All Gummed Up

Hamas suspects that Israeli intelligence services are supplying its Gaza Strip stronghold with chewing gum that boosts the sex drive in order to "corrupt the young," an official said on Tuesday.

"We have discovered two types of stimulants that were introduced into the Gaza Strip from Israeli border crossings," Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP.

"The first type is presented in the form of chewing gum and the second in the form of drops," he said.

This is old news.

In 1996, rumors surfaced in the press that Israeli-made chewing gum, exported to Egypt, was intended to make Arab women promiscuous.

and here:

...in Mansura, rife with talk about orgies said to have occurred at the local university campus, the specter of moral breakdown has created an atmosphere of crisis.

``It was a joke at first,'' said Doaa Mosalem, a 19-year-old student in the School of Engineering. ``We began to hear rumors that a girl had sex with seven boys on campus and another had sex with several others in a car. But now I believe that something was really going on.''

Exactly what happened at Mansura University is still elusive, even after weeks of reports in anti-Israeli newspapers and furious allegations by a member of Parliament, Fathy Mansour, who has accused Israel of ``a huge scheme to ravage the young population of Egypt.''

A laboratory analysis by Egypt's Ministry of Health found nothing in the brands of so-called Israeli gum, traced to smugglers in Gaza, that could stimulate sexual arousal, the health minister, Ismail Sallam, said in a news conference recently. And an investigation by the vice squad in al-Daqahlya province found nothing to back up reports that women driven to passion by the gum had carried out sexual attacks on their male classmates...``We are no longer safe,'' said Sayada Abdul Moneim, a 20-year-old high-school graduate who, like her friend Mosalem, wore her hair veiled in a gesture of Islamic modesty. ``Women should be more prudent. I now use a brand of gum that is made in Egypt. It is not very good quality, but at least it is safe.''

In an interview, a university official at the Youth and Sports Affairs Department said several young women had confessed to her that they had had sex with male students after chewing the gum. ``We women are very weak,'' said the official, who insisted on anonymity. ``Anything like that gum could affect us.''

...Even without evidence that the Israeli gum delivers anything more than fresh breath, authorities in Mansura have swept it from the streets, closing kiosks and arresting dealers for trafficking in smuggled goods.

The OU Statement

Having participated at the Obaming the Jews meeting, the OU reacts:

The Orthodox Union subscribes to the serious concern, expressed by several participants in the meeting, that the Administration has allowed a perception to develop that the onus for progress toward peace between Israel and Arabs lies with Israel, and also that the U.S. is pressuring Israel to undertake various steps while demanding little of the Palestinians or other Arab governments. We welcome the President's recognition that this perception gap is problematic and his stated intention to recalibrate his Administration's actions in the coming weeks to make clear that the U.S. insists that concrete steps - with regard to incitement and other anti-Israel activities - must be taken by the Palestinians and others.

However, while the President's acknowledgment of this perception gap is encouraging, the Orthodox Union remains deeply troubled by the President's underlying approach - which is to have the U.S. play an "evenhanded" role. The Orthodox Union asks our President to recognize that there are no moral equivalencies between Israel, which has acted time and again to defend itself while actively seeking peace, and those who reject Israel's legitimacy and make war against her. We look to the United States to be Israel's friend in a world of enemies and we support the view, expressed to the President in our meeting, that while allies may of course disagree on specifics, there ought not be significant "daylight" between the United States and Israel that would give the nations' mutual enemies comfort and encouragement.

Obaming the Jews

On the Obama-Jewish "leaders" meeting:-

Some of Obama's most ardent critics -- including the Zionist Organization of America and the National Council of Young Israel -- were among the notable absences from the list of those invited to the White House.

First, neutralize your opposition.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of Reform Judaism, delivered a ringing endorsement of Obama's demands for a settlement freeze, saying that settlement expansion was not in Israel's interest.

Then permit one of the most out-of-touch with political reality and outsider status groups within Israel to be highlighted.

Such pronouncements are likely to reinforce the growing perception in the Israeli government that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unlikely to garner significant support among U.S. Jews should the disagreement with Obama over a settlement freeze escalate into a full-scale confrontation.

Define your object: subversion.

...Some Netanyahu advisers suggest writing off much of the U.S. Jewish community in the short term, maintaining relations only with those groups sympathetic to Netanyahu. Others suggest intensive outreach to left-leaning Jews.

Reveal, though, that things aren't reallt that bad.

The only signs of contention -- from Foxman, the ADL's national director, and Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference -- had to do with how Obama was handling his demand for a settlements freeze, not with its substance.

But suggest that even the Netanyahu supporters are wavering.

The media at the service of Israel's detractors.

This Bothered Me

I attended a meeting of the board of Bet Av, which was held this week near the corner of Palmah and Tel Chai Streets.

I crossed over and found myself in an impossible pedestrian situation.

As you can see -
there really wasn't any sidewalk. I tried but part of my walk was done in the street.

Not too safe.

Israel Journalism Ethics Award

I'm working on a new journalism award: the Israel Journalism Ethics Award.

I have found a presenter:

Another Reason To Dislike Turkish Tea

Ad for Rasayana Tea:

Spider Webbing

Are You Occupied With "Occupation"?

Avinoam Sharon's Why Is Israel’s Presence in the Territories Still Called “Occupation”?

Executive Summary

* When an armed force holds territory beyond its own national borders, the term “occupation” readily comes to mind. However, not all the factual situations that we commonly think of as “occupation” fall within the limited scope of the term “occupation” as defined in international law. Not every situation we refer to as “occupation” is subject to the international legal regime that regulates occupation and imposes obligations upon the occupier.

* The term “occupation” is often employed politically, without regard for its general or legal meaning. The use of the term “occupation” in political rhetoric reduces complex situations of competing claims and rights to predefined categories of right and wrong. The term “occupation” is also employed in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to advance the argument that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinians, while limiting or denying Israel’s right to defend itself against Palestinian terror, and relieving the Palestinian side of responsibility for its own actions and their consequences. The term is also employed as part of a general assault upon Israel’s legitimacy, in the context of a geopolitical narrative that has little to do with Israel’s status as an occupier under international law.

* Iraq was occupied by the Coalition forces from the spring of 2003 until June 28, 2004, at which time authority was handed over to the Iraqi Interim Government. At that point, Coalition forces remained in Iraq, but Iraq was no longer deemed occupied. If handing over authority to a Coalition-appointed interim government ended the occupation of Iraq, would the same not hold true for the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and Israel?

* Under the Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization of September 28, 1995, it would seem that at least those areas placed under the effective control of the Palestinian Authority, and from which Israel had actually withdrawn its military forces, could no longer be termed “occupied” by Israel. Moreover, since the continued presence of Israeli troops in the area was agreed to and regulated by the Agreement, that presence should no longer be viewed as an occupation.

* The withdrawal of all Israeli military personnel and any Israeli civilian presence in the Gaza Strip, and the subsequent ouster of the Palestinian Authority and the takeover of the area by a Hamas government, surely would constitute a clear end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza. Nevertheless, even though Gaza is no longer under the authority of a hostile army, and despite an absence of the effective control necessary for providing the governmental services required of an occupying power, it is nevertheless argued that Israel remains the occupying power in Gaza.

and here is the whole section to which many of my commentors relate:

The Israeli Occupation – 1967 22

Occupation in the Absence of Prior Sovereignty

In June 1967, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, Israeli military forces held territories beyond its pre-war borders.23 These territories comprised the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and the West Bank. Under customary law, the Israeli military presence in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights clearly constituted occupation in the legal sense.24 The Sinai Peninsula had been under Egyptian sovereignty and the Golan Heights had been under Syrian sovereignty.25 The situation was not as clear in regard to the Gaza Strip, over which Egypt did not claim sovereignty and which it held under a military government,26 and the West Bank, over which the Jordanian assertion of sovereignty did not gain international recognition.27 The status of these two areas has been the source of much debate both in Israel and in the international community.

Upon the assumption of control of the territories, Israel had to make a decision as to the applicable law. There were several reasons for Israel not to wish to view the captured territories as occupied, and therefore subject to the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. From a legal standpoint, Israel took the view that in the absence of a prior sovereign, Israel’s control of the West Bank and Gaza did not fall within the definition of “occupation” inasmuch as a fundamental premise of the law of occupation – a prior legitimate sovereign – was lacking.28

Israel’s argument concerning the de jure application of the law of occupation did not, however, deter it from declaring its intention to act in accordance with customary international law and the humanitarian provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, or from adhering to those rules in practice.29 This intention seems consistent with the view of Blum:

The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that whenever, for one reason or another, there is no concurrence of a normal “legitimate sovereign” with that of a “belligerent occupant” of the territory, only that part of the law of occupation applies which is intended to safeguard the humanitarian rights of the population.30

Under the circumstances, one might reasonably ask why Israel insisted upon making the distinction between the de jure force of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its de facto application. There would appear to have been a number of political considerations that argued in favor of making the distinction, and arguing against the automatic application of the Fourth Geneva Convention. First, as Shamgar points out:

[A]utomatic application of the Fourth Convention would create unintentionally a change in the political status quo by according to Egypt and Jordan, which had occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank respectively in consequence of the invasion of 1948, the standing of an ousted sovereign whose reversionary rights have to be respected and safeguarded. Since the whole idea of the restriction of powers of the military government by the Convention is based upon the assumption that there is a sovereign who was ousted and that he has been a legitimate sovereign, the automatic and unqualified application of the Convention could have enhanced the legal rights of Egypt and Jordan, and this, paradoxically, from the date of the termination of their military government.31

Second, saying that the territories were occupied by Israel “could conceivably be interpreted as a renunciation of sovereign rights by Israel to the areas. After all, one does not ‘occupy’ one’s own territory, and one most certainly is not bound therein by the International Law of Belligerent Occupation.”32 Third, in light of the above, saying the territories were occupied by Israel could be construed as acceptance of the 1949 ceasefire lines as international borders.

Thus, the primary difference of opinion between Israel and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concerning the Fourth Geneva Convention centered on the question of formal applicability. Interestingly, the ICRC’s argument for the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention did not rely upon a rejection of Israel’s legal interpretation of the definition of “occupation” in customary law. Rather, the position of the ICRC focused entirely on the interpretation of Article 2, which reads:

In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peacetime, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.

Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

As Shamgar explains:

The Article apparently refers to three alternative situations: (a) Peacetime; (b) Cases of armed conflict; (c) Cases of occupation. The first question is whether the first and second paragraphs of Article 2 are concurrent and complimentary or disjunctive, namely, whether the first paragraph lays down the lex generalis in relation to the extent of the application, which impliedly refers not only to all possible forms of an armed conflict but also to all secondary results and developments and inter alia to military occupation, comprising ex abundante cautela the one described expressis verbis in the second paragraph; or whether, alternatively, there is no linkage between the two paragraphs and each has to be read and interpreted separately and independently, the first paragraph dealing with armed conflicts, except military occupation, and only the second paragraph referring to the occupation of territory.

If the paragraphs are independent and not of a cumulative effect, and only the second paragraph defines the extent of the application to occupied territory, the one and only conclusion arising is that the Convention applies merely to the occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party and not generally to territories held under military occupation. It seems, as a prima facie corollary, that not each and every occupation of territory turns it into territory to which the Convention applies.33

In other words, it was and remains the view of the ICRC that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to all forms of armed conflict, and the question of whether or not a particular territory is “occupied” in the legal sense is irrelevant to the question of the application of the Convention’s provisions.34

Indeed, there is much to be said in favor of the interpretation advanced by the ICRC. Primarily, the view that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to all conflicts is consistent with the shift in focus from states to people. If the purpose of the Convention is to protect people, the legal status of the source of the threat to their safety and well-being should not make any difference.

Of course, that statement is far too broad, and it is unlikely that the community of nations would accept a statement of obligation that threatens so severe an infringement of sovereignty. While limiting that broad protection only to persons threatened by a conflict of an international character may appear to resolve the issue of a threat to sovereignty, Israel’s concerns in regard to the question of sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza demonstrate that the issue is not so easily resolved. It is not, I think, easy to maintain the argument that a state will agree to the automatic assumption of the political obligations imposed under international law toward a belligerent party in a conflict over territory that the state claims as its sovereign territory.

Moreover, we must bear in mind that to the extent that we are not concerned with the application of customary law, but rather with the construction of a provision of conventional law, care must be taken to respect the intention of the parties. In regard to the second paragraph, the ICRC itself admits: “The wording of the paragraph is not very clear, the text adopted by the Government Experts being more explicit.”35 But more explicit language was not adopted. While the ICRC’s opinion may be persuasive, it is neither definitive nor constitutive. Ultimately, the parties to a convention cannot be expected to assume obligations beyond those originally contemplated by them. In ratifying a convention, a state does not relinquish its sovereign power to the ICRC. Moreover, in the absence of any example of a state actually acting in accordance with the interpretation of the ICRC in this regard, the ICRC’s view, however laudable in theory, is not the view accepted by the community of nations in practice.

A similar view to that of the ICRC is expressed by Bothe: “The unclear status of an occupied territory does not prevent the applicability of the rules of belligerent occupation. The application of humanitarian law cannot be made to depend on such legal niceties as the recognition of legal titles to territory.”36 As high sounding and convincing as these statements may appear at first glance, it is worrisome that anyone might think that a source of conflict, wars and bloodshed can be swept away as “legal niceties.” But even if we ignore the unfortunate choice of words, the statement remains problematic. Its acceptability is largely dependant upon what is meant by the notoriously slippery term “humanitarian law.” If the author’s intention is to say that the humanitarian provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention should be applied to all conflicts, then the Israeli case provides a supporting precedent for this view. However, if by humanitarian law we mean something broader, e.g., the rules of international law deriving from the Hague and Geneva Conventions, or the international law of armed conflicts, or even the Fourth Geneva Convention in its entirety, then arguably, the “legal niceties” may present a serious stumbling block to the acceptance of a view that might impose international standards and political obligations upon what a state may deem as a purely internal matter.

As opposed to the approach that seeks to broaden the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention by extending it to all de facto situations of occupation, and on that basis argues for the de jure application of the Convention to the territories administered by Israel, others have challenged Israel’s de jure position that it is not an occupier. The basis of this approach is similar to that of the ICRC in that it focuses upon the issue of hostilities and deems the question of sovereignty to be irrelevant, but it differs in a fundamental way. While the view of the ICRC is that the question of sovereignty is irrelevant inasmuch as humanitarian concerns should not be contingent upon whether a situation constitutes an occupation, this approach argues that the question of sovereignty is not relevant to the definition of occupation. The problem with this approach is twofold: First, it seeks to define occupation without regard for its underlying premise. Second, it seeks to redefine a concept of customary law without regard for the actual customs and usages of nations.

Thus, although the commonly accepted view would seem to be that Israel became the belligerent occupant of the West Bank and Gaza in June 1967, maintaining that view seems to require redefining the customary concept of occupation without regard for custom.

As opposed to this, some authors refer to Israel’s presence in the territories as conferring upon Israel a status “no more than,” “no better than,” or “at the very least,”37 that of a belligerent occupant, or not conferring “any status beyond”38 that of a belligerent occupant. This approach is employed in the context of the question whether or not Israel is obligated to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention, and in refutation of a potential Israeli claim to sovereignty. In the former case, it is, in essence, a moral argument that the issue of prior sovereignty should not be relevant to the granting of humanitarian protection to the civilians affected by hostilities or under military rule, and is not unlike the ICRC’s argument. The latter case concerns the premise that sovereignty over territory cannot be acquired by force of arms, and concerns the issue of whether the non-existence of a prior lawful sovereign bestows upon a belligerent party any greater claim to sovereignty vis-à-vis the territory by virtue of the lack of a competing claim. Neither of these approaches concerns the question of whether or not Israel is an “occupier.”

When examined solely in terms of the meaning of the term “occupation” in international law, it would appear that Israel never occupied the West Bank or Gaza. It is another question entirely whether this means that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not automatically apply, or whether this consideration is irrelevant to the application of the Convention. Regardless of the answer to that question, it would appear that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are erroneously referred to as “occupied territory” as a result of their capture in Six Day War, and their subsequent administration by Israel.

Notes:

22. This jump from 1949 to 1967 reflects an apparent lack of developments in the area of occupation during this period. This lack of development does not mean that there were no situations that might have warranted being termed “occupation.” In the context of this study, it is interesting in light of the Egyptian presence in Gaza and the Jordanian presence in the West Bank during this entire period. Indeed, these situations tend to receive little notice, if mentioned at all, in discussions of the subject of occupation, even in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, for example, in his discussion of Occupation after Armistice, Michel Bothe states: “Examples are the German occupation of parts of France after the armistices of 1871 and 1940, the Allied occupation of Italy after the armistice of 1943 and the occupation of Syrian (Golan Heights), Egyptian (Sinai Peninsula) and Jordanian/Palestinian (West Bank) territories by Israel after the ceasefire in 1967 and after the disengagement agreements following the Yom Kippur War in 1973.” Michael Bothe, Occupation after Armistice, in III Encyclopedia of Public International Law, 761 (1992). Indeed, although the Egyptian occupation of Gaza and the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are mentioned (e.g., at p. 1483 and 1489) in Peter Malanczuk’s comprehensive article Israel: Status, Territory and Occupied Territories, we find statements like “The Gaza Strip, which had been administered by Egypt from 1948 to 1967 without raising any claim to title to the territory, has since remained under Israeli military occupation” (p. 1484) (emphasis added), and that the Al-Hammeh region was “then under Syrian administration and now under Israeli occupation” (p. 1485) (emphasis added). Peter Malanczuk, Israel: Status, Territory and Occupied Territories, in II Encyclopedia of Public International Law, 1468 (1992). While it would not seem that the author intends any legal implication by this choice of words, it does appear to reflect the legal community’s lack of interest in examining the legal nature of those “administrations.” The then nine-year-old Egyptian occupation of Gaza and Jordanian occupation of the West Bank also receive no mention in Glahn (1957).

23. I refer to “pre-war borders” bearing in mind that the borders between Israel and the adjacent Arab states did not have the status of recognized international borders, but rather constituted ceasefire lines established between Israel and her neighbors under the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon.

24. Farhy, Current Trends in the Areas Administered by Israel, 113 Mil.L.Rev. 47, 50 (1986).

25. The questions related to the legal status of the extension of Israeli law to the Golan under the Golan Heights Law, 1981, and to the transfer of sovereignty over the Golan to Syria as a result of the Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, 1920, go beyond the limited scope of this article. For a discussion of the historical background, see Y. Meron, The Golan Heights, in Meir Shamgar, ed., Military Government in the Territories Administered by Israel 1967-1980 (1982) 85.

26. See Carol Farhi, On the Legal Status of the Gaza Strip, in Shamgar, ibid., 61, 74 ff.

27. See, Malanczuk, supra n. 22, 1490; Blum, supra n. 16, 289-290.

28. Meir Shamgar, Legal Concepts and Problems of the Israeli Military Government – The Initial Stage, in Shamgar, supra note 25, 13, 31 ff.; Blum, supra note 15, 289 ff.

29. Shamgar, supra note 25, 32; Farhy, supra n. 23, 50; Yoram Dinstein, The International Legal Dimensions of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, in Kellerman, Siehr, Einhorn, eds., Israel Among the Nations, 137, 150-51(1998). For a review of the official Israeli position on the application of the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention and the position of the Israeli Supreme Court, see Nissim Bar-Yaakov, The Application of the Law of War to the Administered Territories, 18 Mishpatim 831 (1990) (the article is in Hebrew, however the statements of Israel’s official position are quoted in English).

30. Blum, supra n. 16, 294.

31. Shamgar, supra note 28, 37.

32. David Yahav, ed., Israel, the Intifada and the Rule of Law, (1993) 21.

33. Shamgar, supra note 28, 38.

34. See ICRC Commentary to Geneva Convention IV, 21-22 ; and see, Gerhad von Glahn, Law Among Nations, 7th ed. (1996) 667.

35. ICRC Commentary, 22.

36. Bothe, supra note 22, 764.

37. E.g., Blum, supra note 16, 294.

Death Is Full of Surprises

Dead soldier's West Bank home at risk

...[the] home of one of Israel's most highly decorated officers killed in the Second Lebanon War faces demolition if the High Court rules it is illegal. Maj. Roi Klein was posthumously awarded the Medal of Valor for saving the lives of his fellow soldiers when he jumped on a grenade thrown by Hezbollah operatives during the 2006 war.

The court Monday gave the state four months to conduct hearings for residents living in houses in the Hayovel outpost of the Samaria settlement of Eli, where Klein's family lives, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Tuesday.

...The court ruling came in the wake of a petition filed by human rights groups Peace Now and Yesh Din in 2005 demanding the homes be demolished.

Residents of the hilltop community southeast of Eli told the newspaper their neighborhood appears in the settlement's master plan, and the first buildings were constructed in 1998...

Gaza Fast

No, not "Gaza First". That was the 1993 lead-in to the Oslo Accords.

I'm talking about a no-food activity by Rabbis.

No, not against the disengagement and not for Jews.

For the Arabs of Gaza.

Here they are:

Clergy Supporters of the Fast for Gaza

Project Coordinators:
Rabbi Brant Rosen (Evanston, IL)
Rabbi Brian Walt (West Tisbury, MA)

Web Developer:
Rabbi Shai Gluskin (Philadelphia, PA)

Rabbinical Minyan:
1. Rabbi Rebecca Alpert (Philadelphia, PA)
2. Rabbi Leonard Beerman (Los Angeles, CA)
3. Rabbi Haim Beliak (Los Angeles, CA)
4. Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (Boulder, CO)
5. Rabbi Everett Gendler (Great Barrington, MA)
6. Rabbi Linda Holtzman (Philadelphia, PA)
7. Rabbi Steven Jacobs (Los Angeles, CA)
8. Rabbi Ellen Lippmann (Brooklyn, NY)
9. Rabbi Arthur Waskow (Philadelphia, PA)
10. Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman (Madison, WI)

What's the story? Here:

Ta'anit Tzedek - Jewish Fast for Gaza is an initiative that seeks to end the Jewish community's silence over Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza.

Initiated by Rabbis Brant Rosen and Brian Walt, Ta'anit Tzedek began with a commitment by a minyan ("quorum") of rabbis to engage in a fast in order to support relief efforts, to call for a lifting of Israel's blockade of Gaza and to support all efforts toward a substantive resolution to this dire humanitarian crisis.

Did they ever fast for the residents of the area, the Jewish residents, who suffered the Qasams?

This is a Rabbi?

Well, this is the thinking of one Rabbi Paula Marcus of Santa Cruz, CA

The 17th of Tammuz marks the beginning of 3 weeks of mourning that Jews commemorate because of all the calamities that befell the nation between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av)...The 17th of Tammuz came and went. This year, as the day approached I could not decide if I would fast. Did I want to commemorate the day that the walls of Jerusalem were breached? What would I be mourning? My relationship with walls has changed.

...I hadn’t been in 10 years and looked forward to reconnecting with the Western Wall. We had tickets for the tunnel tours. I had been away for so long and I’d heard of the new excavations under ground. As we walked the submerged wall under the Muslim quarter I felt my internal wall strengthen. I wondered how the people living above ground felt about the excavations taking place below. And when I ran my hand against the ancient wall, I was numb to its power. My own wall had grown so thick.

...When I saw the invitation for his fast, I felt a crack in my wall. My heart began to soften as I considered how I might use this fast to prepare for Tisha B’Av. This fast was a way to say no to the walls that prevent humanitarian aid from reaching the people of Gaza.

In the end, I fasted for half a day on the 17 of Tammuz. I fasted for my loss of idealization of the Western Wall and all it represents. I fasted for the suffering of Jews and Palestinians who are unable to see beyond their walls...

This isn't thinking.

This isn't a Rabbi.

This might not be a true Jew.

Not because of the political stance and the ideological position. That I can comprehend.

No, it's because of her crooked reasoning, her lack of logic and total insenstivity ot the reality of the situation.

Someone like that surely can't really be Jewish.



(Kippah tip: BT)

And There Are No More Suicide Bombers Because...

Thoughts on a deadly subject by Christopher Hitchens:

...nobody will be so callous as to say that there is less despair among Palestinians today...if there is any correlation at all, it would seem to be in reverse. How can this be?

...[was it] the success of the wall or "fence" that Israel has built or is building...A third might be the temporary truces or cease-fires to which Hamas (but not Islamic Jihad) have from time to time agreed.

But, actually, none of these would explain why the suicide campaign went into remission. Or, at least, they would not explain why it went into remission if the original cause was despair. If despair is your feeling, then nothing can stop you from blowing yourself up against the wall as a last gesture against Israeli colonial architecture. If despair dominates your psyche, then targeted assassinations of others are not going to stop you...

...Even before the assault died away, there were good reasons to doubt that despair had been the motive or the explanation. For one thing, almost all the suicide attacks were directed at civilians in pre-1967 Israel "proper"...[or] that the tactic was becoming subject to diminishing returns...

...Nasty, vicious, fanatical old men, not human emotions, were making the decisions and deciding the days and the hours of death. And the hysterical ululating street celebrations when such a mission was successful did not signify despair at all but a creepy form of religious exaltation in which relatives were encouraged to make a feast out of the death of their own children as well as those of other people. To have added the promise of paradise to this pogrom is to have made spiritual and mental sickness complete; to have made it a sexual paradise is obscene into the bargain. (Women martyrs are obviously not offered the same level of bliss and promiscuity by the Quran.)

He Won't Be Hoofing It Up Anymore

A court has ruled policeman David Edri used excessive force when he trampled over a protestor during clashes which followed 2006 eviction of West Bank settelment of Amona. Note, though, that the protestor becomes a "settler". That's media framing or stereotyping:

Police horseman convicted of assaulting settler during settlement eviction

The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court convicted David Edri, a former police horseman, of assault Tuesday, after finding him guilty of intentionally trampling over a settler with his horse during the 2006 eviction of the West Bank settlement of Amona.

...During an attempt to disperse the riot, Edri galloped towards Yehuda Etzion, one of the protestors, and trampled him with his horse. As a result, Etzion suffered multiple contusions, a scalp laceration and internal bleeding in his leg.

The court ruled that Edri's actions constituted exercising excessive force, especially since the act was aimed at a single person.

Etzion was awarded $6,000 in restitution, as part of a civil proceeding, but according to the details of the settlement, he was to return the money should Edri be convicted.

"I have no personal animosity towards him," said Etzion, "But this kind of a police officer must be punished in a way that would deter others, and make the manner in which you treat people who are evacuated from their home, clear."

...Internal Affairs Bureau prosecutor Moshe Saada, however, was pleased: "The defendant is an officer with the Israeli Police Department and his action trampled over the rule of law. "The court sent a message to the police, that even when dispersing a riot, not all measures can be used."

Orit Stroch of the Yesha Council, said the group plans to file a High Court motion demanding Edri's dismissal.

Obama Teleprompter Assassination Attempt Successful

Here.

Barack Obama was giving a speech on urban policy late this afternoon when his precious teleprompter fell and shattered all over the floor. Midway through his speech on urban and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building this afternoon, one of his two small glass prompters came crashing down, hitting the wood floor and crashing in many pieces. It made quite a ruckus.

"Oh, goodness," a startled President Obama said. "Sorry about that, guys."

Television I Recall

Found at The Tablet (no not the Catholic weekly):

Tilly Edelstein, the future Gertrude Berg, was born in 1898 on New York City’s Lower East Side...by 1929 she had launched her own career with The Rise of the Goldbergs, a series she penned for New York radio about a Jewish family not unlike her own...The Goldbergs (”The Rise of” was quickly dropped) became the No. 2 show on radio after Amos ‘n’ Andy—but while the latter is famous for its wild caricatures of blacks, who were voiced on the show by white actors, the former realistically portrayed urban Jewish life. Every morning, Kempner says, Berg went down to the Lower East Side with a notepad to gather material. In 1933, she conducted an entire seder on the air.

In 1949, Berg adapted her show for television, creating the sitcom that brought her to the peak of her fame. Despite the show’s obscurity today, the image of aproned Molly Goldberg kibitzing in the window—and, often as not, trying to sell the television audience vitamins or knives—has become iconic.

“The apartment with people constantly coming in and out, the product placement, are industry standards now,” Kempner said. She pointed to Seinfeld and Friends as shows that employ the former; as for the latter, Berg wasn’t just marketing instant coffee, but also her own lines of dresses, toys, comic books, and cookbooks.

The show lasted until 1955, when, according to Kempner, two things did it in: suburbanization, and the blacklist. The show’s final season took place in the suburbs—the Goldbergs had risen indeed, but in the process, lost the trappings of tenement life that made the show what it was. More tragically, Philip Loeb, who played Jacob Goldberg, was blacklisted. Berg fought back, but ultimately the show was dropped by its sponsor and forced to switch networks; it never recovered from the loss of both Loeb and its prime slot. Loeb committed suicide; Berg continued feverishly working the spotlight until her death in 1966, but her career never completely recovered.

The main reason The Goldbergs isn’t on the air today, though, is frustratingly banal: like other very early TV shows, Kempner said, it was never syndicated...

And if you have some more time, watch this perspective.

Nothing New

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik report:

Fatah official:
"Our goal has never been peace.
Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine."

The PA will resume violence and terror against Israel when Fatah is "capable," and "according to what seems right," Fatah official Kifah Radaydeh says in a PA TV interview. Radaydeh, Fatah Regional Committee member, Jerusalem, states openly that peace is not a goal for Fatah:

"It has been said that we are negotiating for peace, but our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine."

Radaydeh says that "armed struggle" has not been ruled out and will continue, depending on how "capable" the PA forces are.

Click here to see the PATV interview with Fatah official, Kifah Radaydeh.

Transcript:

"Fatah is facing a challenge, because [Fatah] says that we perceive peace as one of the strategies, but we say that all forms of the struggle exist, and we do not rule out the possibility of the armed struggle or any other struggle. The struggle exists in all its forms, on the basis of what we are capable of at a given time, and according to what seems right...
What exactly do we want? It has been said that we are negotiating for peace, but our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; and the goal is Palestine. I do not negotiate in order to achieve peace. I negotiate for Palestine, in order to achieve a state."
[PA TV July 7, 2009]

It should be noted that when Fatah refers to "Palestine", it is routinely referring to all of Israel.

And she seems like so nice a lady.

A Visit at the Ohel Yitzhak Synagogue

I blogged last year about the Ohel Yizthak Synagogue which bothered some Arabs. The synagogue was built on property purchased from the Khalidi Clan in 1867, opened in 1904 and closed in 1938 due to Arab riots.

Today, I got the chance to visit it. It has been reconstructed and restored exactly the way it was before being destroyed after 1948 using pictures which are displayed on the wall.

The pictures:

The history of the synagogue

The inside, the bimah in the center

The Aron Kodesh, the Ark of the Torah Scrolls

More of the inside, direction is east-north

The Women's Section above and behind

The windows of the north side

Close-up of the Bimah

And the progress of the Beit Yaakov Synagogue, the Churvah.

No Bullets? No Booze!

One Hershel Ginsburg sent me this:

The British Government, spurred on by its progressobabbelian Foreign Minister David Miliband dragging along an impotent P.M. Gordon Brown, has decided to suspend the sale of spare parts for Israel's Sa'ar 4.5 ships' guns because of Israel's "disproportionate" use of force during Operation Cast Lead.

Although the boycott covers only gun parts, these sorts of actions have a tendency to spread, since progressobabbelians world wide (especially the Jewish ones) would like nothing better than establish a precedent of having a functional boycott against Israel for anything, which could then be expanded.

Not long ago, the British government was lobbying Israel to reduce the high import duties here on foreign liquor, so as to boost sales in Israel of Scotch whiskey. This could provide an Achilles heel with which to strike back at the Brits. Therefore, please boycott purchases of Scotch whiskey (okay, you can drink what you already have in your private stashes but no new bottles).

No bullets, no booze.

Between the 17th of Tammuz And the Ninth of Av

There are Three Weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av when Jews mourn the destruction of the Two Temples and the Fortress of Betar.

Below is a short clip I found here which shows the breakthrough via the Lions' Gate into the Old City in 1967, the liberation of the Temple Mount, Rabbi Shlomo Goren inside the Omar Memorial Building, the Paratroopers on Parade in the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, with Moshe Dayan, Rechavam Zeevi and Yitzhak Rabin:





(Kippah tip: Avi Abelow)

Jewish and Islamic 'Elements'

You've noticed my comments on the phrase "elements" when I comment on the mixed marriage notices I catch at the NYTimes.

What 'elements' will there be here:

After years as one of Washington's most eligible bachelors, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens) is engaged to Huma Abedin, a glamorous top aide to Secretary of State Clinton.

A source close to the couple confirmed that Weiner, 44, proposed to Abedin, 33, over Memorial Day weekend.

No date's been set, but the power couple is "thrilled" about the upcoming nuptials, the source said.

So is another woman in Weiner's life.

"I think it's wonderful," the pol's mother, Fran, told the Daily News. "She's lovely. What more can I say?"

She said it wasn't clear how their wedding ceremony might accommodate the pair's different faiths. Weiner, a staunch defender of Israel in Congress, is Jewish; Abedin is Muslim.

...Abedin was born in Michigan to a Pakistani mother and an Indian father. She grew up in Saudi Arabia and attended college in the United States.

Give Me A Ring Sometime

Here's the advert clip for Cellcom Israel:



and here's the Reuters report found in the Washington Post in full, for a reason:

Israel phone firm's West Bank wall gag fails to amuse

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Alastair Macdonald
Reuters
Sunday, July 12, 2009 3:34 PM

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A television advert for an Israeli cellphone firm showing soldiers playing soccer over the West Bank barrier has sparked cries of bad taste and prompted Arab lawmakers on Sunday to demand it be taken off air.

The jaunty commercial for Israel's biggest mobile phone company Cellcom makes light of Palestinian suffering and shows how far Israelis fail to understand their neighbors, critics said. The company stood by the ad, however.

It shows a ball falling on an Israeli army jeep from the far side of a towering wall. A game ensues, back and forth with the unseen Palestinians after a soldier dials up "reinforcements," including two smiling women in uniform, to come and play.

The advertisement made by McCann Erickson, part of U.S. Interpublic Group, ends with the upbeat voiceover: "After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun."

Since the ad went out last week -- as Palestinians marked the fifth anniversary of a World Court ruling that Israel's walls and fences in the West Bank were illegal -- some Israelis have taken to blogs and social networking sites to voice dismay.

"Aside from being a great contender for the 'creepiest ads of all time', this one-minute ad says a lot about how mainstream Israel likes to see itself and the Palestinians," journalist Dimi Reider wrote in a blog which concluded most of his fellow Israelis did not understand Palestinians' rage at the barrier.

Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of Israel's parliament, said he had written to Cellcom demanding it pull the ad: "The barrier separates families and prevents children from reaching schools and clinics," he told Reuters. "Yet the advertisement presents the barrier as though it were just a garden fence in Tel Aviv."

"RACIST COMMERCIAL"

Few Palestinians watch the Israeli stations where the advert aired but there was outrage among liberal Israelis on the Web.

A Hebrew-language Facebook group called "I too got nauseous watching the new Cellcom ad" had signed up 218 members. They demanded "take this racist commercial off the air immediately."

Israeli blogger Ami Kaufman told Reuters: "We see Israeli soldiers playing with ... the people that they are incarcerating behind the wall. But the most grotesque, most disturbing part of this ad is the fact that the Palestinians basically aren't seen ... They're like monsters or aliens ... This is the alienation that Israeli society feels toward the Palestinian people."

Noam Sheizaf, another Israeli journalist and blogger, said it distorted reality: "In reality, if a Palestinian comes close to the fence to return a football ... he is likely to get shot."

Asked to comment, Cellcom said its "core value is communication between people" regardless of "religion, race or gender." It said the commercial illustrated the possibility for people of diverse opinions to engage in "mutual entertainment."

A spokeswoman said it was a coincidence the ad came out so close to last Thursday's anniversary of the 2004 decision by the World Court that Israel had no right to build hundreds of miles of walls and fences on Palestinian land it took in a 1967 war.

Israel built the barrier with the declared aim of stopping suicide bombers. For Palestinians, it has become one of the most hated symbols of Israeli occupation, a land grab whose course round Jewish settlements would cripple any state they establish.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr, Jeffrey Heller and Reuters Television; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Five reporters. For one story about a lousy commercial!

Anyone supporting the commercial outside of Cellcom interviewed?

What's racist about it?

Bad taste? Would the use of Paris Hilton have made it better?

But let's get political: if the Arabs think that they will ever get a state and that at that time they will be able freely to cross over into Israel, they are more naive than I thought. At that fictional future time, the border will be protected even more so than today. If Israel cannot have an armed presence in this putative "Palestine" or any intelligence services, heck, the border will be sealed off.

But, you ask, perhaps, isn't Israel stealing land? And I reply, wait. How did the 1967 war start which enabled Israel to be in the position it is in now? Arab aggression. Arab terror. Palestine Liberation Organization. Fatah.

So, if there's to be territorial compromise, territories-for-peace, what land are the Arabs going to yield up as part of the deal?

You mean they get to start the war and get everything back?

Whoa, there. I think I'm going to make another clip about that.

Something along the lines of "I'll be waiting for your ring".

A Loss Off The USS Shiloh

Having blogged about the American warship named after Shiloh, the Civil War battlefield location named after the village I live in, I felt that this bad news should be up:

The search for a USS Shiloh sailor who fell overboard Wednesday in waters
near Tokyo Harbor has ended without success, Navy officials said Saturday. U.S. Navy and Japanese Coast Guard ships and helicopters stopped actively looking for Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Geathers on Friday evening, after 2½ days of a search effort that spanned much of Tokyo Bay.

The Shiloh, a Ticonderoga class guided-missile cruiser with about 360 servicemembers aboard, returned to Yokosuka Naval Base on Friday night, 7th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Jeff Davis said Saturday. "After a thorough review of search and rescue data collected during this period, Navy officials determined that every reasonable effort had been expended, and expectations for recovery no longer existed," a 7th Fleet news release said.

Geathers’ duty status is now listed officially as "whereabouts unknown," Davis said.

You Didn't Expect a Shtreimel, Did You?

He Could Have Consulted With Me

Found in Newsweek:

How do you sell the American public on the idea that Israel has the right to maintain or even expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank? Be positive. Turn the issue away from settlements and toward peace. Invoke ethnic cleansing.

Those are three of the recommendations made by Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, in an internal study he wrote for the Washington-based group The Israel Project (TIP) on effective ways to talk to Americans about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The 117-page study, titled The Israel Project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was commissioned by the nonprofit group, which aims to promote Israel's side of the story, and leaked to NEWSWEEK. It includes chapters with such titles as "How to Talk About Palestinian Self Government and Prosperity" and "The Language of Tackling a Nuclear Iran."

...The settlement issue has been the single biggest source of friction between the United States and Israel since Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel's prime minister in March...

In the report, Luntz describes the "best settlement argument" as one that draws a parallel between the Arab communities in Israel and the Jewish settlers in the West Bank—and refers to the idea of evacuating Jews as racist. "The idea that anywhere that you have Palestinians there can't be any Jews, that some areas have to be Jew-free, is a racist idea," he suggests saying. "We don't say that we have to cleanse out Arabs from Israel. They are citizens of Israel. They enjoy equal rights. We cannot see why it is that peace requires that any Palestinian area would require a kind of ethnic cleansing to remove all Jews. We don't accept it. Cleansing by either side against either side is unacceptable."

A New Haveil Havalim

A new HH is up.

#224

Yet Another Temple Mount-themed Novel

Goodness.

Just last month I blogged about a new Temple Mount-themed novel, mentioning there a previous four.

And now a new one:




From a review:

...The story concerns a reluctant hero, Jewish lawyer Jonathan Marcus, who is sent by his firm on a sudden and mysterious mission to Rome, the scene of his academic disgrace seven years earlier. Upon arriving, Jonathan can’t deny his passion and skill or ignore his feelings for a long lost girlfriend after he lands back in his previous world of archeological research. A modern web of terror, destruction and deception as complex as the ancient Roman-Jewish world it parallels emerges as Jonathan slips, once again, into the fray.

Although not published by a Christian publishing company or marketed as Christian fiction, The Last Ember is a must read for anyone who desires a greater understanding of the role of archeology to Christians and Jews alike, and the tenuous position of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem...His visual descriptions of the Roman catacombs and the underground tunnels of the Temple Mount bring alive the sights, sounds and smells of archeology.

The Last Ember reveals unique glimpses into the ancient world and ancient languages. It teaches history, puts biblical events into an interesting context, and describes an interesting theory about the controversial Jewish historian known as Josephus. And, finally, this thriller resolves in a satisfying ending of hope and faith.

and from the publisher's blurb:

Jonathan [is sent] to Rome to discredit the testimony of a prominent U.N. antiquities official, he's stunned to discover that the expert is Dr. Emili Travia, a friend and fellow student at the academy who was also at the excavation. This chance reunion prompts Jonathan, against his better judgment, to help Emili as she searches for the fabled Tabernacle Menorah, a priceless historical artifact seized by Roman invaders in the first century A.D. and brought to Rome where it disappeared. As they scour the ancient sites of Rome for hints to the menorah's whereabouts — deciphering clues to its location left by ancient spies and eighteenth century art restorers — it quickly becomes clear that they are not alone in their quest...The forces of evil are represented by Sheik Salah ad-Din, who seeks to find and destroy the menorah...The sacred Menorah is allegedly to be eight feet of pure gold. Muslim Sheik Salah ad-Din searches for the precious menorah too, but if he obtains it, he will melt it down for the gold and even more so for religious reasons.

A Los Angelino Almost Gets Lost on the Temple Mount

From LA Jewish Journal columnist David Suissa's diary:

Day Six: “No Kissing and Embracing”

I never thought that I would one day visit the Temple Mount. For some reason [the reason is that the governments of Israel have previously acted in a discriminatory fashion] , I assumed it was out of bounds to Jews. But on our excursion day, it was one of the options, so I picked it.

...We proceeded to the Temple Mount. A mini crisis occurred at the entrance — women could not enter if they were dressed immodestly. After some negotiations between our guide and the Muslim guards, the women who needed more covering bought shawls from a merchant who — how convenient! — was located only a few yards away.

While this was going on, I noticed a sign that listed the rules that everyone must follow when entering this Muslim holy site. This was one of them:

“Intimate behavior such as kissing and embracing are strictly forbidden.”

We continued on our way, towards the third holiest site in Islam, which was built over the holiest site in Judaism, the Second Temple, which was destroyed in 70 A.D. Nothing impressed me more about the visit than the size of the place.

It’s as big as a small town.

I’m not kidding — the space can easily fit all the 40 shuls of Pico-Robertson, including all the big ones, and I’m sure a few more. It goes on forever. I overheard a guide say that 250,000 Muslims have gathered here at one time. What’s crazy is that millions of Jews during Biblical times also gathered here for their own pilgrimage [what's crazy about that?].

It was eery (sic!) [eerie] to stand so close to where the Holy of Holies once stood — it was like standing in the middle of the Parsha of the week. I couldn’t help thinking that right now in LA, I’d probably be at the Grove or the Beverly Center.

As we re-entered the Jewish quarter, I noticed another sign for rules and etiquette, just before we passed through the obligatory metal detector and security check. No rules here about kissing or embracing. Just this:

“For your own safety and that of the public, please cooperate and follow the direction given by the personnel at the site.”

Two people, two realities, one land.

Rabbi Dov Lior's Opinion

In light of the threat of destruction of outposts, the public is asked to stay alert and report any suspicious movement of troops.

About Shabbat:

Rabbi Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba Hevron, told the members of the Efrat-Gush etzion-Kiryat Arba action committees that if one sees a movement of troops on Shabbat and there is a possibility that those troops are on their way to destroy outposts, one can use the phone, on Shabbat, to report about it to the known activists of the area and they will check what is going on and give instructions to the public accordingly.

May we never need to come to that point.

May our security forces always be used against the Arab enemy and in defense of the People of Israel and the land of Israel.

The Satmar Anti-Zionists or, Jews Against Judaism

Abraham Wieder is the mayor of the Satmar Kiryas Joel in New York.

With nothing else on his municpal table, he sent off a letter to President Barack Obama bashing Israel. Sources say that the letter was written in reaction to the anti-Obama rhetoric of some religious pro-settler organizations, which have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks as the Obama administration continues to push the Israeli government to curb settlement growth in the West Bank as a prerequisite for a peace settlement.

Wieder’s letter reads in part (the full text is up at Jews Against Zionism):

“Life is Judaism’s most precious commodity; its preservation and the prevention of bloodshed are its more central tenet. When life is in jeopardy all commandments that guide Jewish life must be set aside in order to preserve human life. My heart therefore aches over the endless loss of innocent life just to hold on to lands inhabited by one’s enemies. I therefore deeply respect and support you and pray that divine providence guides your every move.

“Some Israeli politicians resist relinquishing any part of the holy land claiming religious prohibitions. This is wholly fallacious! In fact, after the destruction of Israel in 69 CE, Jews were commanded to await divine redemption and prohibited from conquering the land. To this day Jews yearn and pray for the divinely inspired return to Jerusalem… The modern State of Israel stands in contravention of the Almighty’s prohibition. Its effort to cloak itself in religion as a means of continuing the contravention of the Almighty is laughable if it weren’t so sad.”

Just one comment.

This assertion - "Jews were commanded to await divine redemption and prohibited from conquering the land" - the central tenet of Reb Yoelish, saved from being burnt alivve by a Zionist but let's not get personal - is hogwash. I have dealt previously with the issue of the Three Oaths but there is no 'command' character to this Midrash. It is but an outlook element, hashkafa, and the amount and quality of Rabbios opposed to such an interpretation basically classify Satmar and its Neturei Karta spin-off and Jews Against Judaism.

(Kippah tip: Failed Messiah)

Have You Studied Your Toponymy Lately?

Ddi you know that a Professor Thomas L. Thompson has published an article, "The Politics of Reading the Bible in Israel" in the Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Volume 7, Number 1, May 2008, pp. 1-15?

Here's the abstract:

The biblical themes of exile, return, the blossoming of the desert and the promise of the land have been transformed to support Zionist nationalist policies of ethnic cleansing. Biblical and archaeological scholarship, itself, has contributed substantially to the de-Arabicisation of Palestinian toponymy, the understanding of the Bible's allegorical narratives as nationalist epic and an ethno-centric understanding of Palestine's ancient history.

Imagine that. Our history, culture, religion, literature, philosophy and an 1800-year continuous presence in the Land of Israel under Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders and other invaders and conquerors leading up to the Ottomans, English and Jordanians is, what? A misplaced toponymy?

Pluh-ese!

That's Telling Him So He'll Understand

West Bank should not be 'Judenrein': Israel PM

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the German foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier the West Bank "cannot be Judenrein" -- a Nazi expression meaning "cleansed of Jews" -- the Jerusalem Post said.

Using Israel's normal terminology for the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu said: "Judaea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein," the newspaper reported.

===========

In a follow-up, I was pointed to this article where I picked out this excerpt on the use of the term "Judenrein":

The justification for its employment has been somewhat historically self-serving, arguing two things.

First, it contends that because Jewish communities historically lived on the West Bank and in Jerusalem before 1967 (over 3,000 years except for 19 years of Jordanian occupation between 1948 and 1967, according to this argument) any insistence on the removal of the settlements would amount to a de facto ethnic cleansing.

Secondly it argues – as Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi did on 2 July in Yediot Ahronoth – that the international community has accepted an unequal proposition, "that the Palestinians should be allowed to establish a country based on the religion of the majority of its citizens" while denying that same right to Israel. By that logic, he concludes, "international politics will no longer have to deal with the 'Palestinian problem' but rather with the 'Jewish problem' in Palestine".

It is an argument born of desperation that is as stunning for its sophistry as it is for its denial of what the settlement programme post-1967 represented. For while it is true that Jewish communities existed on the West Bank before the six-day war, the settlement programme that followed the occupation is regarded by most international bodies as a serious violation of international law. That view is based on the interpretation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention as well as a series of UN security council resolutions that have deemed aspects of the settlements to be illegal.

So stupid in his own sophistry. The reason the world granted Britain a mandate over the territory of what is today Israel, Judea, Samaria, Gaza and TransJordan in 1922 (although in 1923 it suspended Jewish settlement across the Jordan River temporarily) so as to reconstitute the Jewish national home was because the whole of the civilized world knew and recognized that the historical connection of the Jews with their homeland was not one of ancient history, of Biblical history but of an ongoing link over the centuries including immigration to and residence in Eretz-Yisrael, the Land of Israel.

And there was an ethnic cleansing operated by the Arab community in the Mandate years (and before) which resulted, together with the results following the war of aggression launched by the Arabs during 1947-1949, in an emptied-of-Jews region of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

One cannot use a 1949 Convention to prohibit the reality of what was supposed to be as a result of international law, international decisions and the historical reality. Nor is the restitution of Jewish rights something illegal. The author is turning things on its head.

Natural Life, Normal Growth

Update from Shiloh, my home village.

The new traffic circle is about finished. As we are enlarging our primary school, the former circle where the buses used to turn around was obliterated and other parking places lost so there's a new arrangement:

A closer view:
And then I spotted those vineyards across Highway 60:
And decided to check out our own grapes but I don't think they are doing that well this summer. My wife thinks they were trimmed back too late in the season earlier this year:

Upcoming Protest

For the past few years, the quality of life of Arabs and Jews has been entwined on the Adam-Hizma road which is overcrowded, suffers from poor planning, bad drivers (yesterday, it took me 2.5 hours to get home due to an Arab driver who crashed into two other Arab vehicles on the road - note: it is not an "apartheid road - blocking it and causing 11 injuries) and atrocious management of the checkpoint.

Well, this coming Wednesday, a protest is planned.

As this poster makes clear,



there'll be a march from Adam traffic circle to Hizma junction at 6 PM.

The slogan: Unplug the Corked Road.

35 Years Later

Between 1975-1977, I was the emissary to the Betar Zionist Youth Movement in the UK. In 1976, after establishing my credentials, I was invited by Ella Bar-Ilan, WZO Representative to the University Students Unit, to submit an idea for a lecture tour of campuses.

I was then reading A.G. Horon and Yonatan Ratosh, the two leading intellectuals of the Canaanite Movement. I suggested a talk that would be entitled "Arab Nationalism in the Middle East" and would make the point that it isn't the fault of Israel, Zionism or Jews that Arabs hate us so but that basically, they hate and oppress and butcher and subjugate all non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities.

There was one incident when I spoke at Birmingham University. My name was listed as "Y. Medad" and, as it turned out, the audience of some 200 was mostly Muslim waiting to hear someone they presumed was named Youseff Medad. That they were shocked when I walked in with a kippah on my head is a British understatement.

I mentioned the Copts in Egypt, the Berbers in North Africa, the Alawis, the Assyrians and the Christian Sudanese and more. I had a whole list. Just at that time the Muslims were bombing the hell out of the Christians in Sudan but the audience refused to believe me.

Anyway, I recalled that when someone (BPO) sent me an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg (here) and I spotted this:

Goldberg:...The question of Israel is the question of what happens to all minorities in the Middle East. The Arab Muslim Middle East has 300 million people. It has a very hard time treating Coptic Christians with equality, treating Maronites in Lebanon with equality, treating Southern Sudanese in an equal way, treating Kurds in an equal way, and dealing with Jews – not only in their national expression, but even as minorities within their own countries. There was never a golden era for Jews who lived in Arab countries. It wasn’t as bad as living in Poland, but that’s no great shakes.
MJT: You have talked to Hamas people. Should the Israelis or Americans talk to them?
Goldberg: I don’t know what they’d get out of it.
MJT: What did you get out of it when you did it?
Goldberg: A first-hand understanding of how they think. People in the United States find it hard to understand how people in Hamas and Hezbollah think. It’s alien. It’s alien to us. The feverish racism and conspiracy mongering, the obscurantism, the apocalyptic thinking – we can’t relate to that. Every so often, there’s an eruption of that in a place like Waco, Texas, but we’re not talking about 90 people in a compound. We’re talking about whole societies that are captive to this kind of absurdity.
So it’s very important – and you know this better than almost anyone – to go over there yourself and tape it, get it down on paper, and say “this is what they actually say.”

Thirty-five years later, Goldberg gets it and expresses it.

And while we're reading Goldberg, here's some more:

Goldberg:...And going back to the destruction of Israel – Arabs are misreading history if they believe Israel is a temporary phenomenon. Nothing like this has ever happened in history. A dead tribe came back and seized the land it had, and did so after a devastating tragedy. Jews are also good at waiting, apparently. They’re a small group, but there’s a survival impulse that’s embedded in many Jews, and certainly in the Jews of Israel today. It says: “You want to wait? We’ll wait, too.” Jews were an ancient people already when Mohammad appeared on the Arabian peninsula.

I wonder all the time if two people just like us will be having the same conversation a hundred years from now. “Well, what do you think? Will Israel make it?”

MJT: It’s possible.

Goldberg: Anything’s possible. Anyone who acts like they’ve figured out the entire Middle East doesn’t know anything.

MJT: Yeah. It’s a humbling place.

Goldberg: People who tell you they understand and know the answer? Demagogues. They’re either idiots or demagogues. Nobody can understand this. You can’t apply rationality to it either.

This is why I’m negative about the intentions of Palestinians. If their goal were statehood, they could have had statehood. Therefore, you have to give serious credence to the idea that their goal is not statehood, that it’s more important to rid the Arab world of Jewish nationalism than it is to have a Palestinian state that would improve the lives of individual Palestinians now.

MJT: Lots of them say that explicitly. They aren’t demanding a state in the West Bank and Gaza. They want to liberate all of Palestine, so to speak, “from the river to the sea.”

Goldberg: But just because they want that doesn’t mean it can happen.

MJT: Right. But it’s clear that some of them want the whole thing and won’t accept a state in the West Bank and Gaza. From their point of view, it’s like Israel being offered Tel Aviv and the beach. It isn’t enough.

Goldberg: Ben-Gurion was smart. He took what they offered him and hoped for better. He hoped for Arab mistakes that would allow him to get more territory. The Arabs provided the mistakes, and he took the territory...

...And the long strategy of some Arabs is impervious to short term interventions. Short of packing up Palestinians and bussing them to Egypt, the impulse to defeat the Jews will remain there.

The reason American minds can’t really grasp the Middle East is because our minds are trained for concepts that are at variance with the mindset of Middle Eastern fundamentalists – and by that I mean both Muslims and Jews. The importance of today, the importance of pleasure, the importance of compromise, the importance of pragmatism, the relative unimportance of land. We have a house, we sell it, and then we move to another house. We don’t build our houses on top of our fathers’ houses.

Obviously, George Clooney is No Kohen

And least he got it right:

So, That's His Preference

There go the eyes:





(Kippah tip: AtlasShrugs)


So, waddya say?





Oh, and by the way, this person, Mr. President



is a man, despite the clothes.



UPDATE

Her name is Mayara and she's Brazilian.

A "Need We Say More?" Category Post

...a Stockton family has discovered Jackson’s face in a tree knot on their lawn, sparking a Crichton Leprechaun-style hysteria among the locals, who still revere the artist for having consoled them after a school shooting. Said one awed tree-worshipper, “Michael Jackson meant more to us than Jesus, to some people. I think they’re both about even.”

Source

Nature, Natural

Kadima MK Otniel Schneller, a former director of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, was quick to say that a complete settlement freeze would never happen.

"Nature is stronger than any declaration," he said.

Schneller differentiated between a geographic freeze and a demographic freeze: "A demographic freeze will be a financial disaster; a geographic freeze is something that, in economic terms, we can live with."

He estimated that a settlement freeze that would include projects already in production would be an impossible burden for the state.

"If the government wants to avoid being exposed to lawsuits that will add up to the hundreds of millions of shekels, it must completely differentiate between new construction and construction that is already in progress," said Schneller. He said he both believed and hoped that this was how the government would act.

"In purely financial terms, the best thing for the economy is a categorical assertion not to build new settlements, but not to freeze the existing settlements," Schneller said.

The "Threat" of "Infiltration"

In the 1950s, the term "infiltrators" referred to the fedayeen, Arab terrorists killing Jewish civilians. It has undergone a rejuvenation as the UPI perceives a threat and, spoon-fed from the most extreme Leftist groups around, presents a prejudicial view, publishing an imbalanced screed with pejorative terminology:

Emerging Threats
Religious groups infiltrate Israeli army

Israel's military, once vaunted as an overwhelmingly secular institution of the Jewish state, is being increasingly penetrated by hard-line religious groups bent on waging a holy war against Arabs, according to critics...An Israeli human-rights group, Yesh Din, said the inflammatory pamphlets contained passages "bordering on racist incitement against the Palestinian people" and could have encouraged soldiers to violate international law. [that reads more like an 'almost']

The pamphlets called for the establishment of Greater Israel, including the occupied West Bank, the Orthodox Jews believe was ordained by God.

...The infiltration of the military by religious zealots has been under way for three decades, and much of the officer corps -- up to 30 percent by some estimates -- now consists of men from religious extremist groups.

Some army units are now entirely [not true ever] made up of religious soldiers, many of them from the settlements in the West Bank.

That has stirred fears that large numbers of soldiers would join the heavily armed settlers, many of them reservists, if some, or all, of the settlements have to be abandoned under a peace agreement in resisting the state. [but this did not happen during the disengagement]

"We've reached the point where a critical mass of religious soldiers is trying to negotiate with the army about how and for what purpose military force is employed on the battlefield," says Yigal Levy, a political sociologist who has written several books on the Israeli military.

..."The national religious are replacing the kibbutzniks in the ranks of combat and command," one senior officer said. [who never ever infiltrated the IDF]

As Israeli society has matured and grown more materialistic than the pioneers who founded the state in 1948, many young people now seek to avoid military service, which is mandatory. The right wing has filled this gap in what many suspect was a systematic effort to dominate the military, particularly in combat units and the command echelon.

The Jerusalem Post reported in June that 60 percent of religious Jews in the air force have requested to attend the military's Officer School.

Since Ariel Sharon oversaw the evacuation of 20 settlements in the Gaza Strip in September 2005, settler leaders have been whipping up their extremist followers against any abandonment of the West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria.

...The activities of zealots like Rontzki "highlight the trend where instead of religious Zionism adopting the values of the (Israel Defense Forces) and the country, the IDF and country are adopting the values of religious Zionism, in its nationalist and orthodox version," he said.

"If this trend continues, the IDF may be transformed from an army of the people to Phalangists carrying religious artifacts."

One Lanzmann Memory

Found in a review of Claude Lanzmann’s autobiography/reminisce, LE LIÈVRE DE PATAGONIE Mémoires:

...During the war, while still at the lycée in Clermont-Ferrand, he became a member of the young Communists and a courier for deliveries of arms to the Resistance. He and a Jewish schoolgirl, Hélène Hoffnung – both carrying identity cards stamped “JUIF” – collected suitcases at the railway station and carried them past German patrols. When the latter looked curious, the two would become enlaced in a parody of passion. They returned covered with flagrant evidence of passion, “alors que rien de sexuel n’exista entre nous”. Later, as a full-blown Résistant in the Haute-Loire, Claude was sent to collect a trailer loaded with arms, escorted by an older man called Biegelmann who was armed with a pistol. When they were stopped by a sole member of the Milice, Biegelmann lost his nerve. As they were being led away, Lanzmann’s elderly father (a shadowy figure most of the time) happened to ride up on a bicycle and shot the milicien with his Colt 11.43. Biegelmann has never been forgiven.

On International Law Corrupted

Eli Hertz posts:

In many respects, the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on Israel's security barrier does not deserve to be dignified by a learned rebuttal...Nevertheless, the ICJ's opinion needs to be addressed not only due to the biased manner in which it weighed the 'evidence', but also due to the evidence it failed to examine...

The Opinion is so sloppy that it wants the reader to believe that the League of Nations document - the 1922 "Mandate for Palestine" that laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea - was the founding document for Palestinians' self-determination!..in essence, the ICJ 'converted' the "Mandate for Palestine" from the machinery for creating a Jewish Homeland into a founding document for Palestinian Self-Determination.

...The Opinion is so devious that it 'found' the need to selectively quote from the 1970 GA Resolution 2625: "Emphasized that 'No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.'" But the Court hides from the reader that the same Resolution subsequently clarifies that: "Nothing in the foregoing paragraphs shall be construed as enlarging or diminishing in any way the scope of the provisions of the Charter concerning cases in which the use of force is lawful." [E.E.H., such as in Self-Defence] "Furthermore, no one has taken the Court to task for the deceitful 'abridged' historical narrative they concocted which erases all references of Arab aggression during the British Mandate period (1922-1948), and through 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 as well as Israel's continuing fight of self-defence against Palestinian terrorism.

Another case of doctored use of historical documents: The Court states that Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) emphasized, among other things, the call for "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." The ICJ misleads the readers by simply removing from this principle the need, as stated in Resolution 242, for withdrawal to "secure and recognized boundaries" that will not invite future Arab aggression...

Shwarma Made It Into Webster's

Frenemy, locavore among new words in Webster's

...Or perhaps you plan to signal a flash mob for a quick bite of shawarma.

If you're not entirely certain what all that means, turn to the latest edition of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which has added about 100 new words that largely reflect changing trends in American society.

John Morse, president and publisher of the Springfield-based dictionary publisher, said many of this year's new words are tied to changes in technology, increasing environmental awareness and aging baby boomers' concerns about their health and have become part of the general lexicon.

...There are words such as locavore (one who eats foods grown locally), frenemy (someone who acts like a friend but is really an enemy), waterboarding (an interrogation technique use to induce the sensation of drowning), vlogs (a blog that contains video material) and webisode (a TV show that can be viewed at a Web site).

...Many words have cross-cultural roots, including shawarma (a sandwich especially of sliced lamb or chicken, vegetables, and often tahini wrapped in pita bread)...Once words like these become so common that they regularly pop up in conversations and published articles, Morse said they pass muster for being included in the dictionary.

...Researchers often keep track of words over many years. One to watch: prepone.

The word is commonly used in India among English-speaking Indians and refers to the act of arranging for an event to take place earlier than originally planned -- the opposite of postpone. "Prepone didn't make it this time," Morse said. "But we know about it."

Did we "steal" that term, too, like we did "felafel"?

Birthrate Down; Not "Settlements" - "Colonies"

Palestinian Authority Birthrate Down

The birthrate in the Palestinian Authority (PA) declined from six percent in 1997 to 4.6 percent in 2009, according to figures released Thursday by the PA's Central Bureau of Statistics. According to the bureau, the population of the PA-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria is 2.4 million, while the Gaza population is 1.5 million.

And while we're dealing with Pal. news, they don't use "settlements", even when quoting Haaretz, a story I dealt with earlier today:

No Chance of Colonies Deal with Israel, EU Official Says

TEL AVIV, July 9, 2009 (WAFA)- A senior European Union official rules out any compromise with Israel over the issue of colonies, unless reached in the framework of a final-status agreement with the Palestinians, Akiva Eldar wrote Thursday in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Robert Rydberg, head of the Middle East desk in the Swedish Foreign Ministry, stressed on Monday it was inconceivable for the international community to legitimize natural growth of the colonizer population, since all colonies beyond the 1949 Line of Armistice were illegal.

Rydberg, whose country holds the EU presidency, said the only conceivable compromise would come with Israeli and Palestinian agreement on borders in an all-encompassing final-status agreement between the two parties.

Speaking at a conference in Munich, Rydberg slammed the colonies as creating a new reality on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and spawning obstacles, and he said that roadblocks were intended mainly to protect the colonies rather than Israel proper within the Line of Armistice.

Rydberg said Israel's colonization policy did not build credibility among the Palestinian leadership and that President Mahmoud Abbas wanted to reach an agreement with Israel. He said the ideology that guides most colonizers is based on utter denial of the rights of Palestinians in the OPT.

When Do We Get Amnestied From Amnesty International?

Amnesty International’s report on the conflict in Gaza is fundamentally biased against Israel (“Report Accuses Israel and Hamas of War Crimes in Gaza,” news article, July 3). Nothing illustrates this more starkly than when the report deals with the issue of Gaza civilians caught up in the conflict.

When assessing Israeli efforts to warn civilians of an impending attack, whether by telephone or by leaflet, the report says that all such warnings did was create panic because the civilians had nowhere to flee.

On the other hand, when the report looked at Hamas’s placing military infrastructure in the heart of civilian areas, it minimized the effect by arguing that Hamas did not force people to stay in their homes so civilians could flee attacks.

In other words, Amnesty adjusted its version of the facts to suit its a priori assumptions that Israel was the main party responsible for civilian deaths.

In fact, in a complicated situation, Israel did all it could to avoid civilian casualties. The main violator of human rights was Hamas; its eight-year rocketing of Israeli civilians and its deliberate placing of its military in civilian buildings, homes, schools, hospitals and mosques were major violations of international law. One would barely know this from the Amnesty “investigation.”

Kenneth Jacobson
Deputy National Director
Anti-Defamation League

Somehow, This Story Reminds Me of Some Diplomats I Know

Am I reading too much into this story?

A lobectomy cured ultra-runner Diane Van Deren’s epileptic seizures, but left her with an inability to remember exactly where she is going or how to get back.

Diane Van Deren...used to run away from epileptic seizures. Since brain surgery, she just runs, uninhibited by the drudgery of time and distance, undeterred by an inability to remember exactly where she is going or how to get back.

...“When she is running, it helps her,” Don Gerber, a clinical neuropsychologist who has worked extensively with Van Deren, said of the hole in Van Deren’s brain. “In the rest of her life, it does not.”...In stopping the seizures, her mind, otherwise sharp and unaffected, was robbed of part of its memory and organizational skills.

...Van Deren can no longer read maps. Telling her to go five miles, turn left, then right, then left is a confusing algorithm. She rarely runs a race without a wrong turn. “Everyone knows not to follow me now,” she said.

...Van Deren “can go hours and hours and have no idea how long it’s been.” Her mind carries little dread for how far she is from the finish. She does not track her pace, even in training...“I’m just terrified we’re going to lose her,” said Barb Page, executive director of the Craig Hospital Foundation...Van Deren struggles to remember people she recently met and has missed flights simply by getting too involved in a conversation at the gate. “She never remembers where she parked,” Page said. “Never, not once, to this day.”

Rydberg Wants to Get Rid

Akiva Eldar reports:

A senior European Union official rules out any compromise with Israel over the issue of settlements, unless reached in the framework of a final-status agreement with the Palestinians.

Robert Rydberg, head of the Middle East desk in the Swedish Foreign Ministry, (chef för enheten för Mellanöstern och Nordafrika på UD)

stressed on Monday it was inconceivable for the international community to legitimize natural growth of the settler population, since all settlements beyond the Green Line were illegal.

Speaking at a conference in Munich, Rydberg slammed the settlements as creating a new reality on the ground in the occupied territories and spawning obstacles, and he said that roadblocks were intended mainly to protect the settlements rather than Israel proper within the Green Line.

Rydberg said Israel's settlement policy did not build credibility among the Palestinian leadership and that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wanted to reach an agreement with Israel. He said the ideology that guides most settlers is based on utter denial of the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Israel has had some run-ins with him before. Back in 2006:

Foreign Ministry Director-General Ron Prosor summoned Swedish Ambassador Robert Rydberg to Jerusalem to express Israel's displeasure after Sweden pulled its eight jet fighters from an international air force exercise once it found out Israel would be participating.

Prosor conveyed the message that Sweden would not be looked upon favorably as a participant in the peace process following Stockholm"s indication that Israel was not considered a peace-loving country, according to Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mark Regev.

"If a country believes that Israel is not good enough to participate in peacekeeping maneuvers, Israel will be entitled to think that that country is not qualified to play a role in the Middle East peace process," Regev said.

...Israel was also not pleased with the response it received on the issue of visas for two Hamas representatives of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Salah Muhammad el-Bardawil and Muhammad al-Rantisi, slated to visit Sweden on March 16.

A source familiar with Thursday's meeting at the Foreign Ministry said that Rydberg told the Israelis that no visas had yet been granted, but that he couldn't rule out their being granted in the future. Rydberg did stress, however, that the visit was unofficial and would not include any meetings with government representatives.

Follow-up on that:

The Swedish ambassador to Israel, Robert Rydberg, told the Jerusalem Post that the decision to issue the visa "was not a break with EU policies, since there is no EU policy on the issuing of visas to Hamas representatives."

And he doesn't wear that helmet for fun:

The European Union’s use of the linkage weapon has been far less sophisticated than Washington’s. EU officials simply warn that if Israel does not embrace the two-state model, work begun in 2008 on a planned upgrade of Israel’s relations with Europe will be frozen.

During a late April [2009] visit to Jerusalem, Robert Rydberg, director general of the Foreign Ministry of Sweden, which assumes the union’s rotating presidency in July, delivered the message in no uncertain terms.

Although he sometimes takes it off:



How legitimate, when you think of it, is he?



P.S. Don't give up on Swedish diplomats yet:

Kent Ekeroth, 25, was sacked last October from the Swedish mission to Israel over contributions he made to an online discussion forum. Ambassador Robert Rydberg said his sacking was also due to the fact that he hadn't mentioned his links to the Sweden Democrats.

...According to anti-racist magazine Expo, Ekeroth has written that Europe is on the brink of collapse due to "completely irresponsible immigration policies, naivety and left-wing influences combined with a fascination for Islamism and contempt for our own cultural inheritance."

Ekeroth also expressed concern that Sweden will soon not exist "except as a term for a geographical area."

Kent thinks a bit like me.

I'm So Proud of America!

As many as 1,350 Iraqi Palestinians will be resettled in the United States.

The State Department confirmed Tuesday that the group of refugees, the largest-ever resettlement of Palestinian refugees in the United States, will start arriving this fall and end up mostly in Southern California, according to a report Tuesday in the Christian Science Monitor. The move is seen as part of a U.S. effort to help with the refugee crisis created by its invasion of Iraq.

The article noted that the United States generally shies away from accepting Palestinian refugees because of its relationship with Israel, pointing out that a total of just 16 Palestinian refugees were resettled in the U.S. in 2007 and 2008. But a State Department spokesman told the paper that the Iraqi Palestinians fall under a different category than Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He added that they would be examined for any possible terrorist ties.

Of All The Places To Spot a Jewish Star Pendant

On Britney Spears, visiting Paris yesterday:



You doubt me?

Take a closer look:



Take a real close look:



Is it the same one she was wearing two years ago?

A Reporter's Brilliant Performance

This is not a happy story.

It reflects badly on Jews, or more specifically on ultra-orthodox Jews. They are wrong and have even been the subject of protests against their violence.(*)

But as you read it, imagine that she were a Jewish female reporter trying to cover an Arab demonstration in, say, Ramallah in 2001 as the locals throw rocks at IDF soldiers and also, think on how ignorant she was of the situation:

Reporter feels mob's hate in the Holy City

By Middle East correspondent Anne Barker



As a journalist I've covered more than my share of protests...But I have to admit no protest - indeed no story in my career - has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews...Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council's decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays - or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews...I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends...But I never expected their anger would be directed at me.

...I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which. By the time I realised I'd come up the wrong street it was too late. I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest - in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats...their behaviour - to me - was far from charitable or benevolent.

...I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound. Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me. Spit like rain. I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting - on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms. It was like rain, coming at me from all directions - hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.

...Somewhere behind me - I didn't see him - a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.

I wasn't even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn't Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?

In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I'm not Jewish and don't observe the Sabbath.

[just brilliant. such a smart girl]

It was lucky that I don't speak Yiddish. At least I was spared the knowledge of whatever filth they were screaming at me.

...when you've suffered the humiliation and degradation of being spat on so many times - and you're covered in other people's spit - it's not easy to put it to the back of your mind and get on with the job.

I left down a side street and walked the long way back to the car, struggling to hold back the tears.

And by the way, from China:

Tens of thousands of troops and police have swarmed the streets of downtown Urumqi and made a perimeter around the mostly Uighur neighborhood to prevent the Uighurs from getting out and the Han Chinese from getting it. But that has not quelled the violence. We were driving to the Uighur area and encountered an angry mob...Eventually, the police dragged the Uighur away and put him in a vehicle for his protection. Then, the mob turned on us. They blocked our cameras, not wanting the images of Han Chinese beating a Uighur to get out. I was pushed. Then the group surrounded us and started yelling. They pushed us back up a highway ramp where we were shooting. They yelled that western journalists were biased against the Han Chinese and that we should delete our footage. One man tried to grab our camera and then pulled out a baton and held it over his head as if he were going to hit us. We turned around and ran. The oddest part of the whole experience was that there were swarms of police and troops around and none of them were really trying to break up the fight.

It's tough, at times, being a reporter.

==================

(*)

An American haredi rabbi is urging haredi rabbinical leaders in Israel to publicly condemn the violent haredi protests against Shabbat desecration in Jerusalem, linked to the opening of a parking lot near the Old City to accommodate weekend visitors to the capital.

The initiative by Rabbi Yakov Horowitz of Monsey, New York, a haredi educator who has repeatedly condemned haredi violence in the past, comes after three weekends of violent demonstrations by hundreds of haredim in Jerusalem over the Shabbat opening of the parking lot, and on the eve of a planned haredi prayer vigil Wednesday afternoon near City Hall.

"This type of violence is against everything that the Torah stands for and is an ugly perversion of Torah values," Horowitz told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, in a telephone interview from New York.

Horowitz said that by not speaking out publicly against the violence, even though they oppose it, haredi leaders are empowering extremists in the community.

Little Known Fact

Did you know that there are recent improvements in the economy of Judea and Samaria?

Recent World Bank, IMF and Palestinian Ministry of Finance data point to
significant improvement of the Palestinian economy, even during the current global financial crisis. Indeed, official Palestinian data indicates that the West Bank [amazing that the official MFA site uses this term, eh?] has shown economic growth rates of 5-7% in 2008.

Source

Downtown Jerusalem

Changes are happening in downtown Jerusalem.

As you ascend Strauss Street, to your right, there's a new apartment building going up. It will be car approachable from Prophets' Street (HaNe'viim) as well as along HaRav Aran St..

And as I photographed last year, another luxury comples is to arise on HaRav Kook Street.

So, to get you oriented, here's the map of the area:

Here's the Minrab Building with the driveway seen from Prophets' Street:
Here's the hole in the ground alongside HaRav Kook St.:

And, as an extra, here's what was the block alongside Zion Square. No more Steimatzky.

"Jews" Begins with "J" But So Does "Japanese"

Bagels are considered a "Jewish" food.

Bagelheads, though, are people who inject saline into their foreheads to create bagel-shaped lumps.

But does this linguistic note have anything to do with Jews?

So far, no no

Bizarremag reported recently on an extreme body-modification fad sweeping
the Japanese club scene, wherein people inject their foreheads with saline
solution – causing bagel-shaped swellings:

They look like alien abductees, fresh from invasive research by their
interplanetary masters. But these are Japanese club kids, otherwise known as
bagelheads, deliberately disfiguring themselves by experimenting with saline
inflations.

These self-inflicted saline swellings last approximately 24 hours, and
can be molded into shapes and colored with food dyes.

but...?

Another Set of Wall Posters

An anti-anti-wig wearing grafitti on a poster:
Calling for the anti-parking lot demo last Shabbat:

Another anti-anti-wigwearing grafitti:

Calling for a protest against opening of a parking lot on Shabbat:

Annoucning possible destruction of Jewish cemeteries throughout Europe:

Satmar poster, headlined "Murderers", on the matter of the Shabbat desecrations:

Shiloh Bloc Vineyards

Last month I blogged about a BBC story on vineyards and wine production out by us. Well, let's get up close. here's a snap from the area of Keidah:

and here's a brief clip driving by another vineyard nearby:

Photoshopped Obama T-shirts

and now, the real thing but is he:

a) snapping his fingers in time with the beat;

b) alerting the teleprompter operator to move the text along;

c) annoyed that he forgot another Rahm joke

d) or trying to get Bibi's attention?

Here's Looking At Ya

From "Natural Growth" to "Vertical Growth"?

I mentioned Jonathan Tobin's dust-up of Dershowitz, who had an op-ed in the WSJ and wrote this:

Rhetorically, the Obama team has definitely taken a harsher approach toward Israel compared to its tone during the campaign. But has there been a change in substance about Israel's security? In answering this question, it is essential to distinguish between several aspects of American policy.

First there are the settlements. The Bush administration was against expansion of West Bank settlements, but it was willing to accept a "natural growth" exception that implicitly permitted Israel to expand existing settlements in order to accommodate family growth. The Obama administration has so far shut the door on this exception.

I believe there is a logical compromise on settlement growth that has been proposed by Yousef Munayyer, a leader of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League. "Obama should make it clear to the Israelis that settlers should feel free to grow their families as long as their settlements grow vertically, and not horizontally," he wrote last month in the Boston Globe. In other words, build "up" rather than "out." This seems fair to both sides, since it would preserve the status quo for future negotiations that could lead to a demilitarized Palestinian state and Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish one -- results sought by both the Obama administration and Israel.

A majority of American-Jewish supporters of Israel, as well as Israelis, do not favor settlement expansion. Thus the Obama position on settlement expansion, whether one agrees with it or not, is not at all inconsistent with support for Israel. It may be a different position from that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is not a difference that should matter to most Jewish voters who support both Mr. Obama and Israel.

Well, readers wrote some letters-to-the-editor:

Discussing the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank ("Has Obama Turned on Israel," July 2), Alan M. Dershowitz advocates a "vertical-growth" exception to an Israeli settlement freeze, believing that an increase in people, but not of land, should be an acceptable compromise.

In my opinion, both he and President Barack Obama, by neglecting to distinguish the issue of residency from that of sovereignty, have their eyes on the wrong ball. What makes the settlement issue so contentious, in fact, is the refusal of the Palestinian Authority to accept, and to guarantee the safety of, Jewish settlers on land that one day could be part of a Palestinian state. If Jews were able to live securely in West Bank villages under Palestinian control, just as more than 1.3 million Arabs live safely in Israel, what would there be to quarrel about?

Mitchell J. Rapoport
Wilton, Conn.

If President Obama wants Israel to completely freeze all settlement building, he needs to recognize the distinction between Jerusalem, the capital of the Israeli nation, and other settlements. Then he needs to make a demand of the Palestinians in exchange for abrogating a previous agreement. A suggestion would be an end to incitement on Palestinian TV. Mahmoud Abbas may control no segment of Palestinian society, but he does control his own media. So why on Palestinian TV recently were college members of his Fatah party bragging about how many Israelis they've killed, and trying to outdo Hamas in praise of wanton murder and terror?

Mr. Obama was elected to pursue America's interests, and if he feels he needs to make demands of Israel to do so, he is obligated. But those influential Zionists who supported Mr. Obama need to honestly deal with his one-sided threatening actions. If Israelis nearly unanimously feel he is endangering Israel, then please address their feelings -- don't skirt the issues.

Jonathan D. Reich
Lakeland, Fla.

Alan Dershowitz wrongly claims that most Israelis agree with President Obama's position on Jewish settlements. Mr. Obama's position is that there should be a total freeze on all Jewish construction throughout the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including even natural growth confined to the existing boundaries of such settlements -- and with that, most Israelis do not agree.

A Smith Research poll last month found that 69% of Israelis oppose freezing construction within large Jewish communities in the West Bank. Also, a major Israeli poll by the Maagar Mohot Survey Institute the same month shows that Israelis support by 56% to 37% Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repudiation of President Obama's demand that Israel freeze all Jewish construction.

Morton A. Klein
National President
Zionist Organization of America
New York

Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have castigated Israel over the "natural growth" of settlements in the West Bank. In doing so, they have willfully distorted the truth about past understandings between the U.S. and Israel. What is even more troubling is that the Obama administration has ignored the obvious lesson of Gaza -- that settlements are not the obstacle to peace.

For Jewish voters, the problem is not just the policies Mr. Obama has enacted, but the way he has singled out Israel and adopted the malevolent views of those who wish to undermine its legitimacy. Supporters of Israel who trusted his promises last year are justified in their feelings of betrayal.

Joel Pollak
Skokie, Ill.

For anyone paying attention, Barack Obama made it perfectly clear that he believed the Arabist/leftist narrative of the Middle East "crisis." Mr. Dershowitz and other American Jews had the right to vote for him anyway, and if they want they can now admit they were knuckleheads. But they are not entitled to claim that they've been betrayed.

Richard B. Belzer
Alexandria, Va.