darfur. He didn’t mention terrorist violence and mistreatement of non-Muslims by Muslims in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Iraq, Sudan, the Gaza Strip, against Israel, Europe or even Egypt itself.

This is a hallmark of the kind of thinking dominating much contemporary Western thought extending something that works in their own societies-- where self-criticism, apology, and unilateral concessions really can lead to the other side forgiving and compromising--to places where it doesn't work.

In the Middle East if you say you’re to blame, that communicates to the other side that their cause is right and they're entitled to everything it wants. If you apologize, you’re weak. Sure, some relatively Westernized urban liberals will take what Obama said that way, I doubt whether radical states and political forces, as well as the masses, will do so.The main ingredient in the Obama speech was flattery.

There is a bumper sticker that says: Don’t apologize. Your friends don’t need to hear it and your enemies don’t care. Obama’s situation might be described as: Don’t grovel. It scares the hell out of your friends and convinces your enemies you owe them big time.As a result, the mainstream in the region will say, “We were right all the time. Obama admitted it!” While more extreme radicals say, “We’ve won and America’s surrendering.”

But if Obama, as it appears, is running to be the region’s favorite politician, he’ll find he—not to mention America’s allies--has to give up many more things to win that dubious honor. Third, Obama undermined the existing states.

True, to Obama's credit, he did talk about reform, democracy, and equal rights for women. Yet the speech suggests to listeners is: democracy plus Islam equals solution. If Islam is so perfect and has such a great record—except for a tiny minority of extremists—why shouldn’t it rule? And since the extremists are presumably al-Qaida, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarians in the audience must have found a lot to applaud.

How will this go over with the rulers Obama wants as allies? Finally, Obama played into the stereotype that Israel is the central political issue in the region. Others, of course, are happy to find the usual scapegoat.

An Associated Press headline reads, “Obama’s Islam Success Depends on Israel.” Is the entire “Muslim World” just waiting for Israel to stop building a few thousand apartment units a year before deciding that America is great, reform is needed, and moderation wise.

Obama’s phrases were carefully crafted. He called on Palestinians to stop violence, show their competence in administration, and accept a two-state solution, living in peace alongside Israel.

Hamas was commanded to be moderate. Yet he in no way seemed to condition Palestinians getting a state on their record. His administration may think this way but he didn’t make that clear.Middle Eastern ears won’t hear this aspect--which is part of the reason they may cheer the speech—in the way Washington policymakers intend.

Inasmuch as the United States now has more credibility for them it’s because they hope it will just force Israel to give without them having to do much. When this doesn’t happen, anger will set in, intensified by the fact that the president “said” the Palestinians are in the right and should have a state right away. Everything specific concerning Israel’s needs and demands--an end to incitement, security for Israel, end of terrorism, resettlement of refugees in Palestine—weren’t there.

While Israel was specifically said to violate previous agreements on the construction within settlements issue—an assertion that’s flat-out wrong—there was no hint that the Palestinians had done so. I can’t shake the image of Obama as the new kid in school, just moved into the neighborhood, fearful of bullies, who says anything to ingratiate himself and is ready to turn over his lunch money.

There’s a famous line in “Citizen Kane” where one characters says that it’s very easy to make a lot of money….If all you want to do is make a lot of money. It’s also easy to make a lot of popularity, if that’s all one wants to do.An American president has to do more, a lot more.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East (Routledge), The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
MERIA is indexed in Index Islamicus and CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. ISSN: 1565-8996.*Serving Readers Throughout the Middle East and in 100 Countries*All material: Copyright MERIA Journal.You must credit if quoting and ask permission to reprint.

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

Shalom and Namaste: Jewish volunteers see a different side of Nepal - Haaretz - Israel News

Shalom and Namaste: Jewish volunteers see a different side of Nepal - Haaretz - Israel News

Chesler Chronicles » Obama Throws Muslim Women Under the Bus

Obama Throws Muslim Women Under the Bus

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how the North American mainstream media has consistently been mainstreaming the subject of Islam and veiled Muslim women as a friendly, feel-good kinda subject, nothing to be afraid of, something that may be “different” but that we are obligated to understand and accept? Specifically, the mainstream pro-feminist/pro-human rights media are arguing that Muslim women in hijab are “choosing” to face-veil themselves or to wear headscarves for religious reasons–and since North America is comprised of immigrants in search of religious freedom, such acceptance is actually part of our own tradition. We must understand that some Muslim girls and women are hurt, offended when we assume that they have been forced to veil when that might not be the case. Some Muslim girls are also quite happily attending women-only proms; they view hijab as “liberating” them from the sex object treatment reserved for uncovered women.

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Chesler Chronicles » Obama Throws Muslim Women Under the Bus

HonestReporting - NBC, Obama & the Lessons of Buchenwald

NBC, Obama & the Lessons of Buchenwald

NBC's Tom Brokaw attempts to lead President Obama into Israel - Nazi comparisons.

In our previous communique, we dealt with the abuse of Holocaust imagery as a method of attacking Israel. False parallels are created between Jewish suffering and the Palestinian situation and, inevitably, Israelis are portrayed as Nazis as part of the effort to delegitimize and demonize the Israeli state.

Was this false parallel inside the mind of NBC's Tom Brokaw when he asked the following question in an exclusive interview with US President Obama at the Buchenwald concentration camp?

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HonestReportingNBC, Obama & the Lessons of Buchenwald

Israel Matzav: Flashback: U.S. Amb. Kurtzer: "US policy is the support that the President has given for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centers"

Israel Matzav: Flashback: U.S. Amb. Kurtzer: "US policy is the support that the President has given for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centers"

TIM FLACH - HORSES

NO WORDS NEEDED

JUST WATCH

HORSES - PHOTOS: TIM FLACH

Israel Matzav: Clinton's climbdown

Clinton's climbdown

Buried deep in a Times of London column on the Middle East (co-authored by one Uzi Mahnaimi), comes word of an attempt to get Hillary Clinton down from the tree she scampered up called a 'settlement freeze.'

Obama demanded that Israel halt the construction of settlements on Palestinian land, but he avoided repeating Clinton’s stronger language that this be without exception - “not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions”, she said - which has left him little room for diplomacy.

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Israel Matzav: Clinton's climbdown

Israel Matzav: Israel's pilotless helicopter

Israel's pilotless helicopter

An Israeli firm called Steadicopter has developed an unmanned helicopter called the Black Eagle 50 (pictured).

Israeli firm Steadicopter has unveiled its Black Eagle 50 mini rotary unmanned air vehicle. The design is 2.3m (7.5ft) long and has a rotor diameter of 2m, with a maximum take-off weight of 35kg (77lb), including a 3kg payload.

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Israel Matzav: Israel's pilotless helicopter

Life in Israel: Only in Israel

Life in Israel: Only in Israel

The Torah Revolution: RE: #1, #3, #4 on Eden Natan Zada

The Torah Revolution: RE: #1, #3, #4 on Eden Natan Zada

The Torah Revolution: Let's reverse the charge and say this

The Torah Revolution: Let's reverse the charge and say this

DoubleTapper: Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary

تنسيق-الكليات-لعام سكس نيك كس

The Israeli surprise attack against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor took place on this day in 1981.

The mission was a complete success; operationally, and politically on both domestic and international fronts.

In a "surgical strike" deep within hostile territory, a squadron of heavily fueled, and heavily armed F-16As, with a group of F-15As providing air cover and fighter support, eliminated the reactor site, and returned to friendly territory without having to refuel.

The Osirak reactor complex was put out of commission, and the Iraqi nuclear program set back considerably. It has been suggested that the Israeli attack on the reactor prevented Iraq from using radioactive weaponry during the Iran-Iraq war, and Operation Desert Storm (the first Gulf war).

The Osirak facility remained in its damaged state until the Gulf War, when a prolonged series of US air strikes finally destroyed the site completely.

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DoubleTapper: Happy Anniversary

Israel Matzav: Saudi King Abdullah ordered Obama to impose 'solution'#links#links

Saudi King Abdullah ordered Obama to impose 'solution'

The Saudi daily al-Hayat reported on Sunday that Saudi King Abdullah ordered told President Obama last week that he should impose a 'solution' to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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Israel Matzav: Saudi King Abdullah ordered Obama to impose 'solution'

Israel Matzav: Expert: Iran wants to attack Europe, is laughing at Obama

Expert: Iran wants to attack Europe, is laughing at Obama

An Israeli expert on Iran, Ze’ev Maghen, says that Iran doesn't wish to commit suicide, and doesn't believe it has to in order to destroy Israel (God forbid). He also believes that Iran wishes to use Israel as a beachhead to attack Europe. He says that the Persian media is laughing at Obama.

The Iranian leadership certainly does seek Israel’s destruction, but they“care if Israel destroys Tehran. They don’t mind martyrdom, but why do that if everything is going so well?” he said.

...

“Iran’s goal is not merely to attack Tel Aviv. Their goal is much grander. They want to eradicate Israel as a state, but that’s only a first step.” Eliminating Israel would remove what the Iranians see as a “western outpost” and create a “beachhead into Europe,” he said.

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Israel Matzav: Expert: Iran wants to attack Europe, is laughing at Obama

Israel Matzav: Carter 'fears' Lebanese election results won't be 'accepted'

Carter 'fears' Lebanese election results won't be 'accepted'

Former American President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center is supervising Lebanese elections being held on Sunday, 'fears' that the election results will not be 'accepted.' What's left unsaid is that fear only applies should Hezbullah and its allies win.

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Israel Matzav: Carter 'fears' Lebanese election results won't be 'accepted'

Israel Matzav: Mitchell to put 'final borders' immediately on the table?

Mitchell to put 'final borders' immediately on the table?

Haaretz reports that due to the dispute between Israel and the Obama administration over the 'settlement freeze,' the President and his special envoy George Mitchell (pictured) may attempt to put a resolution of Israel's 'final borders' on the table immediately. If that were to happen, it would be clear where Israel is 'permitted' to build and where it is not 'permitted' to build.

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Israel Matzav: Mitchell to put 'final borders' immediately on the table?

Israel Matzav: Helping Obama down from the tree

Helping Obama down from the tree

The Washington Post attempts to help President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton down from the tree up which they scampered.

A good compromise is achievable. Mr. Netanyahu should publicly acknowledge that the peace process will lead to Palestinian statehood, and should adopt a series of measures curtailing settlements. He should quickly dismantle those deemed illegal, end all government subsidies, prohibit the territorial expansion of all settlements, stop new construction in those outside Israel's West Bank fence and agree to a monitoring mechanism that will prevent cheating. Mr. Obama can reasonably accept that as a freeze, while not requiring that not a single brick be laid in any of the more than 120 West Bank communities. Then he can turn to the equally important task of pressing Palestinian leaders and Arab states for measures that match Israel's actions.

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Israel Matzav: Helping Obama down from the tree

Israel Matzav: IAEA: Iran has enough centrifuges for two nuclear weapons per year

IAEA: Iran has enough centrifuges for two nuclear weapons per year

In a report issued on Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the Iranian government has enough centrifuges to produce two nuclear weapons per year.

The report, one of a series made quarterly to the agency’s board, described how the pace of enrichment and the installation of new centrifuges is accelerating at an enormous underground bunker in the desert at Natanz. It said that nearly 4,920 centrifuges were currently enriching uranium, and that 2,300 more were ready to go. That represents an increase of 30 percent in the total number of installed centrifuges since a February report.

Campaigning for re-election next week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed that he will never bend to demands from the West or the United Nations that Iran halt its uranium enrichment. His political opponents have largely agreed, but have urged a more cooperative attitude.

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Israel Matzav: IAEA: Iran has enough centrifuges for two nuclear weapons per year

Israel Matzav: Gaza's Ponzi scheme

Gaza's Ponzi scheme

Sunday's Al-Guardian (called the Observer) reports on the schemes and machinations that had led to the loss of $100-500 million invested by Gazans in smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.

The tunnels are not supposed to exist at all. As the war in Gaza ground to a close in January, Israel insisted on a ceasefire condition that the subterranean network be closed.

Yet there are now scores of them - more than ever before - snaking ever closer to each other. On the Egyptian side, bribes and an unwillingness to close off Gaza keep open the tunnels and smuggling routes. Analysts say that Israel knows this full well, but finds their existence convenient because they take pressure off the argument for reopening the Gaza crossings.

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Israel Matzav: Gaza's Ponzi scheme

Israel Matzav: More on Obama in Cairo

More on Obama in Cairo

Middle East Strategy at Harvard has a number of academics' comments on President Obama's Cairo speech this past Thursday. I thought this one by Josef Joffe was quite good:

Therapists make no judgments on truth and falsehood; for them, the process is the purpose. But a process that does not correctly unearth the roots of conflict will invariably run afoul of the realities. Islamist terror will not go away because Obama softly, softly establishes a kind of moral equivalence between the Holocaust and what Palestinians call the Nakba, their loss and flight in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

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Israel Matzav: More on Obama in Cairo

Israel Matzav: Obama's self-induced amnesia on Arafat

Obama's self-induced amnesia on Arafat

Remember Obama's meeting with journalists from the Middle East in Cairo right after his speech on Thursday? Well, it's already yielded some interesting stories. Here's another one.

Q Are the Arabs who are now the allies of the United States of America, are they ready to be real partners? Because in the past, some of them were not partners, real partners, especially --

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Israel Matzav: Obama's self-induced amnesia on Arafat

Israel Matzav: 'We'll have to accept a two-state solution'?

'We'll have to accept a two-state solution'?

Israel Radio reported on Saturday that Israeli government officials have concluded that Israel has no choice but to accept a 'two-state solution.'

A day after US President Barack Obama called on Israel and the Palestinians to "redouble efforts" towards a two-state solution, officials in Jerusalem assessed that Israel will eventually have no other option but to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state, Israel Radio reported on Saturday.

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Israel Matzav: 'We'll have to accept a two-state solution'?

Israel Matzav: The diplomacy of wishful thinking

The diplomacy of wishful thinking

Mona Charen has a great article in Friday's edition of the National Review Online:

President Obama presumably wants Israel to uproot the 300,000 Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank to make way for a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. This is the “solution” to the Palestinian question that has been endorsed, formally and informally, by the last three presidents and most of the foreign ministries in the world. It has even been endorsed by many Israelis, including former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, who offered 95 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza to Yasser Arafat.

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Israel Matzav: The diplomacy of wishful thinking

DoubleTapper: Israel's Counter Terror Units and Training

Israel's Counter Terror Units and Training

تنسيق-الكليات-لعام سكس نيك كس
There are several Anti or Counter Terror units operating in Israel.

Some are part of the IDF (active and reserve) others are under the command of the Israeli Police (auxiliary and regular).

The primary goals of Israeli counterterrorism strategy are to prevent terrorists from influencing the national agenda, save Israeli lives, and preserve the psychological resilience of the civilian population.

Israel has learned over the years that terrorism is a stubborn phenomenon and that, in contrast to conventional warfare, decisive victory over terrorism is rare. When countermeasures block one avenue of attack, terrorists often improvise some new means of inflicting damage. After a series of aircraft hijackings in the 1960s forced Israel to improve aviation security, terrorists began to target Israeli embassies overseas. When security at embassies was strengthened, terrorists responded by attacking markets, buses, and pedestrians in Israeli cities.6 Accordingly, counterterrorism strategies must continually adapt to—and preferably anticipate—changing terrorist tactics.

Israeli counterterrorism strategy comprises five main elements:

1. Intelligence collection and analysis
2. Military and paramilitary operations to disrupt terrorist infrastructure
3. Commercial aviation security
4. Defense against chemical and biological attacks
5. Efforts to strengthen the psychological endurance of the civilian population

Israeli counterterrorism operations are designed to disrupt the “terrorist infrastructure” by attacking bomb factories and safe houses, gathering intelligence, and arresting or killing key terrorist leaders and bombmakers. Several organizations and units are involved in such operations.

A major focus of Israeli counterterrorism operations is to prevent terrorists from staging attacks. Because suicide bombers do not fit a standard profile, they are difficult to identify and intercept in advance. Accordingly, Israel has sought to prevent suicide operations by disrupting them at the organizational, training, and planning stages, before the shahid (“martyr”) is on his way to the target. IDF operations to eliminate the “terrorist infrastructure” are directed against the activists who recruit and train the suicide bombers, manufacture the explosive belts, gather operational intelligence, drive the wanna be myrter to the target, and otherwise provide logistical and moral support. Because terror organizations continually recruit new operatives and require a large network of supporters, aggressive counterterrorism campaigns can weaken the morale of the terrorists, hamper enlistment efforts, and deter collaborators. Military operations against terrorism also reassure the Israeli public that the initiative in the war against terror is on the side of the Israeli people.

Another Israeli tactic involves the assassination of terrorist leaders and bombmakers by undercover units of the IDF and other Israeli Security organizations. In addition to interdicting imminent attacks, targeted killings undermine the terrorist groups’ stability and morale, increase tensions and rivalries among would-be successors, and force the terrorists to devote resources to hiding and protecting their leaders. Targeted assassination also puts terrorist kingpins under severe psychological stress and lowers the overall efficacy of the terror groups by discouraging underlings from seeking promotion.

The IDF has also created a system for Community Counter Terror teams to act as the first line of defense for seam line communities. Because Israel is only about 290 miles (470 km.) in length and 85 miles (135 km.) in width at its widest point, there are many of these seam line communities. The ATU's (Community Anti Terror Units) operate as IDF reservists that are on call 24/7.

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DoubleTapper: Israel's Counter Terror Units and Training

ESSER AGAROTH - I'M NO TERRORIST

I'm No Terrorist

Erev Shabbath Qodesh B'ha'aloth'kha 5769

Below is a link to my neighbor Yekutiel's response to being Banned From Britain!. The report is just "OK," but still worth reading this summary of Torah Zionist beliefs. Unfortunately, the article contains some careless mistakes like reporting the K'far Tapu'ah was close to Hevron geographically, when they are actually quite far away from each other.

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ESSER AGAROTH - I'm No Terrorist

EXCEPT COMMON SENSE DOESN'T TRUMP REALITY

Except Common Sense Doesn't Trump Reality

Haaretz postulates that the Americans may try to resolve the settlement issue by unraveling its complexity.

Senior U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy
George Mitchell, say they might propose immediate talks on setting Israel's
border along the West Bank. The move comes in light of Israel's opposition to a
freeze on settlement construction and would determine which settlements will
remain in Israel in a final deal that would see the emergence of a Palestinian
state. The American proposal was raised in recent weeks following Israeli
suggestions that there is no reason to cease construction in the large
settlement blocs. Such construction would accommodate natural growth. The
Israelis say that since those blocs will remain in Israel under a final-status
agreement, there is no point in preventing construction.

The Israeli position was mainly directed at the blocs of Gush Etzion, Alfei
Menashe, Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and certain areas adjoining Jerusalem. The
American officials countered by suggesting that they initiate immediate
negotiations on the border between Israel and a future Palestinian state. This,
the Americans insisted, would make it easier for everyone to decide where
settlement construction could take place.

A fine, sensible suggestion. Figure out which settlements will stay in Israel and allow construction in them, and which won't, and don't build in them. Of course, it's hard to see how this could be done. Jerusalem lies at the heart of the conflict, is probably unresolvable, and is of course part of the settlement equation. Leaving in place large settlements that are near the Green line will probably require land swaps, which then raises the question of what Israel will offer for Har Adar or Beitar, a matter the Israeli public won't discuss before knowing that it will result in full peace. Perhaps some of the swappped land should have Israeli Palestinians on it, in an attempt to partion according to ethnic lines? The Palestinians will never even discuss ths so long as they demand a right of return for the descendants of refugees. Which means it can't be agreed before there's a full agreement on all points.

Nice try, folks.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

REALITY CHECK

Reality Check

The Economist sums up the tasks Obama must now complete so as to fulfill the promise of his Cairo speech:

In a nutshell, and if you leave aside Afghanistan-Pakistan on the region’s
rim, [but how can you leave it aside?] he has four main tasks.
First, he must help persuade Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace in two
states, side by side. Second, he must quit Iraq as he has promised, but leave
behind a reasonably stable and decent regime. Third, he must reach an
accommodation with Iran that acknowledges its place as a regional power while
dissuading it from getting a destabilising nuclear weapon. Fourth, he must tilt
American policy back towards a more realistic balance between naive idealism and
cynical pragmatism, without either alienating autocratic allies such as Egypt
and Saudi Arabia or ditching America’s support for democracy and human
rights.

Quite.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Israel Matzav: Obama's lies about the 'Holy Koran'

Obama's lies about the 'Holy Koran'

I don't know enough of the Koran to comment on Obama's quoting of that book in his Cairo speech on Thursday. But here's someone who apparently does know and he says that Obama is deliberately falsifying Islam.

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Israel Matzav: Obama's lies about the 'Holy Koran'

Israel Matzav: The apology President Obama didn't make at Buchenwald

The apology President Obama didn't make at Buchenwald

There was one apology President Obama didn't make when he spoke at Buchenwald on Friday, and it's one you're not likely to read about in most of the American mainstream media. President Obama went to the Ohrdruf subcamp of Buchenwald because his great uncle Charlie Payne had liberated the camp on April 4, 1945. In fact, Ohrdruf was the first camp that was liberated by American troops, and it was to there, eight days later, that Dwight Eisenhower invited the American media and Congress to visit to see the Nazi atrocities with their own eyes.

President Obama has commented on several occasions (including earlier on that interview with Tom Brokaw that I linked earlier) that Uncle Charlie suffered from what we today would call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his experiences at Ohrdruf. Perhaps President Obama should apologize to Uncle Charlie - and to the Jewish people - on behalf of his own government, as explained by Rafael Medoff:

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Israel Matzav: The apology President Obama didn't make at Buchenwald

Israel Matzav: Video: Caroline Glick rips Obama and an Israeli leftist

Israel Matzav: Video: Caroline Glick rips Obama and an Israeli leftist

"GIVAT OBAMA" - Defiance: Jews name West Bank hilltop after Obama

BEIT EL, Israel – In defiance of President Obama's call to halt all Jewish construction in the West Bank, Jewish youth this week built a new outpost in the strategic territory – and named it after the U.S. president.

"Obama Hilltop," or "Givat Obama" in Hebrew, is located between Jerusalem and the biblical city of Beit El.

The builders told the Arutz Sheva news website the name of their new small community is "in recognition of the president's actions, which have led to a dramatic increase in the number of outposts being built throughout Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)."

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Defiance: Jews name West Bank hilltop after Obama

ON THE AMBIVALENCE OF BEING A SAFE HARBOR

On the Ambivalence of Being a Safe Harbor

You're a young person in Darfur, say, perhaps your family has been murdered or dispersed, your life is hell, but you're young and enterprizing and willing to go great lengths to improve your lot - probably by foot. So what's the nearest western democracy that may offer a chance for a better life?

Israel.

Since 2005 there has been a steady trickle of refugees making their way across the deserts and borders to Israel, mostly from Dafur and war-torn Eritrea. Not all survive; but some do. These aren't Jews, of course.They're black Africans, mostly Muslims. Yet of all the countries around them and beyond, they expect Israel has the most to offer them. Strange, isn't it.

More than 17,000 of them have arrived so far. They don't fit into Israeli society in any recognizable way, yet when they started arriving there was a brief agonized public discussion, and the Israelis decided there was no way they could be turned away. Israel can't reject escapees of genocide or other severe persecution, not even if they're African Muslims. So they're allowed in, and turned over to various voluntary organizations who do their best, which is less than optimal. The government, meanwhile, treats them with what's best called callous indifference. They're shunted around, the bureacracy wishes they'd go away, but since they don't they're slowly gaining toeholds. This article about them concentrates on the bleaker aspects of their story, but you need to remember that it's stories like these which have been slowly creating openings for these people; anyway, I can't think of any western democracy that's in the position to lecture us when it comes to letting in uncalled for African refugees. So perhaps it would be better to read between the lines of the article to understand why ever more of these people keep on coming.

And remember the story the next time some malicious fool tells about how racist a country Israel is.

taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations