Sunday, October 31, 2010

Syria Continues to Stonewall the IAEA

David Fontaine Mitchell
American Thinker
31 October '10

Israel attacked Syria's nuclear facility without going through the "proper channels" of the U.N. atomic energy agency...for good reason. The IAEA continues to be ineffective. Over three years after the bombing of a suspected nuclear facility at Al Kibar by the IAF, the rogue state continues to derail a full investigation by IAEA, the U.N. atomic energy agency.

On 6 September 2007, a previously undisclosed facility in Al Kibar, Syria, was destroyed by aerial firepower. The target, located roughly eighty miles from the Iraqi border, was widely rumored to have hosted a nuclear reactor that the Syrian government was clandestinely constructing with assistance from North Korea in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Press reports suggest that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was behind the attack; however, neither the United States nor Israel has confirmed or denied exactly what occurred.

Photos revealing various stages of the facility's development were reportedly obtained by the Mossad sometime in 2006. One of the photos was of particular interest, as it revealed Chon Chibu (a member of North Korea's nuclear program) and Ibrahim Othman (director of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission) standing together at the site.

Press reports have also suggested that the Mossad was gathering intelligence from a human source planted inside the facility during the summer of 2007. The source is claimed to have provided Israel with visual evidence, including video footage, of the suspected nuclear site. The footage obtained revealed a reactor strikingly similar to the one in Yongbyon, as well as several North Koreans working at the location.

North Korea has long assisted Syria with their ballistic missile program, but the complex at Al Kibar was the first indication of cooperation between the two nations on a nuclear program.

(Read full article)

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My tour of the Israeli settlement of Eli

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
31 October '10

The demonization of Israeli “settlers” – those Israelis who live beyond the “Green Line” – is a narrative that is simply reflexive in much of the mainstream media. The Guardian represents an especially egregious case of employing such caricatures to describe Israelis who live outside of the 1949 borders. My tour of the settlement of Eli was an attempt to understand the settler movement and, more importantly, to understand what motivates Israelis to move to communities in Judea and Samaria. Here is my snapshot of the community.

I recently toured the settlement of Eli, a few miles from Ariel, a community stretching over a vast area situated on a mountainous topography, including a cluster of neighborhoods with a total of 3,000 residents. The center of life in Eli is the pre-military academy that attracts religious students from all over the country. Maj. Ro’i Klein, an Eli resident and hero of the Second Lebanon War, was killed when he leapt on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers.

Quality of life is not a vague concept at Eli. There are cultivated gardens, breath-taking mountain views, the shades of its olive trees, and a well-kept regional sports center, which includes multi-purpose playing fields, a tennis court, a work-out facility & swimming pool. Eli provides health services, a small shopping center, and post office. Synagogues and ritual baths are scattered around the neighborhoods.

(Read full post)

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Who isn't bashing Israel this week?

Jameel
The Muqata
31 October '10

Last week started out with a bang, when the Vatican Synod reminded everyone that the Jews aren't entitled to Israel.

"The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands,” Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, Massachusetts, and president of the “Commission for the Message,” said at Saturday’s Vatican press conference."
Many commenters squirmed a bit when hearing this, saying that the denial of Israel's right to the Land of Israel were coming from "extremists" and not the mainstream Catholic church. Unfortunately, the Vatican is where the press conference took place, and no one at the Vatican seemed to have had a problem with the above statement.

And then...on Friday, in honor of Shabbat Chayyei Sarah, when we recall Avraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpela and surrounding fields in Hebron, UNESCO had their turn:

(Read full post)

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Turkish Flotilla "Peace" Group Visits Terrorists and Plays At War

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
30 October '10

The New York Times--you know, it's sort of like National Public Radio but with printed letters on murdered trees--keeps saying it can't find any connections between IHH, the Turkish Islamist group that organized the Gaza flotilla, and terrorism. From time to time, I've published helpful hints to assist them in making these linkages. But, alas, they don't quite seem to get the picture.

Picture! Hey, that's an idea!

Ok so here's a picture (click the link for about 20 more) of peace-loving IHH activists visiting their good friends, the radical--even by comparison with Hamas!--terrorist group Islamic Jihad and trying out some of its humanitarian equipment.

The goal might be to give the IHH a better feel for what it needs to include in future "humanitarian" deliveries to the Gaza Strip. Indeed, if the IHH and its many allies succeed in getting rid of the sanctions on Gaza altogether, they could bring these things in directly on "peace activist" ships.

(Read full post)

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Perils of distorted historiography in Israel's schools

Bataween
Point of No Return
30 October '10

What do most teachers and pupils in Israeli schools know about attacks and massacres against Jews in Muslim states in the 20th century? Nothing. But Israelis seeking a reliable depiction of the past cannot accept the portrayal of Jews as prosperous and happy in Islamic states until colonialism and 'Zionist aggression' ruined the idyll. Zvi Zameret explains in Haaretz why a particularly distorting history textbook giving the 'Palestinian narrative' has been banned in Israeli schools:

In the Farhud, the anti-Jewish riots in Iraq in 1941, 180 Jews were murdered and 700 were injured. In the course of violent demonstrations that flared in Egypt in November 1945, 400 Jews were hurt, and much Jewish-owned property was looted and damaged. Rioting in Libya, also in November 1945, was much more costly: 130 Jews were murdered and 266 were injured. The December 1947 riots in Syria left 13 Jews dead (eight of them children ) in Damascus, and 26 wounded. In Aleppo, 150 houses were damaged, five schools and 10 synagogues were torched, and there were dozens of Jewish casualties. At the same time in Aden, Yemen, 97 Jews were murdered and 120 were injured; some Jews who experienced these events deem them "the holocaust of Yemenite Jewry."

(Read full post)

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What’s next?

Fresnozionism.org
30 October '10

News Item:

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted recently to officially declare Rachel’s Tomb to be a mosque. UNESCO director Irena Bokova had previously stated “concern” at Israel’s decision to treat the tomb as a heritage site.

The vote called for Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs – the burial site of the other Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs – to be removed from Israel’s National Heritage list.

The Palestinian Authority has claimed that Rachel’s Tomb is holy to Muslims as the site of a mosque called the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque. The PA [Palestinian Authority] demands control over both the tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hevron, as well as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem….

(Read full post)

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You can always count on Palestinian Arab intransigence

Elder of Ziyon
30 October '10

I've mentioned how an outgoing UNRWA official, Andrew Whitley, caused a storm of protest by stating an obvious truth: that most Palestinian Arab "refugees" will never end up in Israel and that it is cruel to keep feeding them that fantasy - a fantasy that has already ruined three generations of families.

Now, that oh-so-"moderate" PA spokesman and serial liar Saeb Erekat has added his voice to the complaints, writing a letter of complaint to the UN and happy that UNRWA distanced itself from the speech Whitley gave.

An additional lie that Erekat added to his stellar record is that UN General Assembly Resolution 194 calls for the "right of return" for Palestinian Arab refugees from 1948. Of course, it doesn't - it calls for "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date." That clause about living at peace with their neighbors limits its applicability by quite a bit, besides the simple fact that it was a General Assembly resolution that is not binding (it also called for the internationalization of Jerusalem and a huge chunk of the West Bank, including Bethlehem - something that Jordan certainly didn't do and that Palestinian Arabs today are not contemplating.)

And, I would add, the definition of "refugee" used at that time did not include descendants of refugees, a unique interpretation that was made up only for Palestinian Arabs by UNRWA, an agency that didn't exist at the time this resolution passed.

(Read full post)

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Before the storm: Palestinian ability to go through UN for unilateral declaration of statehood not to be underestimated

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
30 October '10

Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz has written an extensive analysis of the prospects of the Palestinian leadership opting for a unilateral declaration of statehood, probably sometime in 2011, as an alternative to working for a negotiated end to the conflict. It is crucial to understand the issue since it could add an entirely new dynamic into the situation, give new momentum to the Palestinian cause, and simultaneously put Israel in a perilous situation.

There are many reasons to be concerned about a move towards a unilateral declaration of statehood, not least because the Palestinians would undoubtedly want to go beyond the demilitarised state being offered by the Israeli government and also because they would then seek to argue that Israel is not merely an “occupying” power but also an “invading” power. This they could use as a justification for renewed “resistance”, for which read terrorism.

Horovitz has produced an excellent analysis and I recommend reading it in full. But since, at nearly 3,000 words, some readers may not have the time to go through it from beginning to end, I offer here a bullet point rendition of what I take to be the most important points, along with some comments of my own. Points taken from Horowitz’s piece (which are my words, not his) are in bold italics while my own comments follow in normal script:

** Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has himself declared a summer 2011 deadline for Palestinian statehood. Stop the press right here: summer 2011 is effectively tomorrow. In other words, the threat should be treated as imminent.

(Read full article)

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How Has U.S. Policy Toward Hamas and the Gaza Strip Turned Around 360 Degrees?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
29 October '10

A reader asks what I meant when I wrote:

"Should I mention the total reversal of U.S. policy on Hamas from trying to undermine that radical Islamist group's rule in the Gaza Strip to believing Hamas will fall if Gaza becomes prosperous?"

Here's my answer:

From the time Hamas seized the Gaza Strip until last summer, the U.S. government supported a strategy of trying to bring down the Hamas government. It did this by both political isolation and supporting embargos to minimize Gaza's imports and exports. The idea was that weakening Gaza's economy would weaken Hamas's rule.

At the same time, by lavishing aid on the PA-ruled West Bank, the United States and its allies would show that West Bankers were much better off because they were ruled by peace-oriented moderates. In other words, West Bankers would support the PA rather than Hamas because they were materially better off; Gazans would yearn for (and support a return of) PA rule because they were much worse off.

After the Gaza flotilla incident in 2010, however, President Barack Obama declared a new policy--though he never identified it explicitly as a new policy. Now, the US would provide a lot of aid to Gaza in the belief that it became more prosperous the citizens--apparently a strengthened middle class and businessmen--would bring down the regime in Gaza. Although they never said this explicitly, the implication seemed to be that they expected something like what happened in Eastern Europe in opposition to Soviet control and Communist rule.

(Read full article)


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The financial media discovers Gaza

Michael Horesh
Afternoon Tea in Jerusalem
29 October '10

Writing 2 weeks ago in the UK newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens summarised an extensive visit to Gaza, which he described as “world’s most misrepresented location“.

Hitchens coverage was the first amongst several similar stories in the international, all with a similar theme.

I don’t think it (Gaza) is a paradise, or remotely normal………..There are dispiriting slums that should have been cleared decades ago, people living on the edge of subsistence. There is danger. And most of the people cannot get out. But it is a lot more complicated, and a lot more interesting, than that………

But if you think Israel is the only problem, or that Israelis are the only oppressors hereabouts, think again. Realise, for a start, that Israel no longer rules Gaza. Its (former) settlements are ruins.

Even when, as in Gaza, there is no way out, morality patrols sweep through restaurants in search of illicit beer and women smoking in public, affronting the 14th Century values of Hamas.

Hitchens is going against a decade or so of politically correct wisdom. Two years ago, Time Magazine pleaded: “Please spare a thought for the starving Palestinians of Gaza. There are 1.5 million of them”. In parallel, and industry of NGOs has arisen, although they seem content to criticise Israel but never the excesses of Palestinian rule.

(Read full post)

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WikiLeaks and the myth of a “Lebanonized” Hezbollah

Tony Badran
NOW Lebanon
28 October '10

The classified military documents obtained by WikiLeaks, which disclose Hezbollah’s role in Iraq under the direct command of the Iranian regime, may not be particularly surprising or even groundbreaking. However, they serve as a reminder of the reality of Hezbollah – all myths aside – as a brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary guard Corps. They also help keep in focus the nature of the strategic threat facing the US in the region: the alliance system led by Iran.

Fans of Hezbollah in the Western media are fond of asserting that the Party of God has become “Lebanonized.” Consequently, and contrary to claims by the US, according to this view the group does not possess “global reach” and has long stopped being involved in attacks against American targets, being focused instead on the narrower issue of Lebanon’s territorial dispute with Israel.

The documents, published by The New York Times, detail, among other things, Iran’s and Hezbollah’s direct operational involvement in training and supplying militias in Iraq. As such, they chronicle yet another chapter in the ongoing, decades-long war by the Iranians against the US in the region – a war in which Hezbollah has been the spearhead.

(Read full article)

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Quote of the week: the Muslim-Jewish conflict

Fresnozionism.org
29 October '10

This week’s quotation is from a review of Martin Gilbert’s “In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands” by Jonathan Kay:

The creation of the Zionist movement radically changed the Western understanding of the Muslim-Jewish conflict — sweeping up generations of campus intellectuals who have projected upon it all their own obsessions with colonialism and class struggle. But in the Muslim world, Gilbert’s narrative shows us, Israel’s creation actually didn’t change the Muslim-Jewish dynamic as much as is commonly imagined. The rhetoric and barbarism hurled against Israeli Jews after the Zionist project began were not new but simply the old, more diffuse rhetoric and barbarism being redirected, as by a lens, toward a particular pinprick on a map. This is tied up with the reason that many Muslims refuse even to say the word “Israel,” preferring terms such as “the Zionist entity”: Deep down, they regard Israel not as a country in the proper sense but rather as a sort of soil-and-concrete stand-in for the stubborn, maddeningly ineradicable Jewish presence in Middle Eastern life since the age of Muhammad.

Kay’s review is titled “Fourteen Centuries of Hatred” and that about sums it up. Unfortunately, unlike the Catholic Church, which (perhaps as a result of the Holocaust) officially renounced and condemned the baseless hatred that had characterized its relationship to the Jewish people for centuries, Islamic authorities in general have not preached an end to antisemitism. Rather, as Kay suggests above, they have simply focused it more sharply.

(Read full post)

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

The Scott Brown precedent and Israel

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
29 October '10


On Tuesday, US voters are set to repudiate US President Barak Obama's agenda for their country. Unfortunately, based on his behavior in the face of a similar repudiation last January, it is safe to assume that Obama will not abandon his course.

Last year, in an attempt to block Obama's plan to nationalize healthcare, Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate. Brown was elected because he pledged to block Obamacare in the US Senate.

Rather than heed the voters' message and abandon his plans, Obama abandoned the voters. Instead of accepting his defeat, Obama changed the rules of the game and bypassed the Senate.

So it is safe to assume that for the next two years, Obama will do everything he can to bypass the Congress and govern by executive orders and regulations. Although much can be done in this fashion, Congress's control of the purse strings will check his domestic agenda.

In matters of foreign policy however, Obama will be less burdened by - but not immune - to Congressional oversight. We can therefore expect him to devote far more energy to foreign affairs in the next two years than he devoted in the last two years.

This bodes ill for Israel. Since entering office, Obama has shown that his primary foreign policy goal is to remake the US's relationship with the Muslim world. Obama has also repeatedly demonstrated that compelling Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians and empowering international institutions that seek to delegitimize Israel are his preferred means of advancing this goal.

(Read full article)

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One Palestinian Cartoon Shows Why There Isn't (And Won't Soon Be) Peace

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
26 October '10

After fifteen years of following the Palestinian Authority (PA) media on a daily basis, I've never seen anything that sums up the problem of why there's no peace better than this cartoon in al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official PA newspaper. If only the Western mass media ran this cartoon the situation would be crystal-clear and nobody would have any doubt who is blocking a peaceful, two-state resolution of the conflict.

In the cartoon, a young boy is being instructed in the Arabic alphabet by the teacher. But even before he starts with the letters, the very basis of his world view and knowledge is presented (in his thought balloon) as this: All of Israel must be replaced by Palestine. See the map on the right side of the balloon, remembering Arabic is read from right to left. This goal is presented as the foundation stone, the guiding light, the very basis of Palestinian thought and identity.

Nor is that all. On the desk, his pen has become a slingshot (symbolizing that violent struggle trumps education) with stones.

Not exactly: Hey kids! Stay in school, get a good education, help build a peaceful, prosperous Palestine living as a neighbor to Israel!

(Read full post)

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Its about hate and intolerance, Stupid

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
27 October '10

(“It’s the economy, Stupid.” - A phrase, made popular by President Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville, referring to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because President Bush had not adequately addressed the economy.)

The significance of my recent post “Almost half of all Palestinians support murdering Jews inside 1949 armistice lines” was, I thought, clear enough. 49% of Palestinians surveyed supported killing Israeli civilians (men, women, and children) within pre-1967 borders. However, I have reason to believe that the significance of this poll eludes many readers. Let me be clearer, then, on its meaning:

The most tired trope advanced by the mainstream media, and the Guardian in particular, is that “settlements” – referring, of course, to Jewish communities built in Judea and Samaria in the aftermath of the Six Day War (Israel’s war of defense waged to prevent its destruction) – are the main impediments to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This argument rests on the premise (equation) that “occupation” = conflict and “withdrawal” = peace. However, this equation somehow ignores that results of Israels’ unilateral withdrawals from Southern Lebanon (2000) and Gaza (2005) – disengagements which only led to the strengthening of terrorist movements dedicated to Israel’s destruction (Hezbollah and Hamas respectively.)

(Read full post)

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Rabin Who?

By Moshe Feiglin
Jewish Leadership
16 Cheshvan, 5771 (Oct. 24, '10)

Translated from Ma'ariv's NRG website.

There is a major discrepancy between the national energies invested in commemorating Yitzchak Rabin and the way the man is perceived by a growing majority of Israel's public. In all the official media, some sort of mourning takes place during the weeks surrounding the date of his assassination. But under the surface, the public is – at best - distancing itself from Rabin.

The assassination of a prime minister is a terrible thing. Its social significance is far broader than its personal aspect. It is certainly appropriate that Rabin Memorial Day should be a meaningful day for all of us. Why hasn't that happened? Why is just the opposite taking place? Because Yitzchak Rabin made a grave mistake when he submitted to the pressure of the Oslo cabal and decided to spearhead this madness.

What does that have to do with Rabin's memorial? Why mix his commemoration with politics? Because Oslo is far beyond a political dispute. Oslo is a menace that perpetually pursues and murders us. Just a few weeks ago, four Jews from Beit Hagai were murdered on the road by terrorists who were released as part of the cursed Oslo process.

The process that began when Yitzchak Rabin shook hands with the head of the Organization to Liberate the Land of Israel from the Jews (PLO) brought us much more than an unending trail of blood. Prior to Rabin, all of Israel's prime ministers - from both Right and Left – understood that it was dangerous to speak with, meet or recognize the PLO in any manner.

(Read full article)

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Friday, October 29, 2010

Palestinian Authority vs. Freedom of Media

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
29 October '10
Posted before Shabbat

In what is seen as yet another bid to restrict freedom of the media, the Palestinian Authority government has announced that journalists who wish to report "accurately" on Palestinian life are urged to do so directly with Palestinians.

The Palestinian government's decision is aimed at sending a warning to journalists who dare to report anything that may reflect negatively on its reputation.

It is not clear why representatives of the foreign media have not protested against the new restrictions directed against them. The Western-funded Palestinian government is actually telling foreign journalists that from now on they should report only on matters that shed a positive light on the Palestinian Authority and its leaders.

By insisting that foreign journalists arrange their visits to the Palestinian territories only through Palestinians, the Palestinian government is proving that its attitude toward freedom of the media is not much different that that of Hamas, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Bashar Assad.

Foreign journalists covering the conflict in the Middle East should not allow a situation where anyone would threaten them or tell them what to write. Foreign journalists should be allowed to work freely both inside Israel and in the Palestinian territories; they should also have the right to consult with whomever they wish and visit any place through anyone they feel comfortable working with.

(Read full article)

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J Street U teaches anti-Zionism

Fresnozionism.org
27 October '10
Posted before Shabbat

I thought it was impossible to find anything else to criticize about the self-described ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ J Street, after it was exposed for taking money from anti-Israel sources and lying about it (some of my previous posts on J Street are here), but apparently its perfidy is bottomless.

J Street has a youth organization, J Street U, “The Campus Address for Middle East Peace and Security.” What does it teach American college students about Israel and the conflict?

J Street U has a new National Board President, a Middlebury College senior named Moriel Rothman. Here’s how he explains the controversy surrounding the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan and Sheik Jarrah:

…the Jerusalem municipality has been bending to the will of fanatic Jewish settlers, and producing -based on archaic documents from the Ottoman period and manufactured Israeli law- eviction notices to a number of Palestinian families, and in some cases -such as with three families in Sheikh Jarrah- acting on those eviction notices by force and removing those Palestinian families from their homes.

(Read full post)

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A Letter to the World from Jerusalem - 1969

AishVideo
Edited by www.shooteast.com
Posted before Shabbat

Stanley Goldfoot has a few things he needs to get off his chest.



In 2006, at the age of 92, Stanley Goldfoot passed away. Stanley Goldfoot was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1932, at the age of 18, he headed for Palestine where he joined a HaShomer HaTzair kibbutz. After the rebirth of the Jewish State of Israel his main goal, which he eventually realized, was to establish a Zionist English newspaper, “The Times of Israel.” In the first issue of “The Times of Israel”, in 1969, Goldfoot wrote his famous “Letter to the World from Jerusalem.” The article is still remarkably relevant, so I thought I’d share it with you. It’s the thoughts of only one man but, as I read it, it occurred to me that, in many ways, it represents the pleas of an entire nation – a people with one small desire: “to be a free people in our land”. (Adam Levick) (Read full letter)


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Abraham Calls to Me

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
29 October '10

(Posted for 32 minutes before candle lighting, Parshat Chayei Sarah, Kiryat Arba-Hebron. What could be better? Y.)

Every once in a while (perhaps more often than I let myself believe), I take the liberty of writing not just as a soldier's mother, but as an Israeli, a Jew. I could tie this in with the blog, and I will, a bit, but for now, let's start with history.

The thing about history is that there are often sides, shades, and personalities that we can only imagine. The longer between the event and the reporting, the harder it is to imagine, to believe, to know. Sadly, this is what is slowly happening with the Holocaust. As we move into a generation that knows no survivors, the fact that there are films, videos, direct testimonies of those who did survive, physical evidence that corresponds and confirms all that they say and said - still there are those who would twist, deny, inflame.

Imagine now, that the history happened thousands of years ago, and not merely a few decades ago. Imagine a man who married a woman and they have a child. That child marries and has two sons. One of those sons marries not one, but two women. One of those dies young and is greatly mourned. The second is buried in the same place as the first man and his wife, the second man and his wife, and her own husband, the child of the second man.

So far, other than there being a man who married two wives, our story is common enough that it takes little imagination.

But the man was named Abraham and his wife was Sarah. In the technical writing terms I often live by, Abraham revolutionized the world - perhaps the first of so many great Israeli/Jewish discoveries and innovations that have graced the world. There was no US Patent Office, but his idea was certainly unique. If you can fashion stone into a figure, calling that figure "God" is absurd.

Abraham's patented system of global management was simple - recognize the Power...where the Power really is. When Abraham's wife died, Abraham did something else that is well documented and stands through time. He buried her, we all know that - but more. He refused the gift of her burial place. He demanded to purchase the land and so, in effect, the Bible that documents this transaction proves a legal and binding land contract in which Abraham purchased what is now called the Cave of the Patriarchs, in Hebron.

(Read full post)

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HR Attacked by Plagiarizing Palestinian Paper

Honest Reporting
Media Critique
28 October '10

Occasionally, the various pro-Palestinian / anti-Israel websites that claim to be credible media sources catch our eye. In this case, the following attack on Honest Reporting appears in a piece from The Palestine Chronicle entitled "A Close Look at the Pro-Israel Lobbies inside Britain":

Finally, if any news stories critical of Israeli policy do surface there are hosts of media watch dog groups that monitor and pressure journalists and media outlets, and most important of which is HonestReporting. There are active pro-Israeli organizations that very effectively monitor (read harass) journalist and their editors and try to make sure that the coverage is objective, by which they mean is pro-Israel. There are even pressure groups to write campaigns and letters to editors and news outlets asking to boycott certain news agencies, demanding the stories to be changed or the reporter to be fired. This becomes so twisted, that the dearth of reporting, the absence of images, lack of analysis, the void of voices of describing the experience of Palestinians under occupation is so vast that the people has no idea that a military occupation is going on.

Written by Ershad Abubacker, a so-called "Research Analyst", the piece is anything but researched. Instead it is simply plagiarized from the shoddy and discredited November 2009 UK Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "Inside Britain's Israel Lobby".

Dispatches included a dramatic attack on HonestReporting along with all of the nasty insinuations and poor journalism that has been copied by Abubacker.

(Read full critique)

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Planting the seeds of a people

David Wilder
Hebron.com
29 October '10

This week Hebron’s Jewish Community received an unusually large number of greetings. Specifically, 14 ministers, five deputy ministers, and 24 MKs from both the coalition and the opposition (3 from Kadima), including Knesset speaker Ruby Rivlin, sent special messages of support to Hebron. This, as part of an annual celebration, as we read the weekly Torah portion, Chaye Sarah, in which Abraham purchases Ma’arat HaMachpela, the caves of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, almost 4,000 years ago.

Not only are politicians participating. Usually somewhere between 15 – 20,000 people arrive in Hebron and Kiryat Arba to join in the festivities. Several hundred Jews, mostly from the US, arrive in Israel especially for this special Shabbat in Hebron. Youth and adults, with knitted kippas and black kippas, some in suits, some with shtreimal fur hats, rabbis, laymen, pour into Hebron beginning early Friday afternoon. Tents are pitched outside Machpela on the garden lawn and across the street in a park. Others find a patch of floor at the entrance to a building and set there their sleeping bags. It is the only time of the only time of the year, when receiving a phone call requesting to stay with me, and I answer, ‘we still have some floor space available,’ the response is a resounding ‘great!’



One year I recall a young woman approached my wife in the kitchen Saturday night, and thanked her. My wife asked her, ‘for what.’ She answered, ‘oh, I slept here.’ To this day, we have no idea where she slept because the house was full without her.
Shabbat evening thousands fill the 2,000 year old structure atop the caves of Machpela and thousands more worship outside in the Machpela courtyard. Some pray very traditionally, while others sing and dance to tunes of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. The atmosphere is both holy and joyful simultaneously.

Shabbat morning the Isaac Hall, opened to Jewish worshipers only ten days a year, is packed to the brim, with some having to stand for a lack of chairs. Here the ancient words are chanted from a Torah scroll, written by hand on parchment, reciting the purchase of the caves and the field by Abraham for some 400 silver shekels, thousands of years ago. It should be noted that according to recent studies, four hundred shekels in the time of Abraham is worth about $700,000 today.

The day continues with meals, lectures, discussion groups, tours of the Jewish neighborhoods, rest and Shabbat song, a wonderful way to commemorate this unique event.

The basic question that must be addressed though, is why? Why was it special then, and why is it special today? Why should so many thousands of people arrive in Hebron to recall what happened almost four millennium ago?

Let’s start at the beginning. Abraham paid a small fortune for a commodity he could have had for free. Efron the Hittite offered to give him the caves gratis. But Abraham refused. Years earlier, according to accounts in the holy Zohar and other sacred literature, Abraham had discovered in these very caves the tombs of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. Here was the entrance to Paradise, the Garden of Eden. Realizing how holy the site was, Abraham knew the only way to ensure his continued possession of it was to sign a contract and put money down on the table in front of witnesses, thereby preventing any counter claim as to the ownership of the place. And so he did just that, at an extremely high cost.

Our sages taught, some 2,000 years ago, that there are three places the nations will never be able to say we Jews stole, as it is written in the Bible that we paid money for them: Joseph’s tomb, Temple Mount, and Ma’arat HaMachpela. And today, what are the three ‘most controversial places in Israel?

Just as it was special then, so too today. The site has not lost any of its sanctity or allure. To the contrary. It must be remembered that Jews (and Christians) were prevented from entering Machpela for 700 year, following the Mameluk expulsion of the Crusaders in 1260, until the return to, and liberation of Hebron in 1967.
Why today do some half a million people visit Machpela annually, with 50,000 during the Succot holidays and this Shabbat some 20,000?

People understand that Hebron and Ma’arat HaMachpela are the roots of the Jewish people, the commencement of monotheism, the beginnings of humanity. Roots must be watered, to prevent them from drying up. Tens and hundreds of thousands of people visiting, identifying with and worshiping at Machpela is a figurative irrigation of these roots, allowing Jews and other believers around the world to soak up spiritual nutrition, so necessary for our being, both individually and collectively, and as people, as a nation.

In reality the wonder of Hebron, of Machpela, and on a larger scale, of all of Eretz Yisrael, is not what was. The amazing facet of Machpela is not that Abraham purchased it 4,000 years ago, rather it is that we are still here today, at that same exact place. How many peoples can say, ‘here we began, thousands of years ago, and here we remain today, not as a memory, but as a living, thriving organism, keeping our past alive in the present?’ I daresay, no one, excepting the Jews, here in Hebron, Jerusalem and throughout Israel.

Hebron is the beginning, the roots of the roots. We know what occurs to a tree should its roots be chopped off. In 1929 we lost Hebron. In 1948 we lost Jerusalem. In June, 1967 we returned to Jerusalem and the next day, returned to Hebron. Hebron and Jerusalem, our heart, our soul, our roots. Our past, our present and our future. This is why our holy city lives on and will continue to live on. This is why so so many people arrive to celebrate the planting of the seeds of our people in the field of Machpela, in Hebron.

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Preparing for unilateral Palestinian state

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
28 October '10

"We will turn to the Security Council in order for it to declare our independence within a few months." Mahmoud Abbas – 28 October, 2010

It doesn’t really matter if the Palestinians intend to create a sovereign state if they don’t get their way with Israel in the coming months, or if these threats are no more than a negotiating tactic.

That’s because sometimes threats can take on a life of their own,

So Israel has to take this threat very seriously.

Israel’s goal in the event of such a move should be to prevent the Palestinian state from being effectively in existence for a long enough period that the event ultimately becomes no more than yet another in the long series of Palestinian declarations, photo ops and documents already gathering dust.

To achieve this, Israel would have to maintain a semblance of normality while, at the same time, operate as if the Palestinian state did not exist.

First and foremost this would require being able to ignore the officials of the Palestinian state while avoiding a humanitarian crisis.

Israel must be in a position to shift from interfacing with Palestinian officials at a national level to a regional and municipal level.

We have experience in this already.

Even in the worst of times in Jerusalem-Ramallah relations, Israelis and Palestinians cooperated on a municipal level to restore or maintain vital services.

One of the biggest tests Israel would face would be maintaining the flow of goods and people between the West Bank and the outside world.

Israeli planners should set as a goal to actually speed up the movement of cargo to and from the West Bank. It would also make sense to prepare administrative provisions to avoid the situation that equipment contributed from overseas for Palestinian humanitarian projects gets stuck in Israeli ports because of disputes over the payment of various duties and taxes to Israel.

Israel should also be prepared to efficiently substitute Israeli travel documents for the ones issued by the then defunct PA so that international movement is not impeded.

And what about the officials themselves?

Israeli planners have to decide if it would serve Israel’s interests better for there to be a Palestinian “government in exile” comprised of deported officials making photo ops in Geneva or to allow them remain to operate a state Israel whose existence Israel doesn’t recognize.

Then, of course, is the thorny issue of the Palestinian security forces.

While Israel wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with Palestinian cops associated directly with a specific municipality or regional groupings of municipalities, the American trained and armed Palestinian troops who answer to the Palestinian federal authorities could present a serious challenge if it is not possible to shift their allegiance to municipalities or regions.

It goes without saying that Israeli policy today towards enhancing the size, training or equipping of the American trained and armed Palestinian troops should already take into account the possibility that the Palestinians go through with a unilaterally declared state.

It would not be easy.

But with proper planning and unity Israel can insure that a Palestinian state created without the conclusion of an agreement with Israel will wither on the vine.

And the more prepared Israel is for this challenge, the more likely that the
Palestinians will opt to drop the idea.

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Hamas's Iranian puppeteer

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
28 October '10

For those who so naively believe that the way to defuse the Islamist threat to the world is first to solve the Israel/Palestinian conflict, further evidence – not that anyone who has eyes to see actually needs it – of the way in which the Palestinians are themselves being controlled by the forces of the jihad. For the third time, Iranian arms destined for Hamas in Gaza to attack Israel have been intercepted, this time in Nigeria. Ha’aretz reports:

Nigeria's secret service said on Tuesday it had intercepted 13 containers of weapons from Iran in what Israeli defense sources believe may be part of a new smuggling route from Iran to Hamas in Gaza. Rocket launchers, grenades and other explosives camouflaged as building material were seized in the Nigerian port of Lagos after being unloaded from an Iranian ship.

So many in the West – including, I suspect, those who are not hostile to Israel, merely indifferent – fail to grasp that a key reason for the Israel/Arab impasse is that the Palestinian side has always been controlled by state actors pulling its strings. The current chief puppeteer is Iran, assisted by its ally in infamy, Syria. This is even more striking since Hamas, who are Sunni Muslims, are in cahoots with Shia Iran, theologically their sworn enemies.

(Read full story)

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Free Jonathan Pollard

Lawrence Korb
LA Times
28 October '10

About 25 years ago, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a U.S. naval intelligence analyst, betrayed his country by providing highly classified information to Israel. Even though Israel was and still is a U.S. ally and is routinely supplied with U.S. intelligence, Pollard deserved to be severely punished for his actions. However, the punishment should fit the crime. In his case, it does not.

After his arrest and indictment by a grand jury, Pollard agreed to plead guilty to one count of giving classified information to a U.S. ally. In return for his guilty plea — which spared the government the embarrassment of conducting a trial involving highly sensitive information — and his cooperation with the U.S. government, the U.S. attorney pledged not to seek a life sentence for Pollard.

This seemed like a reasonable resolution. The average sentence meted out to individuals convicted of giving classified information to an ally is seven years, with average time served about four years.

Despite the terms of the plea bargain, in 1987 Pollard was sentenced to life, a sentence generally reserved for spies such as Aldrich Ames, who pleaded guilty to giving classified information to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, information that led to the loss of many lives.

The question is why Pollard received such a harsh sentence and why he still languishes in prison despite the pleas of hundreds of U.S. legislators, dozens of distinguished attorneys (including a former solicitor general), a former CIA director, one former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and several Israeli leaders to have him released.

There are at least three reasons for this state of affairs.

(Read full story)

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J Street Has No Shame : Just Days before U.S. Elections J Street Takes More Questionable Contributions

Lenny Ben-David
I*Consult
27 October '10

You’d think the purported "pro-Israel" J Street would have learned its lesson. After the revelation of once-denied contributions from George Soros and $811,697 from a mysterious Philippine woman from Hong Kong, last month J Street’s Political Action Committee accepted campaign contributions from individuals who most certainly are not "pro-Israel."

In August 2009, the Jerusalem Post first reported, "Muslims, Arabs among J Street Donors." Among the donors, the Post article revealed, was "Genevieve Lynch... a member of the National Iranian American Council board. The group has also received several contributions from Nancy Dutton, an attorney who once represented the Saudi Embassy in Washington."

Well, in the 2010 election cycle these women are back along with some other unusual donors.

According to records filed with the U.S. Federal Election Committee on October 20 and October 21, J Street recorded hundreds of donations from Americans of all sorts, most Jewish and some Muslim. But several names jumped out from the 2,100 pages.

Lynch, the NIAC board member and a member of J Street’s Finance Committee, is listed contributing $10,000 in October. At one point last year, J Street and NIAC leaders worked together to block anti-Iran sanctions measures proposed by Congress. Belatedly, J Street changed its position and supported sanctions.

(Read full article)

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There is always an Israeli ‘massacre’

Although it is common to dehumanize enemies, in the Arab/Muslim world, attempting any non-negative presentation of Israelis is just not tolerated.


M. Aljayyousi
Op-Ed/JPost
27 October '10

As I practice filmmaking, I’d like to give a cinematic introduction to this article. Here are five scenes:

Scene 1, 2010, Carnegie Mellon University campus, Pittsburgh: Shabbat dinner for grad students. Two young ladies at the ticket-selling desk, switching between English and Hebrew; I said, “Shalom” and smiled, they smiled back. I thought of joining in, but then what would the reaction be when I introduced myself to the kippa-wearing guys saying, “My name is Mohammad”?

Scene 2, 2008, Jordan. Azmi Bishara, in a documentary about the Sabra and Shatilla massacre on Al Jazeera, noted how it was unlikely that Israeli soldiers would commit the crime; it would not fit their professionalism as soldiers in a regular army.

Scene 3, 2010, US, on the phone with a friend. Checking my following of homefront news, he asked: “Have you heard about the latest Israeli massacre?” referring to the flotilla incident.

Scene 4: 2004, Jordan, a rainy winter night. I was replaying a scene from Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List in which a little girl in red against a black-and-white background runs for shelter. So sad I wept a lot; I felt guilty – for weeping – especially as to the “Zionist” ending of the film.

Scene 5, can’t recall the time or place but definitely 21st century, planet Earth. In an academic, specialist discussion of literary criticism and philosophy; by way of concluding and at the mention of Marx, Freud and Darwin, one of our Arab colleagues exclaimed in a matter-of-fact tone: “They are all Jews... trying to lead humanity astray. You know, part of the Zionist Protocols.”

I have a large repertoire of similar scenes from everyday life, but those will do for now.

(Read full Op-Ed)

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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Obama's Pro-Palestinian Policy Comes In Waives

Daled Amos
28 October '10

No surprise to this first waiver--it's been going on since Clinton was president:

Obama extends Jerusalem embassy waiver
June 3, 2010 

President Obama has extended a waiver for an additional six months delaying moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Obama's waiver, issued Wednesday, follows in the footsteps of predecessors Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who also extended the waiver every six months since the law was adopted in 1995 calling for the move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Presidents are permitted to delay the move on national security grounds.

Some Jewish groups have pushed for the United States to move the embassy as a way to bolster Israeli claims to the city. Those favoring the use of the waiver say that such a step would anger the Arab world and put the United States in the position of taking sides on an issue that should be settled in peace talks.

But now Obama has added one of his own--and he wonders why his Mideast peace talks lies in shambles:

(Read full post)

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Reclaiming Rabin’s Legacy

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
28 October '10

How did the man who declared that he would “break the bones” of the Palestinians become the Mahatma Gandhi of the Israeli Left? Like every year, the commemoration of Yitzhak Rabin’s murder is an exercise in historical falsification and emotional intimidation. It is time to set the record straight.

Rabin grew up in the nationalistic Palmah movement. He was a pure sabra: a Jew from Sparta, not Athens, who was told to fight rather than to think. A talented officer, he followed the ideal career of the Ashkenazi ruling class: IDF Officer, Chief of Staff, Ambassador to the US, Labor MK, Prime Minister —a true WASP (White, Ashkenazi, Sabra Paratrooper).

In his two three-year stints as Prime Minister (1974-1977 and 1992-1995), Rabin was maneuvered into foreign policy decisions he had originally opposed, and in both cases he paved the way to the electoral victory of the Right. In 1975, Rabin was basically coerced by Gerald Ford and Henri Kissinger to withdraw from about 20% of the Sinai Peninsula in order for the US to convince Sadat that abandoning the Egyptian-Soviet alliance made sense. And when Rabin came back to power in 1992, he was not a leader who had “seen the light” as some would have us believe, but rather a man who was manipulated into signing a deal he rightly suspected to be risky.

(Read full post)

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Leaders of Judea and Samaria are warning of a "silent, de facto building freeze."

Arlene Kushner
Senior Research Policy Analyst
Center for Near East Policy Research
27 October '10

Naftali Bennet, director-general of the Yesha Council, has reported that "The cities of Judea and Samaria are effectively frozen. The government has promised to stop the freeze, yet it is continuing it."

There are 4,321 planned units that relevant government ministries have not officially sanctioned. Two of the biggest cities -- Ma'aleh Adumim and Beitar Illit -- are almost out of permits for building. In fact, building will soon stop in 14 of the 19 largest communities of Judea and Samaria unless the Defense Ministry authorizes more construction and the Housing and Construction Ministry issues more tenders. In nine communities all that is required is the political OK, as all technical arrangements are in place.

The Yesha leaders say that the media have been so focused on the few hundred building starts that have gone ahead that no one is paying attention to the fact that things may come to a dead stop soon. They aim to change this with their "Save the Cities" campaign, which is pushing for building permits to be issued.

(Read full article)

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