Friday, January 07, 2011
Dishonest Abe
out, has enough natural gas (and possibly some oil underneath it) that
it could get an invitation to join OPEC. And now the Knesset for the
first time in Israel's history is taking serious action against the
seditious leftist anti-Zionist fifth column organizations operating in
Israel with foreign funding:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141600
MK: Be Very Afraid, Fifth Columnists
Shevat 2, 5771, 07 January 11 11:07
by Gil Ronen
(Israelnationalnews.com)
MK Danny Danon told Arutz Sheva that he will be the Knesset member
heading the committee of inquiry into ultra-leftist groups' sources of
funding that the Israeli parliament voted to establish.
Danon said that he "recommends to [Peace Now Director] Yariv
Oppenheimer and the other directors of the NGOs that are a fifth
column within Israel to start sprucing up their CVs, because soon they
will be unemployed."
Among the organizations and persons Danon intends to invite to the
committee, he lists:
• B'tselem - director, Jessica Montel
• The Center for Defense of the Individual - director, Dalia Kirstein
• Yesh Din - director, Roi Maor
• Ir Amim - director, Yehudit Oppenheimer
• The Public Committee against Torture in Israel - director, Yishai Blanc
• Adallah - director, Mahmoud Yazbek
• Peace Now - director, Yariv Oppenheimer
• Gisha - director, Kenneth Mann
• Association for Civil Rights ion Israel - President, Sami Michael
• Mousawa - Anwar Jamal, Tariq Bashir, Jafer Farah
• as well as: Breaking the Silence, Machsom Watch, The Israeli
Committee against Home Demolitions and the Center for Alternative
Information.
Danon said that "it is time to find our the sources of the monies for
these groups that act without letup against the state of Israel." He
added: "We will try to find out who are the ones who arrange the riots
at the Bil'in checkpoint, who funded the legal motions in the matter
of Highway 443. We will reveal the bodies that roam the Galilee and
purchase private lands with Saudi money. The leftists seem afraid and
they must have a reason for fearing this committee."
The committee does not have powers of subpoena and is no different
from other Knesset committees as far as its powers. Danon is
optimistic, however: "I hope we can stop these groups, which received
40 million shekels from the European Union in the last five years
alone... We will try to discover the truth and in the end we will
recommend changes in legislation as well."
***
Among those soiling their underwear over the new Knesset initiative
are J Street and the New Israel Fund. On the very same day that a
Rabbi was being dragged off for interrogation because the thought
police disliked an opinion he had expressed, an anti-democratic
incident that was not denounced by a single leftist in Israel, the
same leftists are sobbing in unison about "McCarthyism" and about
threats from the government against freedom of speech:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/leftist-groups-witch-hunt-against-us-will-destroy-democracy-in-israel-1.335405
Notice the headline: Leftist groups: 'Witch hunt' against us will
destroy democracy in Israel
These of course are the very same leftist groups that have been
striving to suppress freedom of speech and who have been demanding
that everyone whose opinions in Israel they dislike be indicted for
"incitement" and "racism."
2. "Avrum" Burg Leads the Anti-Zionist Jihad against Israeli Patriotism
Meanwhile, the assault by the anti-democratic Israeli Left against the
Knesset initiative is being led by ultra-leftist Avraham Burg:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/former-knesset-speaker-urges-israeli-human-rights-groups-to-shun-knesset-probe-1.335665
In a bit of comic irony, the very same "Avrum" has an Op-Ed in Haaretz
today demanding that all enlightened Israelis should strive to
maximize the intermarriage rate between Israeli Jews and non-Jews from
all over the world. I am not joking. See it for yourself here:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/marrying-the-dalai-lama-1.335684
Note how he thinks that his daughter marrying the Dalai Lama, I
guess cause "Avram" thinks the Lama is the epitome of Jewish values,
is far better than allowing her to marry an Israeli Jewish rightist.
Now the "Avrum" is the son of the great parliamentarian and cabinet
minister during Israel's early decades, Joseph Burg.
I have had occasion to comment on the "Avrum" in the past, and I think
the time is apt to repost some of these materials:
http://zioncon.blogspot.com/2009/02/avraham-burg-and-post-zionist-wrecking.html
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Avraham Burg and the Post-Zionist Wrecking of the Pri Hagalil Company
Avraham Burg and the Post-Zionist Wrecking of the Pri Hagalil
Enterprise
By Steven Plaut
Avraham Burg is without a question one of the worst Israelis in the world
and also a despicable person. A one-time Knesset Member from the Labor
Party and a speaker of the Knesset, and later Chairman of the Jewish
Agency, Burg is openly seeking to put an end to Israel's existence as a
Jewish state. He is a leader in the "Post-Zionist" movement of
ultra-leftists, Israelis and ex-Israelis seeking Israel's annihilation.
But now he is also up to his ears in financial scandal. It turns out he
is one of the central figures involved in the collapse of the Pri Hagalil
company, a collapse that has dominated the economic news in recent weeks
in Israel.
Let's back up a little.
Avraham "Avrum" Burg has been a far-leftist for decades. He is the son of
the great Joseph Burg, a Holocaust survivor and one of Israel's founders.
Father Burg was a leader of the National Religious Party and sat in
Israeli cabinets for so many years that there were many jokes about him
having sat in a cabinet with Pharaoh. Mother Burg had grown up in Hebron
and survived the 1929 Arab pogroms against Jews there.
Junior Avraham had been a leader in "Peace Now," and supposedly was
standing near the favorite martyr saint of the Israeli Left, Emil
Grunsweig, when the latter was killed by a grenade tossed at the
demonstrators by a rightist. (The perp, by the way, is NOT on the list of
people Olmert wants to release as part of the general release of
terrorists.) Avraham is religious, sort of, showing his ambivalence about
that by wearing a yarmulke smaller than many postage stamps. In recent
years he has been making headlines for his demands that Israel stop being
a Jewish state, that the Law of Return for Jews be revoked, and that
Jewish symbols of the state be junked. He is a founder of the new
anti-Israel lobby in the US, "J Street." He has lived in recent years in
France. His current "thinking" can be read here:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868385.html
As speaker of the Knesset, "Avrum" defied Israeli law and illegally went
to speak before the PLO's "parliament" in Ramallah in 2002.
Since then he has morphed into one of Israel's most extremist
"Post-Zionists" (http://www.arabworldbooks.com/arab/avraham.htm ). He
denounces Zionism in the anti-Israel Guardian
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,1042071,00.html ). The
anti-Semite Pat Buchanan has applauded him
(http://goliath.ecnext.com/comsite5/bin/pdinventory.pl?pdlanding=1&referid=2750&item_id=0199-1403773.
He has denounced Israel as an evil entity
(http://www.haaretz.com/GA/pages/ShArtGA.jhtml?itemNo=360539 ). The
journal Azure reports
(http://azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=117&search_text= ) that Burg
"declared the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz (of 'Judeo-Nazis' fame) to be his
'moral compass.'" Burg's advisers Haim Ben-Shachar and Arik Carmon have
developed a plan whereby the Zionist movement would drop its focus on
Jewish immigration and concern itself with distributing "pluralistic"
Jewish material over the Internet. He teamed up with Yossi Beilin to
promote the latter's "Geneva Misunderstandings" to dismember Israel
(http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=36&x_article=599 ).
Burg demands that Israel desist altogether from defining itself as a
"Jewish state". His take on suicide bombers? "Having ceased to care
about the children of the Palestinians, [Israel] should not be surprised
when they come full of hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of
Israeli escapism."
He has published an anti-Israel 'book', one that ruminates about Israel
and Zionism, compares Israel and Germany, harshly criticizes Eichmann's
hanging by Israel, reflects on Judaism in the age of globalization and
remembers his father's house. In 2007 the media reported that Burg junior
had left Israel altogether to do "business" in France. We will see in a
minute what sort of "business."
Meanwhile, back to Pri Hagalil. It is a fruit canning and processing
company located in the impoverished Israeli "development town" of Hatzor,
not far from Kiryat Shmona, close enough to be on the receiving end of
many a Hezbollah rocket. It is the main employer in the town, and it is
broke.
The background to this is that the company was once one of so many
mismanaged enterprises owned by Israel's Histadrut Trade Union Federation.
The Histadrut is essentially Israel's leading organized crime family. Pri
Hagalil had been managed by the Histadrut's own industrial holding company
Koor, before the latter was privatized. Pri Hagalil was sold by Koor in
the 1990s to two dubious characters, an Israeli business man named Aviv
Algor, and a British investor named Ian Davis. I say they are dubious,
but I mean they are crooks. A month ago the two were convicted of serious
fraud in a separate affair involving the Mediterranean Pipes Company
(Maariv Feb 25) and had other previous fraud convictions (see
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1131043721728&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
).
The two crooks had purchased Pro Hagalil and at the same time purchased
the "Vita" company, which makes soups and other processed foods, and
merged it with Pri Hagalil to make a new company. The merged enterprise
was owned by "Kedem," their own holding company, which also bought up
other failing Israeli companies from different industries.
At that point they struck a deal with .. (drumroll) . our own Avrum Burg!
He came in as a partner in their corporation and was appointed chairman of
the board of directors of Pri Hagalil. The company kept losing money (if
you are interested and read Hebrew, you can check its books out at
http://maya.tase.co.il/bursa/CompanyDetails.asp?CompanyCd=157&company_group=3000).
It went deeper into debt, borrowing from the banks and others. And to
make matters more confusing, the assets of Pri Hagalil were pledged as
collateral not only for the factory's own debts but also for the debts of
the other companies owned by the fraudulent duo and their Post-Zionist
partner, Burg. Burg did not pony up much or any cash of his own to become
the partner of Algor and Davis. So what exactly did he offer them?
Perhaps his wide-ranging political contacts as the past Speaker of the
Knesset?
In any case, Pri Hagalil went bust, and is now insolvent. The two large
Israeli banks that are its largest creditors began preparations to
foreclose and liquidate the company. That has serious implications
because it is the lifeline of the large portion of the population of
Hatzor. Shutting down the factory would make Hatzor look like Oklahoma
in a John Steinbeck book.
So in the past few weeks, the business news in Israel has been revolving
around the prospective shutting down of the factory. Its workers are
striking on and off, and holding noisy demonstrations. The banks are
demanding that the court put the company into receivership, and that a
"rehabilitation plan" be negotiated. Everyone is pretty clearly trying to
pressure the government to bail out the company Obama-style. But the new
Minister of Finance will likely be Bibi and he is opposed to corporate
welfare. Burg and his buddies are accusing the banks of insensitivity in
trying to get repaid the money owed to them by the Pri Hagalil company.
The banks themselves are in the red even without writing off their
investments in Pri Hagalil, because of the financial crisis and recession.
They are accusing Burg of mismanaging the company and its finances.
The bottom line is that the mainstay source of sustenance for an entire
impoverished development town in Israel was destroyed under the
stewardship of dear old Avraham Burg And then to top it all off, Maariv
Feb 25, 09 is reporting that the Israeli banks are accusing Burg of being
involved in the disappearance of funds plowed into the factory. They
claim they invested 270 million shekels in keeping the factory operational
and that these funds simply "disappeared." Whither did they disappear?
The media are not saying and neither is Burg.
As of this morning, the court gave the company a brief reprieve before
putting it into receivership, so that its owners can try to negotiate with
its creditors. My guess is that the Israeli government will bail it out,
forcing taxpayers to pony up the cash to cover Burg's incompetence.
What can you say about a country that – once again - awarded its most
prestigious prize on its most important day to a radical leftist? One
who mocked the memory of the Holocaust and poked fun at Israel's
fallen soldiers?
It's Israeli Masochism, Stupid!
Alon Ben Shaul
28/4/2010
It all started with an ad titled, "For Jerusalem," which author Elie
Wiesel, the Nobel Prize laureate, published in the New York Times, the
Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. It addressed President
Obama and said, inter alia: "For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is
above politics…It is mentioned more thhan six hundred times in
Scripture - and not a single time in the Koran...the first song I
heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem."
Wiesel also wrote that Jews, Christians and Muslims were able to build
their homes anywhere in Jerusalem and that only under Israeli
sovereignty had freedom of worship for all religions been assured in
the city. "The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate, but
about memory," he stressed.
A Leftist group of activists responded to this ad by saying that as
long as Jerusalem remains "occupied" it cannot be holy. "Jerusalem
must be shared by both Israelis and Palestinians," they insisted in an
open letter published after Independence Day. They emphasized that
they wanted to express their "frustration, even outrage" at Wiesel's
letter, demanding that Jerusalem must be shared by the people of the
two nations residing in it. "Only a shared city will live up to the
prophet's vision: Zion shall be redeemed with justice," their letter
proclaimed. (1)
The signatories maintained that while their Jerusalem is "concrete,"
that of Wiesel is an ideal, an object of prayer. "Our Jerusalem is
populated with people, young and old, women and men, who wish their
city to be a symbol of dignity - not of hubris, inequality and
discrimination. You speak of the celestial Jerusalem; we live in the
earthly one," the letter said. "For every Jew, you say, a visit to
Jerusalem is a homecoming, yet it is our commitment that makes your
homecoming possible. We prefer the hardship of realizing citizenship
in this city to the convenience of merely yearning for it."
The signatories culminated their response by appealing to Wiesel to
visit Jerusalem for himself, thus seeing "with your own eyes the
catastrophic effects of the frenzy of construction." The letter
reiterated the chant used by Simon-the-Righteous neighborhood (Sheikh
Jarrah) activists in their weekly rallies, demanding that Jews be
prohibited from moving into that area: "Nothing can be holy in an
occupied city!" (2)
The activists call themselves "Just Jerusalem" and include Israel
Prize laureate professors Avishai Margalit and Zeev Sternhell, as well
as former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg.
Avishai Margalit? Yes, the very Hebrew University philosopher who, two
days earlier, had the audacity to accept the Israeli Prize without
even blinking. For this is the same Margalit who many years earlier
branded Elie Wiesel "Kitschman of Genius" in a scurrilous article, in
which he described Yad Vashem Holocaust Center as a memorial that "has
become an element of state kitsch."
The Jihad of Avraham Burg
Joseph Haim Brenner was an early Zionist writer and journalist. He
moved to the Land of Israel in 1909 at the age of 20. He worked as a
teacher, writer and translator. He was murdered by Arab terrorists in the
riots of 1921 (after the Balfour Declaration). Givat Brenner, the largest
kibbutz in Israel, is named after him.
Brenner once challenged the traditional definition of a Jew. The Rabbinic
definition of a Jew is one who has a Jewish mother (or who converts). Not
so, said Brenner. A Jew is not one who has a Jewish mother but rather one
who has Jewish grandchildren.
The point he was making, and making it a century ago, was that the real
test of Jewish roots is whether one's grandchildren remain Jewish. Under
that test, outside the Orthodox communities there are very few Jews left
in America.
Fast forward to the twentieth century and the Burg family. The late Dr.
Yosef Burg was one of the most prominent politicians in Israel. He was
born in 1909, the same year that Brenner came to the Land of Israel, and
died in 1999. He was a Rabbi and a scholar, holding a PhD in philosophy
from the University of Leipzig. He served for many years in the Knesset
as a representative of the National Religious Party and also was often a
cabinet minister. He served in so many Knessets that there were jokes
about him (his having first been elected by the slaves to Pharaoh in
Egypt, and the like).
As committed as Yosef Burg was to building Israel and defending it, so his
son Avraham Burg has long been committed to destroying it. Avraham Burg
is a far-leftist who used to be a Knesset member from the Israeli Labor
Party, although his views are to the left of Yossi Beilin's. Pretending
to be religious but never too much so, he always wore a yarmulke the size
of a Canadian quarter. He was active in Peace Now and in fringe
far-leftist groups. In 1995, his friends in the Labor Left got him
selected to head the Jewish Agency, a bit of a joke given his hostility to
Zionism. He later served as speaker of the Knesset, although he actually
represented Palestinians there more so than Israelis. As speaker, he
defied Israeli law and illegally went to speak before the PLO's
"parliament" in Ramallah in 2002.
Since then he has morphed into one of Israel's most extremist
"Post-Zionists" (http://www.arabworldbooks.com/arab/avraham.htm ). He
denounced Zionism in the anti-Israel Guardian
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,1042071,00.html ). The
anti-Semite Pat Buchanan applauded him
(http://goliath.ecnext.com/comsite5/bin/pdinventory.pl?pdlanding=1&referid=2750&item_id=0199-1403773
). He denounced Israel as an evil entity
(http://www.haaretz.com/GA/pages/ShArtGA.jhtml?itemNo=360539 )
The journal Azure reports
(http://azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=117&search_text= ) that
Burg: 'declared Yeshayahu Leibowitz (of .Judeo-Nazis. fame) to be his
.moral compass.. Burg.s advisers Haim Ben-Shachar and Arik Carmon have
developed a plan whereby the Zionist movement would drop its focus on
Jewish immigration and concern itself with distributing .pluralistic.
Jewish material over the Internet.' He has teamed up with Yossi Beilin to
promote the latter's "Geneva Misunderstandings" to dismember Israel
(http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=36&x_article=599 ).
This past year the media reported that Burg junior had left Israel
altogether to do "business" in France. But nothing Burg did in the past
prepared anyone for his speech, reported in the press today, essentially
calling for Israel to be destroyed. Burg demands that Israel desist
altogether from defining itself as a "Jewish state".
Since nothing I do to paraphrase or summarize his statements can do them
justice, they are reprinted here in full from
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868215.html
Burg: Defining Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end
By Ari Shavit, Haaretz Correspondent
See also http://www.danielpipes.org/8771/immanuel-kant-vs-israel and
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/feb99/plaut.htm and
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/3056
