A Passover Message From Israel Straight Talk

Avi Abelow
Israel Straight Talk
IST #51
20 April '11

Passover is the time when we thank G-d for taking the Jewish people out of bondage from Egypt and introduced the concept of freedom to humanity. This Passover we wish all people the G-d given freedom that they deserve and we wish the Western world to free itself from tolerating the evil that is growing stronger day by day.



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Passover Preparations with Yishai and Malkah in Israel

EyeOnZionTV
Apr 17, 2011

Wishing one and all a Chag Kasher vSameach, and leaving you with a new video from our friends, Yishai and Malka, to set the proper mood.  Yosef and Melody

Passover Preparations with Yishai and Malkah.



Correction: In the video it says that Beit El is in the Judean Hills but it is actually in the mountains of Samaria.

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'The cycle of violence between Jews and Egyptians continues': How CNN might have reported the Passover story

Stephanie Gutmann
Telegraph UK
29 March '10

Here’s how the Passover story would have been reported, back in the day, by CNN or the New York Times (courtesy Daniel P. Waxman of Mideasttruth.com):

The cycle of violence between the Jews & the Egyptians continues with no end in sight in Egypt. After eight previous plagues that have destroyed the Egyptian infrastructure and disrupted the lives of ordinary Egyptian citizens, the Jews launched a new offensive this week in the form of the plague of darkness.
Western journalists were particularly enraged by this plague. “It is simply impossible to report when you can’t see an inch in front of you,”complained a frustrated Andrea Koppel of CNN. “I have heard from my reliable Egyptian contacts that in the midst of the blanket of blackness, the Jews were annihilating thousands of Egyptians. Their word is solid enough evidence for me.”

While the Jews contend that the plagues are justified given the harsh slavery imposed upon them by the Egyptians, Pharaoh, the Egyptian leader, rebuts this claim. “If only the plagues would let up, there would be no slavery. We just want to live plague-free. It is the right of every society.”

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The Significance of Passover for Contemporary Arab and Muslim History

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
29 March '10

One of the greatest little challenges of my life--at least in terms of needing to react instantly--came when I was sitting in a meeting with high-ranking Egyptian officials during Passover. One of them asked me if it was true that the Jews had a holiday about defeating the Egyptians. I realized I had about ten seconds maximum to come up with the best answer.

And it then came to me: "Ah, I replied, those were jahiliyya times."

In Islam, the time before the beginning of that religion is viewed as a time of not only paganism but barbarism. Pharoah is a villain in the Koran. So they instantly accepted my answer: celebrating a story which ends with the drowning of pharoah isn't an act against Egypt but against a hated tyrant.

We are in a similar situation today. Change for the better will only come when the ideas and individuals who dominate the Middle East today--and oppose modernization, women's equality, democracy, peace with Israel, and real friendship with the West--are seen not as heroic leaders embodying Arabism and Islam but as unrepresentative tyrants.

That is not going to happen any time soon. It will take decades. Coincidentally, I just read the following written by George Orwell in 1946:

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The ‘Obama Intifada’ Begins in Israel

Abraham H. Miller
Pajamasmedia.com
29 March '10

This Passover, as in every previous Passover, the struggle for Jewish survival continues.

We now face an administration that has turned a bureaucratic flap over an incomplete building permit into a diplomatic crisis with Israel.

Ramat Shlomo is a Jewish neighborhood. The Arabs never protested building there because the Arabs never envisioned that Ramat Shlomo would be turned over to them in a final peace accord.

Twelve years ago, major construction began in Ramat Shlomo without a stone being thrown.

Today, a fourth stage of a seven-stage building permit and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s central synagogue, malevolently and illegally destroyed under the Jordanian occupation, creates an Intifada, the Obama Intafada.

Obama has created negotiation positions for the Palestinians they themselves knew were unrealistic. But no Palestinian leader can afford to demand less for the Palestinians than the Americans are willing to demand for them.

First there was the demand for a settlement freeze as a prelude to negotiations. But negotiations took place all the time while settlements were being built. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas never asked for a freeze as a precondition, but once Obama carved out that position, Abbas had to fall into line. Can the Palestinian president be more accommodating to the Israelis than the Americans are?

Then, of course, the Obama administration put the building freeze in Jerusalem on the table. Abbas never asked for a freeze in Jerusalem until after the administration took the lead. Does the Obama administration believe they can make Jerusalem Judenrein (“Jew free”)?

Building in Ramat Shlomo, and the reopening of the central synagogue, the Huvra, transformed into rallying cries for a new Intifada, about which the administration remains mute. Whenever Jews choose to return to where they lived before the Jordanians evicted them, they are met with outcries from the international community. This is the same international community that chose to be blind and mute about Jews being evicted from their homes and cut off from their holy places during the Jordanian occupation.

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Obama: Passover Wrap Up, "Next Year In Jerusalem ," Deemed "Provocative"(Satire)

Doc's Talk
27 March '10

Shana Habbab (AP White House Correspondent)

(AP) — An unidentified Israeli official has confirmed that private discussions between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu included an urgent request from the President that the traditional closing refrain “next year in Jerusalem” be deleted during the upcoming Passover holiday, calling the ancient passage provocative and unhelpful for the future of peace talks. Calling it “an easy fix,” Obama strongly urged the Jewish People to replace it with “next year in peace” or “next year in Tel Aviv,” leaving the exact wording to final status talks between Israelis and Palestinians. Netanyahu is said to have balked at the request, indicating that the refrain dates back well before the UN Partition of 1947 and well before the U.S. Declaration of Independence, for that matter. The Prime Minister reportedly attempted to diffuse the situation by offering to remove it from the conclusion of the lesser-known Yom Kippur service, and suggesting the phrase was defunct anyway since Jews have controlled all of Jerusalem since 1967. However, a visibly irritated President Obama flatly rejected the compromise, adding it was another indication the “stiff-necked” Prime Minister did not appear “serious about peace.”

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