Monday, September 29, 2008

Olmert takes a departing shot aimed against Israel

1. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3603533,00.html A sensible
article about Sternhell


2. Talk Isn't Cheap With Iran (wall street journal)
By MICHAEL B. OREN and SETH ROBINSON
The issue of America dialogue with Iran featured prominently in Friday's
presidential debate. Barack Obama pledged "to engage in tough, direct
diplomacy with Iran." John McCain denounced that notion as "naive" and
"dangerous."
This exchange capped a week in which five former secretaries of state,
including Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell, called for talks between the
United States and Iran, and when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
assured the United Nations General Assembly that "the American empire is
reaching the end of the road."
Amid all of these declarations, though, few questions were raised about
the possible benefits of U.S.-Iranian talks as well as the potential
pitfalls. What, for example, would be the talks' objectives -- to moderate
Iranian behavior and renew Iranian-American relations or, more broadly, to
recognize a new strategic order in the Middle East? What concessions might
the Iranians seek from the U.S., and which ones would America be prepared
to yield? And finally, how would the discussions affect America's allies
in the region, its forces in Iraq, and its strategic standing world-wide?
Any attempt to talk with Iran must take into account its previous
negotiations with the international community. These began -- without
preconditions -- in 2003 in talks between Iran and Britain, France and
Germany. The most recent round took place in Geneva last July. It included
the chief European Union negotiator Javier Solana and William Burns, U.S.
undersecretary of state for political affairs.
In exchange for opening their nuclear plants to inspection, the Iranians
have been offered immunity from sanctions, membership in the World Trade
Organization, and an energy partnership with Europe to modernize Iran's
oil industry. In addition, Iran would have received a fully fueled nuclear
reactor to service the country's agricultural and medical needs. It would
have been welcomed into a Persian Gulf security forum and enlisted in
efforts to rid the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction.
Most generously, Iran could have continued to enrich uranium for
verifiably peaceful purposes. Iran's response to these far-reaching
concessions was consistently and categorically "no."
In addition to nuclear issues, American interlocutors, should they
undertake talks, must also address the question of Iranian expansionism.
Through its Hezbollah and Hamas proxies, Iran has gained dominance over
Lebanon and Gaza, and through its Baathist and Mahdist allies, has
extended its influence through Syria and Iraq. An Iranian threat looms
over the Persian Gulf financial centers and beyond, to the European cities
within Iranian missile range. No attempt has yet been made to induce Iran
to roll back or even curtail the export of its violent revolution, nor
have the global powers seriously considered such a package.
Clearly, any U.S.-Iranian dialogue must exceed previous efforts and
produce a unique array of concessions and incentives. The U.S. Embassy in
Tehran (closed since the 1979 hostage crisis), might be reopened,
sanctions could be reduced, and Iran's regional prominence acknowledged.
Assurances could also be given that the U.S. will not seek regime change
and that American forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf pose no
threat to Iranian security.
None of these gestures, however, are likely to alter Iranian policies. It
is unclear whether Iran would even agree to reopen the U.S. Embassy. A
proposal in January 2008 to establish an American visa office in Tehran,
though welcomed by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, was denounced by
Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a CIA ploy.
Nor are the Iranians apt to respond dramatically to any easing of the
sanctions that have so far failed to persuade them to moderate. Moreover,
recognizing Iranian ascendancy means legitimizing Hamas and Hezbollah
while weakening America's allies in Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian
Authority.
Radical Shiite militias would also be empowered, eroding America's recent
gains in Iraq and impelling Sunni states to procure their own -- possibly
nuclear -- means of defense. The U.S. could abjure any hostility toward
Iran. But with its forces in the area already overstretched, such promises
would invariably ring empty.
Rather than improving U.S.-Iranian relations and enhancing Middle East
stability, any American offer to dialogue with Iran is liable to be
interpreted as a sign of American weakness, and not only in Tehran. Public
opinion throughout the area will conclude that America has at last
surrendered to the reality of Iranian rule. The damage to America's
regional, if not global, influence may prove irreversible.
Yet dialoguing with Iran presents the even graver danger that Iran will
use it as camouflage to complete its nuclear ambitions. That goal,
according to U.S. and U.N. intelligence sources, could be achieved as
early as 2010, and the Iranians could pass the interim blithely
negotiating with the United States. And even if Iran agreed to halt the
enrichment process, it might replicate the North Korean model: negotiate
with the United States, agree to suspend nuclear activities, then renew
them at the first opportunity.
It is difficult to take issue with a presidential hopeful who views talks
with Tehran as a "way to keep America safe," and with seasoned secretaries
of state. However, the stakes in the proposed talks with Iran are too
critical to remain unweighed.
The next president may in the end try to engage in discussions with Iran.
To avoid disaster, his approach must be conducted within well-defined
parameters, including the cessation of uranium enrichment by Iran and any
end to its support for terrorism.
Negotiations must be time-limited as well, and accompanied by intensified
sanctions and a credible military threat. The U.S. can communicate with
Iran, but as a power and not a supplicant, and with leverage as well as
words.
Mr. Oren, author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle
East, 1776 to the Present" (Norton, 2008), is a senior fellow at the
Shalem Center in Jerusalem. Mr. Robinson, a former staff member on the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a graduate student in international
relations at Georgetown University.
Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.

3. As you probably heard, Ehud Olmert's first speech after leaving the
government was designed to show his contempt for the Israel that had
ejected him. In it he called for Israel to give up East Jerusalem to the
terrorists and to deliver the Golan Heights to Syria. If Israel refuses
to let him rule, he will endeavor to see Israel annihilated. In any case,
this sets the stage for the last point below in:

Selichos for the Oslo Left
by Steven Plaut


The Israeli and American Jewish supporters of Oslo have been asked to say
special Selichos prayers this year in light of the terrible catastrophes
inflicted upon Israel by the policies they have forced upon the country.
The new Oslo Selichos go something like this:

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
the world that Arafat would pursue peace,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
the world that Hamas would be more of a threat to the PLO than to Israel,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
the Jews that Arafat would fight the Hamas and Islamic Jihad with no
Supreme Court or Betselem (to quote Rabin),

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that hostility to Jews in the Arab and the Moslem media would
decrease,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
the Israelis that trade between Israel and Arab countries would flourish,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel us that the Palestinian Authority would be disarmed,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the PLO would cooperate strategically with the Israeli Defense
Force,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel there would be an economic peace dividend,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Israeli Arabs would demonstrate increasing moderation due to
the "peace process,

Please forgive us..

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the Hamas and Jihad would be persecuted and suppressed by the
PLO,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that PLO arms would never again be used against Jews,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the PLO leadership would speak in terms of peace with the
Jews,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the PLO would cease its efforts to delegitimize Zionism and
Israel,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel the PLO would denounce and renounce anti-Semitism, Nazism and
Holocaust Denial,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the PLO would introduce democracy into the Palestinian zones,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the PLO would be forced to spend all its energies on resolving
domestic social and economic problems,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the US would back Israel if the PLO reneged on its obligations
or displayed duplicity,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the US would cease to pressure Israel to endanger its security
and fundamental interests,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the Europeans would rush forward to support Israel,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the Japanese and Saudis would pour money into regional
investments, including into Israel,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the Egyptians would end all animosity towards Israel, Zionism
and Jews,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the non-Arab Moslem countries would gush friendship for
Israel,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Arab military expenditure would drop significantly,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Arab verbal threats against Israel's existence would end,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Nazi-like propaganda in Arab countries would end,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the Israeli Left would lead the retreat from the Oslo
experiment it if proved to be not working,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the PLO would never show itself as a tin-cup Third-World
kleptocracy if granted power,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Jews remaining in Moslem countries would see their treatment
dramatically improved,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Russia would act as a stabilizing force for peace,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that the majority of Palestinians would denounce violence and
terror,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Israel Arabs would cease to support political parties
dedicated to eliminating Israel,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured
Israel that Palestinian chants of In Fire and Blood will We Redeem
Palestine, "Death to the Jews", and "Massacre the Jews" would end,

Please forgive us.

For the sin we committed when we assured the world that Oslo would NEVER
lead to demands for negotiations concerning Israeli sovereignty over
Jerusalem, that Israel would never be asked to return to its 1949
Auschwitz borders, that the Jordan Valley, and Golan Heights would remain
Israel's security borders forever,

Please please please forgive us!!


Sunday, September 28, 2008

About that Attack on Prof. Sternhell

Subject: About that Attack on Prof. Sternhell

About that Attack on Prof. Sternhell
By Steven Plaut

The smoke from the pipe bomb had not yet cleared from the courtyard in
front of the home of Prof. Zeev Sternhell in Jerusalem when the media
launched their most ferocious McCarthyist broadside against the Israeli
"Right" since the mid-1990s. The media leapt to the kneejerk
conclusion that the attack on Sternhell, lightly wounded by the bomb,
was politically motivated, this because Sternhell had a long track
record of expressing radical opinions. These included his denouncing
YESHA settlers and all non-leftists in Israel as "fascists," justifying
terror attacks on "settlers," and calling for Soviet-style central
planning of the Israeli economy and society.

The previous round of massive anti-dissident McCarthyism in Israel
followed the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The leftist media
invented the "theory" that Rabin had been killed as a direct result
of the anti-Oslo "Right" exercising its freedom of speech and voicing
its ideas. The McCarthyist Left in Israel insisted then that anyone
who had disagreed with Rabin's Oslo initiative was collectively
guilty of his murder. The Leftist theory of jurisprudence insisted
that every Israeli non-leftist was collectively guilty of murder
unless he or she could be proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.
The episode demonstrated how shallow is the understanding of and
commitment to democracy in large swaths of the Israeli political
arena.

And a few days ago came the pipe bomb attack on Sternhell. Once
again, every Israeli non-leftist is being pronounced by the media as
guilty of "terrorism" against Sternhell unless proven innocent beyond
a reasonable doubt, and never mind that there is no proof that the
bomb was placed by anyone from the Israeli "Right" or even by anyone
acting out of political motives. The media in Israel have no need of
evidence or proof of anything. Article after article denounced the
"Right" as being (collectively) behind the attack, and numerous
pieces, including notably those by A.B. Yehoshua and by police czar
Avi Dichter, insisted that nameless "settlers" were behind the attack
on Sternhell. Lunatic far leftist professors, ordinarily ignored by
most of the Israeli media outside of anti-Zionist Haaretz, the very
people who have never heard of an Arab atrocity against Jews they wish
to condemn, were carted out by the boxcar to issue proclamations about
how the attack on Sternhell was simply a side consequence of Israeli
brutality against poor Palestinians and how the attack proves that
anyone who disagrees with the Far Left is by definition a terrorist.

Now a reasonable person would not rule out automatically the
possibility that a lunatic from the fringe of the "Right" or even a
"settler" might eventually be found to be involved in the attack.
Incidentally, not a single news story or commentary in Haaretz or the
rest of the Israeli media referred to the perpetrator(s) of the attack
on Sternhell as "activists." But imagine, just suppose, that this
turns out not to be the case. Would it not be amusing if the police
were to uncover evidence that in fact Palestinian terrorists had
targeted Sternhell with a bomb, after his receipt of the "Israel Prize"
turned him ironically into a symbol of the Zionist entity and a trophy
target? Moreover, Sternhell had over the years accumulated his fair
share of others who hated him, including numerous French anti-Semites,
one of whom successfully sued Sternhell for libel in France. So a
prudent person would withhold pronouncements concerning who should be
presumed to have carried out the attack until some real evidence
actually is uncovered.

Meanwhile anyone who has ever dissented from the dogmas of the far Left
and anyone who even expressed criticism of the views of Sternhell,
including his statements calling for murder of "settlers," spent the
week fielding media injunctions that he step forward to denounce the
attack. As if anyone from the non-Left who fails to take the
initiative to issue such a declaration should be presumed to support
the attack! A prominent professor from the "Professors for a Strong
Israel" got such a summons from an Israeli television station and
refused to cooperate, viewing the summons as insulting.
Isracampus.org.il, the web watchdog that exposes and monitors academic
anti-Israel extremism in Israel, was similarly swamped with accusatory
injunctions to appear and demands to renounce the attack.

Let me repeat here what I proposed to the members and leaders of
"Professors for a Strong Israel" and hereby suggest to anyone else
from the non-Left contemplating what the proper response to all this
should be. My suggestion is to adapt the familiar aphorisms of
David Ben Gurion to the challenge. Ben Gurion regularly made
statements such as, "We will fight the White Paper as if there were
no Hitler and we will fight Hitler as if there were no White Paper."

Accordingly, my suggestion is that all sensible non-Leftists, when
asked about the attack on Sternhell, should reply as follows: We
believe that political street violence in Israel must be fought as if
there were no plague of leftist academic treason, and that the plague
of leftist academic treason must be fought as if there were no
political street violence in Israel.

Beyond that, several other rather tame observations might be
mentioned. These include:

- Sternhell's political outlook and opinions were repugnant before the
attack and did not become any less repugnant because of the attack.

- Radical Leftist sedition does not become legitimized because of the
attack on Sternhell, no matter who carried it out.

- Critics of the radical Left do not become delegitimized because of
the attack on Sternhell, no matter who carried it out.

- Critics of Prof. Sternhell's opinions have as much right to express
their criticisms as Sternhell himself has to express his.

As a side note, should it actually turn out that a lunatic from the
fringes of the Kahanist movement was involved, I strongly suggest that
the denial of freedom of speech to Kahanists should be considered to
be the primary cause of the attack. The Kahanists and ONLY the
Kahanists have been criminalized in Israel, banned, denied freedom of
speech, and declared racists and terrorists. Yet not a single
far-Leftist "Post Zionist" nor a single Arab fascist or Stalinist
group has been similarly criminalized and none were officially
declared "racists," even when calling for mass murder of Jews or
denying the Holocaust.

Forcing fanatics to compete in the marketplace of ideas exposes their
ideas to sunshine and fresh air and ultimately neutralizes them. But
the anti-democratic Left and the Israeli political establishment
decided arbitrarily to criminalize the Kahanists, banning them as
illegal, and people denied freedom of speech sometimes resort to
violence. Should it turn out that any were involved, and there is
not a shred of evidence that any were, the policy conclusion from
such a discovery should be that Kahanism needs to be decriminalized
and Kahanists permitted to exercise freedom of speech.


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Assassin is in Prison but his Protector Teaches at Ben Gurion University

1. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/3036 (see web
page for links)

Murderer of 'Ghandi' in Prison but Closure Still Needed

(IsraelNN.com) A few days ago the murderer of Israeli cabinet minister
Rehavam .Ghandi. Zeevi was at last sentenced by a Jerusalem court to a
prison term of life plus 80 years. The bizarre sentence was because
terrorhoids sentenced to mere life in prison sometimes get released, like
when they get ill in prison, thanks to inane misplaced 'compassion.'
(Nuclear traitor Mordecai Vanunu is about to be awarded early release from
prison because he claims to have a health problem.)

According to the news story as reported on INN: .Majdi Rahima Rimawi was
convicted on July 29, 2008 of five separate charges for his role in
masterminding the assassination of the nationalist minister outside his
Jerusalem hotel room at the Hyatt Hotel near Mount Scopus on October 17,
2001. The 43-year-old terrorist planned, ordered and organized the gang
that attacked 'Ghandi,' as Ze'evi was affectionately known.' Ze.evi was
shot to death by terrorists Bassal Asmar and Hamdi Kur.an, both of whom
have already been convicted and are serving life terms in prison..

Now it is all fine and good that the murderer is behind bars, although I
would consider it a lot finer and gooder if he were dancing at the end of
a noose. But it is important to bear in mind that this atrocity has not
yet undergone closure and will not have done so until the OTHER people
involved are also brought to justice, and in particular not until those
who protected the murderers and prevented their arrest are punished.
Below - Gordon as human shield for murderers:

The murderers of Zeevi were kept hidden in the 'Mukata'a' headquarters of
Yassir Arafat in Ramallah, in defiance of all the obligations of the
Palestinian Authority under the Oslo accords. While hidden there, the
Israel Defense Forces attempted to apprehend the murderers and had the
headquarters surrounded. But then a group of 'human shields' and
'Solidarity with Terrorism' protesters from the anti-Israel radical Left
entered Ramallah illegally and interfered with the attempts to arrest the
murderers. Years went by before they were finally caught by Israel.

Among those leading the 'Solidarity with Terrorism' human shields that
illegally interfered with the attempt to arrest the murderers in Ramallah
was Neve Gordon, an anti-Israel extremist at Ben Gurion University. Gordon
considers Israel to be a fascist, apartheid terrorist entity and recently
has been calling for Israel.s elimination altogether as part of the
so-called 'One-State Solution,' in which Israel will be enfolded inside a
larger Arab-dominated Islamofascist-controlled state. The 'One-State
Solution' of the anti-Semitic Left should better be called the Rwanda
solution to the Jewish problem. Gordon was also a cheerleader for Vanunu
and proclaimed him a heroic role model. Above is the photo of Gordon and
Arafat from the Israeli press, in solidarity embrace as they defied the
Israeli soldiers surrounding Arafat's headquarters and prevented the
murderers in the building behind them from being caught.

Gordon and his terrorism-cheerleader colleagues have not been called upon
to answer for their role in keeping the murderers of Zeevi free for so
long.

Menawhile, Gordon was promoted and granted tenure at Ben Gurion University
on the basis of his large volumes of anti-Israel propaganda being churned
out by him and misrepresented as research scholarship. This illustrates
that in some departments at Ben Gurion University serious academic
standards are dead.

Gordon also spent considerable time on the Ben Gurion University payroll
promoting and defending Neo-Nazi Norman Finkelstein. DePaul University had
the academic integrity that Ben Gurion University lacks and last year
fired Finkelstein for lack of serious scholarly work and for trying to
build an academic career on crude anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate
propaganda.

Last year in the Jerusalem Post Prof. Alan Dershowitz described Gordon
thus: "It is my opinion that Neve Gordon has gotten into bed with
neo-Nazis, Holocaust justice deniers, and anti-Semites. He is a despicable
example of a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Israeli."

2. The new Jewish Gay Prayerbook - alas, not a spoof, and not for those
with sensitive stomachs:
http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/2819_gay_prayer_slammed.htm

(One citation: .The new prayer is meant to be recited after engaging in
anonymous sex, though those involved in the project say it could also be
said for other meaningful encounters with strangers..)

See also this:
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2008/09/prayer-for-new-age.html

And this:
http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/2818_gay_jewish_prayer_bo.htm

3. A buddy in London sends this:
Mockery from London...

Q: How many Democrat election candidates does it take to change a
lightbulb?
A: Force won't change the lightbulb. As your President I will sit down and
talk to it.

Q: How many Kadima politicians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: We are tired of changing lightbulbs, we are tired of flipping light
switches, we
are tired of living with the burden of light.

Q: How many Peace Now activists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: I have no claim to the whole lightbulb. My solution is 2 halves of the
lightbulb
for 2 sides of the room.

Q: How many Oslo supporters does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Who says the lightbulb didn't work? Only an enemy of lightbulbs would
imagine
such a thing.

Q: How many Haaretz columnists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Every time the government gives permission for a new lightbulb, the
nation moves
a step closer to apartheid.

Q: How many post-Zionists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: My thesis exposes the hegemonic discourse about "lightbulbs" needing to
be
"changed." Its function is to justify hatred and exclusion of the moon.

Q: How many New Historians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: The archives refute the official myth of the lightbulb. If the founders
hadn't
installed the lightbulb, there would never have been any darkness.

Q: How many Tikkun readers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: The lightbulb's still glowing. Smoke this and you'll see.

4. Welcome to the University of Duh!!:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127734

5. No terrorist Left Behind:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=AC7D0518-E616-432C-9943-9195D2A9F860


6. Campus Pogromchiks:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=680159C1-9346-4D27-B463-51E7B857930F


Monday, September 22, 2008

Special Update - the Israeli Supreme Court and the Plaut-Gordon court case

1. Subject: Special Update - the Israeli Supreme Court and the
Plaut-Gordon court case

On to the Supreme Court!


Quite a few people have been asking for updates on the ongoing court battle
in which I am involved, in which the definitions and boundaries of freedom
of speech in Israel are being defined and forged. A detailed update follows.
Feel free to skip/delete if it is too detailed for you or if you are not
interested in it.

First, just to bring everyone up to speed:

Beginning nearly 7 years ago a malicious anti-Zionist lecturer in political
science at Ben Gurion University named Neve Gordon began a process of legal
harassment against me, filing a "SLAPP suit," which is an anti-democratic
"libel" suit designed to silence one's critics. Gordon is essentially the
"other Ilan Pappe," so anti-Israel and anti-Jewish that his materials are
carried on Holocaust Denial and Neo-Nazi web sites. Gordon regularly
denounces Israel as a fascist, apartheid, terrorist entity that needs to be
eliminated as part of a "One-State Solution" (meaning, a Rwanda-style
solution).
The suit's main claims were that I had "libeled" Gordon, himself one of the
most venomous libelers of Israel and of individual Israelis, when I
denounced his repeated sycophantic endorsements of Neo-Nazi Norman
Finkelstein. (Gordon also campaigned to support Finkelstein when th elatter
was fired by DePaul University, and publicly blamed the vicious "Zionist
Lobby" for supposedly suppressing freedom of speech in America.)

I had written in an internet commentary that Gordon was behaving as a
"groupie of the world's leading Jewish Holocaust Denier Norman Finkelstein."
I also denounced Gordon and a group of "Solidarity with Terrorism"
protesters to which Gordon belonged as "Judenrat wannabes." These people had
illegally entered Ramallah to interfere with IDF anti-terror operations,
serving there as "human shields" for the terrorists and preventing the
Israeli army from arresting several murderers being hidden in Arafat's
offices at the time, including the two who had assassinated Israeli cabinet
minister Rehavam Ze'evi.

Those two statements of mine were the main bases for Gordon's SLAPP suit
against me. A SLAPP suit is an anti-democratic harassment "libel" suit
designed to silence one's critics; they are illegal in many states in the
USA.

Gordon filed his SLAPP suit in Nazareth court (neither he nor I live in the
Nazareth jurisdiction), hoping to get a radical Arab judge (most lower court
judges there are Arabs). The case was assigned to a radical anti-Israel Arab
woman judge named Reem Naddaf, whose husband was a close party associate of
Azmi Bishara (the latter is now in hiding and wanted by Israel for espionage
and for being an accomplice to terrorism). Naddaf eventually found against
me, ruling in effect that all forms of treason are protected speech in
Israel but that criticism of treason is libelous. In her verdict, she
inserted comments justifying Holocaust revisionism and declaring that all of
Israel is on land "stolen from another people." THIS, coming from a sitting
judge in the state of Israel!

Gordon's radical Arab lawyer had attempted to submit Norman Finkelstein's
entire anti-Semitic book, the "Holocaust Industry," into evidence as a
supposedly historically accurate and true document. Judge Naddaf awarded
Gordon approximately 100,000 NIS in "damages" even though Gordon had never
claimed he had suffered any material damages from anything I had written
about him (and even though, under such circumstances, the law allows a judge
to award at most 50,000 NIS). Judge Naddaf ignored all constitutional
defenses of freedom of speech in Israel and ignored the fact that all
comments of mine, about which Gordon was suing, were merely denunciations of
the public political statements and political behavior of a public figure,
things supposedly absolutely protected under freedom of speech
constitutional defenses in Israel.

From there the case went to the Nazareth Appeals (regional) Court. There a
panel of three judges largely overturned the court ruling of Naddaf. They
explicitly criticized Naddaf over and over in their ruling for misreading
and ignoring the evidence in the case. While they did not say so explicitly,
it looks pretty clear that they understood that Naddaf had based her entire
ruling on her radical anti-Israel political biases. The appeals judges
rejected all of Gordon's arguments on appeal and one of the three even
denounced Gordon at length in the verdict for his anti-Israel behavior and
for his attempt to suppress freedom of speech of others while exercising it
himself to promote his extremist agenda.

While finding in my favor on every other point, the Appeals court split two
against one over the question of whether the term "Judenrat wannabe" is
protected speech in Israel, with two arguing that, in light of a Supreme
Court ruling that had come out shortly before the appeals verdict, use of
the term in Israel is prohibited. The third judge (Avraham Avraham)
disagreed and claimed it too is permissible speech and indeed was downright
appropriate under the circumstances. Based on that, the two-judge
appeals-court majority allowed Gordon to retain 10,000 NIS out of the
original 100,000 NIS award, with no other court costs or legal costs awarded
to him, and ordered Gordon to return the rest of what he had effectively
stolen from me using the lower court and Judge Naddaf.

To understand this last twist in the case, it is necessary to explain what
was and is happening in the Israeli Supreme Court concerning freedom of
speech. As bad as the Israeli Supreme Court has been in recent years when it
comes to judicial activism and micro-interference in the executive branch
decision making in Israel, it has by and large been pretty good in defending
freedom of speech. The Israeli Supreme Court ruling that served as the basis
for the Nazareth Appeals court, allowing Gordon to retain 10% of the
"damages" award, was the now-notorious "Dankner vs. Ben-Gvir" case. Since it
is strongly relevant to my case, let me fill you in on it.

In the year 1999 Amnon Dankner, now editor at Maariv and back then a TV
political commentator, participated in a political talk show (more a
shouting match, as these things always are on Israel TV), in which he
denounced Itamar Ben-Gvir, an activist in the fringe Kach (the Israeli
version of the JDL), calling Ben-Gvir a "little Nazi" on national TV.
Ben-Gvir then sued Dankner for libel. As usual, it took years to work its
way through the courts. Last year, shortly before the Nazareth Appeals Court
issued its verdict in my own court case, an Israeli Supreme Court panel, led
by the controversial Ayalla Procaccia, ruled that Dankner had indeed libeled
Ben Gvir by that comment and ordered him to pay Ben Gvir exactly one shekel
in compensation.

That Supreme Court ruling based itself upon its assertion that use of
Holocaust era imagery and rhetoric in political discourse Israel is beyond
the realm of protected speech and should be punished (symbolically in that
case). Never mind that Israeli politicians and public figures use
Holocaust-era imagery and rhetoric in Israel all the time, including calling
one another Nazis and fascists. As one recent example, a cabinet minister
(Vilnai) commented (a bit foolishly) that Palestinian behavior in Gaza could
ultimately create a danger of a "Holocaust" (Shoah) against Palestinians.

Because the Appeals Court panel in Nazareth was reluctant to butt heads with
the Supreme Court over its ruling in Dankner vs. Ben Gvir, it decided (two
against one) to structure its verdict in my case in accordance with it.
Hence it found that my "Judenrat wannabe" comment about the Solidarity with
Terrorism group was not protected speech and was libelous, allowing Gordon
to retain 10% of what the lower court had awarded him. Never mind that my
calling a group of pro-terrorism trouble-makers "Judenrat wannabes" is not
exactly the same as Dankner calling Ben Gvir a little Nazi, and never mind
that the court had awarded Ben Gvir a mere symbolic single shekel, not the
10,000 NIS they were awarding Gordon.

Now in any democracy, use of "Holocaust era imagery and rhetoric in
political discourse" is protected speech, and the ruling in Dankner vs Ben
Gvir would be unconstitutional and overturned peremptorily in any democracy.
Meanwhile, it was in part in order to overturn this that I filed my own
appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court against the Nazareth Appeals Court
verdict, arguing that the one comment over which the Appeals court had ruled
against me was in fact constitutionally protected speech. My goal was to
overturn effectively the Dankner vs Ben Gvir restriction on freedom of
speech in Israel, and of course to argue that describing as "Judenrat
wannabes" people involved in illegal "Solidarity with Terrorism" activities,
including interfering with Israeli anti-terror operations, is not only
permitted speech but an understatement, a comparison possibly insulting to
the members of the Judenrat.

Since filing my appeal with the Supreme Court, two dramatic and critical
developments have taken place. The first is that Dankner vs. Ben-Gvir has
effectively been completely overturned by the same Supreme Court in a
different case, one unrelated to my own. This past June 16, an important
free speech ruling was issued by the Israeli Supreme Court in the case of
Rafael Freij vs. Kol Hazman, et al, and it for all intents and purposes
reverses Dankner vs. Ben Gvir, leaving the way wide open for a total and
complete victory by myself in my own Supreme Court appeal. Let me explain.

Rafael Freij was an apprentice lawyer in the Jerusalem prosecutor's office
when he took umbrage at a malicious article written in the Israeli daily
Yediot Ahronot by the ultra-leftist moonbette Sylvia Keshet. There Keshet
denounced a group of Israeli soldiers in an anti-terror unit ("Duvdivan") as
"inhuman" and "tending to shoot first and ask questions later." Friej was
angered by this and submitted a complaint against Keshet to the Jerusalem
police, claiming Keshet had violated Israeli laws against treason,
incitement and insurrection. (Never mind that every second article in the
Israeli print media is even worse than hers!).

In reporting that story, an obscure Israeli Stalinist named Gideon Spiro (a
cheerleader of Israeli nuclear traitor Mordecai Vanunu) wrote about the
incident in a local Jerusalem weekly owned by Maariv named "Kol Hazman." In
his commentary Spiro denounced Freij for having filed the police report,
claiming that Freij's behavior resembled that of lawyers in the Nazi regime
in Germany.

Freij then filed a libel suit against Spiro, Kol Hazman, and Maariv
publishing house. The Jerusalem court tossed it out. Freij then took it to
the Jerusalem Appeals court, which also refused to hear it.

When the Israeli Supreme Court issued its Dankner vs Ben Gvir ruling, in
which it decreed that use of Holocaust era imagery and rhetoric in political
discourse in Israel is prohibited, Freij figured this was his litigational
golden chance. He appealed the lower court rulings to the Israeli Supreme
Court, petitioning that the Supreme Court rule against Spiro and Kol Hazman
on the basis of the earlier Danker vs Ben Gvir ruling, and of course find
for Freij and award him damages.

A Supreme Court panel, this time headed by Justice Edna Arbel, issued a
ruling this past June, in which they unanimously overturned Dankner vs. Ben
Gvir. In their ruling, they said explicitly that the use of Holocaust era
imagery and rhetoric in political discourse in Israel is NOT prohibited, and
whether its use is justified or protected or libelous depends entirely upon
the CONTEXT in which it is used. The emphasis on the "C" word = "context,"
is critical. They insist that when used in publicist writing in the media
about political activity, it is perfectly permissible. They add that the
plaintiff (Freij) helped make the whole conflict a public media affair by
his own publicity activities.
Well, if you are still with me after all those details, the implication is
clear. The only reason Gordon has gotten as far as he has with his SLAPP
harassment suit against me is that the lower court refused to look at the
CONTEXT in which I denounced as "Judenrat wannabes" the Solidarity with
Terrorism protesters Gordon had joined and led. That CONTEXT is that they
were involved in public illegal treasonous pro-terror activism, and that my
denunciation of their CRIMINAL behavior appeared in the internet after their
own activities had been reported by the media (Maariv later called them
traitors). In addition of course they belonged to a group of public
figures. Ah, that wonderful "C" word!

Translation: Plaut 100, Gordon Squat.

Now, the bizarre side of this was the timing. Had the Nazareth Appeals court
waited a little longer before issuing its own ruling in my court case, it
would have based itself entirely on the NEW Supreme Court ruling, Freij vs
Kol Hazman et al, and found in my favor. In the actual Nazareth appeals
ruling, it based itself on Dankner vs. Ben Gvir, and so the appeals verdict
was only 90% in my favor. (Alternatively, had it been issued faster BEFORE
Dankner vs. Ben Gvir was itself issued last year, the court would have ruled
completely in my favor!)

It is said that in sex and standup comedy, timing is everything, and my
less-than-complete win in the Nazareth Appeals court was due entirely to
timing: the Nazareth Appeals ruling was issued AFTER Dankner vs. Ben Gvir
and BEFORE it was overturned by the Supreme Court in Freij vs. Kol Hazman et
al. (The Freij verdict can be read, in Hebrew only, here:
http://www.halachot.co.il/articles_inn.asp?pid=1711&cid=794&iid=36510)

All of which means that a victory for me in the Supreme Court after the
Freij verdict is pretty much a slam-dunk. Well, all except for one thing:
the Supreme Court has to agree to hear my appeal in order to overturn the
lower court rulings. Which brings me to the second dramatic development in
the case.

In Israel the Supreme Court is flooded with appeals, since the cost of
filing them is not terribly high (compared with the US and other court
systems) and the filer gets the filing fee money back if the Court refuses
to review the case. So there is usually no harm in trying to appeal. The
Supreme Court agrees to review less than one percent of the appeals cases
that are filed with it.

A few days ago, the deputy Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court,
Eliezer Rivlin, issued a ruling in which he agreed to hear my own appeal.
(In the same ruling the Court refused to admit/hear a rambling incoherent
appeal that Gordon and his lawyer had also submitted, the thrust of which
was that they wanted the Supreme Court to restore the original ruling by
Naddaf and also award them lots of wampum. As an example of the incompetence
involved in their appeal, in paragraph #8 of Gordon's appeal document he
admits he has called upon Arab countries to use force and violence against
Israel, something he usually denies.)

The fact that Rivlin agreed that the Supreme Court hear my appeal indicates
that he understands the constitutional freedom of speech issues involved in
the case. It will take at least a year, but now that the case is on the
Supreme Court calendar and now that the Supreme Court has ALREADY overturned
Dankner vs Ben-Gvir, it looks like a complete and resounding victory at the
Supreme Court is only a matter of time.

Let me take this opportunity to thank all those who have stood by me and
supported me in various kind and generous ways throughout the struggle so
far. Obviously, the entire case is only to a limited extent about me and
about my pocketbook, and is mainly about whether the neo-fascist Left in
Israel will succeed in suppressing freedom of speech by recruiting the
courts for political purposes against democracy and freedom of speech.

2. A Case where an Eye for an Eye makes perfect sense:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127717


3. Take a look at this:
http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1&attid=0.1.0.0.10&disp=emb&view=att&th=11c8625ea7797ef0


4. A very interesting article appeared a few days ago on the NFC news web
site, in Hebrew only - alas, by Alon Dahan, a very interesting Israeli
writer. In Hebrew it appears here:
http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/003-D-32055-00.html?tag=20-57-54 Let me give
you a synopsis in English. Dahan begins by relating how a teacher of his
in Israel from the former Soviet Union told him of a candle lighting
Jewish underground in the darker days of communism, where the students
would gather secretly to light shabbat/sabbath candles. After the fall
of communism his teacher returned for visits to Russia with a yarmulka on
his head and lit candles proudly and openly there without fear.

Dahan then jumps to a scene in Jerusalem. In the mainly secular, well-off
Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hakerem Mrs. M. , who is an active
Chabadnik (in the Lubavitcher Hassidic movement) shows up on Fridays in
front of the local high school and hands out free sabbath candles to any
students or others wishing to take them. The school and neighborhood are
well known for their reputation for being tolerant and pro-pluralism.

Last week the parents of the children in this well-off pluralistic
democratic tolerant school called in the cops to have Mrs. M arrested for
distributing sabbath candles. They feared that some innocent young
student might be duped by her into going home and suggesting to the family
that they light sabbath candles this Friday. The tolerant democratic
parents denounced Mrs. M, as a .missionary. who was ladling our political
and theological indoctrination. They claimed Mrs. M.s activities
threatened the neutral democratic tolerant atmosphere in their tolerant
liberal democratic school. A few days earlier representatives of Nir
Baraket, who is running for Jerusalem mayor on an anti-religious
secularist platform, were welcomed into the same tolerant pluralistic open
school.

The police came and evicted Mrs. M. from her station standing in front of
the open liberal tolerant school. After all, she had been engaged in
incitement to light sabbath candles. Had she been selling hashish it is
doubtful any parents would have called the police or that they would have
showed up (my observation, not Dahan.s).

And the liberal tolerant ultra-secularists of Jerusalem have now come full
circle and are imitating the old Soviet Union is persecuting anyone
suspected of perpetrating a drive-by blessing on a candle.

5. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127673

Blair's Relative Eats Her Words in Gaza 'Concentration Camp'
19 Elul 5768, 19 September 08 07:24by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com) Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Quartet Middle East envoy
Tony Blair, has been roundly mocked on dozens of blogs that have shown a
copyrighted wire service photograph of her buying Snickers candy bars and
soft drinks in a well-stocked food store in Gaza. She has called the
region a "concentration camp" that is "under siege" by Israel's having
restricted crossings due to continuing terrorist attacks against Israel.
Pro-Arab activists and Hamas leaders have insisted that restricting
shipments into Gaza to trucks with humanitarian supplies have created a
severe food shortage, a situation contradicted by the photograph.
In an interview with an Israeli newspaper last week, Booth said that
conditions in Gaza are worse than those in Darfur and compared the area
with Nazi concentration camps.
Booth is among 10 pro-Arab activists who remain in Gaza after having
sailed to the beach as part of the "Free Gaza' Movement" publicity stunt
that symbolically broke Israel's sovereignty over coastal waters. The
government declared before the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza three years
ago that it would maintain control over the sea and air space around and
over Gaza until the Palestinian Authority can show it is fighting terror.
Hamas wrested control from the rival Fatah party last year and has
continued to smuggle massive amounts of advanced weapons and explosives.
Meanwhile, Booth has been unable to leave the area because Egyptian and
Israeli authorities have not allowed her to enter their countries. She
probably will leave Gaza if and when the next Free Gaza boats again try to
break Israeli sovereignty next week.
Although Booth is Blair's sister-in-law, the two are barely on speaking
terms. "I am related to Tony Blair--a fact that makes neither of us happy
today, I can tell you that," she said at a rally against the war in Iraq
two years ago.
In an interview with Canadian-born free-lance journalist Lisa Goldman, who
blogs at On the Face and lives in Tel Aviv, Booth claimed that "high up
sources" told her that Israel pressured Egypt not to allow her to cross
the border at Rafiah.
Goldman wrote in her blog that she is against Israel's closing the Gaza
crossing but that she has no respect for Booth. The writer said that when
she identified herself as a reporter from Tel Aviv, Booth "launched into a
tirade that was characterized by a mixture of hectoring,
self-righteousness, drama and the occasional falsehood."
Booth confirmed that she had said that the situation of "concentration
camps" in Gaza received less media attention than the situation in Darfur.
Goldman then wrote, "I did a search on Google news for 'Darfur,' where
400,000 people have been killed over the past five years, and received
13,912 results. A search for 'Gaza,' where, according to B'Tselem, 810
Palestinians were killed in 2006-2007, brought up 17,605 results.
Booth also has claimed that Israeli solders threatened to shoot her when
she tried to cross into Israel. "There were Israeli soldiers on the Gaza
side of Erez?" Goldman asked. "Oh, I don.t know what they were. They were
uniformed men with guns, all right?" Booth replied.
When the reporter replied that the gunmen apparently were Arabs and asked
Booth if they had stopped her, she answered, "The Palestinians advised me
not to cross, but I walked right into the tunnel and started walking. I
was nearly at the Israeli side when a Palestinian man came running up
behind me, holding a mobile phone and shouting that the Israelis had told
him they would shoot me if I took another step."
Goldman pointed out that the likelihood of an IDF soldier shooting at her
is extremely low. "The entrance to Israel via Erez is practically
impenetrable," Goldman explained. "It is a maze of turnstiles that lock
automatically, bulletproof glass, closed circuit cameras and disembodied
voices that issue instructions via the public address system. One does not
see an Israeli soldier until one has passed through security, which is
remotely controlled."


6. The Manchurian Lemming?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127689

7. Report on The latest batch of Jewish leftist self-hatred and
anti-Semitism:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-is-j-street.html
What is J Street ?


Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Finkelstein Lobby Gets Clobbered, Again

1.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=7CEDE651-A059-4B32-8FB2-93DDF0BB3AF3
The Finkelstein Lobby Gets Clobbered, Again
By Steven Plaut
FrontPageMagazine.com | 9/18/2008
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } In recent years, one of the worst segments
of the huge Destroy-Israel Lobby operates on behalf of the unemployed
ex-faculty member Norman Finkelstein. You may recall that DePaul
University last year joined the growing list of academic institutions in
which the anti-Semitic hate-mongerer Finkelstein has gotten himself fired,
and Finkelstein has been unemployed ever since. The Finkelstein Lobby
refused to surrender to common sense since then, and in fact recently
tried, unsuccessfully, once again to get its guru of terrorism hired at
yet another school.
Norman Finkelstein is a leading anti-Semite and Holocaust mocker and
trivializer. In spite of having been born to Jewish parents, he tried to
build an academic career on turning out anti-Jewish hate, misrepresented
as "scholarship." The New York Times dismissed Finkelstein's scribblings
as comparable to the czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Finkelstein is renowned not only for smearing and obscene mocking of
Holocaust survivors, but also for his obsessive vulgarity and juvenile
insulting of serious academics. He is also notorious for his devoted
service on behalf of Hezbollah and Islamofascism.
Finkelstein has proclaimed Holocaust denier David Irving (who insists
there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz) a great historian and his role
model. Finkelstein's personal web site is a collection of hate and
bigotry, including death threats and pornographic cartoons, as well as
countless smug denunciations of all Holocaust survivors, whom he accuses
of stealing money from Germany and victimizing the Germans. Finkelstein's
"books" have been dismissed as pseudo-scholarship by nearly every serious
historian to review them. He maintains the most intimate ties with
Holocaust Deniers and he is himself considered by the Anti-Defamation
League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and many others to be a Holocaust
Denier.
The Finkelstein Lobby, which operates on his behalf, is a hodgepodge of
anti-Semites, including Middle East jihadniks, ranging from David Duke and
the Holocaust Deniers on the ultra-right to the Neo-Stalinist cheerleaders
of the jihad in Counterpunch on the left. The Finkelstein lobby is as
devoted to historical revisionism when it comes to the career of its hero
as Finkelstein himself is devoted to Holocaust revisionism. The
Destroy-Israel Lobby seeks to attribute Finkelstein's career failure to
the all-but-nonexistent "Israel Lobby," while overlooking the bizarre
alliance of hatred and bigotry comprising the Finkelstein Lobby.
Finkelstein apologists run about the globe and the cyber-world proclaiming
that Finkelstein was the "victim" of a nefarious sinister conspiracy. They
claim a sinister cabal of Jews is suppressing academic freedom in America
and elsewhere, denying freedom of speech to critics of Israel.
The "narrative" of the firing of Finkelstein by his lobby is maliciously
wrong about what actually happened on each and every point. Such a
collection of deliberate disinformation would be hard to find anywhere
else. Finkelstein was fired not only by DePaul, but by three schools in
the New York area before that . all for the same reason . a complete lack
of serious scholarship and academic publications. Such a record makes
clear that Finkelstein is not a scholar at all, but a propagandist. The
fact that he published books hardly makes him a scholar or academic
researcher. David Irving, the notorious British pseudo-historian and
Holocaust Denier, has published books, as have David Duke, and Alexander
Cockburn. Publishers choose which books to publish based on their
commercial potential, and Bash-the-Jews books always sell well. No serious
academic institution would count the sort of hate propaganda peddled by
Finkelstein as research or scholarship. That of course does not mean that
unserious institutions are reluctant to hire hate propagandists from the
Left as academics.
And that is really the lesson of the Finkelstein saga at DePaul. That
university decided to get serious about enforcing academic standards and
tests of academic excellence when Finkelstein's apologists decided to try
to get him tenure there. Finkelstein was fired because he has no academic
credentials, with not a single article published in a bona fide academic
journal. Indeed, he was hired in the first place by the entrenched far
Left at DePaul University, which has managed to hornswaggle the
administration there into granting other pseudo-academic leftists tenure.
But Finkelstein's career of vulgar hate and anti-Semitism had drawn too
much attention to be ignored by university leaders.
More generally, the problem in American academia is not suppression of
academic freedom by some imaginary Israel Lobby, but rather the
orchestration of campaigns of support on behalf of incompetent far-leftist
pseudo-scholars as acts of solidarity by the entrenched Campus Tenured
Left. Those campaigns have resulted in charlatans and buffoons who do
little more than mouth anti-American and anti-Israel slogans getting hired
and promoted, often in spite of their having no serious academic
accomplishments whatsoever. The Anti-Israel Lobby is the enemy of academic
excellence and plays a destructive role in this attempt at subverting
American academic standards.
The bulk of the outside interference in Finkelstein's promotion
proceedings was by his supporters, not his detractors. A media myth has
arisen about the role of Alan Dershowitz in all that, but Dershowitz
merely expressed his well-documented opinion when it was solicited by
DePaul. The Left recruited Israel-hating propagandists at other
universities to come to the aid of Finkelstein and pressured DePaul to
give him tenure. In one of the worst cases of academic prostitution in
recent years, Ian Lustick from the University of Pennsylvania and the
anti-Israel propagandist Avi Shlaim from Oxford wrote sycophantic letters
of recommendation on Finkelstein's behalf, hailing his "scholarship." Noam
Chomsky also pitched in, as did even a few Israeli self-hating leftist
extremists.
The narrative of Finkelstein's firing by DePaul as told by the Finkelstein
Lobby is pure fiction. Finkelstein's apologists claim he fell victim to
academic politicization. But the simple truth is that Finkelstein was one
of the country's most obvious beneficiaries of academic politicization and
scholarly prostitution, and he would never have been hired at DePaul
without it. The lobby on behalf of Finkelstein did inadvertently succeed
in one thing - drawing light to the fact that academia is crawling with
pseudo-scholarly extremists who have made a career out of ladling out
political advocacy and extremist agitprop. The recruitment of political
support on behalf of such characters demonstrates how dishonest and
unscrupulous are the depths to which the Bash-Israel Lobby is willing to
sink.
That brings us to the latest developments in the continuing Finkelstein
mythology. Since getting booted out of DePaul in the summer of 2007,
Finkelstein has been unemployed, although he continues to travel the
speaking circuit, offering his opinions to Hezbollah terrorists, jihadists
of all stripes, and others. New York Magazine reports that he is living in
a dusty rent-controlled basement tenement owned by his parents near Coney
Island. But the newest campaign on his behalf by his groupies has
consisted of an attempt to get him hired at California State University in
Northridge, near Los Angeles.
Most of the initiative to get Finkelstein a new job at CSUN seems to have
come from a far-leftist professor of math there, one David Klein. He has a
track record of goofiness, such as claiming that Big Business wants to
prevent oppressed minorities from learning math and that the LA Board of
Education wants to suppress thinking and debate in schools.
After Finkelstein was evicted by DePaul, Klein decided to rush to his
rescue. Whether Klein was motivated by mere stupidity, actually believing
that Finkelstein is a serious scholar fired because of Zionist pressure,
or something far more nefarious, is open to debate. Klein demanded of his
own university that they hire Finkelstein, if only as a visiting
professor. In a statement about his efforts on behalf of Finkelstein,
Klein writes: "There can be little doubt that Finkelstein was fired (at
DePaul) because of his criticisms of Israel's human rights violations
against the Palestinian people, and for his fact-based criticisms of the
Israel lobby." Klein then adds: "An unstated axiom for U.S. universities
is that criticism of Israel by untenured faculty members is not allowed.
Academic freedom protects critics of the national policies of the U.S.,
France, England, and every other country in the world, save one: Israel."
Starting in July 2007, Klein started haranguing his own university
officials to hire Finkelstein. In February 2008, Finkelstein showed up on
campus to give some agitprop guest lectures. Klein was joined by one
Mehran Kamrava, an Iranian professor in political science at CSUN, in
marketing Finkelstein. As usually happens when Finkelstein speaks outside
Arab terrorist encampments, his "lectures" at CSUN triggered protests and
hostility. Some local Jewish groups distributed a booklet about "Stinky
Finky." CSUN officials got letters of protest and some threats to withhold
financial support if it hosted or hired Finkelstein. The student paper at
CSUN, the Daily Sundial, ran pieces exposing Finkelstein as a hatemonger
and opposing the visit. Jody Myers, Professor of Religious Studies and
Coordinator of the Jewish Studies Program at CSUN, opined: "We believe our
administration should be following its own stated mission and only invite
speakers who meet our high level of scholarship and who exercise academic
responsibility... He (Finkelstein) isn't a responsible scholar."
The tenured Left at CSUN, including the entire "Women's Studies"
department, wrote letters endorsing Finkelstein and demanding he be hired.
Chomsky sent in a letter of support. The same people so outraged when
Dershowitz wrote a letter about Finkelstein to DePaul have had nothing to
say about this! Despite the juggernaut by the Finkelstein Lobby, all the
efforts failed. There is simply too much material available now about
Finkelstein and he could not slip under the academic radar screen at CSUN,
as his lobby managed to do with him when he was hired at DePaul in 2000.
The CSUN university heads vetoed the idea of granting him a new academic
podium from which he could spew his agitprop.
Klein wrote his own provost that the Israel Lobby is preventing honest
discussion of the Middle East and of Israel. Klein then wrote a
long-winded essay about cases in which the "Zionist Lobby" supposedly
prevented serious academics from speaking on campuses, such as the
infamous incident involving Robert Trivers. In fact ultra-leftist Trivers
was prevented from speaking at Harvard, but only because he had threatened
to murder Alan Dershowitz.
In recent years, it has gotten harder for the Tenured Left to muscle
campus heads into hiring and promoting Far Leftist propagandists and
pseudo-scholars. There is no shortage of radicals among the faculty on
most campuses, but those with near-zero academic accomplishments and
achievements in research are having a harder time getting past the
hurdles. Far leftists, anti-American podium preachers, and
foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Semites are having their academic records
scrutinized more closely, and that is what has the Left in terror. Some
leftist pseudo-academics are finding their "academic careers" blocked by
universities which are at last getting serious about enforcing academic
standards, even for members of the Far Left. And that is why the
anti-Israel Lobby is in hysterics.


2. Livni .wins. the Kadima Primary by 431 votes? You realize what that
means? Her victory margin is less than a fifth of the number of Jews who
have been murdered by the Oslo policies of Kadima and its partners!

Is Tzipi really clean? Here is the magnificent Caroline Glick on the
question: http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2008/09/mrs_clean_is_a_fraud.asp

3. http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=75488

What? Israel to help Muslims carve Quranic verses on Temple Mount
Islamic writings all over holiest site for Judaism

Posted: September 16, 2008
8:46 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
2008 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM . After three years of waiting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
quietly has granted permission to the Muslim custodians of the Temple
Mount to repair and enhance Quranic verses plastered around Judaism's
holiest site, WND has learned.
The approval came as result of the petitioning of the Israeli government
by Jordan, which has been solidifying control over the Temple Mount in
recent years.
There are more than 4,000 Quranic quotations written in Arabic calligraphy
and carved into various Islamic buildings throughout the Temple Mount,
including inside and outside the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.
Six hundred of the carved verses are in poor condition, according to the
Waqf, the Mount's Muslim custodians.
(Story continues below)

The Waqf has been asking Israel for permission to repair the Quranic
quotation carvings for years now. It even transported to the Israeli port
city of Ashdod boxes of European tools and machinery especially made to
repair the Temple Mount Quranic verses. The tools have been sitting in
Ashdod for three years, according to informed sources.
Following Jordanian intervention, Olmert last week gave the Waqf approval
to begin fixing the Quranic quotes, the informed sources told WND.
Jordan controlled areas of eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount,
from 1948 until Israel recaptured the site in the 1967 Six Day War.
During the period of Jordanian control, Jews were barred from the Western
Wall and Temple Mount, and hundreds of synagogues in eastern Jerusalem
were destroyed. Jordan constructed a road that stretched across the Mount
of Olives, adjacent to the Temple Mount, bulldozing hundreds of Jewish
gravestones in the process.
Following the Six Day War, one of the first acts of Moshe Dayan, chief of
staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, was to ensure the Jordanian-allied
Mufti of Jerusalem, Abd Al Hamid A Saih, the holy site would remain under
Islamic custodianship.
Dayan later also famously ordered an Israeli flag removed from the Dome of
the Rock.
Jordan continues to maintain a major influence over the Temple Mount.
Sheik Azzam Khateeb, who was installed in February 2007 as the new manager
of the Waqf, is known to be close to the Jordanian monarchy. The previous
Waqf manager, Sheik Adnon Husseini, was loyal to Palestinian Authority
although toward the end of his rein, he seemed to be warming to Jordan.
In a gesture to Jordan, in January 2006, Israel granted Jordan permission
to replace the main podium in the Al Aqsa Mosque from which Islamic
preachers deliver their sermons. The podium, which was partially funded by
Saudi Arabia, is considered one of the most important stands in the Muslim
world. Muslims now believe it marks the "exact spot" Muhammad went up to
heaven to receive revelations from Allah.
The new stand bears the emblem of the Jordanian kingdom. It replaced a
1,000-year-old podium believed to have been shipped to Jerusalem by the
Islamic conqueror Saladin.
That stand was destroyed in 1969, when an Australian tourist set fire to
the Al Aqsa Mosque.
In recent years, Jordan quietly has been purchasing real estate
surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in hopes of gaining more control
over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and
Israeli officials speaking to WND.
The officials disclosed the Jordanian kingdom in 2006 and 2007 used shell
companies to purchase several apartments and shops located at key
peripheral sections of the Temple Mount. The shell companies at times
presented themselves as acting on behalf of the Waqf custodians of the
Temple Mount, according to information obtained.
The officials said Jordan also set up a commission to use the shell
companies to petition mostly Arab landowners adjacent to eastern sections
of the Temple Mount to sell their properties. They said profits from sales
at any purchased shops would be reinvested to buy more real estate near
the Mount and in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods.
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. The First Jewish Temple
was built there by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed
by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C.
after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was
destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period
of about four centuries.
The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed
the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said
to be the area upon which God's shechina or "presence" dwelt. All Jewish
holidays centered on worship at the Temple. The Jewish Temple served as
the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main
gathering place for the Jewish people.
According to the Talmud, the world was created from the foundation stone
of the Temple Mount. The site is believed to be the Biblical Mount Moriah,
the location where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be
willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.
Jewish tradition holds Mashiach, or the Jewish Messiah, will return and
rebuild the third and final Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem.
The Kotel, or Western Wall, is the one part of the Temple Mount that
survived the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans and stands
today in Jerusalem.
Throughout all notorious Jewish exiles, thorough documentation shows the
Jews never gave up their hope of returning to Jerusalem and
re-establishing their Temple. To this day Jews worldwide pray facing the
Western Wall, while Muslims turn their backs away from the Temple Mount
and pray toward Mecca.
The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine
near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic
caliph.
About 100 years ago, Al Aqsa in Jerusalem became associated with the place
Muslims came to believe Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jerusalem, however,
is not mentioned in the Quran.
Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from "a
sacred mosque" . believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia . to
"the farthest mosque," and from a rock there ascended to heaven to receive
revelations from Allah that became part of the Quran.
Palestinians today claim exclusivity over the Temple Mount and Palestinian
leaders routinely deny Jewish historic connection to the site, but
historically, Muslims did not claim the Al Aqsa Mosque as their third
holiest site and admitted the Jewish Temples existed.
According to research by Israeli author Shmuel Berkovits, Islam previously
disregarded Jerusalem. He points out in his book "How Dreadful Is this
Place!" that Muhammad was said to loathe Jerusalem and what it stood for.
Berkovits wrote that Muhammad made a point of eliminating pagan sites of
worship, and sanctifying only one place . the Kaaba in Mecca . to signify
the unity of God.
As late as the 14th century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya,
whose writings influenced the Wahhabi movement in Arabia, ruled that
sacred Islamic sites are to be found only in the Arabian Peninsula, and
that "in Jerusalem, there is not a place one calls sacred, and the same
holds true for the tombs of Hebron."
It wasn't until the late 19th century . incidentally when Jews started
immigrating to Palestine . that some Muslim scholars began claiming
Muhammad tied his horse to the Western Wall and associated Muhammad's
purported night journey with the Temple Mount.
A guide to the Temple Mount by the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem
published in 1925 listed the Mount as the site of Solomon's Temple. The
Temple Institute acquired a copy of the official 1925 "Guide Book to
Al-Haram Al-Sharif," which states on page 4, "Its identity with the site
of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according
to universal belief, on which 'David built there an altar unto the Lord.'"


4. .Voluntary Violence. in Paris:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221489061996&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


5. About the .right of return.: See this:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=39C3D491-CF5D-4D56-99D2-D252CBAC7EFD
and then see this from isracampus.org.il:
University of Haifa - Ron Kuzar (Dept of English) - fan of the
"Canaanite" movement of post-Jewishness - deconstructs and prettifies the
"Palestinian Right to Return," discovers it means something other than the
annihilation of Israel, a discovery that will come as a great shock to the
Palestinians:
"The Term Return in the Palestinian Discourse on the Right of Return"
2008, Discourse & Society 19(5)
'The term return is used in the English texts of contemporary Palestinian
political authors writing on the Right of Return of Palestinians to their
homes and homeland. The first part is dedicated to a semantic analysis of
return as a radial category with a core meaning and extensions. Then the
meanings of return in these texts are discussed, as used in the discourse
of Palestinian maximalists versus pragmatists. It is shown that (1)
different meanings of return are selected according to whether the writer
is a maximalist or a pragmatist, and (2) a reality that harmonizes with
these meanings is narratively constructed.'
(We would like to see Kuzar present his findings in Gaza City!)

For more published material by Ron Kuzar's see these:
http://members.tripod.com/alabasters_archive/kuzar_intros.html and
http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar/afterword-excerpt.html
For more details and to see the full original article, go here


6. Check out the latest from ALEF WATCH at the Isracampus site:
http://isracampus.org.il/ALEF%20Watch.htm


Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Lament for a Lost Israel

1. http://www.jewishpress.com/content.cfm?contentid=36311
LAMENT FOR A LOST ISRAEL

Date: Wednesday, September 17 2008
The day Israel released the baby-murdering Arab terrorist Samir Kuntar
was without doubt the most disgraceful in modern Jewish history.

Israel paid tribute to the Hizbullah terrorists for murdering Jewish
soldiers by freeing Kuntar, much as it had done four years earlier when it
let go hundreds of jailed terrorists to buy back the corpses of three
murdered Israeli soldiers and one live businessman involved with drug
smugglers.

The deaths of the murdered soldiers - as well as the deaths that have
resulted from the firing of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel - have
never been avenged.

This most recent exchange was an act of capitulation without precedent.
The Arabs have not only always tried to make the point that killing Jewish
children and civilians is a legitimate means of warfare, for decades
they've attempted to coerce Israel into publicly and officially
acquiescing in accepting this definition of Jewish inferiority. They do so
by equating murderers of Jewish children with combat soldiers, and
demanding that Israel agree to do the same.

A terrorist who blows up a bus full of children is as legitimate a
combatant as any soldier, the Arabs imply, because the terrorist's
civilian victims were Jews and thus do not count as human. Therefore, a
terrorist should not be regarded as any different from a soldier in a boat
or a plane engaged in military combat.

Israel had always refused to accept the anti-Semitic equating of
murderers of Jewish children with combat soldiers, a formula strongly
evocative of the claims of Jewish racial inferiority from a few decades
earlier. No previous Israeli leader had accepted such a formula. Until
Ehud Olmert. Desperate to divert national attention from his numerous
legal problems, Olmert had no compunctions about sacrificing Jewish
integrity.

* * * * *

We should not, however, make the mistake of blaming Olmert alone. The
disgrace of purchasing corpses with the release of a baby-murderer was
simply the ultimate manifestation of a national crisis of identity in
Israel - a crisis that threatens Israel's existence at least as much as
the enemies that surround it.

It has been evident for some time now that a great many Israelis - and
most of the country's political and intellectual elite - have lost their
will to survive as a nation.

Consider:

The same Israeli military that rescued Jewish hostages in Entebbe is
now incapable of rescuing a soldier being held in violation of all the
Oslo agreements inside the Gaza Strip, instead providing his kidnappers
with free power and water.

Israel sits back passively as Hizbullah holds public celebrations of
its humiliation of the Jewish state. There has not been a single move by
Israeli politicians or opinion leaders to introduce the death penalty for
terrorists precisely to avoid such future exchanges.

Israeli military officials whine that they are incapable of protecting
children under fire in Sderot. Defeatism has replaced audacity as the
calling card of the Israel Defense Forces and the intelligence services.

An Israel less than two full generations after the Holocaust is willing
to hold "peace talks" with people who deny there ever was a Holocaust and
who insist that Jews use the blood of gentile children to make Passover
matzos.

The children and grandchildren of those Jews who fought against
enormous odds and won with an arsenal of obsolete and near-obsolete
weapons in 1948 have been acquiescing in a so-called peace process that
involves unilateral gestures from Israel in exchange for the Arabs
continuing to make war against the Jews.

This is an Israel that seeks peace by pretending that war and
anti-Semitism simply do not exist; an Israel that fights reality through
passionate exercises in make-pretend.

Starting with the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, Israeli leaders have
insisted that peaceful relations with the Arabs can be achieved only by a
long process of Jewish self-deprecation, self-denial and self-humiliation.

Israel's political elites have claimed over the past two decades that
peace will come about only through Israel's agreeing to turn over its
heartland to terrorists - in other words, that security can be assured
only by the abandonment of security.

Israeli leaders insisted throughout the 1990s that if only Israel would
jettison its traditional defense policies and instead trust in the
goodwill generated by making concessions to the Palestinians, Jordanians,
and Syrians, it would usher in an era of bliss.

They convinced themselves that military force was pass, that it no
longer played a useful role - and this in the most barbarous region on the
planet! They convinced themselves that peace could only be achieved
through appeasement of evil and accommodation with anti-Semitism.

Future historians will find it a daunting challenge to explain how Jews,
often stereotyped as the smartest people in the world, could have allowed
themselves to be snookered into the Oslo accords or could have sincerely
believed that Israel would be able to do business in good faith first with
the bloody degenerate Yasir Arafat and now with the irrelevant and
powerless Mahmoud Abbas.

How could seemingly intelligent people wager with their lives and place
their faith in such absurdities?

Only an abnormal people would have voluntarily entrusted their national
security to a group of Islamofascist terrorists out of a misguided belief
that Internet services and consumerism had rendered armies and territory
superfluous.

No people other than the Jews would reward their enemies for routinely
violating every accord they'd ever signed - and reward them with pledges
of new territory, more arms and greater funding.

No nation on earth would tolerate living permanently under threat of
genocide while pretending that those who do the threatening are actually
peace-seeking moderates.

So why are the Israeli leadership and the Israeli elites, particularly
the media and the professoriate, guilty of all this?

The answer, in my opinion, is the aforementioned crisis of identity that
has engulfed Israel. The crisis is largely a byproduct of the failure of
secular Zionism in its deluded attempt to define an "Israeliness" devoid
of Jewishness. This has resulted in a confused populace increasingly
incapable of understanding the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

An unprecedented number of Israelis do not know who they are and so do
not understand why they need to survive. Only a rudderless Israel, an
Israel blind to the lessons of Jewish history and removed from Jewish
roots and national substance, could behave in such a manner.

The Oslo years and what has occurred since have shown how shallow and
empty is the whole enterprise known as secular Israeliness. In its bid to
replace traditional Jewish identity with Hebrew-speaking consumerism and
post-Jewish civil patriotism, secular Zionism in fact created a bizarre
new entity riddled with uncertainty regarding its own identity and
dominated by defeatism.

Israeli secularism has bred masses of post-Zionists exhibiting virulent
self-hatred and willing to blame Israel for all the problems created by
Arab aggression and Islamofascism, and all too willing to sacrifice
national interests upon pagan altars of political correctness.

There was a time when it was widely presumed that secular Zionism and
the establishment of Israel had achieved an irreversible victory over the
plagues of Jewish assimilationism and self-hatred, not just among Jews
living inside the Jewish state but also to a large extent among Diaspora
Jewry.

Secular Zionism represented a blending of modernity with Jewishness that
involved neither the assimilationism of the radical anti-Orthodox
reformers among Jews in the Diaspora or the traditional haredi
rejectionism of modernity. It had achieved this via the invention of
Israeliness.

Israeliness meant an ever so modern state with high-tech industries
cropping up everywhere like mushrooms, European standards of living and
lifestyles, prestigious universities and scientific institutions, and a
military of legendary prowess. And all this in a country whose raison
d'tre was, on the surface, to provide a national home for Jews.

Certainly Israeliness had its problems from the start, not least of
which was a dubious, if not outright hostile, attitude to Jewish
tradition. Israel's intellectual, journalistic, academic and artistic
elites long displayed a deep animosity toward matters of religion and
religious people, an antipathy shared by parts of the broader secularist
population. Their only interest in Jewish ethics was when those ethics
could be misrepresented to advance a leftist political agenda.

In the first decades of Israel's existence, the celebration of
Israeliness took many forms, including those that downplayed the role of
Jewishness in the state and in Israeli public life. The secular Israeli
school curriculum was largely stripped of Jewish content. Jewish history
in the typical Israel school ended at Masada or with Bar Kochba and then
mysteriously rematerialized at the first Zionist Congress in Basel. Jewish
religion, other than when the Bible was taught superficially, was
eliminated almost altogether from the curriculum, except in the religious
schools.

And yet, until recently, few would have questioned the basic conclusion
that secular Zionism was an unqualified Jewish national success. Israel's
political leadership may have been self-deluded on many matters, but
ordinary Israelis, unlike so many of their brethren in the Diaspora, were
not assimilating into any alien ethnicity or nationality.

Israelis would always remain Jews - even if only ignorant Jews knowing
little about Judaism. Hebrew was their everyday language of communication.
Jewish holidays were the bank holidays. Jewish symbols were the symbols of
state. Moreover, the secular Zionist merging of Judaism with modernity
appeared to be stable for the long run. It was not threatened by modernity
even in its most extreme forms.

But confidence in secular Zionism's ability to overcome the traditional
threats to Jews - anti-Semitism, assimilationism, self-hatred - came
crashing down to earth starting in the 1990s.

While Jewish assimilation in the Diaspora has often been termed
"self-hatred," the expression is misleading. Diaspora assimilationists are
usually people who are simply indifferent to their Jewishness. They may
not care to have anything to do with Judaism, but they generally do not
actively wish Jews harm (though there are some exceptions).

With the Oslo era, however, came the emergence of actual anti-Jewish
bigotry among Israel's intellectual, media and political elites, with
Israeli universities becoming petri dishes for Jewish anti-Zionists and
anti-Semites.

The Oslo era was accompanied by a massive assault on Israeli pride and
self-confidence by the country's own leaders. Israeli intellectuals
lectured the country about its sinfulness and insensitivity, claiming
Israeli awfulness was behind the Arab refusal to make peace. Israeli
campuses were flooded with "new historians" and "post-Zionists,"
pseudo-academics rewriting history texts and school curricula to promote
the Arab version of history.

Even worse, there has emerged in Israel a movement of Jewish
anti-Semitism, as self-contradictory as that term might seem. Many Israeli
leftists today are openly anti-Israel and not a few exhibit manifestations
of outright anti-Semitism. And the left, thanks to its almost total
hegemony over the country's chattering classes, exercises disproportionate
control over Israeli national policy.

Far left post-survivalist ideas, particularly the desire to seek peace
through appeasement, capitulation and self-debasement, have not only taken
control of the Labor Party, they dominate the thinking of the supposedly
centrist Kadima and Likud parties as well.

The Israeli anti-Zionist left increasingly collaborates with enemies of
Israel and open anti-Semites. Many leading leftists hold cushy tenured
positions at Israel's taxpayer-financed institutions of higher learning.
Israel in recent years has produced hundreds of anti-Israel academic
radicals, including people who justify and celebrate Arab terrorism, who
lead the international campaigns to boycott and divest from Israel, and
who endorse the demonization of their own country.

These are the people who attempt to get Israeli military officers
indicted as "war criminals" before courts outside Israel. Some of these
academic extremists openly call for an end to Israel as a sovereign state,
usually under the guise of the "one-state solution" under which Israel
would in effect be enfolded inside a larger state with an Arab/Muslim
government and majority. (Such a solution should in fact be referred to as
the "Rwanda solution" to Jewish existence in the Middle East.)

Many Israeli academics have cheered the launching of missiles at
civilians in Sderot and other Negev towns, and some publicly endorsed
Hizbullah's "resistance" as northern Israel was bathed in Katyusha rockets
in 2006.

Several Israeli academics even campaign on behalf of and promote
Holocaust deniers. A Holocaust denial website has granted awards to dozens
of Israeli leftist academics for their work against their own country,
nominating them for an ironically named Righteous Jew award.

Making matters worse, the assault by Israel's elites against national
pride, indeed against national existence, has been accompanied by a set of
diplomatic policies that express little more than self-loathing.

For thirty years or so after Israel's creation, few would have
challenged the idea that secular Zionism was an unqualified success in
begetting a new type of Jew. Israeli Jews were at last normal citizens in
a country all their own, patriotic to the point of being insufferable,
proud to the point of hubris, confident in themselves and in their
military, sure of their moral justifiability.

And then, seemingly within a few years, these same Israelis were reduced
to begging the likes of a Mahmoud Abbas to allow his terrorist squad
leaders to meet with Israeli army officers in order to maintain the
illusion that a "peace process" was still operational.

Israeli politicians long ago abandoned any pretense of conditioning
further concessions to the terrorists on an abstention from violence.

The national policy of stripping Israeliness of Jewishness has produced
self-abasement and defeatism. The nation that defeated the Arab hordes in
1948-9, the Suez Campaign, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War has
morphed into a collection of whining defeatists who allow rockets to fall
on Israeli cities day in and day out without so much as a token response,
and who buy back the corpses of murdered soldiers by releasing a
baby-killing monster.


2. Is 'Adequate Housing' a 'Right' or a new leftist idiocy?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/1


Monday, September 15, 2008

Leftist Treason to be Prosecuted?

1. I guess the Messiah must be anon. For probably the first time in
Israeli history, the Attorney General has decided to investigate and
perhaps prosecute leftist treason!! Until now, the Attorney General had
no interest in leftist treason and was far more worried about the danger
that non-leftists might be exercising freedom of speech or even engage in
drive-by incitements.

One of the countless tiny leftist seditious groups is called "New
Profile," and it specializes in promoting and assisting people to refuse
to serve in the Israeli military, out of leftist ideology. Funded largely
from outside Israel, like all far-leftist groups, its goals include
fomenting army service refusal and insurrection by soldiers. Here is its
web site: http://www.newprofile.org/default.asp?language=en . One of its
leaders is one Dorothy Naor, who is an ultra-moonbette openly promoting
Israel's annihilation and openly endorsing Arab terror against Jews:
(See www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=19168 -
"Pacifist" Naor's Endorsement of Petition Supporting Suicide
Bombers - Exchange with Ami Isseroff
and http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2007/09/dorothy-is-not-worried.html
and http://www.muzzlewatch.com/?p=371 )

See the story on New Profile here:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127616

Now compare the INN report to that in Haaretz:
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020999.html . Notice any difference?

The Haaretz report does not mention anywhere that the New Profile group
consists of FAR LEFTIST PROMOTING REFUSAL TO SERVE OUT OF LEFTIST
IDEOLOGICAL REASONS. Coincidence? I guess Haaretz was still just too
busy painting the "settlers" who attacked a Palestinian village in
retaliation for the stabbing of a Jewish child as lawless thugs, criminals
and hooligans.

"New Profile" is supported financially by the Palestinian Cultural
Development Centre, an arm of the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of
`Education` - the same arm that funds the cartoons depicting hook-nosed
Jews killing little kids for Passover and the same that funds the
textbooks used in the schoolrooms that charge the Jews with using gas to
massacre little Arab kids.

2. Hebrew University closes the barn doors after the horse went out
on his rape campaign: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020993.html
You may recall how the PC Left in Israel went after historian David Ohana
at Ben Gurion University when he made some sexual comments to cleaning
women in his building. Contrast that with the Far Left's decade of
solidarity and assistance in hiding the rapes in the case of the Ben-Ari
affair.

3. The Jihadis vs the Beatle:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=0C958640-CA8D-418B-AF81-8F36A33F642C

4. Iraq and al Qaeda:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=07FC6537-DAF1-4F2B-A382-83AE98FBE40A

5. Berkeley's Leading Hater of Israel - its "Jewish Studies"
professor:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20Daniel%20Boyarin.htm

6. Tel Aviv University's HaCohen, best known for his praises and
endorsements of the Hizbollah, is back:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/TAU%20-%20Ran%20HaCohen%20-%20Security%20Arrangements.htm

7. Bar Ilan University's OTHER Moonbat:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20Menachem%20Klein.htm

8.
From WSJ: September 15, 2008


Why Feminists Hate Sarah Palin
By CATHY YOUNG
September 15, 2008; Page A21
Left-wing feminists have a hard time dealing with strong, successful
conservative women in politics such as Margaret Thatcher. Sarah Palin
seems to have truly unhinged more than a few, eliciting a stream of
vicious, often misogynist invective.

Too strong for the cause?

On Salon.com last week, Cintra Wilson branded her a "Christian Stepford
Wife" and a "Republican blow-up doll." Wendy Doniger, religion professor
at the University of Chicago Divinity School, added on the Washington Post
blog2, "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."
You'd think that, whether or not they agree with her politics, feminists
would at least applaud Mrs. Palin as a living example of one of their core
principles: a woman's right to have a career and a family. Yet some
feminists unabashedly suggest that her decision to seek the vice
presidency makes her a bad and selfish mother. Others argue that she is
bad for working mothers because she's just too good at having it all.
In the Boston Globe on Friday3, columnist Ellen Goodman frets that Mrs.
Palin is a "supermom" whose supporters "think a woman can have it all as
long as she can do it all . . . by herself." In fact, Sarah Palin is doing
it with the help of her husband Todd, who is currently on leave from his
job as an oil worker. But Ms. Goodman's problem is that "she doesn't need
anything from anyone outside the family. She isn't lobbying for, say,
maternity leave, equal pay, or universal pre-K."
This also galls Katherine Marsh, writing in the latest issue of The New
Republic4. Mrs. Palin admits to having "an incredible support system -- a
husband with flexible jobs rather than a competing career . . . and a host
of nearby grandparents, aunts, and uncles." Yet, Ms. Marsh charges, she
does not endorse government policies to help less-advantaged working
mothers -- for instance, by promoting day-care centers.
Mrs. Palin's marriage actually makes her a terrific role model. One of the
best choices a woman can make if she wants a career and a family is to
pick a partner who will be able to take on equal or primary responsibility
for child-rearing. Our culture still harbors a lingering perception that
such men are less than manly -- and who better to smash that stereotype
than "First Dude" Todd Palin?
Nevertheless, when Sarah Palin offered a tribute to her husband in her
Republican National Convention speech, New York Times columnist Judith
Warner read this5 as a message that she is "subordinate to a great man."
Perhaps the message was a brilliant reversal of the old saw that behind
every man is a great woman: Here, the great woman is out in front and the
great man provides the support. Isn't that real feminism?
Not to Ms. Marsh, who insists that feminism must demand support for women
from the government. In this worldview, advocating more federal subsidies
for institutional day care is pro-woman; advocating tax breaks or
regulatory reform that would help home-based care providers -- preferred
by most working parents -- is not. Trying to legislate away the gender gap
in earnings (which no self-respecting economist today blames primarily on
discrimination) is feminist. Expanding opportunities for part-time and
flexible jobs is "the Republican Party line."
I disagree with Sarah Palin on a number of issues, including abortion
rights. But when the feminist establishment treats not only pro-life
feminism but small-government, individualist feminism as heresy, it writes
off multitudes of women.
Of course, being a feminist role model is not part of the vice president's
job description, and there are legitimate questions about Mrs. Palin's
qualifications. And yet, like millions of American women -- and men -- I
find her can-do feminism infinitely more liberated than the
what-can-the-government-do-for-me brand espoused by the sisterhood.
Ms. Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine, is author of
"Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces To Achieve True Equality"
(Free Press, 1999).
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on
Opinion Journal6.
And add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum7.
URL for this article:

9. Gevalt! She Prays!
The War Against the Normal
Latest attack on Palin: She prays!
By JAMES TARANTO
September 12, 2008
The first cut of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin reveals
someone embarrassingly unprepared. His name is Charlie Gibson. Here's the
transcript:
Gibson: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are
sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy
war?
Palin: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.
Gibson: Exact words.
Palin: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when
he said--first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and
I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.
But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was
let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but
let us pray that we are on God's side.
Palin was right, as we noted Tuesday. Although she had spoken the words
Gibson attributed to her, his rendition of the quote was a dowdification.
He took the words out of context to make a prayer that "the task is from
God" appear to be an assertion that it is.
This misleading quotation might have been an error rather than a
deliberate deception, and it did not originate with Gibson. Our Tuesday
item noted that CNN had misrepresented Palin's words on Monday, and on
Sept. 4 "AllahPundit" pointed to an Associated Press dispatch from the
previous day that might have been the origin of the falsehood.
Yesterday the Associated Press, in reporting on the interview, relied on
its own inaccurate reporting of a week earlier in claiming that Palin had
"contradicted an assertion she made at her former church that 'our
national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.' "
This claim disappeared from later versions of the AP dispatch, although we
haven't found any evidence that the wire service issued a correction.
ABC seems to have realized its mistake as well. The version of the
interview that aired on ABC's "World News" last night (video here) edited
out the lines in which Palin disputes the accuracy of Gibson's quote and
Gibson replies, "Exact words." In their place is a YouTube clip of Palin
speaking at the church. Again, as far as we know, ABC has not expressly
acknowledged the error.
The journalists at AP, CNN and ABC who took liberties with Palin's quote
might or might not have intended to deceive. But there can be little doubt
that they intended to further a stereotype of Palin as some sort of
religious nut. What's interesting is that in the course of doing so, they
ended up disparaging her for praying.
As we noted yesterday, some of the less well-grounded members of the
political media have been harshly attacking Palin for having a baby.
Egads! Can we really have a heartbeat away a Christian who prays, or a
woman who has borne children?
It really does seem as though the media and the Angry Left loathe Sarah
Palin precisely because she is normal. Through the words of his
supporters, Barack Obama has become the candidate of those who oppose
religion and motherhood. With friends like these, who needs Karl Rove?
Roger Ebert doesn't like Palin either:
I want a vice president . . . who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians to
"study" global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. . . . I would
also want someone who didn't make a teeny little sneer when referring to
"people who go to the Ivy League." And how can a politician her age have
never have gone to Europe?
This from someone who described "Fahrenheit 9/11" as "a compelling,
persuasive film" and gave it 3 thumbs up. At least then he was reviewing a
movie, so he had an excuse.


10. Thinking Outside the Lox
By JOSEPH EPSTEIN
September 15, 2008; Page A23
Today, class, we shall take up the oxymoron, the figure of speech in which
two contradictory words appear in conjunction. Here are some prime
examples: amicable divorce, congressional ethics, definite maybe, military
justice and Jewish Republican. Jewish Republicans may be rarer than Jewish
coal miners. Let's face it, no one gazing at the crowd of the Republican
convention in St. Paul last week would have mistaken it for Sam and Becky
Lebowitz's grandson's bar mitzvah party.
The reason it is so difficult for Jews to vote for Republicans is largely
historical. The GOP for many years seemed the party of the large
corporations, the excluding country clubs, the restricted neighborhoods --
all institutions dedicated to keeping Jews out -- so that even now the
Republican Party is associated, in the minds of Jews of a certain age,
with anti-Semitism.
I have Jewish friends who believe in free markets, are deeply suspicious
of big government, view the general bag of leftist ideas as callow if not
dangerous, yet would sooner tuck into a large plate of pigs' feet than
vote for a Republican for president. They just can't bring themselves to
do it.
Like most Jews, I grew up in a house that was Democratic and devoted to
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The reason for this devotion is that, in
opposition to the isolationists then known as American Firsters, FDR, an
internationalist, saw the need to go to war to stop the Nazis, who were
systematically murdering the Jews of Europe. Only much later was it
learned that Roosevelt could have saved many more European Jews by
enlarging immigration quotas, but his policy was instead the mistaken one
of trying to save the Jews by winning the war as quickly as possible. As
we now know, the war wasn't won quickly enough.
Owing to the overwhelming Jewish support for Roosevelt, few were the Jews
who openly declared themselves Republican. As a boy, in the early 1950s, I
knew only one: a man named Hyman Skolnick, the father of a friend, who was
an executive for a Jewish-owned scrap-metal company in Chicago. An
immigrant, Mr. Skolnick had an inborn gravity that derived from what I
took to be his high competence and mastery of facts. I sensed that he was
a man who, if you woke him at four in the morning, could tell you, within
$20, the exact amount of the gross national product as of the hour.
I did not meet another Jewish Republican until the early 1960s, when I met
Irving Kristol -- who, after a career as a Trotskyist lasting for roughly
27 minutes while he was a student at the City College of New York, did not
impede his philosophical and temperamental conservatism from steering him
toward the GOP. For this Irving Kristol was considered, stupidly, by
Irving Howe and other Irvings and not a few Seymours, a great heresiarch,
nothing less than a traitor to his people.
The Democrats' record on things Jewish is finally not all that strong. Joe
Kennedy, the so-called founding father of the Kennedy clan, was pro-Hitler
and famously anti-Semitic. Jimmy Carter, in his sentimental idealism, has
called Israel an apartheid state, comparable with South Africa. I always
thought that Bill Clinton, in his vanity, would have done his best to
convince the Israelis to give up the West Bank and the East Bank, and toss
in Katz's Delicatessen on Houston Street at no extra charge, in his
eagerness to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Despite all this, Jews cling to the Democratic Party. The Democrats, they
claim, remain the party most interested in social justice, and it is
incumbent upon Jews, who have known so much injustice in their own
history, to be on the side of social justice.
The only Democratic administration in the past 50 years that may be said
to have made good on a program of social justice was that of Lyndon
Johnson, himself today much less admired, by Jews and others, for his
efforts in this line -- the civil rights voting acts, the war against
poverty -- than despised for his policy in Vietnam. As for social justice,
who is responsible for more of it, on a world-wide scale, than Ronald
Reagan, in his helping to bring an end to tyrannous communism?
I only voted for my first Republican candidate for president in 1980, when
I voted for Reagan. Even then I did not so much vote for Reagan as against
Jimmy Carter. What made me vote against Mr. Carter was his vapidity and
weakness. I remember a photograph, on the front page of the New York Times
of Mr. Carter, in jogging gear, after having fainted during a run on the
White House lawn, being held up by two Secret Service men. My God, I
thought, this pathetic man, with his hot-combed hair, cannot be the leader
of my country. I have voted for Republicans for president ever since, with
the exception of 1996, when I found I could not vote for either Bob Dole
or Bill Clinton, and took the high (if somewhat lumpy) ground of not
voting at all.
I shall probably vote for John McCain in this year's presidential
election. But I am not locked in on my vote, and if the McCain-Palin
campaign gets dramatically stupid, I could go the other way. I make no
claim to be an original political thinker, but, unlike so many of my
co-religionists, I feel a nice sense of freedom, knowing that I am able to
think, so to say, outside the lox.
Mr. Epstein is the author, most recently, of "Fred Astaire" to be
published next month by Yale University Press.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on
Opinion Journal1.
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