Thursday, July 31, 2008
Two Years to the Kayusha War
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2ZiZGJhYjU3MGQ0OGQ4Yjc1YTBkMDhkZmNmNzM5MTI=#more
July 27, 2006, 1:08 a.m.
Under the Katyushas
As the rockets fall on Israel, there are lessons to be learned.
By Steven Plaut
Haifa, Israel . I am writing this in between ducking in and out of a bomb
shelter as Haifa is bathed by the Katyusha rockets and other missiles that
Ehud Barak has allowed to be fired at the city. Why Ehud Barak? Because,
as Israeli prime minister in 2000, he ordered the cowardly unilateral
withdrawal of Israeli troops from the security zone in southern Lebanon,
which led to the positioning of thousands of Hezbollah rockets on Israel.s
northern border.
It occurs to me that now would be as good a time as any to sum up
everything that has been learned about the Middle East conflict . that is,
everything that the Israeli government and chattering classes have refused
to learn for the past two decades.
1. Nice fences do not stop missiles, rockets, and mortars.
2. Complete removal of Israeli forces and Jewish settlers from an area
does not achieve anything positive, but merely signals Israeli weakness,
inviting escalated terror and aggression from Israel.s enemies.
3. Hezbollah and Hamas cannot be defeated with air strikes. There is no
effective alternative to ground invasion and ongoing control of the
ground.
4. Unless the Israeli military controls the ground on the other side of
fences, those fences achieve nothing.
5. Goodwill gestures by Israel tend to increase terror and invite further
demands.
6. Goodwill gestures by Israel never produce moderation of Arab goals and
demands, but rather produce the opposite.
7. Terror is not caused by settlements, but rather fueled by the removal
of settlements.
8. Terror is not caused by Israeli military occupation, but rather allowed
to flourish with the removal of Israeli military occupation.
9. It is impossible for there to be two sovereign entities between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
10. No matter how many concessions Israel makes, the world will always
justify Arab terrorism, because there is always one more capitulation that
Israel has failed to make (e.g., giving up the .Shebaa Farm. on the Golan
Heights).
11. No matter how nice Israel is to Israeli Arabs, no matter how many
affirmative-action programs it implements, it will always be accused of
being an .apartheid regime..
12. Much of the Israeli far Left is essentially an anti-Semitic movement
that seeks Israel.s destruction and automatically endorses the enemies of
Israel in all things.
13. The Israeli Labor party and its Kadima cousin may be more effective at
fighting terror, once they decide to do so, than Likud. The reason is that
if Likud were fighting terror, the Israeli Left would take to the streets
in mass demonstrations against Israeli imperialism and aggression, and the
leftist Israeli media would declare that 400,000 protesters turned out.
14. The Israeli Left will oppose every conceivable act of Israeli
self-defense, other than total capitulation.
15. Jewish far-leftism is a very real enemy of Israel.
16. Some international observers don.t mind seeing Jewish civilians
murdered by terrorists, and will applaud and justify all such murders as
comeuppances for the Jews. being so insensitive.
17. Israeli niceness and flexibility often encourage and embolden
anti-Semites.
18. Israel-bashing is often driven by anti-Semitism, and many
Israel-bashers are increasingly open about their delight at seeing Jewish
civilians murdered.
19. Israeli pursuit of the .peace process. has triggered a worldwide storm
of anti-Semitism.
20. Terrorists cannot be appeased.
21. Arab terrorists do not morph into statesmen.
22. Looking for Palestinian moderates in politics is a fruitless endeavor.
23. Many Israel-bashers do not care about dead Arab civilians, other than
as a useful bludgeon with which to de-legitimize Israel.
24. Much of the Western Left would celebrate the destruction of Israel.
25. The vast majority of Israeli Arabs want to see Israel destroyed and
the Jews thrown into the sea.
26. There are hundreds of Jewish professors in Israel who serve as an
academic fifth column for terrorism and will do almost anything to
collaborate with the enemies of their country.
27. The Arabs will not accept an independent Israel in any set of borders,
no matter how small. Thus nothing can be achieved by reducing Israel.s
territory, other than signalling weakness and vulnerability.
28. Much of the Western media believes that there are no problems on earth
that could not be greatly ameliorated by destroying Israel.
29. Most of the governments of Europe seem not to believe Jews should be
allowed to defend themselves from aggression.
30. The only country on earth that is expected to respond to the mass
murder of its civilians by turning the other cheek is Israel. The only
country on earth that has spent many years trying to defeat terrorism by
turning the other cheek is Israel.
31. Whenever Israel responds firmly to aggression and terrorism, it will
always be criticized for a .disproportionate. response.
32. Most of those who claim that anti-Zionism is different from
anti-Semitism are anti-Semites.
33. The only people on earth whom the Left believes should be denied the
right to self-determination and self-defense are the Jews.
34. .Palestinians. are not a people and never were. They are simply Arabs
who happened to migrate into historic Western Palestine. They have no
right to statehood.
35. The Golan Heights are not .Syrian. and never were.
36. Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are anti-Semites, and so are many
of their supporters.
37. Israeli politicians are among the stupidest on earth.
38. Israeli leftists never learn from the failures of their policies and
.ideas.. Every failure is explained away by the fact that their policies
were not applied thoroughly enough.
39. The moral and legal responsibility for every single Arab civilian
death or injury in the Middle East conflict rests squarely upon the
shoulders of the aggressive Arab fascists and terrorists who have provoked
Israel.
40. There is no moral or legal reason for Israel to refrain from attacking
terrorists and murderers when they hide among civilians.
41. Many of the .anarchists. and others who protest against Israel.s
security wall want the wall removed because they want terrorists to murder
Jewish civilians.
42. Palestinians are the Sudeten Germans of the Middle East.
43. Israel has no obligation to share its water resources with the
.Palestinians. or anyone else.
44. There are no non-military solutions to the problem of terrorism.
45. Talk of .peace. is revealing, because it is only necessary to consider
making peace when you are faced with an enemy. Israel is faced with a host
of committed enemies, and it is they who will not accept a fair peace
settlement.
46. There are no significant differences between the agenda of the PLO and
the agenda of Hamas and Hezbollah.
47. The Middle East conflict is not a marital spat. Going through the
pretense of holding hands and holding talks does not calm tensions and
achieves nothing.
48. One cannot make peace by pretending that war does not exist.
49. One cannot buy off anti-Semites and Islamofascists with trade
concessions and subsidies.
50. The only way to stop terrorism is to kill terrorists.
2. What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
THE U.S. VETERAN DISPATCH
Publisher - Ted Sampley
Tel. 252-527-0442
--------------------------------------------------------------------
What Thomas Jefferson learned
from the Muslim book of jihad
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
January 2007
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.
(see blog site for links)
Hebrew U Professor who Thinks Non-Rape is Racism Gets Busted for Rape
Hebrew University Academic practices what he preaches?
What was left of the academic reputation of the Hebrew University was
demolished altogether July 30, 08. The reason was the arrest of the
leftist professor of sociology who had been one of the theses advisors of
that notorious thesis claiming that Jews are racists because Jewish
soldiers do not rape Arab women.
In recent days, headlines have reported the stories of the Hebrew
University president joining a call of endorsement for the activities of a
far-leftist anti-Zionist group that claims Israel is an apartheid land,
Arab students at the Hebrew University being arrested for membership in
al-Qaeda, and a Hebrew University professor of pharmacy insisting on
hiring a convicted terrorist to work in his chemistry lab. But these were
relatively minor disgraces compared with that now infamous "rape thesis."
To remind you, a Hebrew University graduate student claimed in her thesis
that the absence of any history of rapes of Arab women by Israeli soldiers
proves that Jews are racists and oppressors, people who do not even regard
Arab women as worthy of being sexually abused. The student at the Mount
Scopus campus and her "research" were then awarded a university honor for
these mpressive "discoveries" by the "Shaine Center," a Herew University
sociology "research" center dominated by far leftists. Nitzan had argued
that abstaining from rape is just as inhumane and oppressive as
"symptomatically raping" and in fact replaces it, because it just serves
to reinforce the intolerance felt toward Arabs by Jewish soldiers. These
racist soldiers think of Arabs as so inferior and horrid that they do not
even feel a compulsion to rape them. While giving some shallow lip service
to how the "question" of rape refusal is "very complex," Nitzan's own
"answer" is quite simple and straightforward - it reflects Jewish racism
against Arabs.
Israel, she claimed, is so racist and anti-Arab that abstaining from rape
is part and parcel of its determination to enforce rigid "lines of
division." She asserted that individual soldiers who refuse to rape
represent an intentional policy of oppression roughly similar to when
governments order mass rape, because in both cases the "policy" serves to
subordinate and dehumanize the oppressed victim population. The thesis
drew its "scientific" conclusions from interviews with 25 reserve
soldiers, ages 23-32, who served as combat troops in the "occupied
territories" during the intifada. None of the comments by any of these
soldiers supports or provides any confirmation, even the most indirect, to
any of the lunatic "conclusions" reached by Nitzan.
Facing a storm of public outrage, the president of Hebrew University,
Prof. Menachem Magidor, and the Rector, Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch, jointly
issued an announcement defending the student and dismissing those who
expressed outrage over the contents of the thesis.
The "Non-Rape as Racism" thesis was co-supervised by one Eyal Ben-Ari, a
Hebrew University professor of sociology, who claims to know something
about the sociology of the military. Ben-Ari is a far-leftist with a track
record of turning out anti-Israel propaganda, such as claims that Israel
is an ultra-militarist society, and much of his propaganda is
misrepresented as scholarly research. The other co-supervisor of the rape
thesis was Ben-Ari's co-author in a book about Israeli "militarism."
Israeli feminist groups never had a word to say about that "thesis" nor
about Ben-Ari's role in inventing the "No rape as Racism" hypothesis.
From his role in the rape thesis, it was already known that Ben-Ari had
goofy ideas about sexual (mis-)behavior. But now it turns out that the
ultra-feminist Israel-bashing professor of sociology practices what he
preaches.
The very same Professor Eyal Ben-Ari was arrested yesterday for suspected
rape and sexual abuse of his students, and arraigned before the Jerusalem
magistrate's court. It seems that Ben-Ari made it a habit to condition
giving nice grades to and getting research grants for his female students
on their sleeping with him. He was clearly not being racist though,
because he is the same guy who discovered the academic finding that raping
proves you are not racist. The police claim Ben-Ari had been behaving thus
for the past fifteen years! This was not the first Hebrew University
professor arrested for sexual misbehavior.
The Jerusalem weekly "Yediot Yerushalayim" broke the story and claimed
Ben-Ari routinely attacked his female students sexually and violently. It
cited two students who claimed they had been violently raped by Ben-Ari.
He is also accused of using university funds to take his female students
on trips for sexual trysts. He purchased for one of them a vibrator and
then submitted it for reimbursement to the Hebrew University's Shaine
Center (the very same Center that granted an award to the "Non-Rape is
Racism" thesis!).
While awaiting trial Ben-Ari is subject to a restraining order preventing
him from entering the Hebrew University campus, as well as an order not to
leave the country. The same ultra-feminists in Israel who insisted that an
(unmarried) cabinet minister be indicted because he gave a French kiss to
a woman in his office have yet to say a word about the behavior of this
member of the Tenured Left.
Haaretz July 31, 2008 reports that female students in the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University, which claims to
specialize in feminism and social justice, allege that Ben-Ari is not the
only tenured lecher in the department who abuses them sexually, and that
these faculty members walk about boasting of their "conquests" of the PhD
students. Strangely, the university authorities never looked into their
behavior.
Ben-Ari had also served as a consultant to the Israeli army over the role
of women in the military.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Peace Snake
The Peace Snake
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By: Steven Plaut Wednesday, July 30, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cult of the talking snake began in the town of Abonoteichus around the
year 150 CE, shortly after the Bar Kochba revolt. Located on the
Mediterranean coast of what is now Turkey, the town was in fact a Greek
settlement under Roman rule that practiced paganism.
One day workers in the local temple discovered some strange bronze tablets
there proclaiming the imminent arrival of a divine healer named Asclepius,
supposedly the son of Apollo. Locals quickly erected a new temple to honor
the guest from heaven. And just as the temple was being completed, a
strange egg was discovered in its earthworks. When cracked open, a baby
snake emerged. A man named Alexander then proclaimed that this snake was
the expected 'god' and that he himself was its oracle.
Within days, the baby snake transformed itself miraculously into a giant
one, much larger than a python. It revealed secrets and prophesies to its
oracle, Alexander, spoken conveniently in the local Greek dialect. People
from all over the Roman empire - including dignitaries from Rome - came to
hear the prophecies.
Many brought the oracle Alexander valuable gifts. A single prediction of
the future or message of advice from the snake would cost the supplicant
the equivalent of a day's wages, and the snake could provide a hundred of
these on any working day. Husbands, hearing the snake's advice to turn
their wives over to Alexander as concubines, did so.
As it turned out, the entire snake cult was nothing more than a pagan
predecessor to the movie classic "The Wizard of Oz." The snake had been
created out of paper mache, with a speaking tube inside its head
constructed from wind pipes of large birds, connecting to a room behind
the wall. The snake had levers that could make its head move and stick out
its tongue. Alexander would operate it all from the next room, much like
the humbug wizard pulling the levers behind the curtain to fool Dorothy
and her friends.
The original bronze tablets with the prophecy had been placed there by
Alexander, who had also hidden the baby snake inside an ostrich egg glued
back together.
Alexander ran his scam for many years, until he died at the age of 70 and
his tricks were uncovered. The cult of the snake was strongly denounced by
Greek Epicureans and by some early Christian writers in the Roman Empire.
But whatever became of the pagan snake itself, the collection of moving
paper machr parts that led astray tens of thousands of people? After
exhaustive research, we have discovered the answer.
Many centuries after the death of Alexander of Abonoteichus, his snake
reappeared, but under a new name. In the late twentieth century the
talking snake with the levers and the speaking tubes made a new grand
appearance. 'My name is Peace,' it proclaimed. 'All who desire peace must
come and hear my pronouncements, then follow my commands and obey my
oracles.'
With its tongue flicking in and out, the sounds emerging from its speaking
tubes were no longer Greek, but modern Hebrew. The Peace Snake from the
New Middle East first emerged as a baby from an ostrich egg discovered in
a Norwegian fjord by left-wing Israeli academics, meeting in Oslo with
representatives of the PLO.
Smuggled back to Israel, the miraculous baby snake was displayed to Shimon
Peres by Peres's loyal apostle, Yossi Beilin. Then, right before their
eyes, the snake underwent a metamorphosis, turning into a giant python,
several times larger than any seen before.
'The Peace Messiah has arrived in the form of a giant talking snake,'
Peres happily announced to then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. 'All we need
to do is follow its instructions.'
'And what might those be?' asked a skeptical Rabin.
'Just obey it. One must not argue with such a divine creature,' insisted
Peres. 'First, it wants Israel to announce that it accepts the existence
of a "Palestinian people," recognizes their right to their own state, and
agrees to recognize the PLO as its national leadership. Next, Israel must
allow Palestinian terrorists from all over the world to enter the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip, arm themselves, set up militias in the suburbs of
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and impose their sovereignty upon the Arabs there.
Then Israel must evict all Jews living in the Gaza Strip and promise to do
the same with the Jews living in Judea and Samaria. Finally, Israel must
bankroll the PLO terrorists and provide them with weapons.'
'The public will never accept this,' objected Rabin.
'Ah but you are wrong,' replied Peres. 'We will simply show them the
talking snake head, proclaiming in Hebrew the emergence of a peaceful New
Middle East. The snake head is charming and comforting. The people will
believe in its pagan magic.'
Rabin was finally sold on the idea.
'Behold the magic snake,' proclaimed Peres to the nation. The snake urged
listeners to accept Peres as its prophet and obey its divinations, as
whispered into Peres's ear. No one seemed to notice that whenever the
snake would speak Hebrew, it was in Peres's Polish accent. Strangely, the
snake head spoke no Arabic at all.
After Rabin was assassinated by a non-believer in the snake, it became all
but impossible to denounce the serpent as a sham. Snake doubters were
rounded up and indicted for incitement. The media fell into line and
broadcast and published the snake's epistles. Virtually no time or space
was allowed for rebuttals from anti-snake dissidents.
The demands of the snake kept escalating. Its message was essentially the
same: 'The highest form of courage is cowardice,' it hissed. 'Capitulation
is the highest form of victory. Weakness is the highest form of strength.
National self-debasement is the highest form of patriotism. Terrorism must
be rewarded. The best way to end war is to pretend it does not exist.'
Since then, Peres has been replaced as the snake's chief oracle by Ehud
Olmert and Ehud Barak. Audiences stand before it with mouths agape as it
hisses through its speaking tubes: 'There is no military solution to the
problems of terrorism. Erecting a Palestinian state is the best assurance
for the achievement of Zionist goals. Talks with Hamas. Negotiate with
Hizbullah.'
And all the while, the Israeli humbugs of defeat pull the levers that make
the serpent writhe and speak, while the media proclaim the miracle of the
talking snake's peace.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Israeli University Heads Rally on Behalf of Leftist Anti-Israel Group - promote access to Campuses for Terrorists
(see web page for links)
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Israeli University Heads Join Leftist anti-Israel Group in Demanding that
All Controls be Removed on Palestinians entering Campuses
Israeli universities are the occupied territories of the Far Left. The
cartel that oversees and controls the university is known as the Council
on Higher Education, whose main appendage is the VATAT or Budget and
Planning Committee, which allots all public funds to Israeli universities,
using arbitrary and curious criteria. The VATAT consists of university
professors who divvy up among their own institutions the loot taken from
the taxpayer.
The Israeli university system is not only corrupt and mediocre but
dominated by leftist politicization. While university officials often
shrug their shoulders when listening to complaints about the many tenured
traitors operating out of their campuses, insisting that it is all just a
price that needs to be paid if academic freedom is to be preserved, they
generally insist disingenuously that politicization of the campus
leadership and officialdom by the Left does not exist at all.
Oh no? Consider the petition to the Israeli Minister of Defense sent by
the members of the Council of University Presidents this week, as reported
on the YNET news web site. These are university PRESIDENTS, not rank and
file Post-Zionist academic quacks!
It was part of their efforts in support of a court petition filed by
"Gisha," one of the countless leftist pro-Palestinian political groups
operating in Israel. "Gisha" is one of the extremist groups monitored fir
its anti-Israel activities by the NGO-Monitor web site. Funded by the
extremist New Israel Fund and other anti-Zionist groups, it likes to
denounce Israel as an "apartheid" regime that violates international law
(see this and this). The University presidents denounced the Ministry of
Defense for interfering with the right of Palestinians to enter freely and
study in Israeli universities. It seems that the Ministry of Defense would
like to restrict entry to the universities to Palestinians who are not
known terrorists. After all, there have been terrorist attacks within the
Hebrew University campus in which students and other living things were
murdered.
To Right, Hebrew University cafeteria after Arab terrorist bombing that
murdered students.
The Ministry also wants Palestinian students prevented from entering
certain fields, like nuclear engineering or similar fields in which
Palestinians can learn to murder Jews more effectively.
The University chiefs think otherwise, and see nothing wrong with teaching
Palestinians the basics of constructing nuclear warheads or other skills
helpful in murdering Jews. We are reminded of the recent story of a
leftist professor of pharmacy at the Hebrew University insisting that a
convicted Palestinian terrorist be granted access to lab chemicals. The
University chiefs also seem to think that the six Hebrew University
students recently arrested for membership in Al-Qaeda represent a protest
movement that needs to be expanded.
The chiefs openly endorsed the Gisha court petition. Besides the
University chiefs, those who asked to join the petition were astronomy
Professor Zvi Mazeh of Tel Aviv University, who complained that Jews were
subject to quotas for centuries and so quotas should not be applied to
Arabs in Israel (see this). You would never know from his statement that
Arab applicants to all Israeli universities enjoy affirmative action
preferences and reduced admissions standards. Other signatories included
Professor Moshe Ron, a retiree from the Hebrew University's general
literature department and long an advocate of insurrection and mutiny
among Israeli soldiers (see this), and Ehud De Shalit, a Hebrew University
mathematician.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Oh, the Humanity
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2008/07/stop-mass-murder-defend-self-esteem-of.html
2. Leftwing Fascism on the March again:
(Wall St Journal)
OPINION
The Far Left's War on Direct Democracy
By JOHN FUND
July 26, 2008; Page A9
A total of 24 states allow voters to change laws on their own by
collecting signatures and putting initiatives on the ballot. It's healthy
that the entrenched political class should face some real legislative
competition from initiative-toting citizens. Unfortunately, some special
interests have declared war on the initiative process, using tactics
ranging from restrictive laws to outright thuggery.
David G. Klein
The initiative is a reform born out of the Progressive Era, when there was
general agreement that powerful interests had too much influence over
legislators. It was adopted by most states in the Midwest and West,
including Ohio and California. It was largely rejected by Eastern states,
which were dominated by political machines, and in the South, where Jim
Crow legislators feared giving more power to ordinary people.
But more power to ordinary people remains unpopular in some quarters, and
nothing illustrates the war on the initiative more than the reaction to
Ward Connerly's measures to ban racial quotas and preferences. The former
University of California regent has convinced three liberal states --
California, Washington and Michigan -- to approve race-neutral government
policies in public hiring, contracting and university admissions. He also
prodded Florida lawmakers into passing such a law. This year his American
Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) aimed to make the ballot in five more
states. But thanks to strong-arm tactics, the initiative has only made the
ballot in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.
"The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the
first place," says Donna Stern, Midwest director for the Detroit-based By
Any Means Necessary (BAMN). "That's the only way we're going to win." Her
group's name certainly describes the tactics that are being used to thwart
Mr. Connerly.
Aggressive legal challenges have bordered on the absurd, going so far as
to claim that a blank line on one petition was a "duplicate" of another
blank line on another petition and thus evidence of fraud. In Missouri,
Secretary of State Robin Carnahan completely rewrote the initiative's
ballot summary to portray it in a negative light. By the time courts ruled
she had overstepped her authority, there wasn't enough time to collect
sufficient signatures.
Those who did circulate petitions faced bizarre obstacles. In Kansas City,
a petitioner was arrested for collecting signatures outside of a public
library. Officials finally allowed petitioners a table inside the library
but forbade them to talk. In Nebraska, a group in favor of racial
preferences ran a radio ad that warned that those who signed the
"deceptive" petition "could be at risk for identity theft, robbery, and
much worse."
Mr. Connerly says that it's ironic that those who claim to believe in
"people power" want to keep people from voting on his proposal: "Their
tactics challenge the legitimacy of our system."
He's not alone. Liberal columnist Anne Denogean of the Tucson Citizen
opposes the Connerly initiative, but last month she wrote that BAMN "is
showing a disgusting lack of respect for the democratic process and the
right of all Arizonans to participate in it." She detailed how members of
this organization harass petitioners and film people who sign the
petition, while telling them they are backing a racist measure.
The police had to be called when BAMN blocked the entrance of a Phoenix
office where circulators had to deliver their petitions. "BAMN's tactics,"
she concluded, "resemble those used by anti-abortion activists to prevent
women from entering abortion clinics."
But BAMN proudly posts videos on its success in scaring away voters, or
convincing circulators to hand over their petitions to its shock troops.
"If you give me your signatures, we'll leave you alone," says a BAMN
volunteer on one tape to someone who's earning money by circulating
several different petitions.
What about voters' rights to sign ACRI's petitions? BAMN organizer Monica
Smith equates race-neutral laws with Jim-Crow segregation laws and
slavery. She told Tuscon columnist Denogean that voters are simply being
educated that ACRI is "trying to end affirmative action . . . We let them
know it's up on the KKK's Web site." Mr. Connerly has repudiated any
support from racists.
Other opponents of Mr. Connerly deplore the blocking and name-calling.
Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema told me that initiatives have been used
to pass ideas such as campaign finance and redistricting reform often
opposed by entrenched legislators. "People have a right to sign a
petition, hear the arguments and then vote," she says. Ms. Sinema thinks
Arizonans can be persuaded to vote down ACRI's measure, much as they voted
down a ban on gay marriage in 2006.
The war against citizen initiatives has other fronts. This year in
Michigan, taxpayer groups tried to recall House Speaker Andy Dillon after
he pushed through a 12% increase in the state income tax. But petitioners
collecting the necessary 8,724 signatures in his suburban Detroit district
were set upon. In Redford, police union members held a rally backing Mr.
Dillon and would alert blockers to the location of recall petitioners.
Outsiders would then surround petitioners and potential signers, using
threatening language.
Mr. Dillon denied organizing such activity. Then it was revealed two of
the harassers were state employees working directly for him. Another
"voter educator" hired by the state's Democratic Party had been convicted
of armed robbery. After 2,000 signatures were thrown out on technical
grounds, the recall effort fell 700 signatures short.
Ever since voters in virtually every state with direct democracy passed
term limits in the 1990s, state legislators have been hostile to the
process. Now Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado have all passed
legislation to prohibit people from out-of-state from circulating a
petition, and also to ban payment to circulators on a per-signature basis.
To his credit, Colorado's Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed such curbs.
In March, a Sixth Circuit federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled
that an Ohio law barring per-signature payment violated the First
Amendment. Similarly, a Ninth Circuit panel just voted unanimously to
strike down Arizona's residency law for circulators.
Some judges think the "blocking" of signature gatherers has gone too far.
In 2006, Nevada Judge Sally Loehrers decreed a "civility zone" that barred
opposing sides from coming within arms' length of each other at petition
signing sites. "The blockers were off the streets within two days," says
Paul Jacob, the head of Citizens in Charge, which promotes the initiative
process.
Last year, Mr. Jacob was charged with conspiracy to defraud the state of
Oklahoma in a bizarre prosecution that claimed he brought in out-of-state
signature gatherers in violation of the state's residency requirement. Yet
local public sector unions opposed to Mr. Jacob hired out-of-state outfits
such as the Voter Education Project, an AFL-CIO offshoot that specializes
in harassing signature drives.
Representative government will remain the enduring feature of American
democracy, but the initiative process is a valuable safety valve. So long
as elected officials gerrymander their districts and otherwise make it
nearly impossible for voters to oust them, direct lawmaking will be
popular. That's why attempts to arbitrarily curb the initiative, or to
intimidate people from exercising their right to participate, must be
resisted. It's a civil liberties issue that should unite people of good
will on both the right and left.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on
Opinion Journal.
3. Really Nice Web Site: http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/
4. Dumb but Equal
When we saw the Associated Press headline--"Math Study Finds Girls Are
Just as Good as Boys"--our first thought was: Talk about setting a low
bar! When we read the article, it turned out to be worse than we'd
imagined:
[Janet] Hyde and her colleagues looked at annual math tests required by
the No Child Left Behind education law in 2002. . . .
The researchers found no difference in the scores of boys versus
girls--not even in high school. Studies 20 years ago showed girls and boys
did equally well on math in elementary school, but girls fell behind in
high school.
"Girls have now achieved gender parity in performance on standardized math
tests," Hyde said. . . .
As Hyde and her colleagues looked across the data for states' testing,
they found something they didn't expect: In most states they reviewed, and
at most grade levels, there weren't any questions that involved complex
problem-solving, an ability needed to succeed in high levels of science
and math. . . .
That might be a glaring omission, said Stephen Camarata, a Vanderbilt
University professor who has researched the issue but was not involved in
the study.
"We need to know that, if our measures aren't capturing some aspect of
math that's important," Camarata said. "Then we can decide whether there's
an actual male or female advantage."
Math, as Charles Murray explained in a 2005 Commentary essay, is "the most
abstract field" in the sciences, and also the one in which the achievement
gap between the sexes is greatest: "The number of great female
mathematicians is approximately two (Emmy Noether definitely, Sonya
Kovalevskaya maybe)."
Thus, as it turns out, the findings of the study are entirely consistent
with the hypothesis that boys and men tend to be better at math than their
female counterparts. No child left behind--equal ignorance for all!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tali Fahima finds a Whore!
for assisting her Palestinian terrorist "boyfriend" plan terror
atrocities? The poster girl of the Israeli Left:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/4042
Well, now it seems she is really angry with her terrorist
boyfriend. Not for murdering Jews, mind you, but because she thinks he is
collaborating with the Israeli intelligence services and giving them
information. How dare Zubeida betray her to engage in romance with the
Zionists! Talk about a two-timer!
Here is the Haaretz report:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1005273.html
Tali Fahima, a Jewish Israeli woman who was tried and convicted for her
contacts with Zakariya Zubeidi, former Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs'
Brigades, criticized Zubeidi on Thursday, saying that he had turned into
the "whore of the Shin Bet security service."
Speaking to Channel 10 news, Fahima complained that Zubeidi, who was once
on Israel's most wanted list for his role in the Palestinian resistance,
was now on friendly terms with the Shin Bet when it served his purposes.
Fahima referred to Zubeidi's recent request that the Shin Bet allow him
leave the West Bank city of Jenin and undergo eye surgery in Ramallah.
The Shin Bet had removed Zubeidi from its most wanted list in a gesture to
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last year, along with other militants
who turned in their weapons, on the condition that they refrain from
leaving the city in which they live, under close Palestinian police
supervision. Fahima's rage was sparked when Zubeidi negotiated with the
Shin Bet, which he professed to view as his enemy, over permission to
leave Jenin to go to Ramallah.
Fahima, who served two years in prison for charges which include
supporting a terror organization and aiding an enemy during wartime, told
Channel 10 "I refuse to see him and I won't even speak to him." She
explained that it was Zubeidi's duty to inform the Palestinian people that
he had negotiated with the Shin Bet to further his own personal needs.
Fahima added that Zubeidi "talks about his private pleasures, like being
able to travel around without an [IDF] drone following him, like the
occupation is over, like everything is fine - It was nice to believe in
the fairy tale, but there are no fairy tales in the resistance. Zubeidi is
a disgrace to the resistance. We are still living under an occupation."
However, Fahima added in a personal jab that Zubeidi "is not a big
terrorist. A man who fires bullets into the air is not a big terrorist."
Zubeidi responded to Fahima's remarks, saying "this is the first time in
eight years that I've left [the West Bank city of] Jenin. I came to
Ramallah to take care of my eyes that were hurt from an explosive device."
"Tali Fahima only experienced a small part of the Palestinian people's
problems," he added.
See also http://imshin.net/?p=898
on this story
The full rant by Fahima is here in Hebrew:
http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=569443&sid=126
You may recall that dozens of communists and tenured traitors in Israel
signed petitions after Fahima's arrest for her role as terrorism
accomplice and nominated her for a Nobel Prize! Really!
See this: http://jacobk9.tripod.com/id25.html
Rachel Giora from Tel Aviv University was one of the initiators.
See also this: http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Ignominy
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8130
2. Ignominy Part II -
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8131
3. Peace solution:
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2008/07/end-illegal-occupation-give-back-lands.html
4. Cartoons:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3572013,00.html
5. See the celebration of Samir Kuntar on the ALEF list for Israel
haters, anti-Semites and Neo-Nazis, operating under the auspices of the
University of Haifa: http://isracampus.org.il/ALEF%20Watch.htm
6. Maybe they will get tenure?
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HebrewU%20-%20al-Qaeda%20terror%20cell.htm
7. Pappe's continuing legacy:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/other%20-%20Open%20University%20-%20Mustafa%20Kabha%20-%20Al-Tantur%20fabrication.htm
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Gosh
that the previous bulldozer murderer did NOT have his house demolished by
the Olmert junta nor were his family members stripped of their survivor
benefits by the National Insurance Institute (Israel's social security)?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126925
Another Bulldozer Attack in Jerusalem: 12 Wounded
by Hillel Fendel
Edit
(IsraelNN.com) For the second time in three weeks, an Arab commandeered a
bulldozer to commit a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. He wounded several
people before being shot and killed.
The terrorist began his attempt to murder Jews on King David St. near the
Yemin Moshe neighborhood. He took a tractor from a construction site, and
began plowing into vehicles along the street, hitting three cars and a
bus. When he reached the intersection of Keren HaYesod St., a citizen and
Border Guard policeman shot and killed him. The entire incident was over
very quickly, eyewitnesses said.
Less than three weeks ago, an Arab from eastern Jerusalem killed three
people in a similar attack before he was himself killed by a heroic
yeshiva student/soldier. The tractor used in today's attack was smaller
than the one used in the previous one.
Of the 12 injured, one is reported in moderate condition - apparently with
an amputated leg - and the others have light injuries or are suffering
from trauma. Among them are a woman and her nine-month-old baby son.
Gag-Order on Terrorist's Name
The dead tractor terrorist was an Israeli citizen, living in Um Tuba, a
south-eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhood not far from Sur Baher. His
name was publicized over the radio, and minutes later, a gag order
prohibiting it from being disseminated was publicized - apparently because
of his family connections with a prominent Hamas family.
Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Likud's Manhigut Yehudit faction, was an
eyewitness to the attack. He told Voice of Radio that his first impression
of the attack was the tractor-shovel attempting to drop down upon a
passerby. "At first I thought it was some kind of accident, but very
quickly we realized that it was an attack. Thank G-d, it ended very
quickly, because of the alertness of passersby who shot him - I saw a man
I know from the southern Judea community of Susia, but he was the first
one to shoot the terrorist, and then the Border Guard policeman came and
finished the story."
The man who first shot the terrorist was later announced to be Yaki Asael,
56, father of eight, from Susia.
"We have long called for a policy of not hiring Arabs in construction,"
said Shifra Hoffman of Victims of Arab Terror. "We hold the government
guilty of this attack for not implementing this policy."
The Beer Sheba "Poet" of Terrorism
the Baby-Killer Kuntar
Shmuel Yerushalmi is a communist "poet" who possibly works in Ben Gurion
University and sends out his epistles from their university computer. His
photo is here: http://stage.co.il/Authors/ShmuelYerushalmi along with some
of his "poems." He has been called in for questioning before regarding
his pro-terror "poems" and was just questioned again about a "poem"
celebrating the baby-killer Samir Kuntar. The full Hebrew text of his new
celebration of baby murdering is here:
http://www.tapuz.co.il/Communa/ViewmsgCommuna.asp?Communaid=30005&msgid=29929357
Excerpts From Haaretz report:
Big brother is reading your poetry
By Ofri Ilani
tags: poetry, Zionism, revolution
"My duty as a revolutionary poet is to do whatever I can to advance the
revolution," says poet Shmuel Yerushalmi of Be'er Sheva. "We, the workers,
are the majority, and we want to bring down the class that is exploiting
us and rule in its stead, for the good of the general public."
As one would expect from a proletarian poet, Yerushalmi churns out poems
at an industrial rate and sends them to a set distribution list of
left-wing activists, as well as to Communist Web sites in Israel and
around the world. His poems usually follow a uniform pattern of pathos.
"Exploited, arise and rebel! / Those who suck our blood shall be destroyed
/ We will fight a mighty battle / and bring down the old world," he writes
in one poem, and in another declares, "The class struggle will strengthen
our spirit / Our weapons will flash like lightening / Those who rob us of
our daily bread / will all be handcuffed!"
The proletarian regime seems quite remote from the small apartment in
which Yerushalmi, 35, lives with his parents. Even the computer in his
apartment has been broken for four years. His extensive online activity -
the hundreds of poems, letters and Communist manifestos he has written -
has all been conducted from the computer room at Ben-Gurion University of
the Negev. "I am very isolated," he says. "My activities have led to
disputes with a lot of my friends, some of whom are members of the Zionist
left."
Yerushalmi's Communist activism might seem cut off from reality, but he is
apparently not considered out of this world by Israel's security forces.
Yerushalmi belongs to a very small group of Internet activists in the
Western world who have been interrogated by the security authorities about
their activities. The Be'er Sheva fringe poet, who immigrated to Israel
from the Ukraine in 1988, is viewed as a sufficiently serious threat and
stands under Shin Bet security service surveillance.
Tali Fahima's poem
It happened in 2004, shortly after Yerushalmi published a poem extolling
left-wing activist Tali Fahima. Yerushalmi says the police phoned and
summoned him for questioning at the police station in Be'er Sheva. "They
took me into a room with two men who immediately told me, 'We are from the
Shin Bet,'" recalls Yerushalmi. "One of them introduced himself as Ziv and
said, 'We see that you write things on the Internet, about Tali Fahima,
for example. Why?'" The interrogators wanted to know to which
organizations Yerushalmi belonged and who his best friends were, as well
as his political opinions.
"They began to ask me if I support a Jewish state. I said I was not
willing to answer, but I supported a democratic state. 'Is Israel not a
democratic state?' they asked, to which I responded, 'A democratic state
does not summon a poet for interrogation.' Then they said, 'Since you have
not cooperated with us, every time you go abroad you will have to undergo
a special check.' After that they asked me if I would now write a poem
about the Shin Bet, so I told them I would write whatever I like. A few
days later I wrote the poem, 'Fascist Police State.'"
Full story at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/923362.html
Following is an English translation of a "poem" he just published that
celebrates the Baby Murderer Samir Kuntar, the "poem" over which Haaretz
does not think anyone should get upset (unlike its opinion of people who
say "I oppose the Oslo peace process," people whom Haaretz wants arrested
for incitement):
Samir Kuntar is not a monster
Stop making Samir Kuntar a monster!
He is not guilty of a murder 30 years ago
The Haran family from Nahariya was murdered by the IDF
She was mistakenly shot during the operation to liberate them
The greased muzzle of Zionism washes our brains
Tells all of us: how dreadful is the .demon.
They call Kuntar .murderer. and .beast of prey.
But don.t mention how many Lebanese Israel murdered!
Did not the phalanges sent by Israel to Sabra and Shatilla
Sew enough murder
In the Grapes of Wrath, in Kfar Qana
Did not women and children fall
And in the war of 2006, for no reason
The army of Israel slaughtered the residents of Bint-Jbeil
And again Kfar Qana!
The tears of thousands flowed onto the land
And who in 48 carried out a massacre in Deir Yassin
115 peaceable citizens were horribly murdered
In July of that year, the streets of Ramle-Lydda
Blood was spilt like water
Also from Iraq al-Manshiyeh the residents were expelled with blows
It was not the hand of Samir Kuntar that did
Those deeds!
Also in June sixty-seven
It was not he who starved ten thousand
Egyptian prisoners to death
Not he in November 56 who murdered in cold blood
400 road-pavers in Gaza
All that was Israel.s doing
Nearly every day an Israeli bullet
Cuts off the life of some boy or girl
Like on an old tree
The cutter goes to its head
In .Defensive Wall., the most moral army in the world
Indiscriminately killed every woman and child
And for that every soldier and commander was singled out for praise
And how many pregnant women whose bellies were sliced open
Are on the conscience of our army
And how many children have been tortured in the Shabak dungeons
But everyone sees a murderer in Samir Kuntar
And nobody sees the truth in a look (.truth in Mabat. . maybe a double
entendre referring to the nightly Israeli television news broadcast,
called .Mabat., lit. .look., .view., .sight. - MM)
After all, the army of Israel is one of the cruellest in our generation
Do not believe the stories about how nice and good our soldiers are
We are a nation of mindless adventurers
And for that we will yet pay the lives of our soldiers
Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev
They too are victims of our madness
If they had released Kuntar a few years ago
We would be spared their captivity
Ehud and Eldad too would still be living among us
We would have avoided bloodshed in a needless war
But our Zionist regime continues to immerse
It sees Kuntar as the murderer, the rapist
Let us understand at last the foolishness of our ways
None but ourselves are to blame
Enough of being so proud of our strength!
Our military power will be our undoing
We must stop washing our brains with horror stories (sipurei-falitzut)
Otherwise we will be our own undoing!
It is the Zionist movement that is the murderer
It is the aggressor; shedder of the blood of children
Stop making Samir Kuntar a monster
Shame on you, Zionists.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Samir Kuntar and the last laugh
Samir Kuntar and the last laugh
Jul. 20, 2008
Daniel Pipes , THE JERUSALEM POST
Israel has lived the past 60 years more intensively than any other
country. Its highs - the resurrection of a 2,000 year old state in 1948,
history's most lopsided military victory in 1967, and the astonishing
Entebbe hostage rescue in 1976 - have been triumphs of will and spirit
that inspire the civilized world. Its lows have been self-imposed
humiliations: unilateral retreat from Lebanon and evacuation of Joseph's
Tomb, both in 2000; retreat from Gaza in 2005; defeat by Hizbullah in
2006; and the corpses-for-prisoners exchange with Hizbullah last week.
An outsider can only wonder at the contrast. How can the authors of
exhilarating victories bring such disgrace upon themselves, seemingly
oblivious to the import of their actions? One clue has to do with the
dates. The highs took place during the state's first three decades, the
lows occurred since 2000. Something profound has changed. The
strategically brilliant but economically deficient early state has been
replaced by the reverse. Yesteryear's spy masterminds, military geniuses
and political heavyweights have seemingly gone into hi-tech, leaving the
state in the hands of corrupt, shortsighted mental midgets.
How else can one account for the cabinet meeting on June 29, when 22 out
of 25 ministers voted in favor of releasing five live Arab terrorists,
including Samir Kuntar, 45, a psychopath and the most notorious prisoner
in Israel's jails, plus 200 corpses? In return, Israel got the bodies of
two soldiers murdered by Hizbullah. Even The Washington Post wondered at
this decision.
PRIME MINISTER Ehud Olmert endorsed the deal on the grounds that it "will
bring an end to this painful episode," a reference to retrieving the
bodies of war dead and appeasing the hostages' families demand for
closure. In themselves, both are honorable goals, but at what price? This
distortion of priorities shows how a once-formidably strategic country has
degenerated into a supremely sentimental country, a rudderless polity
where self-absorbed egoism trumps raison d'.tre. Israelis, fed up with
deterrence and appeasement alike, have lost their way.
Appalling as the cabinet decision was, worse yet is that neither the Likud
nor other leading public institutions responded with rage, but generally
(with some notable exceptions) sat quietly aside. Their absence reflects a
Tami Steinmetz Center poll showing that the population approves the swap
by a nearly 2-1 ratio. In short, the problem extends far beyond the
official class to implicate the population at large.
On the other side, the disgraceful celebration of baby-murderer Kuntar as
a national hero in Lebanon, where the government shut down to celebrate
his arrival, and by the Palestinian Authority, which called him a "heroic
fighter," reveals the depths of Lebanese enmity to Israel and immorality,
disturbing anyone concerned with the Arab soul.
THE DEAL has many adverse consequences. It encourages Arab terrorists to
seize more Israeli soldiers, then kill them. It boosts Hizbullah's stature
in Lebanon and legitimates Hizbullah internationally. It emboldens Hamas
and makes a deal for its Israeli hostage more problematic. Finally, while
this incident appears small compared to the Iranian nuclear issue, the two
are related.
International headlines along the lines of "Israel mourns, Hizbullah
exults" confirm the widely held but erroneous Middle Eastern view of
Israel as a "spider's web" that can be destroyed. The recent exchange may
give the already apocalyptic Iranian leadership further reason to brandish
its weapons. Worse, as Steven Plaut notes, by equating "mass murderers of
Jewish children to combat soldiers," the exchange effectively justifies
the "mass extermination of Jews in the name of Jewish racial inferiority."
For those concerned with the welfare and security of Israel, I propose two
consolations. First, Israel remains a powerful country that can afford
mistakes; one estimate even predicts it would survive an exchange of
nuclear weapons with Iran, while Iran would not.
Second, the Kuntar affair could have a surprise happy ending. A senior
Israeli official told David Bedein that, now out of jail, Israel's
obligation to protect Kuntar is terminated; on arrival in Lebanon, he
became "a target for killing. Israel will get him, and he will be
killed... accounts will be settled."
Another senior official added "we cannot let this man think that he can go
unpunished for his murder of a four-year-old girl."
Who will laugh last, Hizbullah or Israel?
The writer is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished
visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331033377&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[ Back to the Article ]
Copyright 1995- 2008 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/
Friday, July 18, 2008
Tel Aviv University Academics among those demanding Israel's Extermination at Conference
in the "Haifa Conference for the Right of Return
And the Secular Democratic State in Palestine"
Excerpt:
'In the second part of the opening session, there were three speeches in
Hebrew: Yehuda Kupferman (Tel Aviv University) from the "Committee for a
secular and democratic state in the whole of Palestine," and Dr Uri Davis
from "the movement against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine" - both from
the initiating committee, and Dr Anat Matar (Tel Aviv University) , a
leading activists in support of the rights of Palestinian prisoners and
for the rights of Israeli youth to refuse serving in the Israeli
army....(Among the demands were to) Strip the Jewish presence in Palestine
of its colonialist nature, which is connected to the racist Zionist
project, as a tool of imperialism and global capitalism.'
Full text:
Report on the Haifa Conference for the Right of Return
And the Secular Democratic State in Palestine
Initial Report
By: Yoav Bar (*)
Sort of Apology
Friday and Saturday, 20-21 of June, 2008 . after a year of dreaming and
working for it to happen . the Haifa conference was such a great success
that we hardly believed it was real. But on Saturday night, as we made the
5 minutes drive from elMidan back home to Hallisa, a poor, mostly Arab,
neighborhood in east Haifa, the racist and Un-Democratic state of Israel
was clearly and vigorously there . the streets were filled with police and
special .anti riot. units, stopping people and beating them at random. We
spent the next week collecting evidence and organizing a demonstration
against police violence.
All of you who tried to follow the preparations to the conference, or who
are concerned to see the results, might have been frustrated with the
chaotic performance of the initiating committee. Others have criticized us
for diverting effort from the urgent struggle against the occupation to
pipe dreaming a remote future. One thing special about the Haifa
conference was that it was initiated and organized by grassroots political
activists, in the middle of an intense period of struggles, without
budget. It was our moment to raise our heads from the exhausting daily
struggle and promise ourselves and the world that the suffering of the
Palestinian people may be brought to an end and there can be a bright
future for everybody in Palestine after we get rid of the racist Zionist
disorder.
Who was there?
Youth Meetings
As a gathering of political activists, working for the future, we started
with the youth. The proliferation of independent youth Palestinian
movements within the 48 territories is one proof that the new generation
is not satisfied with the traditional political offerings. At the Midan
theatre, on June 20, 17:00, the conference started with youth meetings .
not lecturing to the youth but activists from different youth movements
discussing among themselves their views of the future. There were two
parallel sessions, one for High School students and the other for the
.Shabab., university students and young workers, mostly in their twenties.
The Opening Session
At the opening session, the 300-seat hall of the Midan theatre was almost
full. There were several Arab TV crews, including Al Jazeera, taking
interviews with political leaders, and reporters from local Arab
newspapers. Several Palestinian flags were on the stage, as well as a sign
in Arabic, Hebrew and English declaring the .Haifa Conference for the
Right of Return and the Secular Democratic State in Palestine.. Sahar
Abdo, the presenter, called Hanan Wakeem to sing .Mawteni. (My Homeland),
and the public stood up to the song and observed a moment of silence for
the martyrs. Rajaa Zo.abi .Omari welcomed the public in the name of the
initiating committee, and outlined the vision of the conference.
The main part of the opening ceremony included political speeches by the
general secretaries of three parties in the 48 territories: Ayman .Odeh
from the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash - a front that
includes the Communist party), Awad Abed El-Fatah from the National
Democratic Alliance (BALAD) and Muhammad Kana.ane from Abnaa elBalad, the
movement that was the backbone of the coalition that constituted the
Initiating Committee. The appearance of Muhammad Kana.ane was most
significant as (on 28/5) he was newly released from four and a half years
in Israeli prisons, after he was sentenced for political meetings with
Palestinian activists in Jordan.
In the second part of the opening session, there were three speeches in
Hebrew: Yehuda Kupferman from the .Committee for a secular and democratic
state in the whole of Palestine., and Dr Uri Davis from .the movement
against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine. . both from the initiating
committee, and Dr Anat Matar, a leading activists in support of the rights
of Palestinian prisoners and for the rights of Israeli youth to refuse
serving in the Israeli army.
There were also written congratulations to the conference, mostly from
like minded activists in the 67 occupied territories and the Palestinian
diaspora who could not come. The most significant written participation
came from the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, Comrade Ahmad Sa.adat, from the Nafha prison in the Naqab
desert.
Who was not there?
Professor Bhim Singh from Kashmir, who had to represent the international
delegation in the opening session, could not get a visa from the Israeli
embassy in India.
A group of Palestinian academics (with foreign passports) from Bir Zeit
University were on the bus from Jerusalem to Haifa, coming to take part in
the conference, as the bus was intercepted mid-way in Kfar Saba by Israeli
security forces. They were held for several hours and forced to return to
Jerusalem.
The Islamic Movement was invited to take part in the conference, as
partners in the struggle against Israeli oppression, in accordance to the
organizers belief that the secular democratic state is a framework to
defend everybody.s rights and to ensure full respect to all religions.
They didn.t officially reject the invitation and the task of building
cooperation with them is left for the follow up committee that was formed
in the conference.
Saturday full of Workshops
The real attraction in the conference was the workshops program, 3
workshops in parallel at each of 3 sessions. In the 9 workshops there were
41 registered contributors, in addition to the facilitators, all of them
leading activists and intellectuals. The list of participants. names, more
than 50 of them, on the invitation was a parade of support for the
conference, and it was probably the main reason why, while we initially
expected the second day of long discussions to have restricted
participation, we came Saturday morning and found the premises of elMidan
full with festive atmosphere, with many Palestinian activists from
different political movements and parties and from many civil society
organizations. There was a very significant presence of Jewish activists
as well, probably the widest participation in a Palestinian political
event ever (except, of course, mass demonstration, where everybody comes
but there.s not much interaction). There was also a significant presence
from international solidarity movements . most of them young activists
that volunteer in different programs to support the Palestinian people and
came on the weekend to Haifa to support the conference. All in all between
300 and 400 people took part in different workshops on Saturday, with
lively discussion about many aspects of the problem, the struggle and the
solution.
The enthusaistic atmosphere created the conditions for the most serious
discussion that characterized the workshops. The participants made their
best to clarify their positions, and the public took active part in the
discussion. Many different approaches were proposed, but it only
contributed the confidence that we can do important things together.
What Happened at the Conference?
Details of the Proceedings
I will not dare try to give here any short description of the contents of
some 20 hours of discussion in the workshops and full sessions. About half
of it was filmed and should go online anytime soon. We also requested all
the participants to write down their contributions, and some of it is
already on the conference.s site: www.ror1state.org. There are also
written contributions from many writers that could not make it to the
conference.
The full list of participants is on the invitation, and may be seen on the
website. To introduce each of them and write a little about their
experience in struggle or their writing or other achievements requires a
big book - only the internet can give practical answers to this task.
Palestinian Popular Festival
Some of the more sophisticated writers that attended the conference
promised to write special articles about the atmosphere that filled
elMidan, before going after the conference political and social contents.
It was all organized on the principle of a Palestinian popular festival .
covering for the lack of budget with the effort of tens of activists, like
the family in a wedding party, running around all the time to take care
for the guests. Tens of the participants from outside the area were
invited to be guests in the homes of local activists; Lunch was
traditional wedding.s home made food, and after 220 meals were served the
rest was contributed to a local welfare institution; Simultaneous
translation to Hebrew and English was done by political activists, and in
most cases more to the point than the mechanical translation of many
professionals.
All Palestinian Gathering
The most important thing about the Haifa conference is its place as part
of an all Palestinian awakening for a new vision that will pose
alternatives to the dead end of the Imperialist-led fake .peace process..
The problem, the struggle and the solution are all common to all parts of
the Palestinian people, as was seen throughout the conference. It was
stressed in the workshop on ethnic cleansing exposing how it is practiced
by Zionism from before 1948 until these days, in the 1948 occupied
territories as well as in Gaza and the West Bank and the Syrian Golan. It
was clear from the concentration on the right of return of all Palestinian
refugees to all the areas from which they were expelled.
Even though only few Palestinians from the 67 occupied territories, mostly
from Jerusalem, could come to Haifa, the conference was part of a wider
movement: Ajras elAwda, one of the components of the initiating committee
is an all-Palestinian network. Ajras published a special magazine on the
occasion and distributed it in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. Special
meetings are now taking place in Ramallah to promote the same ideas, and
in Haifa we listened to the written participation of Ahmad Katamesh from
Ramallah presenting his view toward the future democratic state in
Palestine. Salame Kelly, a leading Palestinian activist and Arab Marxist
from Syria, sent a speech on video that had to be part of the opening
ceremony (but we failed to show it due to technical problems).
The Palestinians in the 1948 territories
For a long time Palestinian in the territories who came under Israeli
control in 1948 were a smashed society, licking the wounds of the 1948
Nakba which included many massacres and the ethnic cleansing of the
majority of the population. Some tried to pursue a course of struggle for
equal rights within the Israeli context outside of a Palestinian national
perspective, but were always frustrated by Zionist systematic racism, that
defines the goal of the state as serving the .international Jewish
nation.. In the nineties of the last century, some tried to pose a
perspective of redefining Israel as a state of all its citizens. The Haifa
conference was an opportunity to examine in historic perspective all these
failed attempts at reforming the racist system, and propose a solution to
the suffering from Israeli Apartheid in the context of a comprehensive
solution to the Palestinian problem.
It was clear from the list of participants that the discussion of a
secular democratic state in Palestine is not confined to Abnaa elBalad,
which always promoted this solution, or to radical circles around it.
Salman Natur and Hisham Naffa from Hadash, as well as Dr. Mahmoud Muhareb
and Yael Lerer from Balad are just some of the more famous promoters of
the one state solution. But also the speeches of the secretary generals of
Hadash and Balad in the opening ceremony revealed a lot of soul searching
and internal conflicts in relation to this perspective. It would not be
far-fetched to conclude that there is a majority of Palestinians within
the 1948 territories that prefer the secular democratic state, while the
main reservation is about the practicality of posing this slogan at the
current stage, but there is also no much illusions left about any
practical solution to the Palestinian problem as long as the United State
and Israel are calling the shots.
The massive presence in the conference of activists from the Palestinian
civil society is another show of maturity of the society.s confrontation
with the harsh conditions of Israeli Apartheid. While there is a whole
class of people that dedicate their lives to caring for the daily needs of
the people, from education to health, to workers. rights, women.s rights,
economic and social development, culture and much else, almost nobody
expects solutions to those problems outside of a framework of political
change. We didn.t expect the local NGOS to take a clear political
position, and all participants were presenting their personal views on
their own responsibility. Ameer Makhoul from Ittijah, Union of Palestinian
community-based organizations - an umbrella organization for Palestinian
NGOs - was on the initiating committee from its onset, and we had the
participation of many leading personalities from NGOs covering most areas
of public lives.
Jewish Participation
The numbers are not the only measure, and we still didn.t process the
registration papers, but the participation of Jewish activists in the
conference was very obvious. They covered a whole rainbow from released
political prisoners, through different trends of the traditional left,
feminists, Oriental Jews (Arab Jews) activists, anarchists, anti war
activists, academics, religious activists for peace, democrats,
cosmopolitans and many more. But the most significant part was not their
presence but the way that they were integral part of the whole conference,
not as a separate entity trying to negotiate or to come to terms with a
separate Palestinian entity, but as part of a common gathering trying to
figure out a common future and how to bring it about.
The Concluding Declaration
When we finally arrived to the concluding plenary, we were not only tired
and much beyond the schedule, but it was also clear that the inputs of the
conference are too many and too important to try to conclude them in one
hour.s discussion. The initiating committee decided to present to the
participants the draft position paper on which we agreed after long
internal discussion, a paper named .The Jaffa Declaration. in tribute to
the city where the initiating committee was holding its meetings while it
was discussing the document through the first months of the year.
The Jaffa Declaration
The establishment of the Democratic Secular state in the whole of
Palestine is the positive solution that will accomplish justice and will
bring an end to the struggle on the Palestinian land as it:
1. Preserve the unity of the Palestinian people and their historic
connection to the Palestinian land.
2. Achieve the goals of the liberation struggle of all the
Palestinian people: The return of the refugees, freedom, equality and the
right of self determination.
3. Strip the Jewish presence in Palestine of its colonialist nature,
which is connected to the racist Zionist project, as a tool of imperialism
and global capitalism.
4. Be based on the principle of separation between religion and the
state, while assuring the freedom of believers in all religions to
practice their religion.
5. Assure full equality in the rights of all citizens without
discrimination on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, gender,
nationality, class or any other reason.
What Next?
The declaration was read to the public and received general approval as
the base for the concluding statement of the conference. Several important
comments were made by the public, mostly for additional positions, to be
added to the declaration.
Many of the participants asked to join the initiating committee, to form
together the follow up committee that will continue the work for these
goals after the conference. Hundreds of the participants signed up and
requested to be informed of the next steps.
----------------------
(*) The writer is a member of the political bureau of Abnaa elBalad and
was active in the initiating committee of the Haifa conference
Hebrew University students Join Al-Qaeda, and - where the next Hebrew U bomb will come from:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3569927,00.html
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331015746&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
6 Israeli Arabs charged with operating al-Qaeda cell
Hebrew University students indicted of trying to build terror
infrastructure in Jerusalem. One of suspects allegedly collected
information in attempt to shoot down helicopter carrying senior official
during US President Bush's visit to Israel
Efrat Weiss
Cleared for publication: The Shin Bet and the police have arrested six
Israeli Arabs, four of them residents of east Jerusalem, on suspicion of
planning to operate an al-Qaeda cell in Israel.
Among the suspects are students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The six suspects were identified as: Ibrahim Nashef, 22, of Tayibe, a
physics and computer sciences student at the Hebrew University; Muhammas
Najem, 24, of Nazareth, a chemistry student at the Hebrew University;
Yusef Sumarin, 21, of the Jerusalem village of Beit Hanina; Anas Shawiki,
21, of the Jerusalem town of Jabel Mukaber; Kamal Abu Kwaider, 22, of
Jerusalem's Old City; and Ahmed Shawiki, 21, of the Jerusalem town of
Shuafat.
All the suspects were charged with membership in a terror organization.
Some of them will be tried for aiding the enemy at a time of war,
possessing propaganda material in favor of a terror organization,
soliciting and attempting to solicit others to join a terror organization.
According to the indictments filed against them Friday, the six used to
meet at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. They surfed al-Qaeda websites
containing radical Islam content, where they also found instructions for
the production of explosive devices.
Taking an interest in Bush's chopper
One of the detainees lived in the Hebrew University dorms which overlook
the university's landing ground. According to the suspicions, he watched
the landing ground in January 2008, during US President George W. Bush's
visit to Israel.
He also allegedly looked for instructions for shooting down a landing
helicopter on the internet, and took pictures of the landing choppers
using his cellular phone.
The six were arrested in a joint police and Shin Bet operation between the
months of June and July.
About two weeks ago, two residents of the southern Israeli town of Rahat
were indicted Wednesday for allegedly being al-Qaeda operatives.
Taher and Omar Abu-Sakut, who are registered members of the Islamic
Movement, were arrested following a joint Shin Bet, police and Border
Guard operation that took place in June.
Raanan Ben-Zur contributed to this report
2.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=775D9E33-E358-4D96-9B84-9596DAC90876
Abbas' Love Letter to a Child-Killer
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, July 18, 2008
3. Hamas TV Bunny Assud Sentenced To Have Hand Chopped Off For Stealing.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a5b_1216298738
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1814.htm
4. More from Bishara, whose right hand party man happens to be the
husband of a certain anti-Israel judgette in the Nazareth court:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3569845,00.html
5. Olmert's partners:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126883
6. New York Slimes:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126882
7. Wymen for Jihad?
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20Dalia%20Sachs.htm
Another woman for jihad:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20Yuli%20Tamir.htm
8. Move over Shakespeare!! - what is being taught at University of
Haifa and at Tel Aviv University:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HaifaU%20-%20Black%20Laundry.htm
9. Will Hebrew U's next bomb come from here?
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HebrewU%20-%20Amiram%20Goldblum%20-%20terroist%20fellow.htm
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Israeli Academics on list of "Righteous Jews" Prepared by Holocaust Deniers
Neo-Nazi has set up a web site to honor what he regards as "Righteous
Jews," meaning anti-Semitic self-hating Jews and those working against
Israel.
It is supposed to imitate the "Righteous Gentiles" honors by Yad Vashem.
Many of those so honored are Israeli leftist academics.
The "Righteous Jews" web site (http://www.righteousjews.org/) is run by
one Daniel McGowan, a notorious Holocaust Denier (see
http://mystical-politics.blogspot.com/2007/10/daniel-mcgowan-holocaust-denial.html
for details). Gowen was once a lecturer at Hobart and William Smith
College in Geneva, New York, now retired. For more on McGowen's Nazi
activities see http://one-state.net/mcgo.html
http://zundelsite.org/english/news/070326_McGowan_vs_Bishara.php?tmpl=print
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec06/McGowan30.htm
The test for inclusion in the list is supposed to be that the recipient of
the "award" helped to "Commemorate Palestinians who have been depopulated,
dispossessed, humiliated, tortured, and murdered by the Zionists."
Among Israeli academics so honored by the Neo-Nazi web site are Adi Ophir,
Aharon Shabtai, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Anat Biletzki, Ariella Azulay, Avishai
Ehrlich, Avraham Oz, Boaz Evron, Daphna Golan, Haim Bresheeth, Haim
Yacobi, Ilan Pappe, Moshe Machover, Moshe Zuckermann, Nurit Peled Elhanan,
Oren Ben-Dor, Oren Yiftachel, Orit Kamir, Yigal Arens, Uri Davis, Shimshon
Bichler, Uri Hadar, Ruchama Marton, Yitzhak Laor, Zalman Amit.
The full list of the laureates appears here:
http://www.righteousjews.org/initial-list.html
The Silence of the Likud Lambs
a viable alternative to the Israeli Lemminghood and could produce national
salvation, please note their complete silence over the Murderers for
Corpses deal on Israel's most disgraceful day in history. Actually, even
the Ichud Leumi (National Union) party of the Right has been silent about
this perfidy. (Moshe Arens, who is not a contender for Prime Minister, is
an exception and did denounce the cowardice and disgrace)
For the past two years, Israel has been filled with Tee shorts and
Billboards that read "Don't Let Indifference Kill Them," with photos of
the Israeli soldier captives. This week we learn that they were killed
not by indifference but by cowardly appeasement and disgraceful stupidity
and capitulation. The country that rescued the Entebbe hostages has now
rewarded those who murder Israeli captives in cold blood by releasing baby
murderers to their freedom.
2. Eldad Regev was shot in the head, murdered in cold blood by his
captors. The press here has not yet revealed how Goldwasser was murdered.
3. The people who brought you the "peace process" terminology have now
come up with a new term for cowardly capitulation: it is now called "moral
victory" and Olmert is fighting the Hizbollah on Youtube.
4. No pig skin in land fill for him:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3569381,00.html His family
will be getting social security survivor benefits from the Israeli
taxpayer.
5. Handing the Hizbollah its victory:
http://www.jewishpress.com/displaycontent_new.cfm?contentid=33949&mode=a§ionid=14&contentname=Hizbullah%27s_Final_Victory&recnum=1
6. see also
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3569058,00.html
7. The Olmert Memorial Arch:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3568270,00.html
8. From Tom Gross: THE TERRORISTS WIN
[All notes below by Tom Gross]
This morning Israel has begun the process of a "prisoner swap" with the
Lebanese political and terror organization Hizbullah.
However, Israel is receiving only dead soldiers, kidnapped and murdered
by Hizbullah in an unprovoked cross border raid into Israel in 2006.
By contrast, Hizbullah is getting five live prisoners including the
notorious child killer Samir Kuntar.
While people in Israel are relieved that the families of the young
kidnapped conscripts Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser can finally bury
their
loved ones, there is despondency and even outrage by many about the
terms of the deal the Israeli government has agreed to.
Israel is demonstrating to terror groups that hostage-taking works --
and it works even when terrorists kill their hostages before handing
them back.
Times have changed from the days when Israeli special forces crossed
half a continent to mount a daring raid to rescue hostages at Entebbe.
Now many countries are negotiating with terrorists. For example, in
Iraq in 2005, Germany paid $5 million for the freedom of a kidnapped
aid
worker. Italy and France have also paid ransoms in Afghanistan and
elsewhere, and it is widely rumored that the British government, on
behalf
the state-owned broadcaster the BBC, paid a considerable sum of money
to
Hamas to secure the release of kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan
Johnson last year, as did Fox News to secure the release of two of its
employees kidnapped in Gaza a year earlier.
Such capitulation to terrorists will only serve to encourage terrorist
groups to kidnap more innocent people.
Hizbullah and other extremists are today the heroes of many in the Arab
world.
---------------------------------------------------------------
CHILD KILLER
Kuntar, now 45, took an Israeli family hostage in the northern Israeli
coastal town of Nahariya, shot and killed Danny Haran in front of his
4-year-old daughter Einat. He then crushed her head with his rifle
butt
until she was dead. Danny's wife managed to hide from Kuntar in the
attic with her two-year-old daughter Yael, whom she accidentally
suffocated while trying to keep the toddler quiet. Kuntar also shot
dead a
policeman who tried to rescue the little girl.
Kuntar has admitted this was a carefully planned operation. He told the
court during his trial that he and his accomplices traveled by a
rubber dinghy from Lebanon with "instructions to avoid opening fire,
to take
hostages and bring them to Lebanon." "I was commander of the cell," he
said.
In 1985, the PLO seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship to demand
Kuntar's release. An elderly wheelchair-bound American Jew, Leon
Klinghoffer,
was shot and tossed overboard, left to die in the Mediterranean with
his wheelchair.
During his time in prison Kuntar married Kifah Kayyal, an Israeli Arab
woman from Acre residing in Ramallah, who was serving a life sentence
for her terrorist activities as part of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP).
While in prison, Kuntar was reportedly a gang leader among inmates, and
other prisoners feared him.
Kuntar has never expressed remorse for the killings and recently vowed
to continue fighting Israel once released.
This morning, the BBC, CNN International, and France 24 networks have
all described Kuntar as "a fighter" and have not properly explained
his
crimes in many of their reports.
---------------------------------------------------------------
KUNTAR'S FREEDOM PARTY
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah welcomed his returning comrades by
saying he was "more determined than ever" to wage war on Israel.
"My oath and pledge," he wrote in a letter printed in a Palestinian
newspaper, "is that my place will be at the battlefront, which is
soaked
in the sweat of your giving, and the blood of the most beloved among
men, and that I shall continue down the path, until complete victory."
Kuntar is scheduled to be flown to Beirut in a Lebanese Army helicopter
later today, where he will be warmly received by the heads of the
Lebanese government, and festively welcomed in an enormous street
party
Hizbullah has arranged for him. Lebanon has officially declared a
national
holiday.
In Israel, by contrast, the mood is one of mourning. Nothing better
illustrates the gulf between democratic Israel and some of its
neighbors
in their attitude towards murderers and the sanctity of human life
9. Campus Activism:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126853
10. The Jewish boy and the Papacy:
http://www.jewishpress.com/displaycontent_new.cfm?contentid=33937&mode=a§ionid=14&contentname=The_Jewish_Boy_And_The_Papacy&recnum=1
11. Unanswered Questions:
http://www.jewishpress.com/displaycontent_new.cfm?contentid=33947&mode=a§ionid=14&contentname=Unanswered_Questions&recnum=1
12. From the Wall Street Journal:
The Jerusalem Post reports on a happy event for the Palestinian Authority:
President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday sent his regards to the families of
Samir Kuntar and the other four Lebanese prisoners scheduled to be
transferred to Hizbullah.
Abbas praised the prisoner swap and congratulated the Kuntar family.
Kuntar was in an Israeli prison for an attack that took place on April 22,
1979. Two years ago we quoted a survivor, Smadar Haran Kaiser, who
described the attack:
It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked
with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from
our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six
miles south of the Lebanese border.
Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists,
sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two
blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists
burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer.
As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our
apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and
saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running
down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and
slammed the door.
Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to
hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our
bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed
Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground
shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.
They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing
there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and
the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing
their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the
terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be
killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I
lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the
Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my
mother," I thought.
As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the
beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front
of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see.
Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle
butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.
By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too,
was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.
If smashing a 4-year-old girl's skull with a rifle butt makes Kuntar a
hero, you have to wonder what one would have to do for the Palestinians to
consider him a coward. The New York Times, meanwhile, describes Kuntar's
attack this way:
Perhaps Israel's most reviled prisoner, Samir Kuntar, will return to a
hero's welcome when he crosses into Lebanon this week, 29 years after he
left its shores in a rubber dinghy to kidnap Israelis from the coastal
town of Nahariya.
That raid went horribly wrong, leaving five people dead, a community
terrorized and a nation traumatized. Two Israeli children and their father
were among those killed.
What does the Times think would have happened if the "raid" had gone
right?
