Friday, November 30, 2012

"Palestinian Humor"

Thanks to Clive.

I'm surprised it wasn't reported by the BBC as yet another example of Israeli aggression.  Where was Jon Donnison?  Where was Jeremy Bowen?  Perhaps it will surface as a news story in the Guardian or Independent in the near future. 
"Israeli woman throws bell at Palestinian"
In yet another blatant act of Israeli aggression, a Jewish woman punched and scratched and threw things at a Palestinian who wanted to murder her and her children.  He was armed with only a knife, a simple and unsophisticated weapon which, according to Jeremy Bowen's classification of weaponry, can only do harm in the event of a direct hit.  Using a knife is also much more dangerous for the potential murderer as it requires him/her to get close to the intended victim instead of firing rockets from afar and running away.
 
In a totally disproportionate response, the woman used highly sophisticated weaponry including a heavy bell to fight off this brave peace-loving man who was only trying to acquit this obligation to Article 7 of the Hamas Charter.  In the face of this onslaught, the Palestinian attempted to make his escape but was brutally murdered by an IDF terrorist when he refused to stop.
According to his friends the deceased was a simple, peace-loving family man whose life was dedicated to hating Jews and teaching others to do the same.  He had hoped to raise several suicide bombers but this unwarranted attack by an Israeli has prevented him from achieving his life's ambition.  "He has left us a fine legacy and we will do everything we can to fulfil it" said a family member.  "That's the least we can do.  If we could do even less, we would."
 
Sources in Syria report that the government there is meeting to discuss calling for Israel to be brought before the International Criminal Court to answer for this atrocity.
 
 Referring to this.

But there was also this.

^

Pals. Warned on Boomerang - Words Worth Quoting


Palestine should be careful what it wishes for. I think it is highly likely that, if the OTP investigated the situation in Gaza, Palestinians would end up in the dock long before Israelis. From a legal perspective, Fatou Bensouda would find it much easier to prosecute Hamas’s deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians than Israel’s disproportionate attacks, collective punishment of Palestinians, and transfer of its civilians into occupied territory. The latter crimes are fraught with ambiguity and difficult to prove. I know I wouldn’t start with them, were I the Prosecutor.



Source.

I asked:

Well, could they be charged with violating the UN 181 decision? Where it reads: “…Appeals to all Governments and all peoples to refrain from taking any action which might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations” or perhaps elements in the Cease-Fire agreements? Or are they liable only from, say, 1964 when the PLO was founded?



And comments there:

So, if the Rome Statute is ratified with retroactive jurisdiction adopted, could those people holding official positions within the Palestinian government be subject to prosecution for acts perpetrated years ago before the establishment / since of the governing authority?  If this is the case, adopting retroactive jurisdiction of the ICC seems a rather foolish and dangerous move by the Palestinian government!   (yes, assuming that the officials in question can be connected to the crimes via a traditional mode of participation, such as co-perpetration, aiding and abetting, or command responsibility.)



Interesting.


^

Congress on Palestine

Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen has spoken

U.S. Must Impose Severe Economic Consequences for UN’s Irresponsible Support for Palestinian Statehood Scheme, Ros-Lehtinen Says

(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued the following statement regarding the United Nations General Assembly’s vote today to adopt a resolution granting “Palestine” (the Palestine Liberation Organization) the status of non-member observer state at the UN.  Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

“Abu Mazen, instead of condemning the Gaza rocket fire and negotiating with Israel for lasting peace, spent the past week congratulating Hamas for its efforts to murder Israeli civilians, while offering condolences for Hamas’s ‘martyrs.’  Now the UN’s vote to grant de facto UN recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state has pushed peace with Israel even further away.

“It is regretful that so many nations supported this unilateral action by the PLO instead of endorsing a bilateral, two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

“It’s crystal clear that Abu Mazen and his cronies are not partners for peace and do not value their relationship with the U.S.  The U.S must stand with our ally Israel and offer no U.S. taxpayer dollars and no political support for the PLO.  As other UN bodies will no doubt use General Assembly resolution as an excuse to grant membership to a non-existent Palestinian state, U.S. law is clear: UN agencies that grant membership to a Palestinian state lose their U.S. funding.  If the Administration again seeks to gut U.S. law and keep funding those reckless UN agencies, Congress’ response must be simple: No.

Eventually here.

^

Let's Applaud The UN

Well, I would applaud the UN on its decision yesterday if, a very big "if", the following national groups get the same treatment:

Kurds, Tibetans, Berbers, Basque, Saharawis, Catalonians, Corsicans, etc.

^

So, Cam We Sue 'Palestine'?

I read this:

Many have expressed concern that the bid for upgraded status is not a reflection of what is happening on the ground, but strictly a lawfare tool aimed at manipulating legal organs to condemn Israel for its defensive maneuvers in Operation Cast Lead and Operation Pillar of Defense. However, If the PA uses its upgraded status to become a party to the Rome Statute, it would simultaneously constitute acceptance of the court's jurisdiction, rendering the PA vulnerable to prosecution for crimes committed against its own people.

But what about me?

While many are concerned about the Pals. now employing their new status to launch higher grade lawfare against Israel, there is that other aspect, not for going after the Pals. for crimes against its own people but does Israel or do Israelis or Jews or anyone else now also have a certain leverage to use aspects of law as well?

^

My Poynter Comments on Ruderon's Editor

Here.

^

Speaking Lies to the UN

Abbas' speech and the highlighted words indicate propaganda, lies and misreprentations:

Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Palestine comes today to the United Nations General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and peace.
Palestine comes today to the General Assembly because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past days, are in desperate need of it.
Palestine comes today to this prestigious international forum, representative and protector of international legitimacy, reaffirming our conviction that the international community now stands before the last chance to save the two-State solution.
Palestine comes to you today at a defining moment regionally and internationally, in order to reaffirm its presence and to try to protect the possibilities and the foundations of a just peace that is deeply hoped for in our region.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence. This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government’s adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and towards peace.
This is why we are here today.
I say with great pain and sorrow… there was certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian children lose their lives in order to reaffirm the above-mentioned facts. There was no need for thousands of deadly raids and tons of explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an occupation that must come to an end and that there are a people that must be liberated. And, there was no need for a new, devastating war in order for us to be aware of the absence of peace.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Palestinian people, who miraculously recovered from the ashes of Al-Nakba of 1948, which was intended to extinguish their being and to expel them in order to uproot and erase their presence, which was rooted in the depths of their land and depths of history. In those dark days, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history. In those dark days, our people had looked to the United Nations as a beacon of hope and appealed for ending the injustice and for achieving justice and peace, the realization of our rights, and our people still believe in this and continue to wait.
This is why we are here today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the course of our long national struggle, our people have always strived to ensure harmony and conformity between the goals and means of their struggle and international law and spirit of the era in accordance with prevailing realities and changes. And, our people always have strived not to lose their humanity, their highest, deeply-held moral values and their innovative abilities for survival, steadfastness, creativity and hope, despite the horrors that befell them and continue befall them today as a consequence of Al-Nakba and its horrors.
Despite the enormity and weight of this task, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the constant leader of their revolution and struggle, has consistently strived to achieve this harmony and conformity.
When the Palestine National Council decided in 1988 to pursue the Palestinian peace initiative and adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was based on resolution 181 (II) (29 November 1947), adopted by your august body, it was in fact undertaking, under the leadership of the late President Yasser Arafat, a historic, difficult and courageous decision that defined the requirements for a historic reconciliation that would turn the page on war, aggression and occupation.
This was not an easy matter. Yet, we had the courage and sense of high responsibility to make the right decision to protect the higher national interests of our people and to confirm our adherence to international legitimacy, and it was a decision which in that same year was welcomed, supported and blessed by this high body that is meeting today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have heard and you too have heard specifically over the past months the incessant flood of Israeli threats in response to our peaceful, political and diplomatic endeavor for Palestine to acquire non-member observer State in the United Nations. And, you have surely witnessed how some of these threats have been carried out in a barbaric and horrific manner just days ago in the Gaza Strip.
We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.
What permits the Israeli Government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences. This belief is bolstered by the failure by some to condemn and demand the cessation of its violations and crimes and by position that equate the victim and the executioner.
The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation.
This is why we are here now.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a State established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the State that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine. We did not come here to add further complications to the peace process, which Israel’s policies have thrown into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious attempt to achieve peace. Our endeavor is not aimed at terminating what remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objective and credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the negotiations to succeed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, I say: We will not give up, we will not tire, and our determination will not wane and we will continue to strive to achieve a just peace.
However, above all and after all, I affirm that our people will not relinquish their inalienable national rights, as defined by United Nations resolutions. And our people cling to the right to defend themselves against aggression and occupation and they will continue their popular, peaceful resistance and their epic steadfastness and will continue to build on their land. And, they will end the division and strengthen their national unity. We will accept no less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and a solution for the refugee issue on the basis of resolution 194 (III), as per the operative part of the Arab Peace Initiative.
Yet, we must repeat here once again our warning: the window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering. The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli bombs – more than 168 martyrs, mostly children and women, including 12 members of one family, the Dalou family, in Gaza – are a painful reminder to the world that this racist, colonial occupation is making the two-State solution and the prospect for realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not impossible.
It is time for action and the moment to move forward.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentleman,
The world is being asked today to undertake a significant step in the process of rectifying the unprecedented historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people since Al-Nakba of 1948.
Every voice supporting our endeavor today is a most valuable voice of courage, and every State that grants support today to Palestine’s request for non-member observer State status is affirming its principled and moral support for freedom and the rights of peoples and international law and peace.
Your support for our endeavor today will send a promising message – to millions of Palestinians on the land of Palestine, in the refugee camps both in the homeland and the Diaspora, and to the prisoners struggling for freedom in Israel’s prisons – that justice is possible and that there is a reason to be hopeful and that the peoples of the world do not accept the continuation of the occupation.
This is why we are here today.
Your support for our endeavor today will give a reason for hope to a people besieged by a racist, colonial occupation. Your support will confirm to our people that they are not alone and their adherence to international law is never going to be a losing proposition.
In our endeavor today to acquire non-member State status for Palestine in the United Nations, we reaffirm that Palestine will always adhere to and respect the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations and international humanitarian law, uphold equality, guarantee civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, promote democracy and pluralism, and uphold and protect the rights of women.
As we promised our friends and our brothers and sisters, we will continue to consult with them upon the approval of your esteemed body our request to upgrade Palestine’s status. We will act responsibly and positively in our next steps, and we will to work to strengthen cooperation with the countries and peoples of the world for the sake of a just peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth certificate for Israel.
Sixty-five years later and on the same day, which your esteemed body has designated as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the General Assembly stands before a moral duty, which it must not hesitate to undertake, and stands before a historic duty, which cannot endure further delay, and before a practical duty to salvage the chances for peace, which is urgent and cannot be postponed.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.
This is why in specific we are here today.
Thank you.

^

Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Sarafand Incident

Once upon a time, in late 1918, in a far-away placed called Palestine:-

The Australians and New Zealanders in Gallipoli were shortly withdrawn. In their camps at Tripoli and on the Philistine plain the light horsemen waited, eager in the prospect of early return to Australia. But an unfortunate incident was destined to throw a shadow over the last days in Palestine of Anzac Mounted Division. Close to the camps of the three brigades in December was the native village of Surafend [Sarafand; Tzrifin]. All the Arabs of western Palestine were thieves by instinct, and those who dwelt close to the Jewish settlements were especially practised and daring. Throughout the campaign the British policy, as already noticed, was to treat these debased people west of the Jordan as devout Moslems, kin not only to the Arabs of the Hejaz but to the Mohammedans of India. And the Arabs, a crafty race, quick to discern British unwillingness to punish their misdeeds, exploited their licence to extreme limits.

They learned, also, that there was a disposition in the British Army to assume without justification that any looting and other similar offenses practised by the troops against the natives had been committed by the Australians. Consequently, if the Arabs missed a sheep from their flocks, they were emphatic that a soldier in a big hat had been seen prowling in the neighbourhood. Seldom punished, they became very impudent in their thefts from all British camps, and at times ventured to murder. All troops may have suffered equally; but, while the British endured the outrages without active resentment, the Australians and New Zealanders burned with indignation, and again and again asked for retaliation, but without obtaining redress. After the armistice a few men of Anzac Mounted Division were shot by the Arabs, and the resentment in Chaytor's division became dangerously bitter.

The natives of Surafend were notorious for their petty thieving. Prompted, perhaps, by the knowledge that the Anzac camps would soon pass for ever from their midst, and emboldened by the immunity they enjoyed, they grew audacious in their pilfering. They were reinforced, too, by a body of nomad Bedouins camped close to their village. The Australians and New Zealanders, sleeping soundly, were a simple prey to the cunning, barefooted robbers, and night after night men lost property from their tents. One night a New Zealander of the machine-gun squadron was disturbed by an Arab pulling at a bag which served him as a pillow. Springing up in his shirt, he chased the native through the camp and out on to the sand-hills, shouting to the picquets on the horselines as he ran. As he overtook the native, the man turned, shot him with a revolver through the body, and escaped. The New Zealander died as the picquets reached him. 


The camp was immediately aroused, and the New Zealanders, working with ominous deliberation, followed the footsteps of the Arab over the loose sand to Surafend. They then threw a strong cordon round the village and waited for morning, when the head men were summoned and ordered to surrender the murderer. The sheikhs were evasive, and pleaded ignorance. During the day the matter was taken up by the staff of the division, but at nightfall the demand of the men for justice was still unsatisfied.

Meanwhile they had resolutely maintained their guard about the village, and no Arab was allowed to leave. That which followed cannot be justified; but in fairness to the New Zealanders, who were the chief actors, and to the Australians who gave them hearty support, the spirit of the men at that time must be considered. They were the pioneers and the leaders in a long campaign. Theirs been the heaviest sacrifice. The three brigades of Anzac Mounted Division had been for almost three years comrades in arms, and rarely had a body of men been bound together by such ties of common heroic endeavour and affection. From the Canal onward men had again and again proudly thrown away their lives to save their wounded from the enemy. Not once in the long advance had a hard-pressed, isolated body ever signalled in vain for support. The war task was now completed and they, a band of sworn brothers tested in a hundred fights, were going home. To them the loss of a veteran comrade by foul murder, at the hands of a race they despised, was a crime which called for instant justice. They were in no mood for delay. 


In their movement against Surafend, therefore, they felt that, while wreaking vengeance on the Arabs, they would at the same time work off their old feeling against the bias of the disciplinary branch of General Headquarters, and its studied omission to punish Arabs for crime. They were angry and bitter beyond sound reasoning. All day the New Zealanders quietly organised for their work in Surafend, and early in the night marched out many hundreds strong and surrounded the village. In close support and full sympathy were large bodies of Australians. Good or bad, the cause of the New Zealanders was theirs. Entering the village, the New Zealanders grimly passed out all the women and children, and then, armed chiefly with heavy sticks, fell upon the men and at the same time fired the houses. Many Arabs were killed, few escaped without injury; the village was demolished. The flames from the wretched houses lit up the countryside, and Allenby and his staff could not fail to see the conflagration and hear the shouts of the troops and the cries of their victims.

The Anzacs, having finished with Surafend, raided and burned the neighbouring nomad camp, and then went quietly back to their lines. In the morning all the disciplinary machinery of the army was as active as hitherto it had been tardy. General Headquarters demanded the men who had led the attack and had been guilty of the killing. The Anzacs stood firm; not a single individual could definitely be charged. Allenby wasted no time in expressing his mind to the division The brigades were assembled on foot in hollow square, and the Commander-in-Chief addressed them in strong, and even, one might say, ill-considered language. He used terms which became his high position as little as the business at Surafend had been worthy of the great soldiers before him. The division fully expected strong disciplinary action for Surafend, and would have accepted it without resentment. But the independent manhood of the Anzacs could not accept personal abuse from the Commander-in-Chief. Allenby's outburst left the division sore but unpunished.


______________
From Chapter XLV, pages 787to 791, of Volume VII of "The Official History of Australia in theWar of 1914 to 1918" by H. S. Gullett, reprinted by permission of the Australian War Memorial.

If you have doubts, seems a researcher

...came across a tape recording of an old Light Horseman, Ted O'Brien, who described in graphic detail how he and his comrades had "had a good issue of rum" and "done their blocks" in Surafend, and how they "went through [the village] with a bayonet." The Bedouin, O'Brien says, were "wicked … You'd shoot them on sight."

Of the massacre at Surafend, he says "it was a real bad thing … It was ungodly." Daley says that, while "some people would no doubt define Surafend as a war crime, I haven't called it that. Technically I don't think it was covered back then by the Geneva Conventions, and it actually happened in December 1918 … after the war ended." No one was charged but in 1921 Australia paid compensation of £515 to the British, who then ruled Palestine, for the destruction of the village. (New Zealand paid £858; the British paid £686 because a small number of Scottish soldiers had participated.) But the massacre stained the previously unimpeachable reputation of the Light Horse. The British commander-in-chief, General Sir Edmund Allenby, is said to have called them "cowards and murderers". Daley points out that 20,000 Light Horsemen were deployed during World War I, only a fraction of whom took part at Surafend. "This incident highlights war's moral complexity and how otherwise good men can do terrible things..."

More.

As for later, during the Mandate period, see here.

An example:

...HUGH FOOT, a district commissioner in 1930s Palestine who narrowly escaped assassination by Arab terrorists, later recalled the arbitrary nature of house demolitions: “When we thought that a village was harboring rebels, we’d go there and mark one of the large houses. Then, if an incident was traced to that village, we’d blow up the house we’d marked.” The tactic was “drastic,” High Commissioner Harold MacMichael conceded, “but the situation has demanded drastic powers.”

An Associated Press correspondent permitted to travel with a British anti-terror unit in October 1938 reported how he watched them “blow up with dynamite about a dozen houses in an Arab village from which shots twice were fired at the troops... [W]hen the troops left there was little else remaining of the once busy village except a pile of mangled masonry.”

In another Arab town, Miar, the British troops “dynamited about forty stone houses” and arrested hundreds of villagers. Sometimes Arab detainees were “put to to work building roads.”

^

Pals. Claim: Third Synagogue Solution

I found this first uploaded at PIC:-:

The Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage said the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) intends to build soon a huge synagogue called the Jewel of Israel in the heart of the old city of occupied Jerusalem. In a press release on Thursday, the foundation said the IOA would build this synagogue about 200 meters away from the western side of the Aqsa Mosque at the pretext of renovating an ancient synagogue.

It noted that this synagogue would be the third of its kind in recent years after the IOA had built the synagogues of Hurva and Issac tent, affirming that all the three synagogues were built on the ruins of endowed Islamic holy sites.

The foundation affirmed that the restoration of this synagogue is aimed at Judaizing the general Arab scene in Jerusalem and minimizing the greatness of the Palestinian Islamic and Christian holy monuments, especially, the Aqsa Mosque and its Dome of Rock.

You read that correctly:
 about 200 meters away from the western side of the Aqsa Mosque

So, no synagogues allowed in Jerusalem?  Two hundred meters is a fair distance away.

How far do they want us to be form our holy site which is only their third most sacred site whereas it is our only truly holy site.

More Jerusalem Denial.  More antisemtism.


P.S.  Issac Tent = Ohel Yitzhak.


^

Int'l Media Hand-in-Hand with Terror

It took perhaps a bit longer than needed but the truth, that began with intrepid bloggers, to come out is now becoming the 'smoking gun' to accuse international media outlets with working hand-in-hand with the terror groups in Gaza.

The two main stories.

One, from the IDF blog, illustrates

How Hamas and Islamic Jihad Use Journalism as a Cover for Terrorism


A second, at Algemeiner, explains that

BBC Staffer Who Lost Child During Israel-Hamas Conflict Blames “Jews,” Tied to Hamas


Will it be reported in the mainstream media themselves?  At the NYTimes media blog, the BBC, et al.?

Here are the questions the IDF Spokesman's Office asks:

Should a senior Islamic Jihad commander who paints “TV” on his car be considered a journalist?

Should a cameraman for a Hamas-owned and operated television network be considered a journalist?

Should a radio show host who wears the uniform of a terrorist group be considered a journalist?

If “yes” is the answer to these three questions — if the clear line between terrorists and journalists is blurred and there is no standard for the definition of “journalist” — it is likely that Palestinian terrorists will continue using journalism as a cover for terrorism.

What do you think the reply will be?
^

An Example of Polish Philosophy

Happiness is something we can imagine but not experience. 

Leszek Kołakowski

No?

Now you know why the Polish national anthem is so ... well, negative:


Poland has not yet perished,
So long as we still live.
What the alien force has taken from us,
We shall retrieve with a sabre.
March, march, Dąbrowski,
From the Italian land to Poland.
Under your command
We shall rejoin the nation.

^

UN Decision Implication #7

Over at ACRI, there's a Q & A on the latest Pal. move to avoid peace with Israel.

Here's Implication # 7:-


7. What are the implications of this initiative on Israeli settlements?
If the Palestinian state would become a party to the International Criminal Court, the issue of Israeli settlements could become an issue of international criminal law. This, under the article in the Statute of the Court stating that the transfer, whether direct or indirect, of the population of the occupying power into occupied territory constitutes a war crime. This could potentially open the door to the prosecution of Israelis responsible for establishing or expanding settlements.

So how come when Jordan illegally occupied Judea and Samaria and transferred in its poulation. no one did anything?

Oh?  The law changed?

Arabs don't get prosecuted?

Who cares?

____________________

Israel rep's speech.

^

Need Epithets?

Try:


Two-Staters,
Settlement-Haters
 or
Blame-Israel-Firsters

^

Amb. Oren: Who Is Threatening Whom?

In an op-ed at the Washington Post, Falling for Hamas’s media manipulation by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States writes:

...Hamas has a military strategy to paralyze southern Israel with short- and middle-range rockets while launching Iranian-made missiles at Tel Aviv. With our precision air force, top-notch intelligence and committed citizens army, we can defend ourselves against these dangers...For all of its bluster, Hamas does not threaten Israel’s existence.
But it tries to and with more assistance from Iran, who knows?

Then he notes:

But Hamas also has a media strategy. Its purpose is to portray Israel’s unparalleled efforts [so as to] pervert Israel’s rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do so through the media.
So, does Hamas threaten Israel's existence, or not?

I'm mixed up.

Oren then informs us what Hamas wants:-

It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression...If Hamas cannot win the war, it wants to win the story of the war.

That's very threatening to me.

Is Oren almost a threat to Israel's public diplomacy efforts?

Couldn't he do better?  Be more threatening to Hamas?

^

FIFA's "Disaster"

FIFA announces:

We see it our mandate to rebuild football infrastructure which has been destroyed. We will also rebuild the stadium in Gaza, which has been destroyed. Football brings people together and we will support any re-construction necessary when football infrastructure is destroyed through disasters.

"Disaster"?

The place was used as a launching site for missiles against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem!!!

Maybe let FIFA know how you feel about this throwing good money after bad?


I left this comment:


Since the Gaza Staidum was used as a launching site for missiles aimed at civilians, what "disaster" are you referring to in your statement?
And if you insiste upon rebuilding, will you set in place supervision visits to assure that this war crime will not be repeated, so that Israel will have no reason to bomb your headquarters?


^

Netanyahu to Address the Nation

Seems that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be making major policy address or at least an exceptional announcement.

He'll be here at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center soon, having booked our auditorium.

Since we are a state-sponsored institution, I doubt that it will be an electioneering event although some wags here claim he might set up a new list with Benny Begin but that's probably just a bad joke.

Maybe Iran?  After all, the 'Begin Doctrine' has been on the table for years now.

Disbanding the electoral bloc with Yisrael Beiteinu?

It's always so exciting to live here.

It is November 29, Partition Day and the Pals. are at it in the UN.  Maybe he'll say something very Zionist?

__________

My last assumption was the correct one.  As soon as I have more details, will further update.

UPDATE

In short, it was a pool press conference, Hebrew and English.

He said:

a) nothing the UN does will affect the historical connection between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel.

b) the UN will not alter the reality of what occurs here which will be concluded through negotiations.

c) and since Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza and received rockets, a Hamas-regime and Iranian weapons supply, we will not disregard threats to our national security.

____________

Quotation from Herb Keinon:


Bibi on UN: "Don't get excited. Unimportant how many vote against us, no force in world wil get me to compromise Israel's security."
_____________

The official statement:


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Thursday, 29 November 2012), at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, made the following statement:

"Israel is prepared to live in peace with a Palestinian state, but for peace to endure, Israel’s security must be protected.  The Palestinians must recognize the Jewish State and they must be prepared to end the conflict with Israel once and for all.  None of these vital interests, these vital interests of peace, none of them appear in the resolution that will be put forward before the General Assembly today and that is why Israel cannot accept it.  The only way to achieve peace is through agreements that are reached by the parties directly; through valid negotiations between themselves, and not through UN resolutions that completely ignore Israel’s vital security and national interests.  And because this resolution is so one-sided, it doesn’t advance peace, it pushes it backwards.
As for the rights of the Jewish people in this land, I have a simple message for those people gathered in the General Assembly today: No decision by the UN can break the 4000-year-old bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel."

___________________


UPDATE



PM's Office Response to Abu Mazen's UN General Assembly Speech
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

In response to Abu Mazen's speech [to the UN General Assembly], the Prime Minister's Office, this evening (Thursday, 29 November 2012), issues the following statement:

"The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the IDF and the citizens of Israel. Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner."


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"Illegal Occupation" - An Exercise

I googled "illegally occupied" and the first results:

1.  Israel.
2. Buffalo, NY
3. State Department on Israel.
4. The Breaking the Silence NGO against Israel..
5. The UN unit against Israel.

As for news,

1. Breaking the Silence.
2. A Pal news outlet.
3. Georgia (the country).
4. West Sahara.
5. Labelling Israeli products.

You'd think Israel was almost the only country involved in the issue of "occupied territories" if you depended on the media.

But review this material on the Western Sahara and think to yourself - this is so like Israel, so why does Israel get such a bad press in such and outlandish fashion:-

Nationalism emerged in the 1960s, as nomadic Saharans, or Saharawis, settled in the region.

Polisario was set up on 10 May 1973 and established itself as the sole representative of the Saharan people. Some 100,000 refugees still live in Polisario's camps in Algeria.

In October 1975 the International Court of Justice rejected territorial claims by Morocco and Mauritania. The court recognised the Saharawis' right to self-determination and Spain agreed to organise a referendum.

But in November 1975, Moroccan King Hassan II ordered a "Green March" of over 300,000 Moroccans into the territory. Spain backed down and negotiated a settlement with Morocco and Mauritania, known as the Madrid Agreement.

...Polisario declared the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) on 27 February 1976 and announced its first government on 4 March...In August 1978, one month after a coup, a new Mauritanian government signed a peace deal with Polisario and renounced all territorial claims.

Morocco moved to occupy areas allocated to Mauritania. Algeria in turn allowed refugees to settle in its southern town of Tindouf, where Polisario still has its main base.

Polisario led a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces until 1991.

In April 1991 the UN established Minurso, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara...In September 1991 a UN-brokered ceasefire was declared.

The peace plan provided for a transition period, leading to a referendum in January 1992. Western Saharans would choose between independence and integration with Morocco...UN special envoy James Baker mediated in talks between Polisario and Morocco in London, Lisbon and Houston in 1997, then in London again in 2000.

Agreements were reached on the release of POWs...In a new bid to break the deadlock, James Baker submitted a "Framework Agreement", known as the Third Way, in June 2001.

It provided for autonomy for Saharawis under Moroccan sovereignty, a referendum after a four-year transition period, and voting rights for Moroccan settlers resident in Western Sahara for over a year.

This formula was rejected by Polisario and Algeria. Then in July 2003, the UN adopted a compromise resolution proposing that Western Sahara become a semi-autonomous region of Morocco for a transition period of up to five years.

...in November 2010, several people were killed in violent clashes between Moroccan security forces and protesters near the capital Laayoune, shortly before UN-mediated talks on the future of the territory were due to open in New York.

Peace plan.  Partition. Framework agreement.

It's all an echo of the Arab-Israel conflict.

P.S.   Most recent UN reaction.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

What Would Rabbi Gordis Write To Rabbi Rosen?

I have been informed that 

Rabbi David Rosen is endorsing a new Saudi interfaith initiative in Austria by joining its 'board of directors'.
The group is called: King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID).

There were other Rabbis at the launch of KAICIID, including Chief Rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt.  [Update: and Prof. L. Schiffman]

Such Saudi interfaith organisations are set up precisely to legitimise and mainstream figures involved in financing terrorism and propagating Islamist ideology and of course, anti-Semitism. The Rabbis along with several Christian clerics who have joined KAICIID, or participate in its activities, are playing the role of 'very useful idiots'.

The president of the Muslim World League, Abdullah Al-Turki, was also at the launch of KAICIID.

I wonder what Rabbi Daniel Gordis would write, after his tangling with Rabbi Brous.

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Andrew Sullivan Suggests 'Self-Deportation'

Is that a war crime?

Maybe such a policy - and a big Palestinian majority in Palestine - would encourage many of the less fanatical settlers to, er, self-deport back to their own country.

Source

Jodi Ruderon Assigned One More Editor

The New York Times has "Problems With a Reporter’s Facebook Posts, and a Possible Solution" in connection with Jodi Ruderon.

Start with a reporter who likes to be responsive to readers, is spontaneous and impressionistic...Put that reporter in one of the most scrutinized and sensitive jobs in journalism – the Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times. Now add Facebook and Twitter...Words go from nascent, half-formed thoughts to permanent pronouncements to the world at the touch of a key. The result is very likely to be problematic. And for that bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, who moved to Israel from New York earlier this year, and her editors at The Times, it has been.

In terms of social media, Ms. Rudoren has had a rocky start in her new position. Within a few days of taking the post, she had sent some Twitter messages that brought criticism, and had people evaluating her politics before she had dug into the reporting work before her...Ms. Rudoren regrets some of the language she used, particularly the expression “ho-hum.”

“I should have talked about steadfastness or resiliency,” she told me by phone on Tuesday. “That was a ridiculous word to use.” In general, she said, “I just wasn’t careful enough.”

Now The Times is taking steps to make sure that Ms. Rudoren’s further social media efforts go more smoothly. The foreign editor, Joseph Kahn, is assigning an editor on the foreign desk in New York to work closely with Ms. Rudoren on her social media posts.

The idea is to capitalize on the promise of social media’s engagement with readers while not exposing The Times to a reporter’s unfiltered and unedited thoughts...

Mr. Kahn described her reporting over the past month as “exemplary.”
Having taken on one of journalism’s toughest challenges, Ms. Rudoren deserves every chance to continue to show readers that she is a reporter whose only interest is in telling the story engagingly and truthfully.

I left this comment:

i guess this is a reporter's revolution in process, changing the matrix from "i am a newspaper's reporter" to "i report what i observe in whatever medium is at my disposal".

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Five Steps of Reaction to the PA

The Yesha Council suggests the following reactive steps by the Israel government to the PA's UN moves, which it calls mutuality towards the unilateralism:

1.  An announcement that this is a violation of the Oslo Accords and makes them void.

2.  Adopting the Levy report which establishes the legal status of the Jewish communities in Yesha.

3.  Disallowing any PA activity in Area C.

4.  Gradual unification of areas of Jewish residency in Yesha with the state of Israel.

5.  Nullification of any acts of courtesy as well as the invalidation of VIP passes of PA officials.

______________

UPDATE


“We’re concerned by Israel’s lack of response to this provocative Palestinian step that is akin to a declaration of diplomatic warfare,” said Dani Dayan, who heads the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
He added that if the Palestinians knew Israel’s reaction in advance, they would be deterred from turning to the UN.
On Wednesday, Dayan sent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a letter in which he urged him to annex Area C of the West Bank and to prevent any Palestinian Authority action in that area.
Dayan also called on Netanyahu to authorize the Levi Report, which advocates transforming West Bank outposts into legal settlements and states that Israeli building in Area C is legal under international law.
Samaria Citizens Committee head Benny Katzover and Binyamin Citizens Committee head Itzik Shadmi wrote letters to parliamentarians in the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu.
Katzover and Shadmi called for creating new settlements, authorizing frozen zoning plans for existing ones and approving new public housing in West Bank Jewish communities.


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Susan Rice and the Book of Esther

Susan Rice is not viewed as that friendly towards Israel.  Others disagree with that assessment.

She is now being considered for the position of Secretary of State.

Republican Senators disagree:-


Rice Concedes Error on Libya; G.O.P. Digs In
WASHINGTON — Susan E. Rice may have hoped that paying a conciliatory call on three hostile Senate Republicans on Tuesday would smooth over a festering dispute about the deadly attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and clear a roadblock to her nomination as secretary of state.
Two of the Republicans, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, said they would seek to block Ms. Rice, who according to administration officials remains Mr. Obama’s preferred choice to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The third Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said on Fox that he would be “very hard-pressed” to support Ms. Rice.
“Bottom line, I’m more disturbed than I was before,” Mr. Graham said after the tense, closed-door meeting...

And the reference to the Book of Esther?

Chapter 4, Verse 14:-



 then will relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place


Of course, Christian Zionists will use this verse.


And a Talmudic epigram:

בזמן שישראל עושין רצונו של מקום - מלאכתן נעשית על ידי אחרים

which means:

when Israel perform the will of the Omnipresent, their work is performed by others

____________

UPDATE

Rice invested in...Iran.


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Two Rabbis and Understanding Evil

I left this comment at Daniel Gordis' blog post responding to the criticism he received following his criticism of the pastoral letter of Rabbi Sharon Brous:

For a column on the need to love Jews more, I see no real need for this phrasing: "To say 'We are deeply entrenched in our narratives of good and evil, victim and perpetrator' is a sentiment I might understand regarding the West Bank or a host of other issues."

While I know that Daniel assigns no 'evil' to the residency of Jews in Judea and Samaria (why use a term - the West Bank - which was a geopolitical invention of a King who illegally occupied territory which didn't belong to him in 1950?), as I am not sure if Rabbi Brous does, why give her a pass on that by suggesting it could be "understood"?

In doing so, it's another form of the ostjuden phenomenon.

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Pressphobia?

If the media is really bad - and read this:-

Noon, on a dirt track in Helmand province, Afghanistan. A soldier sees something on the ground and kneels down for closer inspection. Mercifully, it is not an explosive device but a spider. The soldier screams and jumps back, despite it not being poisonous. If you saw this you would likely conclude that he has arachnophobia. A reporter would say the same. Though not a psychiatrist, you would deem yourself fit to label the soldier thus. But the world-famous news agency Associated Press (AP) yesterday deemed the attributing of other phobias – in particular homophobia and Islamophobia – inappropriate. Their new style guide warns reporters against using phobic terms in "political or social contexts".

The AP's deputy standards editor Dave Minthorn explained:
"Homophobia especially – it's just off the mark. It's ascribing a mental disability to someone, and suggests a knowledge that we don't have. It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: anti-gay, or some such … We want to be precise and accurate and neutral in our phrasing."
It is commendable to strive for accurate, neutral reporting and "homophobia" or "Islamophobia" are not ideal, as they denote solely the fear motivating prejudice. But they are the best we have. While fear may not be the only force behind such attitudes, it is invariably a chief component. AP's assertion that these words are inaccurate isn't remotely neutral or precise; it reveals a banquet of their own assumptions about what governs prejudice. It illustrates the chasm of understanding between an onlooker struggling to read a situation and a victim who, through jabbing repetition, comprehends it only too well.

can we suggest a new term?

Pressphobia?

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BBC Bungles It Again

I just watched a BBC story from Ramallah on the exhuming of Arafat's corpse in order to medically examine the remains and check for poisoning.

The question from the London studio by Geeta Guru-Murthy to reporter Richard Galprin (or was it Jon Donnison?) was:

"will Israel accept the findings?"

Really?

Will the Arabs accept them is the real question.

If he didn't die from poisoning but rather from a disease, or even...AIDS or some other exotic sickness, will the Arab public accept that?

Why is Israel the sole party to suspect as guilty by the BBC?

Remember

In 2005, the New York Times obtained a copy of Arafat's medical records, which it said showed he died of a massive haemorrhagic stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an unknown infection.Independent experts who reviewed the records told the paper that it was highly unlikely that he had been poisoned.


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Relief for Yesha

An opinion on Ehud Barak's departure from the defense ministry which 

will have far-reaching implications for Israeli policy. That’s because the man most likely to replace Barak, Strategic Affairs Minister and Vice Prime Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya'alon, disagrees with him on two of Israel’s most contentious issues: Iran’s nuclear program and West Bank settlements...
Though Ya’alon supported the 1993 Oslo Accords, in recent years he has shifted right on the Palestinian issue. At a 2009 conference, he called the group Peace Now a “virus” and said—regarding U.S. pressure over settlements—that he was “not afraid of the Americans.” “From my perspective,” he was quoted as saying, “Jews can and need to live in all of the Land of Israel for all eternity."  Ya’alon elaborated on his thoughts in the Ha’aretz interview with Ari Shavit:
Ya’alon: As long as the other side is not ready to recognize our right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, I am not ready to forgo a millimeter. I am not even willing to talk about territory. After land-for-peace became land-for-terror and land-for-rockets, I am no longer willing to bury my head in the sand. In the reality of the Middle East what is needed is stability above all. Stability is achieved not by means of imaginary agreements on the White House lawn but by means of defense, by means of a thick stick and a carrot.


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Cooping Hamas

Consider this remark by Anderson Cooper, CNN Anchor, to Wolf Blitzer about Gaza (k/t=AB)

It's, you know, it's obviously intense. I mean you -- you can't help but go there and notice that there is no such thing as regular life. And you know, shops are closed, people are hiding indoors. And it's, you know, for everyday people, they just want it to end. You know, they're not necessarily hugely supporters of Hamas, even though Hamas is democratically elected... to see this person being dragged down a main street while these men on motorcycles are yelling God is great and yelling out that he was a spy, you know, it brings home that this is a place that, you know, there is not a rule of law. 

 and the clincher:


There is targeting involved in, you know, where the Israelis are striking. You can make arguments about whether it's effective or not. You can -- people will take me to task for this, but even Gazans will tell you, you know, I've stood with many Gazans watching bombs going into buildings, and they were taking pictures
They had a sense of this is non-indiscriminate shelling. There is a specific target, whether it's the correct target, whether other people are going to get, women and children are going to get killed in the process, that is going to happen. But it's not that sense of, you know, indiscriminate.
The flip side of that is you never know where a Hamas or an alleged Hamas person may be, where they may have an office in a building like this where, you know, do they have an office on the floor below you? You don't know. And so, Israel considers that a target. And so, they're going to -- if they file missiles into your building, you can very easily get killed.

Journalists, open your eyes.

You are ignoring the evil that lurks around you.

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Someone Notice Anti-Semitism?

Caught this on an academic list:



Seminar series on "Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective" at McGill University

Seminar series on "Antisemitism, Discrimination, Human Rights and International Law" at Harvard University

Seminar series on "Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective" at Fordham University


Do you think academia have realized that something is afoot?

Something evil and dangerous.

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Haaretz-style Democracy and Chemi Shalev's Garbage

Haaretz is crushed by the new Likud list.

Tens of thousands of voters, probably more than are subscribed to Haaretz, established their priorities in a quite democratic fashion.

The paper's Chemi Shalev has no alternative, in his eyesm except to suggest an undemocratic resolutuion of the situation, an appeal abroad;

The replacement of well-known Likud Old Guard “princes” such as Benny Begin and Dan Meridor with ultra-nationalists newcomers such as Danny Danon and Moshe Feiglin - coming on the heels of the recent Likud merger with Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu party - is sure to elicit concern in foreign ministries throughout the world and among many Diaspora Jews as well. It may also create new long-term challenges for Israel’s hasbara efforts and for the country’s PR campaign abroad.

Can you imagine how he would have reacted had he been around in 1977 when Menachem begin was elected?

If TIME reacted Begin=Fagin, what is he to do with Feiglin?

But Shalev is not new to this reality.  Back in 2003, at a Brookings Institute event, he said

As the voting booths close and the campaign jingles fade, the focus of post-election Israeli politics will be the daunting task of forming a coalition government. The character of the new government will be determined in large part by whether Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can convince Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna to join a coalition government with the Likud. Without the support of the Labor Party, Sharon may be forced to rely on a narrow, unstable coalition of religious and right-wing nationalist parties. The outcome of this coalition-building exercise could significantly impact the future of the peace process as well as U.S. policy in the region.

The same old garbage now as then.

But he does admit:

...one should be cautious about overestimating the degree of potential public disfavor with the new Knesset list. After all, it is not just the Likud Knesset list that has veered to the right, but the entire Israeli electorate, which no longer believes in the peace process and shares the often parochial and belligerent “the whole world is against us anyway” view promoted by many of the Likud’s new stars. 

Not only Likud.  So there is democractic opinion in Israel.


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And Zehava's Soul???

I read


The Likud’s political opponents denounced the list as overly hawkish.“The liberal Likud has lost its soul,” Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said. “It is scary to imagine what would happen if the Likud will remain in power.”

For someone whose soul was lost years and years ago, that's a lot of chutzpah, Zehava.

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Feiglin's Admission

The Likud's outsider, Moshe Feiglin, finally realized what I and others have been writing for years.  His approach was wrong.

Oh how much money was wasted supporting his Jewish Leadership outfit in its stand-off-on-the-sidelines attitude for almost a decade or so.

But last night, after finally, as of the present, achieving a realistic slot, we read


Feiglin expressed joy that he will finally be entering the Knesset after trying twice before and being blocked by legal challenges initiated by Netanyahu. He credited his decision to tone down his rhetoric and work within the system in Likud rather than try to take it over.
“I changed my style but not my values,” Feiglin said. “The journey I began when I said that this is our land will continue now from inside the parliament. My values have gone into the Likud through the front door, enabling us to defend Israel from its enemies and make it into a state of Jewish freedom.”
He was never considered a Likudnik.

I once, almost facetiously, suggested to him to take over a smaller party, like Meretz, as with the Likud he was going nowhere.

We now have to see if he does get in.

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The Caspit "Extention" Principle

Remember the old joke - if my grandmother had wheels she'd have been a bus?
 
Lookee here:

Ben Caspit writes that one outcome of the Gaza conflict is that when Israel holds talks with Hamas through Egypt, it is by extension talking with Iran, which is funding Hamas and pulling its strings from afar.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/israel-gaza-crisis.html#ixzz2DMz9KwvB
Ben Caspit writes that one outcome of the Gaza conflict is that when Israel holds talks with Hamas through Egypt, it is by extension talking with Iran, which is funding Hamas and pulling its strings from afar.

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Monday, November 26, 2012

Assertive Agression by Robert Wright

I left this comment here, at The Atlantic:


Yisrael Medad
 
Just as an aside, if Wright played a pun on us by writing of "Israel's aggressive settlement program", as if he would wish his readers to assume Jewish settlement activity, aka establishing Jewish residency in the Jewish homeland, is "aggression", he's wrong. and better that he would have written "assertive".

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Thank You, EU

What can I say but "thank you, EU".

First, for again proving its malicious bias.

Second, for giving Israel the idea and, better, the rationale, to come down harder on the internationalists that block our roads, etc.

That's from reading this:

The European Union is recommending a blacklist of "known violent settlers" who will be blocked from entering EU member states, a Western diplomat told Haaretz...[after] the consuls general of the EU countries in East Jerusalem and Ramallah wrote a report dealing with settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, especially the incidents the settlers refer to as "price tag" revenge attacks.The report recommended that EU headquarters in Brussels draw up a blacklist of settlers who would be forbidden entry into the 27 EU states.

...This document, which was obtained by Haaretz, says most of the violent incidents perpetrated by settlers "appear to be part of a pattern of coercion aimed at forcing Palestinian communities in Area C to leave with a view to expanding settlements or outposts." The document also states that the "political strength of the settler movement has grown" and "the Israeli authorities have generally not taken firm action against outposts [that are] also illegal under Israeli law." Given that, it states, a "culture of impunity is which the violence continues" has developed.

...The United Nations "considers settler violence as the biggest security threat to its personnel in the West Bank," the document states. 

 And there's this:-
Several of the committee experts visited the West Bank and Israel last week. A Foreign Ministry source said the visit "was totally unbalanced. Unfortunately, this is typical of some of the European clerical staff."
According to the source, the European diplomats devoted most of their time to visiting the Palestinian Authority areas, and made several tours of the region accompanied solely by Palestinian officials. The Foreign Ministry was infuriated when told of the document's contents, with officials saying that Israel had had no inkling that EU institutions were preparing any such blacklist. "It's hard to respond to a paper we haven't seen," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. "As for the inflammatory proposal to refuse to admit what they call 'known violent settlers' because Israel hasn't put them on trial, there's an internal contradiction there. How will a person be defined as a 'violent settler' if he hasn't been convicted? And if he's been convicted, then Israel has brought him to justice. It seems as if in their eagerness to suggest tough measures, these esteemed experts neglected simple logic."

Of course, if the EU reps would spend more time with people in the communities of Yesha, acting just a bit more objectively, maybe they would learn something.

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Palestinans Pathetic; Israelis Shmucks

I hope this is not tongue-in-cheek:-

... this is a fact. The Palestinian leadership, with a couple of happy new exceptions like Fayyad, is just pathetic or worse. The Palestinians are among the world's most scorned and dispossessed people, but they've been saddled with the worst liberation movement in the history of liberation movements.

First and foremost, if they'd been a nonviolent movement, they'd have had their state 20 years ago. No understanding at all of either the Jewish or the American conscience, which resists "resistance" at all costs but melts at the first sight of a person standing before a tank holding a rose.
Second, the PA was until recently just hideously corrupt. Arafat and his cronies got away with stealing so much money from those poor people. Completely unconscionable.
Third, they appear to have no understanding of why they're really losing. They're losing because American public opinion will never be on their side. Americans will always back the Jews. To Americans, Jews are nice, successful people. They're funny. Jerry Seinfeld. Who's gonna be against Jerry Seinfeld's people?...

... Palestinians? Yes, as Bill Clinton said, the only Palestinians he knows are college professors and doctors. In Clinton's experience and in my more limited one, Palestinian Americans are a high-achieving and very warm people. But all most Americans know is, they're a bunch of terrorists. Palestinian leadership needs to take that seriously and change it. None of this is meant as a defense of Israeli leadership. They're schmucks, too, or worse. So I don't really like either side very much, in terms of their leaders I mean, which is why I don't write about this very often. But I do know that if Palestinians moved to nonviolence and undertook a smart campaign to improve their image here, they'd turn things around on a dime.

That was from the keyboard of Michael Tomaksy.


When Are There Maccabees in A Church?

When they are a rock band from England and appear in Hackney, London.





Yes, they do exist. ^