Monday, April 28, 2008
Israeli State Radio Outs the Academic Fifth Column
Until now, Israel's state-owned media have generally never done any investigative reporting on Israel's Far left and Academic Fifth Column. The TV and radio stations are owned by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and the IBA has always been a poorly-disguised bastion of the Left. Its heads have never hidden the fact that think their mission in life is to advance the Left's agenda.
That is why the decision to run a series of radio shows viciously attacking the academic far Left and the "Post-Zionists" is so significant, and why it has the far leftists in Israel soiling themselves in anguish.
Last evening the first of what is promised to be a series of two-hour radio shows on the subject was aired on Reshet Bet, one of the large state-run radio channels in Israel. It can be heard via the internet in Hebrew at URL: http://www.iba.org.il/media/?recorded=radio14
where you need to click the program entitled "The Anti-Zionist Congress." These shows are part of the wider state-media coverage of Israel's 60th independence anniversary celebrations.
The show lasted two hours so I cannot post a full protocol, but I will summarize it briefly here. The MC was Kobi Barkai and the producer and editor was Avraham Ben-Melech. The program was by far the best expose of Israel's treasonous far Left to appear in the Israeli media to date. While giving plenty of time to the anti-Zionists to state their "claims," in such a way that that no leftist has any legitimate grounds for complaint about the show, it also gave full time to critics of the Tenured Traitors to state THEIR claims. On the one hand, lengthy citations and statements by Ilan Pappe, Uri Ram, Shlomo Zand, and Teddy Katz were read or recited from interviews. But they were answered by critics of the "Post-Zionists," including Prof. Shlomo Avineri, Prof. Shalom Rosenberg, Amnon Lord, and others. Also, the MC himself attacked the Anti-Zionist academics harshly and at length throughout the show and made it clear that the goal of the program was to expose a group
of traitors that had grown up inside Israel.
The main point made over and over was that there is no such thing as a "Post-Zionist," and that those claiming to be so are really anti-Zionists seeking Israel's annihilation. While some of the leftists say so openly in the show, the others pretend to be seeking only what is peaceful and good for Israel, but the show made it clear that this is only a pretense. The MC described at length how the "Post-Zionists" collaborate with anti-Semites, devote their energies to demonizing Israel as a Nazi-like, fascist apartheid state, accuse Israel of conducting "ethnic cleansing" and genocide against the peaceful innocent Palestinian Arabs, insist that Israel has always sought war and conflict, including being responsible for the Six Day War, but the Arabs have always sought peace. It even cited Avi Shlain's claim that Israel was guilty of causing the Syrians to shell Israel before 1967 from the Golan Heights.
The program described at length those Post-Zionists who deny that Jews are a people and insist Jews have no right to a state or self-determination. The program cited Tel Aviv University anti-Zionist (and communist) Prof. Shlomo Zand at length as declaring in his new recent "book" that Jews are not a people at all and that Jewish nationhood is a complete fabrication of the Zionists. The program described how such people seek to make Israel junk its flag and the national anthem to make Arabs feel more "welcome," and otherwise seek to eliminate any semblance of any Jewish character to the state. It described at length the pseudo-history of Ilan Pappe and Teddy Katz, who invented an imaginary massacre of Arabs, supposedly by Jews in 1948 near Haifa. It cited Uri Ram, an anti-Zionist from Ben Gurion University, saying that there is no justification for the existence of any Jewish state. It cited Prof. Shlomo Avineri from the Hebrew University as saying that such
academic leftists are seeking the annihilation of Israel. It repeatedly described such "Post-Zionists" as being driven by psychological disorders and Jewish self-hatred.
I happen to consider the program a consequence of the many years of efforts by myself and others to expose the Tenured Traitors and the Academic Fifth Column in Israel. Most recently Isracampus.org.il is doing important work to expose these people.
As one indication of the effectiveness of the radio program, I attach below the hysterical ravings of one of the worse anti-Zionist leftists from the University of Haifa as posted on a University of Haifa chat list for professors. It is unedited and spelling left uncorrected:
From:
"Micah Leshem" <micahl@psy.haifa.ac.il> Add Mobile Alert
To:
segel-plus@research.haifa.ac.il
Date:
Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:35:16 +0300
CC:
Subject:
[Segel-plus] Kol Israel disgusting sectorial demagoguery and propaganda
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YAHOO.Shortcuts.hostSpaceId = "97546168"; Last night's episode of "60 years of the Statel" (ùùéí ùðåú îãéðä) on Reshet Beth of Kol Israel (1905-2100h) was titled "The Anti Zionist Congress". In part 1 (apparently the 2nd part is yet to be aired), the program let vent to a 3 hour diatribe of anti "New Historian" Academics, harbored by our universities, and associated them with Nazism, Antisemitism, and a variety of epithets that were also aimed at "some MKs" and, of course, the Palestinian citizens of the state. This vitriol was repeated 3-4 times: at the beginning of the program, and after each break for advertisements and the news. Some words from Pappe, Katz, and an Oxford Professor (apparently originally Israeli) were brought, each followed by demagoguery such as a lengthy quotation from an "anonymous American professor" (really, they stated s/he was "Anonymous") and repeatedly the horrible crimes typical of intellectual Jews such as abysmal self-hatred etc etc.
At no point was there any reference to historic facts, true or false, although in a giveaway line they mentioned that it was all started by the opening of the IDF archives! Itamar Rabinovitz was enlisted to explain that no minority is better treated in any western country than the Israeli Arabs – although some minor problems might need attention.
The program is by A. Ben Melech and I have never heard a more sickening or partisan broadcast on Kol Israel previously, not even in pre-election party political broadcasts. I do not know if Arutz 7 broadcasts stuff like this, but allowing Government Radio to tout such a platform is an outrage, delegitimising differences of opinion at best, and academic and historical research at worst.
I can think of no better justification for avoiding paying the agra at all costs.
While it is quite possible that the majority of Jewish Israelis will dance on the roofs and invade the pitch in glee upon hearing this program, its iniquitous content is not a matter of opinion. It is a clear breach of trust by a major government authority in a supposedly free society.
Micah
*********
I think that anything that could get Micah Leshem so hysterically angry must be a major national success!
---------------------------------
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Thursday, April 24, 2008
TAU Psychology Prof Denounces The Haggada!
and one of the more extreme leftist Post-Zionists on a campus that is
crawling with them. Strenger has a long track record of Israel bashing
and leftist propagandizing ( see for example
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/936471.html ,
http://www.minfo.gov.ps/English/opinions/11-06-07b.htm ,
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=604_0_1_0_M ) . He
frequently appears on Palestinian terrorist web sites. He sits in the
same department at Tel Aviv University where "The Psychology of the
Occupation" is a course. (We have posted about that propaganda course
earlier, after which the then-President of TAU, Itamar Rabinovich, wrote
the heads of our own university demanding that we be silenced!)
This past week, Strenger outdid his anti-Israel leftist friends and took
on not only Zionism but the Passover Haggada! You can seeit, in
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/976908.html in Hebrew (not
available in English). There Strenger explains how the Haggada is a
backward archaic anti-democratic document. And in fact that is the whole
problem with Israel . that it attempts to incorporate in its essence those
primitive sentiments from the Bible and Haggada.
Strenger claims that the basic message in the Haggada is that Jews must
"blindly obey" commandments they suppose come from God. He says that the
Haggada justifies unjust killing of the first-born sons of the Egyptians,
that we are obliged to go to the Temple Mount where Abraham supposedly
bound Isaac, that Abraham was a bruit willing to allow both Isaac and
Ishmael to die needlessly, and we are told to persecute Amalek unjustly.
Needless to say, Amalek, Ishmael, Isaac, and Abraham are mentioned nowhere
in the Haggada, nor even is Moses. But that is all enough for Strenger to
proclaim that in his house, no one reads (is permitted to read?) the
Passover Haggada.
Now what really bothers Strenger of course is that if people read the
Haggada or the Bible they may get the foolish idea that Jews have the
right to their own state and to Jerusalem, something Strenger no doubt
wants us all to "question." Israel has squashed the "traditional Jewish
tradition of critical thinking and irony," opines Strenger, meaning . I
guess . that too many Israelis laugh at his own "ideas." He names Woody
Allen and Steven Spielberg (and Spinoza, who is fashionable among the
atheist clique) as non-religious Jews whom we in Israel should all take as
our role models. He claims Maimonides himself abandoned Judaism for a
while, although (to Strenger's disappointment?) returned to it. He
denounces the Zionist movement and Ben Gurion for filling the minds of
Israelis with such mythology and archaic nonsense, which then directly led
to a group of simply awful people building settlements in Palestinian
lands after 1967. He adds that the story of Masada is a fabrication and
that the great archeologist Yigal Yadin knew it was fake but kept it
hidden in a grand conspiracy because he was afraid of what revealing the
fabrication would do to Israeli morale. All of which proves that
Strenger's mind is about as deep as that of Barry Chamish and just as
capable of inventing conspiracist nonsense.
The main conclusion of Strenger is that if we in Israel detach ourselves
from "myths" about having a divine right to our land, then we will be
forced to face the fact that we are oppressors who stole the land of
another "people." Never mind that the "Palestinians" are a "people" in
about the same sense as the members of United Airlines frequent flyer
program are.
Meanwhile, his rant in Haaretz gives us a pretty good idea of what he
washes the brains of his students in.
2. Hmmm. Wonder if this is Chamish's doing for Chabad canceling his
talks in Florida:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3534841,00.html
3. Green Fascism:
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
4. From Haaretz, of all places:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977486.html
Beware, appeasement
By Ari Shavit
The suicidal left has found itself a new hero: Jimmy Carter.
Finally, someone is speaking the truth: Israel is an apartheid state.
Finally, someone is exposing justice: Palestinian terrorism is tantamount
to the actions of the Israel Defense Forces. Finally, someone is bringing
peace: He is welcomed by that modern-day Sadat, Khaled Meshal.
For the suicidal left, Carter is the good American cop who is
replacing the bad American cop and ending the dark era of George Bush.
After eight lean years, we once again have a brave Southern sheriff
chasing the true villain - Israel. Now, then, we can once again stretch
out on the soft sofas of the 1990s divan and suck on a hookah of sweet
illusions. As though Camp David never happened. As though Hamas did not
exist. Because Jimmy has come home. Carter has brought back hope.
In the spring of 1979, President Carter made history: He led
Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to sign a peace accord. Carter did not
initiate the accord. In some of his moves, Carter even jeopardized it. And
yet ultimately the former president headed the peace summit and brought
Egypt and Israel to the happy ending that they had had trouble reaching by
themselves. That glowing hour on the White House lawn is the hour of grace
in Carter's failed career in international politics. No one can take it
away from him.
In the fall of 1979, however, President Carter once again made
history: failing to understand that the Khomeini revolution was imminent,
he prevented the Shah from preventing the revolution. He thus brought
about a historical catastrophe whose dimensions remain difficult to grasp
even today. In the name of his commitment to moderation and human rights,
Carter allowed zealots to take over Iran and turn it into a regional power
of evil. This power of evil is about to become nuclear. It is a threat to
Israel's existence, to the stability of the Middle East and to world
peace. Carter bears the heavy burden of responsibility for this
development.
In November 1980, the Americans kicked Carter out of the White
House in disgrace. They did so because they felt that he had destabilized
America and brought it to its knees, and because they could no longer
stand everything he represented: weakness, sanctimoniousness and groveling
before evil.
For some 30 years, Carter has been perceived by most Americans as
a self-righteous fool who does not understand the basic physics of the
real world. The fact that the preacher from Georgia wrapped his alchemy of
international politics in a moralizing theology only increased the
repugnance he aroused. Just as Carter's policy is not really policy, his
morality is not really morality. There is no zealous thug that Carter will
not embrace. No third-world terrorist that he will not try to appease.
The problem, however, is not Carter, but Carterism. Carterism is a
policy of appeasement: it is the unwillingness of those who seek good in
the West to protect the values of the West when faced with an aggressor
from the East. Carterism is the inability of the enlightened in North
America and North Tel Aviv to face the fact that sometimes there is evil
in the Third World. Sometimes there is evil in the Arab world. There is
even Palestinian evil.
Carter himself is not very important. He did some damage to
Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian moderates, but the damage is limited. He
did talk peace with Hamas at the same time that Hamas was initiating a
military offensive at Kerem Shalom, an act that might have sparked a war,
but in this he only exposed his own shoddiness.
Carterism is far more important than Jimmy Carter. Carterism is a
profound scourge found among certain elites in the U.S., in Western Europe
and in Israel. Carterism is a dangerous distortion of thought and values
among those who presume to be thinkers committed to values.
The possibility that a Democrat will be elected president of the
United States in November makes the debate over Carterism relevant and
vital. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will have to choose whether to
continue in the sober tradition of Roosevelt-Truman-Kennedy or to revive
Carter's appeasement. That is why it is important to speak out strongly
right now about the path chosen by the old man who came to visit us this
week.
This path is not only delusional, but immoral. Carterism's
cooperation with Hamas is cooperation with the oppression of women, with
the jailing of homosexuals, with the persecution of Christians. It is
cooperation with a religious tyranny that tramples the Palestinian
individual and seeks to eradicate the Israeli-Jewish collective. True,
George Bush too has wreaked calamity on the Middle East, but the way to
correct Bush's mistake is not to return to Carter's abomination. If the
Israeli, European and American left chooses to become a Carterist left, it
will indeed become a suicidal left.
4. A couple of days back a major expose of the abuses of students and the
misuse of the classroom by Neve Gordon for anti-Israel indoctrination and
propagandizing appeared here:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=44A95318-758A-41EC-8A5C-3E27F0AA2D12
Right afterwards, Gordon circulated his own message to his students at the
University of Michigan and to others saying that this article "proves how
impossible it is to teach Middle East Studies in America." You know, with
the Zionist lobby and all exposing what he tells his students.
Now Gordon does not teach Middle East Studies at all, or anything at all
for that matter, but merely engages in anti-Israel classroom incitement
and then calls it scholarship. His "academic record" consists mainly of
articles containing little more than anti-Israel propaganda. He is upset
NOT because it is "impossible it is to teach Middle East Studies in
America" but because some students are unwilling to keep quiet about the
nonsense he "teaches" and cite his classroom pronouncements verbatim.
Gordon, like so many other classroom propagandizers, wants only one point
of view to be expressed in class, his. Those he seek to have other points
of view presented are seeking to suppress the teaching of Middle East
Studies in America. Of course, at Gordon's Ben Gurion University in the
Department of Political Science, there are no problems because no Zionist
is allowed to teach there. Only correct anti-Israel points of view are
permitted.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Abuse of Students by Neve Gordon - Eyewitness Report
the University of Michigan - Eyewitness Student Report
Eyewitness Student Report:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=44A95318-758A-41EC-8A5C-3E27F0AA2D12
*In-Classroom Indoctrination at the University of Michigan *
By Jacob Benshimon
<http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=44a95318-758a-41ec-8a5c-3e27f0aa2d12>
*FrontPageMagazine.com | 4/23/2008 *
The anti-Israel climate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor shot off
the charts this past year with the addition of radical anti-Israel Professor
Neve Gordon<http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=B00ADEB0-C6D2-418E-BB5B-333832141A3B>to
the Political Science department. Gordon is a tenured lecturer at
Israel's Ben Gurion University and a visiting professor at the University of
Michigan. He has made a career
out<http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=0AD07886-75AF-411A-A664-EE6EFC600CD9>of
turning out venomous anti-Israel articles and now has turned his Ann
Arbor classroom into an anti-Israel indoctrination camp.
This past fall semester, Prof. Gordon taught the popular "Arab-Israeli
Conflict" course. As if the University of Michigan did not have enough
outlandish anti-Israel professors who operate major courses at the
university. Kathryn Babayan, for example, has been the professor for the 100
level "Peoples of the Middle East" course for almost ten years, a mandatory
course for any student majoring in the Near Eastern studies department. Her
anti-Semitic antics were spotlighted last fall with a charge of interfering
in a police arrest while disrupting a Pro-Israel student group's
event.<http://www.meforum.org/article/789>Michigan has also been the
soapbox for outspoken anti-Israel Prof. Juan
Cole <http://sandbox.blog-city.com/juan_cole_loses_head.htm> for over twenty
years. Cole's scholarly
status<http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2004_11_25.htm>is now
much criticized after his 2006 employment rejection from Yale and
Duke University was made public.
Prof. Gordon fits in quite well -- and has the resume to prove it. He is a
radically anti-Israel political scientist, best known for serving as an
apologist<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1129540643087&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull>for
the anti-Semitic ex-professor from DePaul University Norman
Finkelstein.
Gordon is also a regular
columnist<http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=%7bA597F21F-0C86-48A0-B7D3-A942D4C1EB96%7d>on
the neo-Stalinist anti-Semitic web magazine
*Counterpunch* and contributor to the web
site<http://www.think-israel.org/plaut.zundel.html>of the deported
Neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel. Last year, acclaimedProf. Alan Dershowitz wrote
about him,<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378347880&pagename=JPOST%2FShowFull>"It
is my opinion that Neve Gordon has gotten into bed with neo-Nazis,
Holocaust justice deniers, and anti-Semites. He is a despicable example of a
self-hating Jew and a self-hating Israeli."
Gordon led an international campaign of
vilification<http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=374>against his own
Israeli army officer, falsely accusing the officer of being
a war criminal. As a result of Gordon's campaign, the officer was unable to
enter Britain for studies lest he be falsely prosecuted. In 2006, to show
solidarity with Arafat against the Israeli army, Gordon illegally snuck into
Arafat's <http://www.think-israel.org/jan07pix/neve-gordon.jpg> Ramallah
compound during an Israeli anti-terror incursion in order to interfere with
the apprehension of terrorists. The editor of the Israeli
daily<http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART/878/960.html>
*Ma'ariv*, Ben-Dror Yemini,
accused<http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART/878/960.html>Gordon and his
ilk of "spread[ing] their articles dripping with anti-Zionist
poison all over the world, some of which appear on anti-Semitic websites."
Gordon's playground this fall was Arab-Israeli Conflict course with over 200
students. Twice a week, Gordon had the opportunity to fill the fresh minds
of University of Michigan students with skewed history and highly
politicized anti-Israel rhetoric. He consistently embarrassed students who
dared to question or object to his controversial and sometimes offensive
claims.
In a lecture on November 14th, Gordon told the class that he wasn't
interested in giving an unbiased academic history of the Arab-Israeli
conflict: "Jeremy asked why I would give a revisionist history. And I give a
revisionist history because I think it's true. What's said in a textbook is
not what it's about."
His "revisionist" syllabus included the controversial book by Sandy Tolan *The
Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East*, in which
history is attempted to be told through the story of an Arab man who meets
the woman who he claims took over his home after he was "forced out" by
Israel.
On November 19th, Gordon was absent from class and screened an appallingly
biased film, on which the class was to take notes. "Peace, Propaganda, and
the Promised Land" is a politically charged anti-Israel propaganda film that
stars such anti-Israel celebrities as Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Hanan
Ashrawi, and Neve Gordon himself.
In a lecture on October 10th, which was supposed to be about the historical
Suez Crisis, Gordon purposefully digressed at length to blame Israel for the
current crisis with Iran. He explained to the class that Israel gained
nuclear weapons as the outcome of a deal with France at the end of the
crisis in 1956. He then stepped away from his podium to drive home his
message, "You cannot understand what is happening with Iran today if you
don't understand what happened with Israel in '56." As this comment was
charged with controversial anti-Israel bias, Gordon was delighted to open
the class to questions.
When a student, who prefaced his statement with the premise that he was
Jewish, challenged Gordon's ridiculous blame of Israel for Iran's actions
today, Gordon disregarded the Jewish student's challenge by smirking and
stating to the class, "Ben is always trying to bring us back to the
present." It was, in fact, Prof. Gordon who clearly brought the class
discussion to that of present times. Gordon then welcomed a question from a
student who claimed Iranian President Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust
was "not a big deal." By first demonizing Israel, then not allowing any
student objections to his anti-Israel statements, then welcoming an outright
anti-Semitic comment in his lecture hall, Gordon was in no way teaching an
unbiased historical course, as one would have expected in an institution of
higher learning.
In a lecture on November 5th, Gordon continuously used the term "Jewish
roads" to refer to Israeli roads in the West Bank and formerly in the Gaza
Strip from which Arabs are excluded. An Israeli student in the large class
raised his hand and told Gordon that he was offended by his phraseology and
said Gordon was bordering on anti-Semitism by deeming these roads "Jewish
roads." The student described for the class the complete freedom of movement
of Israeli Arabs (Arabs with Israeli citizenship) on Israeli roads inside
Israel and inside the West Bank. Therefore by calling the roads "Jewish" and
not Israeli Gordon was being anti-Semitic. Visibly irritated, Gordon again
simply disregarded the challenge to his teaching.
The same Israeli student that challenged Gordon received a terse email after
class that same day from Gordon requesting that the student come see him at
his office at an appointment two days later. The student arrived at Gordon's
office and was surprised to see his Graduate Student Instructor (who
directly grades the student) present as well. The student cordially greeted
Gordon in Hebrew but did not receive the same warm greeting in return.
Gordon then proceeded to berate the student for publicly embarrassing and
offending him during class. He belittled the student by telling him that he
(Gordon) had been teaching for longer than the student had been alive and
that he had never been embarrassed and offended like that before. Behind
closed doors, intimidated by his professor, and in the presence of the
person who decides his grade, the student quickly apologized and hoped the
matter was put to rest.
Much to the student's dismay, in the next lecture, Gordon attempted to clear
his name and denounced the student's challenging questions as unfair and
unfounded, while publicly humiliating the student. Gordon's Graduate Student
Instructor further dissected the Israeli student's challenge in the class
discussion sections, and referred to the student by name without his
consent.
Along with the history of scare-tactics in order to keep his classroom
opposition quiet and disallowing any challenging of his anti-Israel
positions, Gordon did not adhere to the tenet of an open environment within
the structure of academic freedom. Before speaking in his class, he directed
students to state their name. In a large lecture hall, this creates an
uncomfortable environment for the students to express their own ideas.
Gordon uses the students' names in order to refute their statements or
questions while referring back to each of their arguments. As a result,
students were reluctant to speak up in the class.
Gordon did not attempt to hide his personal anti-Israel convictions in his
teaching of the Arab-Israeli Conflict course. On December 5th, Gordon
discussed options for the future of the conflict. He referred to the
conflict not as the Arab-Israeli Conflict but the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, disregarding the role of the region's Arab states.
When discussing the current political and strategic situation Gordon
remarked, "Israel is the occupier, it is in Israel's hands to change the
status quo or not." When discussing the outcome of changing the status quo,
Gordon said, "The other consequence is a continuing apartheid regime,
leaving 4 million people without basic political rights." One student
challenged his use of the "apartheid" term in reference to Israel. Gordon
again dismissed the question and refused to consider any opinion other than
his own, bluntly saying "Those are the questions I am not going to answer."
Gordon once again demonstrated his personal political bias with reference to
proclaimed anti-Zionist author Joel Kovel. In response to the debacle over
the printing of Kovel's book *Overcoming Zionism*, a staunchly
pro-Palestinian student group invited Kovel to speak on campus. On the day
of the event, November 26th, Gordon wrote an email urging students to attend
the event. At the event, one could observe the obviously friendly
socializing between Gordon and Kovel, before Kovel began his speech. When
politically pro-Israel distinguished Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes
visited the campus on October 8th, Gordon did not show the same endorsement
for his students to attend.
Gordon continued to show his personal anti-Israel bias outside of the
classroom by speaking at an event for Palestine Awareness Week, sponsored by
the same group that brought Joel Kovel to the University of Michigan. This
semester on February 12, Gordon continued with his vilification of Israel by
telling the Palestinian sympathetic audience that "Israel put the
Palestinians in ghettos, instituted by one people, and by one frontier,
which is thinly instituted which means lawless violence occurs." As he did
in a lecture on December 5th, Gordon again warned that the only solution is
a one-state solution or else Israel would continue to be an apartheid state.
It is irresponsible for the University of Michigan to hire Neve Gordon and
assume he will teach an unbiased factual course on the history of the
Arab-Israeli conflict when he guest speaks and exhibits his anti-Israel
rhetoric at an event for Palestine Awareness Week.
Prof. Neve Gordon's first of two semesters at the University of Michigan
bolstered the anti-Israel climate already present. His incessant demonizing
of Israel using anti-Semitic rhetoric and his suppression of challenges to
his ideas presented a skewed course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict,
unacceptable for an institute of higher learning.
------------------------------
Jacob Benshimon is a University of Michigan senior double majoring in Hebrew
and Jewish Culture Studies -- as well as in Middle Eastern North African
Studies.
*************
If you would like to let the heads of Ben Gurion University know what you
think of this, and how it will affect your inclination to support the
university, please write to
Ben Gurion University:
Rivka Carmi, President
P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel,
rcarmi@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
and president@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Fax 972 (8) 647 7659
Prof. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector
P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel
weinb@bgu.ac.il
Fax 972-8-647-2945
Other officers listed here: http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/home/About/sa.htm
University "Friends of" Offices outside Israel are listed here:
http://www.bgu.ac.il/associates/worldwide_offices.htm
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Quest
A know-it-all "business" journalist, who could not pass a pop quiz in any
economics course I have ever taught. An unctuous mimic of Uriah Heep, an
insult to the intelligence of CNN viewers, someone who reminds me of
"Martin" in Bart Simpson's class.
Now you will never know this from watching CNN or reading its web site,
cause it ain't there, but Richard Quest was arrested Friday for running
around Central Park very high on drugs, naked, and reportedly with a
length of rope wrapped around his neck and also attached by the other end
to that part of his anatomy that the Moyel would have attended to on the
8th day. See this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080419/tv_nm/quest_dc_1
Let me say that I have been in Central Park many a time, including for
60s anti-Vietnam War protests back when I was a young whipper snapper, and
never once was I naked, although I spent most of the antiwar protests
hoping that some coeds near me would take off their tops. [I am too old
now to remember exactly why.] No, that is not me in the movie
singing the Aquarius song.
Now I find this story quite inspiring. Not the part about the drugs,
but the part about the rope.
In fact, I think we could probably produce peace in the Middle East if
we adopt the idea. See, just attack ropes with one end around the neck
and the other end around the other end, to all Israeli politicians
implicated in the "peace process," and set them loose to run around the
Ramat Gan park at 3:00 in the AM, but making sure that THIS time CNN and
not just Reuters is there to get the photo shoots.
And everything else will follow!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Four Cheers for CAMERA
Fox News reports that Barack Obama has picked up a possibly unwelcome
endorsement:
During an interview on WABC radio Sunday, top Hamas political adviser
Ahmed Yousef said the terrorist group supports Obama's foreign policy
vision.
"We don't mind--actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the
election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great
principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position
to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance," Yousef
said in response to a question about the group's willingness to meet with
either of the Democratic presidential candidates.
The fact is, is Obama has also been endorsed by Ted Kennedy. And the
notion that somehow as a consequence of him being endorsed by somebody who
engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when Obama was 8 years old,
somehow reflects on him and his values, doesn't make much sense, Mary Jo.
2. The Ethical Hoax
By JAMES TARANTO
April 18, 2008
This is actually getting interesting. Yesterday we noted the weird story
of Aliza Shvarts, an undergraduate student at Yale whose "senior art
project" supposedly consists in part of her own blood, which she claims
she obtained by repeatedly inducing miscarriages after artificially
inseminating herself.
Suspecting that the Shvarts project was a hoax, we described it as a "sick
joke," which covered our bases in either case. Now a dispute has arisen
between the Yale administration, which claims it was a hoax, and Shvarts,
who denies it, although she now describes the putative project in somewhat
less sensational terms.
Let's go through this step by step. Yesterday, after the initial Yale
Daily News report prompted nationwide outrage (thanks to Matt Drudge),
Yale spokesman Helaine S. Klasky put out the following statement:
Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual
representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated
to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that
she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any
miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction
designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function
of a woman's body.
She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance
art.
Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards
and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.
But today's Yale Daily News has Shvarts telling quite a different story:
While Shvarts stood by her project and claimed that administrators had
backed her before the planned exhibition attracted national condemnation,
the University dismissed it as nothing more than a piece of fiction. . . .
In an interview later Thursday afternoon, Shvarts defended her work and
called the University's statement "ultimately inaccurate." She reiterated
that she engaged in the nine-month process she publicized on Wednesday in
a press release that was first reported in the News: repeatedly using a
needleless syringe to insert semen into herself, then taking abortifacient
herbs at the end of her menstrual cycle to induce bleeding. Thursday
evening, in a tour of her art studio, she shared with the News video
footage she claimed depicted her attempts at self-induced miscarriages.
"No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did
or did not happen," Shvarts said, adding that she does not know whether
she was ever pregnant. "The nature of the piece is that it did not consist
of certainties."
Well, that certainly clears things up.
What we find most fascinating about all this is the Yale administration's
claim that if the project was on the level, it "would have violated basic
ethical standards." Roger Kimball asks the obvious question:
What, by the way, was the standard being violated? I wonder, for example,
whether the Yale spokesman would say that abortion itself violated a basic
ethical standard? Or maybe the violation requires first deliberately
impregnating oneself? (But why would that affect the "basic ethical
standard" involved?) Or maybe it was videotaping the performance that was
the problem?
It seems to us that Yale is hiding behind the ambiguity of the word
ethical. There are two different kinds of ethical systems, and it isn't
clear which kind Yale is applying here: a moral doctrine (that is, a
theory about right and wrong, which applies to everyone) or a code of
professional conduct (which applies only to people within a profession or
even a particular institution).
There is significant overlap between the two types of ethical systems. The
injunction to physicians to "first, do no harm" is easy to understand as
both a moral injunction and a professional rule of conduct. But there are
cases in which the two types of ethics come into conflict. Suppose a
parishioner confesses to his priest that he is guilty of a murder for
which someone else has been falsely convicted. Most people would surely
think that in this case priestly ethics, which demand confessions remain
confidential, give way to a higher moral imperative.
When Yale says that Shvarts's project, "if real," violates "basic ethical
standards," what kind of ethical standards does it have in mind?
It seems unlikely that Yale is making a moral claim against the putative
Shvarts project. The abortion debate is driven by two irreconcilable moral
premises: on the antiabortion side, that it is wrong to take a human life
deliberately at any stage of development; on the pro-abortion side, that a
woman has a right to do whatever she wants with her body.
In practice, most people's actual positions on abortion amount to a
compromise between these two absolutes. If Yale has an institutional view
on abortion, surely it is closer to the pro- than the antiabortion side.
And if Shvarts did what she claims to have done, she destroyed protohumans
(for want of a better neutral term) no later than the embryonic stage of
development--a stage at which, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, a
woman has an absolute "constitutional" right to terminate her pregnancy.
Is Yale claiming that Shvarts violated academic ethics? This is a real
head-scratcher. Academic ethics center on honesty; the most important
prohibitions are against such actions as falsification of data or
plagiarism (misrepresenting another's work as one's own). But Yale is
claiming that Shvarts's project violated "basic ethical standards" if she
was honest in describing it. If Shvarts perpetrated a hoax, then according
to Yale she was exercising "the right to express herself." The implication
is that if she was lying, she was behaving ethically.
Yale therefore is either taking a moral position in opposition to abortion
or standing academic ethics on their head. Which raises an intriguing
possibility: Could it be that Aliza Shvarts is an opponent of abortion who
has staged a hoax aimed at embarrassing those who support or countenance
abortion?
Stars and Stripes Underfoot
Fox News reports on another collegiate "art" project:
A Maine college student has caused a firestorm after plastering the floor
of a campus building with American flags to see if anyone would trample
Old Glory.
Susan Crane, a student at the University of Maine, Farmington, placed
hundreds of flags on the floor of the school's student center Tuesday for
an art class assignment. She set down the flags in a maze-like pattern to
document whether students and staff would step on them.
This is not an original idea; as the New York Times reported in 1989,
someone that year pulled a similar stunt at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago.
Back in Maine, the Daily Bulldog, a student newspaper, reports that the
fire marshal "asked that all the flags be placed against one side of the
hallway, which effectively removed the maze and, with it, the decision to
walk around it or through the display. . . . Crane decided once the fire
marshal had left to pick up the flags."
But she got a vote of confidence from the university president:
A little less than an hour later across campus, Theo Kalikow, UMF's
president, opened the two-day campus-wide symposium noting the anger some
had felt with the flag display.
"Art in all its forms is important. The anger that was experienced today.
Students push the boundary of what learning is. First Amendment rights,
freedom of expression. We share in a state of expression," Kalikow said.
Which leads us to wonder: Would the university have been so supportive of
"freedom of expression" if a student had exercised it by plastering the
floor with pictures of, say, Martin Luther King or the Prophet Muhammad?
For that matter, would any student anywhere be boorish enough to do that?
3. Four Cheers for CAMERA (please lend them a hand!)
(report about CAMERA from the terrorist "Electronic Intifada" web site .
keep in mind who is writing the following):
Pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia
Report, The Electronic Intifada
21 April 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9474.shtml
A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret,
Long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online
Encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history,
Pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia
Administrative structures to ensure these changes go
Either undetected or unchallenged.
A series of emails by members and associates of the
Pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic
Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one
Activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia.
A 13 March action alert signed by Gilead Ini, a "Senior
Research Analyst" at CAMERA, calls for "volunteers who can
Work as 'editors' to ensure" that Israel-related articles
On Wikipedia are "free of bias and error, and include
Necessary facts and context." However, subsequent
Communications indicate that the group not only wanted to
Keep the effort secret from the media, the public, and
Wikipedia administrators, but that the material they
Intended to introduce included discredited claims that
Could smear Palestinians and Muslims and conceal Israel's
True history.
With over two million articles in English on every topic
Imaginable, Wikipedia has become a primary reference
Source for Internet users around the world and a model for
Collaboratively produced projects. Openness and good faith
Are among Wikipedia's core principles. Any person in the
World can write or edit articles, but Wikipedia has strict
Guidelines and procedures for accountability intended to
Ensure quality control and prevent vandalism, plagiarism
Or distortion. It is because of these safeguards that
Articles on key elements of the Palestine-Israel conflict
Have generally remained well-referenced, useful and
Objective. The CAMERA plan detailed in the e-mails
Obtained by EI appears intended to circumvent these
Controls.
In the past, CAMERA has gained notoriety for its tactic of
Accusing virtually anyone who does not toe a right-wing
Pro-Israel line of bias. The group has even accused
Editors and reporters of the Israeli daily Haaretz of
Being "extreme" and participating in "radical anti-Israel
Activity." Jeffrey Dvorkin, the former ombudsman of
National Public Radio (NPR), frequently criticized by
CAMERA for an alleged pro-Palestinian bias, wrote on the
Web publication Salon in February 2008 that "as a
Consequence of its campaign against NPR, CAMERA acted as
The enabler for some seriously disturbed people," citing
Persistent telephone threats he received in the wake of
CAMERA campaigns.
Need for stealth and secrecy
Throughout the documents EI obtained, CAMERA operatives
Stress the need for stealth and secrecy. In his initial
Action alert, Ini requests that recipients "not forward it
To members of the news media." In a 17 March follow-up
Email sent to volunteers, Ini explains that he wants to
Make the orchestrated effort appear to be the work of
Unaffiliated individuals. Thus he advises that "There is
No need to advertise the fact that we have these group
Discussions."
Anticipating possible objections to CAMERA's scheme, Ini
Conjectures that "Anti-Israel editors will seize on
Anything to try to discredit people who attempt to
Challenge their problematic assertions, and will be all
Too happy to pretend, and announce, that a 'Zionist' cabal
(the same one that controls the banks and Hollywood?) is
Trying to hijack Wikipedia."
But stealth and misrepresentation are presented as the
Keys to success. Ini suggests that after volunteers sign
Up as editors for Wikipedia they should "avoid editing
Israel-related articles for a short period of time." This
Strategy is intended to "avoid the appearance of being
One-topic editors," thus attracting unwanted attention.
Ini counsels that volunteers "might also want to avoid,
For obvious reasons, picking a user name that marks you as
Pro-Israel, or that lets people know your real name." To
Further conceal the identity of CAMERA-organized editors,
Ini warns, "don't forget to always log in before making
[edits]. If you make changes while not logged in,
Wikipedia will record your computer's IP address" -- a
Number that allows identification of the location of a
Computer connected to the Internet.
A veteran Wikipedia editor, known as "Zeq," who according
To the emails is colluding with CAMERA, also provided
Advice to CAMERA volunteers on how they could disguise
Their agenda. In a 20 March email often in misspelled
English, Zeq writes, "You don't want to be precived [sic]
As a 'CAMERA' defender' on wikipedia [sic] that is for
Sure." One strategy to avoid that is to "edit articles at
Random, make friends not enemies -- we will need them
Later on. This is a marathon not a sprint."
Zeq also identifies, in a 25 March email, another
Wikipedia editor, "Jayjg," whom he views as an effective
and independent pro-Israel advocate. Zeq instructs CAMERA
operatives to work with and learn from Jayjg, but not to
reveal the existence of their group even to him fearing
"it would place him in a bind" since "[h]e is very loyal
to the wikipedia [sic] system" and might object to
CAMERA's underhanded tactics.
"Uninvolved administrators"
The emphasis on secrecy is apparently not only to aid the
undetected editing of articles, but also to facilitate
CAMERA's takeover of key administrator positions in
Wikipedia.
For Zeq a key goal is to have CAMERA operatives elected as
administrators -- senior editors who can override the
decisions of others when controversies arise. When
disputes arise about hotly contested topics, such as
Israel and Palestine, often only an "uninvolved
administrator" -- one who is considered neutral because he
or she has not edited or written articles on the topic --
can arbitrate.
Hence, Zeq advises in a 21 March email that "One or more
of you who want to take this route should stay away from
any Israel realted [sic] articles for one month until they
[sic] interact in a positive way with 100 wikipedia [sic]
editors who would be used later to vote you as an
administrator."
Once these CAMERA operatives have successfully infiltrated
as "neutral" editors, they could then exercise their
privileges to assert their own political agenda.
In addition, Zeq suggests making deliberately provocative
edits to Palestine-related articles. He hopes that editors
he assumes are Palestinian will delete these changes, and
then CAMERA operatives could report them to administrators
so they could be sanctioned and have their editing
privileges suspended.
Passing propaganda as fact
Gilead Ini's 17 March email provides specific advice on
how to pass off pro-Israel propaganda or opinion as fact
meeting Wikipedia's strict guidelines:
"So, for example, imagine that you get rid of or modify a
problematic sentence in an article alleging that
'Palestinian [sic] become suicide bombers to respond to
Israel's oppressive policies.' You should, in parallel
leave a comment on that article's discussion page (either
after or before making the change). Avoid defending the
edit by arguing that 'Israel's policies aren't
'oppression,' they are defensive. And anyway Palestinians
obviously become suicide bombers for other reasons for
example hate education!' Instead, describe how this
sentence violates Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. One
of the core principles is that assertions should adhere to
a Neutral Point of View, usually abbreviated NPOV. (The
opposite of NPOV is POV, or Point of View, which is
basically another way of saying subjective statement, or
opinion.) So it would be best to note on the discussion
page that 'This sentence violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy,
since the description of Israel's policies as 'oppressive'
is an opinion. In addition, it is often noted by Middle
East experts that one of the reasons Palestinians decide
to become suicide bombers is hate education and
glorification of martyrdom in Palestinian society ...'"
In fact, there have been numerous studies debunking claims
about Palestinian "hate education," or "glorification of
martyrdom" causing suicide bombings (such as Dying to Win
by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape)
though this claim remains a favorite canard of pro-Israel
activists seeking to distract attention from the effects
of Israel's occupation and other well-documented and
systematic human rights abuses in fueling violence.
Zeq specifically names articles targeted for this kind of
treatment including those on the 1948 Palestinian Exodus,
Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, Hamas, Hizballah,
Arab citizens of Israel, anti-Zionism, al-Nakba, the
Palestinian people, and the Palestinian right of return.
Interestingly the CAMERA editors also target the article
on the early Islamic period concept of Dhimmi, a protected
status for non-Muslims which historically allowed Jews to
thrive in Muslim-ruled lands while other Jews were being
persecuted in Christian Europe. Pro-Israel activists have
often tried to portray the concept of Dhimmi as akin to
the Nuremberg laws in order to denigrate Muslim culture
and justify ahistorical Zionist claims that Jews could
never live safely in majority Muslim countries.
Also among the emails is a discussion about how to alter
the article on the massacre of Palestinian civilians in
the village of Deir Yassin by Zionist militiamen on 9
April 1948. Unable to debunk the facts of the massacre
outright, the CAMERA activists hunt for quotes from
"reputable historians" who can cast doubt on it. Their
strategy is not dissimilar from those who attempt to
present evolution, or global climate change as
"controversial" regardless of the weight of the scientific
evidence, simply because the facts do not accord with
their belief system.
Zeq has already made extensive edits to the Wikipedia
article on Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist
murdered by an Israeli soldier in the occupied Gaza Strip
on 16 March 2003. As a result of these and other edits Zeq
has himself been a controversial figure among Wikipedia
editors, suggesting his own stealth tactics may not be
working.
"We will go to war"
Zeq, however, counsels CAMERA operatives to be patient and
lie low until they build up their strength. "We will go to
war after we have build our army, equiped it trained
[sic]," he wrote on 9 April. "So please if you want to win
this war help us build ou[r] army. let's not just rush in
and achieve nothing, or abit more than nothing [sic]."
DOWNLOAD CAMERA'S EMAILS:
http://electronicintifada.net/downloads/pdf/080421-camera-wikipedia.pdf
(Afterword by SP: the truth is that for years a team of anti-Semites has
systematically sabotaged any entry on Wikipedia, not least of which is the
one on me, to give it an anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, pro-Arab slant. The
team includes several communists and Wikipedia owners have done nothing to
stop them. As examples, look at the Wikipedia entries on Ilan Pappe,
Norman Finkelstein, "Israeli Apartheid," Deir Yassin Massacre, etc.
Please help sabotage the sabotageurs operating as a Hamas SWAT team of
"editors" at Wikipedia!)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Oslo Dayenu
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/1#2727
Oslo put the "die" back in "Dayenu!"
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Arafat would pursue peace.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Hamas would be more of a threat to the PLO than to Israel.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Arafat would fight the Hamas and Islamic Jihad "with no Supreme Court or 'Betselem'" (in Rabin's immortal words).
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that terrorism would decrease.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that hostility to Jews in the Arab and the Western media would decrease. But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that trade between Israel and Arab countries would flourish.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Palestinian Authority would be disarmed.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the PLO would cooperate strategically with the Israel Defense Forces.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that there would be an economic peace dividend.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Israeli Arabs would demonstrate increasing moderation due to the "peace process".
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Hamas and Jihad would be persecuted and suppressed by the PLO.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that PLO arms would never again be used against Jews.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the PLO leadership would speak in terms of peace with the Jews.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the PLO would denounce and renounce anti-Semitism.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the PLO would encourage normalization and daily peaceful commerce between Arabs and Jews.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Palestinian Authority would be forced to spend all its energies on resolving domestic social and economic problems.
But they were ever so wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Palestinian Authority would have so many internal troubles that it would not have the time or ability to pursue confrontation with Israel.
G-d, but they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the US would back Israel if the PLO reneged on its obligations or displayed duplicity.
What a joke, they were so wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the US would cease to pressure Israel to endanger its security and fundamental interests.
But they were mega-wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Europeans would rush forward to support Israel.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Japanese and Saudis would pour money into regional investments, including into Israel.
But they were surprised to find that they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Egyptians would end all animosity towards Israel, Zionism and Jews.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the non-Arab Moslem countries would gush friendship for Israel.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Arab military expenditure would drop significantly.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Arab verbal threats against Israel would end.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Nazi-like propaganda in Arab countries would end.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Israeli Left would lead the retreat from the Oslo experiment it if proved to be not working.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the Palestinian Authority would never behave as a tin cup Third-World kleptocracy if granted power.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Jews remaining in Moslem countries would see their treatment dramatically improved.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that liberals and leftists around the world would congratulate Israel for taking risks for peace and rush forward with goodwill and support.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that the majority of Palestinians would denounce all violence and terror.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Israeli Arabs would exhibit moderation and increasing loyalty to the state of Israel.
But they were wrong.
When they forced Israel to commit Oslo, the Israeli politicians assured us that Palestinian chants of "Death to the Jews" and "Massacre the Jews" would end.
But they were wrong.
Dayenu. Olso put the "die" back in "Dayenu!"
Any one of these errors in judgment should have been enough to end the career of a politician in a normal country, possibly even enough to indict that politician and imprison him or her. But in Israel? The politicians prepare for negotiations on the Saudi Plan and prepare for new unilateral withdrawals from Judea and Samaria.
Dayenu.
2. This Year, Make Your Passover Seder an Inter-Galactic One
Important Passover Message from Mikey Lerner and the Entire Staff of
Tikkun Magazine, the Jewish New Age pro-LSD Magazine:
A few years back, Tikkun's Rabbi Arthur Woodstock issued a call to make it
a multicultural Passover Seder that year: in other words, a mix of Judaism
and PC paganism.
Well, this year Tikkun magazine has issued a new call for all Jews: You
all should make yours a Multi-Galactic Seder!!!!
Yes, this is the year to invite assorted beings from other planets to your
spacy politically-correct Seder, to prove your devotion to multi-galactic
understanding and stamping out speciesism along with SUVs.
The guests will join in and participate in the many traditional
Tikkunesque Passover traditions.
First, the Seder begins with the washing of the hands, or, in the case of
visitors from Vulcan, the tentacles.
Then the guests dine on lamb's legs made from vegan tofu. The Seder ends
with the munching of traditional holiday Tikkun macaroons, made out of
matzos flour and hashish. Served on recyclable dinner bowls.
Now to help make your Tikkun Passover multi-galactic Seder complete,
"Rabbis" Arthur Woodstock and Michael of Meaning have rewritten the
Passover song "Who knows One?"
Here is how the new version will go:
Who knows One? I know One!
One is the greatest rabbi of all time, the Rebbe Jerry Garcia, Shlita.
Who knows Two? I know Two!
Two is Rabbi Cheech and Rabbi Chong, who seem to write most of the
articles for Tikkun magazine. (Alternative version - Two is Two States for
Two Peoples: the Jordanian "people" and the Palestinian "people.")
Who knows Three? I know Three!
Three is the number of square meters Israel should be left with after
adopting policies advocated by Tikkun.
Who knows Four? I know Four!
Four is the greatest sages of Torah learning of all time, according to
Tikkun: Rabbis John, Paul, George and Ringo.
Who knows Five? I know Five!
Five is the five genders officially proclaimed by Hillary (back when
Lerner was her temporary guru of Meaning) at the International Wymmyn's
Conference in Beijing, fully endorsed by Tikkun.
Who knows Six? I know Six!
Six is the SIX-TIES, my Heavy Tikkun Dude!
Who knows Seven? I know Seven!
Seven is the seven basic nutritional groups required to make you a happy
and healthy progressive, namely: cannabis, marijuana, hashish, pot, weed,
grass, and dope.
Who knows Eight? I know Eight!
Eight is the number of people who really read Tikkun magazine.
Who knows nine? I know nine!
Nine is the number of people on earth who actually regard Mikey Lerner as
a rabbi.
Who knows ten? I know ten!
Ten is the median IQ score for Tikkun readers.
Who knows eleven? I know eleven!
Eleven is the number of the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou Shalt Be Trendy!"
Who knows twelve? I know twelve!
Twelve is the number of times Michael Lerner can say "loving and caring"
in one minute (the fewest number of times, that is).
Who knows thirteen? I know thirteen!
Thirteen is the number of sentences from the entire Bible that Tikkun
editors have actually read.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The PC Make-Over of Passover
by Steven Plaut
In recent years, Passover has undergone a make-over in the American Jewish
non-Orthodox community, one that has converted it largely into a holiday
devoted to celebrating human rights, protesting a long list of human rights
abuses and promoting fashionable causes. The remake seems designed to make
Passover a cosmopolitan holiday, one with a universal message in which all
can join, in essence the Jewish answer to the Declaration of the Rights of
Man of the French Revolution.
Back in the 1960s, a series of Political Correctness Haggadot (plural of
Haggada) were written, in which the message of Passover was turned into a
celebration of the civil rights movement in the United States. Arthur
Waskow, the guru of the *Tikkun*-"Renewal" crowd, wrote at the time a Black
Liberation Passover Haggadah, celebrating black militants like the Black
Panthers, who were themselves coincidentally calling at the same time for
the annihilation of Jews. Later Political Correctness Haggadot were devoted
to homosexual rights, women's liberation, and assorted other faddish causes,
not least of which was Palestinian "liberation". No doubt, this year will
see Defend Iran and Help Obama *Haggadot* or No War for Oil ones.
"Multicultural" Passover seders became fashionable in some circles, in which
the seder became a mixture of acclamations for human rights and freedom,
taken from a wide variety of non-Jewish sources.
As yet another illustration, a few years back the Passover *cause
celebre of American Jewish liberals was Tibet (my guess is it will be
this year again), with Tibetan officials invited to Passover seders, and
where the
leftist Religious Action Center (RAC) of the Reform synagogue movement
called on Jews to hold Tibetan-freedom Passover seders in solidarity with
Tibet. The RAC is devoted to the proposition that Jewish values are nothing
more and nothing less than this year's leftist political fads, including gay
"marriage", supporting affirmative action apartheid programs, and opposing
all welfare reform. Its head, Rabbi David Saperstein was quoted with
approval a few years back by the American Communist Party's weekly
newspaper.
In all of these attempts to recast Passover as the celebration of human
rights, the Professional Liberals of the American Jewish Establishment (or
PLAJEs, for short) seem to be overlooking one little point. And that is
that Passover has absolutely nothing to do with human rights and is not at
all a celebration of human freedom. Not that there is anything wrong with
celebrating human rights, mind you. I would certainly not object to
creating such a holiday, and my personal preference would be to hold it on
Hiroshima Day, the day in which the A-bomb saved countless human lives and
created the conditions under which freedoms could be extended to many
millions of oppressed Asians.
For the record, Passover is the celebration of Jewish national liberation. It
is one of three such Jewish holidays devoted entirely to celebrating Jewish
national liberation, the other two being Hannuka and Purim, and Passover is
the only one with Torah foundations. It is not the celebration of generic
civil rights, nor even the celebration of freedom and dignity for oppressed
peoples around the globe. It is the celebration of Jews achieving national
self-determination and taking their homeland back by force of arms.
The only role that human rights play in the story of Passover is in showing
that, under certain circumstances, human rights may be trampled upon for the
greater good - namely, for Jewish national liberation. In order to achieve
Jewish national liberation, God ran roughshod over the human rights of the
Egyptians. He afflicted them with a series of plagues. He then killed all
Egyptian first-born.
While Pharaoh no doubt deserved everything he got, most of the rest of the
Egyptian people were completely innocent, hardly responsible for Pharaoh's
human rights abuses, themselves oppressed by Pharaoh yet still subjects of
collateral damage. They paid the price for Pharaoh's crimes and God saw this
as necessary and just. The innocent first-born of all those innocent
Egyptian parents were killed. And while it is not clear, apparently the
first-born of the non-Jewish slaves were also innocent victims of the Tenth
Plague. And then, even the first-born of the animals in Egypt were killed,
a development that would no doubt have driven the animal rights movement to
hysterical outrage. What on earth did those poor animals do to deserve such
a punishment?
While all of the above involve the Almighty's decision to violate the
legitimate human rights of the Egyptian people, human rights abuses in the
Passover story are not restricted to those inflicted by the Divine. The
Jewish slaves, before taking to the road, also take away the wealth and
savings of the Egyptian people, albeit at Divine command to do so. While
Pharaoh no doubt owed them some back wages, this wealth was in essence being
stolen from the innocent Ordinary Egyptians, and not necessarily only from
the yuppie upper classes.
Incidentally, the poor sons of Haman, the 75 thousand or so Persians who get
killed and the others who have their property confiscated by the Jews
according to the Scroll of Esther, and all those innocent Greek Seleucid
Republican Guards getting whacked by the Maccabee Green Berets are other
examples of human rights going out the window when Jewish national
liberation and independence are pursued.
Passover is, of course, hardly a glorification of these human rights abuses.
It is simply a celebration of Jewish national liberation *even when* it is
pre-conditioned upon a certain necessary amount of moral tradeoffs and *
realpolitik*. The lesson is clear. When there is no choice, squeamishness
over the "human rights" of innocent people is out of place. The human rights
of the Egyptians in the story of Exodus count for no more than the human
rights of innocent Germans and Japanese getting the hell bombed out of them
in World War II, or innocent residents of Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle
getting bombed by the Coalition forces. Such things are necessary in the
real world. Human rights sometimes need to be compromised to protect Jews
and achieve Jewish self-determination and other goals.
All of which is of course lost upon all those self-righteous PLAJEs whining
about Israel shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at Arab rioters and
retaliating for th eQassam rockets fired by the fascist Palestinian hordes.
And the lesson that innocent humans sometimes must be abused and have their
rights compromised will no doubt serve as a refreshing reminder for all
those urchins marching in the current "peace marches" in solidarity with
Islamofascism.
The real lesson of Passover is that Jewish national liberation and
freedom does not come cheaply. The real world involves difficult choices,
moral compromises and tradeoffs. Achieving a higher moral end often involves
taking steps that would themselves be considered abusive or immoral on their
own grounds, but are required in order to achieve the greater good. Such
tradeoffs are the stuff with which moral posturers and self-righteous
practitioners of recreational compassion cannot deal. It does not fit into
their simplistic world view and lazy armchair moralizing.
It is the great tragedy of the American Jewish community, or at least the
non-Orthodox majority therein, that it is so overwhelmingly dominated by
assimilated Professional Liberals and self-righteous practitioners of
recreational liberal compassion, people whose understanding of political
tradeoffs and public policy analysis never go any deeper than a good bumper
sticker.
French Lunacy
http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?contentid=31349&mode=a§ionid=59&contentname=Letters_To_The_Editor&recnum=0&subid=23694
Plaut Vs. Israeli Justice
I read with fascination Steven Plaut.s account of his battle for
minimal freedom of speech in Israel ("How I Beat Israel's Dual Justice
System," op-ed, April 11).
Israeli universities are indeed swarming with malignant anti-Israel
radical extremists. Ben-Gurion University, named after David Ben-Gurion,
is arguably the worst institution in Israel in terms of hiring and
promoting anti-Israel extremists. From the start, university officials and
spokespeople backed Gordon in his assault on freedom of speech in Israel
and misuse of the courts, repeatedly describing him in terms such as
'serious and distinguished human rights scholar,' which most of us would
find a repugnant claim.
While BGU does contain some serious academic departments and scholars,
notably in the natural sciences, when it comes to the .soft. disciplines
of the social sciences and the humanities the school deserves its nickname
of 'Bir Zeit of the Negev.'
Donors and supporters in the United States should draw conclusions from
the role BGU played in endorsing and justifying Gordon.s anti-democratic
behavior.
Harvey Schwartz
Passaic, NJ
2. The Jews for a Second Holocaust get Organized: Jewish Liberals to
Launch A
Counterpoint to AIPAC
Political Funds, Lobbying to Promote Arab-Israeli Peace Deal
By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 15, 2008; Page A13
Some of the country's most prominent Jewish liberals are forming a political
action committee and lobbying group aimed at dislodging what they consider the
excessive hold of neoconservatives and evangelical Christians on U.S. policy
toward Israel.
The group is planning to channel political contributions to favored candidates
in perhaps a half-dozen campaigns this fall, the first time an organization
focused on Israel has tried to play such a direct role in the political
process, according to its organizers.
Organizers said they hope those efforts, coupled with a separate lobbying group
that will focus on promoting an Arab-Israeli peace settlement, will fill a void
left by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and other
Jewish groups that they contend have tilted to the right in recent years.
The lobbying group will be known as J Street and the political action group as
JStreetPAC. The executive director for both will be Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former
domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House.
"The definition of what it means to be pro-Israel has come to diverge from
pursuing a peace settlement," said Alan Solomont, a prominent Democratic Party
fundraiser involved in the initiative. In recent years, he said, "We have heard
the voices of neocons, and right-of-center Jewish leaders and Christian
evangelicals, and the mainstream views of the American Jewish community have
not been heard."
Solomont is a top fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama
(D-Ill.), but the organizers include supporters and fundraisers for both Obama
and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). Many prominent figures in the
American Jewish left, former lawmakers and U.S. government officials, and
several prominent Israeli figures, as well as activists who have raised money
for the Democracy Alliance and MoveOn.org, are also involved.
A controversial essay in 2006 by two eminent academics, Harvard's Stephen Walt
and the University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer, argued that a powerful
pro-Israel lobby that includes Jewish groups, evangelical Christians and others
has actively served to steer U.S. policy in a pro-Israel direction, often
against the U.S. national interest.
The essay, a precursor to a 2007 book, triggered an angry debate among
supporters of Israel and beyond, and even those who have been critical of
groups such as AIPAC, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in
Washington, said the thesis was either wrong or overdrawn.
"The genesis of this is really the frustration on the part of a very
substantial portion of the American Jewish community that despite the fact that
there is broad support for a peace-oriented policy in the Middle East, there
doesn't seem to be the political will to actually carry it out," Ben-Ami said.
"We have not been effective at transmitting the message that there is political
support for these positions in the American Jewish community and their allies."
Officials with AIPAC declined to comment on the formation of the new
competitor. But the organizers' behind-the-scenes efforts in the past two years
have been generating buzz, and some consternation, in some quarters of the
politically active Jewish community. Malcolm I. Hoenlein, executive vice
chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, raised questions about the viability of the new group. "I
believe that AIPAC has very broad support and will continue to enjoy it," he
said.
Even supporters said the new groups will be hard-pressed to match AIPAC's
influence in Washington. AIPAC has more than 100,000 members, 18 offices around
the country and an endowment of more than $100 million--dwarfing what
organizers say will be a first-year budget for J Street of about $1.5 million.
AIPAC has cultivated alliances across the political aisle, especially in recent
years with President Bush, who has worked hard to build good relations with
leading Jewish groups. But AIPAC also works closely with congressional
Democrats and the leading Democratic presidential candidates, and it sees
itself as representing a broad cross section of Jews with an interest in
fostering strong ties between Israel and the United States.
Some veteran Middle East experts said the new group faces the political reality
that many American Jews have become disillusioned over the years with the peace
process and what they consider to be the intransigence, hostility and--in some
cases--terrorism of would-be Palestinian partners. While Bush early on in his
administration grew skeptical of the peacemaking efforts of President Clinton,
he received very little push-back from organized American Jewry.
Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and the director of the Saban
Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said the group "has
a very steep hill to climb because peacemaking has acquired a bad reputation
over the years in the Jewish community, and there is a widespread fear that
U.S. intervention on behalf of peace will lead to pressure on Israel."
Perhaps the biggest difference between the new effort and the operations of
existing Jewish or pro-Israel groups is the formation of a political action
committee that endorses candidates and channels donations into political races
-- something AIPAC does not do.
The initial efforts will be relatively modest: Ben-Ami said the group aims to
try to raise at least $50,000 or more for a handful of campaigns this fall as a
"test case." But the group intends to raise its profile in future campaign
cycles, and some major liberal fundraisers have already committed to the
venture, including Solomont, high-tech entrepreneur Davidi Gilo and former New
York City corporation counsel Victor Kovner, a supporter of Clinton's
presidential bid.
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
3. French Lunacy Part I:
Brigitte Bardot on trial for Muslim slur
Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:41pm EDT
PARIS (Reuters) - French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on
Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of
"inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its
followers.
Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex
symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros
($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and
imposing its acts".
Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a
prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by
denouncing Muslim traditions and immigration from predominantly Muslim
countries.
She has been fined four times for inciting racial hatred since 1997, at
first 1,500 euros and most recently 5,000.
Prosecutor Anne de Fontette told the court she was seeking a tougher
sentence than usual, adding: "I am a little tired of prosecuting Mrs
Bardot."
Bardot did not attend the trial because she said she was physically unable
to. The verdict is expected in several weeks.
French anti-racist groups complained last year about comments Bardot made
about the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha in a letter to President Nicolas
Sarkozy that was later published by her foundation.
Muslims traditionally mark Eid al-Adha by slaughtering a sheep or another
animal to commemorate the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son
on God's orders.
France is home to 5 million Muslims, Europe's largest Muslim community,
making up 8 percent of France's population.
"I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is
destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts," the star of
'And God created woman' and 'Contempt' said.
Bardot has previously said France is being invaded by sheep-slaughtering
Muslims and published a book attacking gays, immigrants and the unemployed,
in which she also lamented the "Islamisation of France".
(Reporting by Thierry Leveque; writing by Francois Murphy, editing by Mary
Gabriel)
Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of
Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters
and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the
Reuters group of companies around the world.
HYPERLINK
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4. French Lunacy Part II
April 16, 2008
French Lawmakers Target
Promotion of Extreme Thinness
By CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO and STACY MEICHTRY
April 16, 2008; Page A10
PARIS -- French lawmakers have passed a bill that makes incitement of
"excessive thinness" a crime.
Does this mean prison pinstripes could be the next big trend in a French
fashion industry known for celebrating waif-thin models?
Unlikely.
Lawmakers who passed the bill in France's lower house of Parliament Tuesday are
touting the toughness of the proposed law. If passed in the Senate as well, it
would allow judges to punish offenders with a fine of as much as .45,000, or
more than $70,000, and three years of imprisonment.
In a speech before the vote, French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot called on
lawmakers to uphold "the prestige of French fashion" by passing the measure.
The fashion industry is hardly quivering in its stilettos, however.
The bill mainly targets Internet sites that explicitly encourage anorexia,
offering tips on food deprivation. The bill also doesn't explain how it will
determine who is responsible for pushing anorexia.
Since the high-profile death of a Brazilian model two years ago, the fashion
industry has been under pressure to tackle anorexia. The National Chamber of
Italian Fashion in Milan now requires models to obtain notes from physicians
attesting they are healthy. Spain has also taken measures to crack down on
ultrathin models on the catwalk.
Yet much of the fashion industry's discourse on the issue can be characterized
as finger-pointing. Modeling agencies, fashion brands and magazines have
refused to take the lead in cleaning up the catwalks. Many of the same
waif-thin models continue to stalk the runways.
Top designers also question whether a link between fashion and eating disorders
exists.
"Fashion has never been thought of as inciting anorexia," said Didier Grumbach,
president of France's Fashion Federation, which organizes Paris fashion week.
Mr. Grumbach said he supports a law that targets Web sites that promote
anorexia. However, he added, "If the law is to regulate fashion, to make
everyone fit the same standard of beauty, then we're against it."
Critics of the bill cast it as the latest attempt by the French state to
micromanage the affairs of its citizens at the expense of time-honored French
customs.
French smokers' hackles have been raised over a smoking ban that took effect in
cafs and restaurants this year, barring indoor smoke in a land that coined the
word "nicotine."
Being thin, though not excessively so, is also part of being French.
"A law is for when people don't respect self-discipline," said Herv Brossard,
president of France's Association des Agences Conseils en Communication, an
communications-industry group, and vice chairman of advertising agency DDB
Worldwide, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc.
In France, between 30,000 and 40,000 people suffer from anorexia.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Mc-Shanda
McShande: One of Worst Israeli Anti-Zionists to be Honored
McLeftist
Uri Ram is a sociologist at the Bir Zeit of the Negev, er, I mean, Ben
Gurion University. You know, the Negev's "academic" bastion of
anti-Zionism.
Now the Association of Israel Studies has decided to give him an award, I
guess for his efforts to see israel destroyed and replaced by a
"de-zionized" Palestinian state. The leftist Zionist David Hirsh fiercely
told off Ram recently in Yediot Ahronot in a piece worth reading in full:
Uri Ram.s mistake is to assume that the boycott campaign is really about
Israel. But it.s not about Israel, stupid, nor is it about Palestine; it.s
about Britain. Nationalism can be an insidious temptation and it can
narrow our perspective; it has narrowed Ram.s perspective. He is not
considering the effect or the symbolism of a campaign to exclude a
significant proportion of the world.s Jewish scholars from European
universities; he is not thinking about how the argument to exclude is made
in British public life. Ram seems only concerned with fighting an Israeli
battle against the Israeli government.
Here is BGU's PR department kvelling about Ram:
Prof. Uri Ram awarded Yonathan Shapiro Prize
Prof. Uri Ram, a member of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
has been awarded the Yonathan Shapiro prize for the best book in Israel
Studies for the year 2008, for his book "The Globalization of Israel:
McWorld in Tel Aviv, Jihad in Jerusalem".
The annual award by the Association for Israel Studies honors the memory
of Shapiro (1929-1997), one of Israel.s most distinguished and influential
sociologists, by recognizing outstanding scholarship in the history,
politics, society and culture of Israel and pre-1948 Jewish Palestine.
Formed in 1985, the Association for Israel Studies is an international,
interdisciplinary scholarly society devoted to the academic and
professional study of modern Israel. The AIS is open to all individuals
who are engaged in, or share an interest in, scholarly inquiry about
Israel, the Zionist movement, or the pre-state Jewish community in
Palestine. The Association's membership is composed of scholars from all
disciplines in the social sciences and many in the humanities.
Maybe Azmi Bishara will get it next year? Or Reverand Wright?
Mc-Shanda!
2. My guess is that the site will not work because of incompetence
in management:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3531763,00.html
Shin Bet goes online, launches new Arabic, English web sites
3. Hilton hosting Islamofascists:
http://www.petitiononline.com/alawda2/petition.html
4. . How bout trying capital punishment as an alternative?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3531854,00.html
5. Archeology Denial . cousin of Holocaust Denial?
6. Bernard Avishai struggles against Israel from Herzliya:
7. Avishai Margalit shills for the enemies of Israel:
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Terror Sympathies of Sternhell (Israel Prize Recipient this Year)
terrorists about creating a new Shoah. Well, let me tell you something, I
would be comfortable about shoving some peanuts up his . er . nose:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E3C3EA75-A7ED-4EC2-AB68-ECB514358AE1
2. Good terrorhoid, bad terrorhoid, by David Hornik:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=79817FCA-DC91-4C30-8A57-4219C045D0A0
3. The full version . How I beat the Israeli Dual Justice System:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=B00ADEB0-C6D2-418E-BB5B-333832141A3B
4.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207650006856&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
'Sternhell supported Palestinian terror'
________________________________________
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 14, 2008
________________________________________
The Supreme Court will deliberate Monday a petition calling for the
revocation of the decision to bestow the Israel Prize on Professor Ze'ev
Sternhell. Members of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, which
submitted the request, claimed that Sternhell had publicly legitimized
Palestinian terrorism in an article he once published and suggested that
the terrorists target settlers.
"Anyone who forfeits the blood of Israeli citizens is not worthy of the
prize," the petition reads.
In its response, however, the State writes that there is controversy
surrounding the winner is not reason enough to revoke the decision to
award him the prize.
"Accepting this petition would be an injustice," Army Radio quoted the
State Attorney's Office as saying. "This [petition] makes a man's life's
work as shallow as a bumper sticker." (Of course Sternhell.s thinking is
bumper sticker depth . SP)
In February, Education minister Yuli Tamir rejected a request by the Legal
Forum for the Land of Israel to cancel the decision to award Sternhell the
prize. The request had stated that "There is no case more appropriate than
Professor Sternhell's, which justifies the killing of civilians in terror
attacks, provided that they are settlers."
"It is doubtful whether any scientific researcher, great as he may be,
would have received the Israel Prize had he justified attacks by Arab
terrorists on any other population group," they said.
"These are foolish words," Sternhell said in response. "They have tried to
do this in the past and claim for themselves a right to veto the Torah of
Israel in science. The very demand is disgraceful and absurd."
5, Dawkins and fraud:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207650002231&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
6. Debbie Schlusser on Asslibs supporting Obama
More on the Company Obama Keeps: Anti-Semitic Hatred From Key Obama
Supporter Shocks Naive Jewish Liberal Donor
Printer Friendly
By Debbie Schlussel
Many people have sent me this letter, below, and it now appears on many
sites. It is an important read to remind people that anti-Semitism is all
over, and that far too many key Barack Hussein Obama supporters openly
hate Jews, and want you to know it. And that Obama is far too lax in
looking the other way.
But the letter is also confirmation of another thing I and many of my
readers and friends have known all of our lives: Foolish Jewish liberals
continue to throw money at our enemies, and then they are
shocked--shocked!--that those enemies tell them, "Hey, we hate Jews."
Hello . . .?
While I live and grew up in a Black city, in a Black neighborhood, and
graduated from a Black high school; And while I know that there are many
philo-Semitic Black Americans (we have many such readers on this site and
I have many such friends with whom I grew up and whom I've known most of
my life), the fact is that the Black community has far too much tolerance
for anti-Semitism. And it's not just Farrakhan, Jackson, Sharpton, and
Wright--though their popularity in Black America is symbolic, as their
anti-Semitism is never rejected by the collective Black community.
In fact, regardless of the history of Jews going out of their way for
Blacks and Black civil rights--several literally gave their lives and were
shot as they marched for Blacks--and helped found the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund, Blacks comprise the only ethnic group in America (Muslims are not an
ethnic group) where anti-Semitism remains high. They are also the only
ethnic group in America--in poll after poll--where anti-Semitism goes up
as socio-economic status (earnings, education, etc.) goes up. I have a
tremendous love for Black Americans--who helped build this country--and I
deplore racism. But I deplore all forms of racism, including
Black-on-White racism, and I do not love the collective, tolerated hatred
of Jews that is far too rampant in Black America.
That toleration and embrace of anti-Semitism is not new. That's why, as I
read this letter by Daphna Ziman--and as I watch plenty of naive,
guilt-ridden Jews embrace Barack Obama despite his close ties to Wright
and Farrakhan--I believe that they get what they deserve. Ms. Ziman had no
business giving money to this group in the first place. She should have
known this was their sentiment. It only reminds me of philantropist Mort
Zuckerman buying and donating greenhouses in Gaza for HAMASniks and not
easily predicting the greenhouses' quick destruction and non-appreciation
for the Jewish favor in 2005.
So, here is the letter by this very naive Jewish philanthropist Daphna
Ziman, who now is shocked--shocked!--by the anti-Semitism towards her, a
Jew, despite her donation to those she should have known--from a litany of
media reports throughout her life about "Hymietown" and "Zionist
interlopers" and "gutter religion" comments--do not wish her well:
JEWISH PHILANTHROPIST ENCOUNTERS ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK - Letter by Daphna
Ziman
by Daphna Ziman
April 8, 2008
Hi,
I have to tell you of an experience I had last night that was so anti
Semitic and frightening:
Last night I was honored by Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, for my work with
Children Uniting nations with African American children who are living out
of home care. I have dedicated my life to saving these children from
abuse, neglect and a life of crime. We created 'adoption day' and "Day of
the child" determined to recruit caring adults to be mentors and life
savers for our at risk children in the inner cities.
The mayor was present and City council member Bernard parks, Assemblyman
Mike Davis, Senator Mark Ridely Thomas etc. I was introduced as a children
advocate and a leader in the Jewish community. I began my speech by
talking about how I woke up in the morning and listened to Hillary
Clinton's speech, in the spirit of Dr. King from Memphis that moved me so
deeply. I expressed to the crowd how grateful I was to listen to Sen.
McCain apologize to the community for mistakes he has made in the past. I
acknowledged Sen. Obama's speech from the campaign trail about Dr. King's
mentorship.
After I spoke and thanked the fraternity and their members, Rev. Eric Lee,
pres. and CEO of Southern Christian Leadership Conference of greater Los
Angeles, was introduced as the key note speaker.
He began his speech by thanking Jesus for Obama, who is going to be the
leader of the world. He continued by referring to other leaders Like Dr.
King, being that this was the moment of celebrating Dr. King's spirit on
the anniversary of his death, and Malcolm X.
It was right after the mention of Malcolm X that he looked right at me and
started talking about the African American children who are suffering
because of the JEWS that have featured them as rapists and murderers. He
spoke of a Jewish Rabbi, and then corrected himself to say "What other
kind of Rabbis are there, but JEWS". He told how this Rabbi came to him to
say that he would like to bring the AA community and the Jewish community
together. " NO, NO, NO,!!!!" he shouted into the crowd, we are not going
to come together. "The Jews have made money on us in the music business
and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us."
He continued as to how now the salvation has come and the gates have open
for African Americans to come together behind Barack Obama, because now is
the time to show them.(meaning the Jews).
He continued to speak about ' White supremacy' vs the talents and
visionaries in the core of African Americans. He demeaned being given
freedom, by saying "To what?" to a country that kills women and children.
I could no longer be polite and sit in front of the crowd, so I walked
out.
Members of the fraternity ran after me as did my staff, I was not able to
contain my tears and I cried.
I cried for me and my family, who have tried so hard to help the African
American community, because we adopted children from the same realities
and wanted to give back to other children and people. We have been
completely color blind, for us it was only helping those children in need.
I cried for our beloved country and the division that Barack Obama has
caused with his Rev. Wright opening the gates to 'hate' against the Jews
and whites. I grew up so looking at America as the land of Freedom. I was
honored to receive my citizenship accompanied by members of the Kennedy
family. Now, I'm afraid for Israel because Barack sat there for 20 years
listening and not standing up for what's right, why would he standup for
Israel?
I cried for the Jewish community who are so blind that they can't see that
there's a movement here that will destroy us. I cried because for the
first time in my life I was afraid of the future.
I cried for our world that is moving backwards and not forward. Everyday,
I see children so lost, and so deserving of hope and love. I look into
their eyes, knowing that it is their lives that are in our hands.
I'm crying now, so I'm going to stop writing because it is so painful. I
just had to share this experience with you.
Well, I'm glad Ms. Ziman is crying now. But what took her so long? Unlike
Ms. Ziman, I don't cry at this old hat "news" that for her is a sudden,
shocking revelation. I cry that there are so many extremely naive Jewish
liberals like her, who look the other way at the wholesale anti-Semitism
of the Black community. And constantly throw money at--and enable--them.
And continue to refuse to wake up. Why the heck was she giving them a dime
in the first place?
And that's not all to which she's giving her dimes. Ms. Ziman claims she's
worried about Israel and anti-Semitism. Yet, she continues to give oodles
of money to the anti-Israel UNICEF and to donate to the Muslim "refugees"
of Kosovo, who are rife with anti-Semitism. (Check out this page detailing
where her money goes.) She's clearly quite ignorant, but for her April 8th
"epiphany."
She is the enabler of the kind of hatred which she now decries, and she
seriously needs to look in the mirror.
We are going through a modern-day Dreyfus Trial all over the world. But
people like Daphna Ziman are clueless and won't face the fact that court
is in session.
