I've Been Included

My wife has included a post of mine in her
 Jewish Blog Round Up, Let's Link Up Together

I am honored.

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Do You Oppose The Death Penalty?

If so, what have you do or what are you doing or what will you do about this, as reported by the UN's OCHA Protection of Civilians Weekly Report | 7 - 13 May 2013 :

On 9 May, a military court in Gaza sentenced a 48 year-old civilian man to death by hanging, allegedly for collaborating with what the court described as a “hostile element”.  According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, this is the second death sentence to be issued since the beginning of 2013, bringing the total number of death sentences issued since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 to 134. These include 107 sentences issued in Gaza and 27 in the West Bank; 46 of these death sentences have been issued since 2007, following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. 

In total, 27 have been executed, including 25 in the Gaza Strip (14 without the required Palestinian presidential ratification) and two in the West Bank.

Let me know, please.

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There Sit the Muslims; There Go the Jews

The reality on the Temple Mount:

The Muslims sit, try to restrict movement and limit access by taking up space, engage in study of Islamic literary sources (what they call "terrace sciences") and are on call to provoke, claiming faking insult or injury, shout, yell, push, shove and eventually throw chairs, stones and any other moveable object including firebombs.

Here:

And the Jews?

They walk in, cannot pray, cannot recite Psalms or Lamentations, are accompanied by police and Waqf officials and those who are observant, have to stay away from certain areas, mainly the raised platform section:

The story report of yesterday included this:

32 settlers and hundreds of foreign tourists broke into and desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the morning, amid tight security by Israeli police.

In contrast...hundreds of students of the "terraces science" and the children inside Palestine and Jerusalem congregated and came to reinforce Aqsa...and raised magnified voices during the presence of intruders.

In Al-Aqsa Mosque prevailed a state of caution and anticipation, especially in light of the invitations of the Temple Mount organizations to revive the so-called "children in celebration of the Temple Mount," on the occasion of the conclusion of the so-called Eid "Albwakir" [Shavu'ot].

This is a situation of pre-planned with malice aforethought incitement and truth perversion as regards the historical narrative, the law and natural justice.

But we're working on setting it all right.

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Reconfirmation of Worth of Polls

From Dr. Lerner, as I have stressed here over the years (here's 2007), on what the polls taken here on peace, negotiations, Jewish communities in YESHA and security, what I term the Great Dichotomy or just plain schizophrenia:

So Israelis would like talks, don’t think they will bring peace and don’t expect them to take place and don’t think that talking with the Palestinians should be a priority for the government and for the most part aren’t particularly concerned about the security situation despite the expect continued absence of either negotiations or of a deal with the Palestinians.

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Hamas: No "Two-State Solution"

As relayed:

Khaled Mashaal, head of the political bureau of Hamas movement, confirmed his movement’s adherence to resistance in confronting the occupation and liberating Palestine.

Khaled Meshaal said [ina Foreign Policy interview*] that Hamas will continue the armed struggle as an option to liberate the land, while Fatah movement has chosen to continue its diplomatic efforts.

Meshaal renewed Hamas’s rejection of a two-state solution, stressing that his movement is not against the Israelis because they hold a different belief, but it struggles against the occupation of its land.

“Palestinians are suffering from the settlement. They are suffering in the detention camps and in the prisons of the occupation,” Meshaal said “[We aim] to stop the suffering of our people in Jerusalem as they are suffering from the judaization of the city … We want real peace that would regain the rights of our people.”

The Palestinian leader has also criticized the visit of U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, saying that “Kerry does not have a new project for peace.”

“Kerry does not have a serious project or vision. The international community should focus on the real problem here, which is that Israel occupies the land and commits most brutal kinds of murders.”

The interview, incidentally, was headlined:

'We Are Not Fanatic Killers'

And also had this:

Describing his agenda for his new four-year term at the head of Hamas, Meshaal emphasized one issue above all others: The need to end what he described as the "occupation" of the Palestinian people's land, and the "atrocities" being committed against them by Israel.

"[Palestinians] are suffering from the settlements, they are suffering in the detention camps and the prisons of the occupation," Meshaal said. "[We aim] to stop the suffering of our people in Jerusalem, as they are suffering from the Judaization of the city... We want a real peace that would regain the rights for our people."

Don't be fooled.  Those "rights" are no rights for Jews.

Hamas is a military organization employing terror.

Read all about it.

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A Double Mazal Tov

Mazal Tov to Geula Even and Gideon Sa'ar on their wedding last night.

And what appears to me an upcoming birth:

Geula is an IBA TV show host and interviewer.

Gideon is Minister of the Interior.



___________

Hadar Cohen snapped the picture.

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So, J Street Really is Pro-Israel, Just Not Kosher

Adam Kredo claims that J Street, in hosting a dinner at a Chinese restaurant on Jewish holy day, committed a

A Shavuot Faux Pas

and that 

Jewish Democrats are upset with the liberal fringe group

The essence:

J Street, a far left advocacy group that bills itself as “pro-Israel” and was founded by Jewish Democrats, is scheduled to hold a dinner discussion tonight with members of Congress at the Hunan Dynasty Chinese restaurant in Washington, D.C., according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The event is taking place during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which began Tuesday evening and commemorates the biblical day in which God is believed to have given the Jewish prophet Moses the Torah.

...The Chinese food dinner is scheduled to run from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at Capitol Hill’s Hunan Dynasty restaurant Wednesday. The holiday ends Thursday at sunset...Lawmakers attending the event are invited to talk about a recent trip to Israel they attended with J Street.

“The objective of the dinner is to share and discuss the insights of Members who participated in the mission [to Israel]—from thoughts on recent developments in the region to perspectives on advancing U.S. diplomatic leadership toward a two-state solution,” reads the invitation, which is signed by J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami...Members attending the event will be able to discuss the Jewish state as they eat steamed meat dumplings, Imperial Shrimp, or Yaki Soba, a sautéed Japanese noodle dish, according to the restaurant’s menu. Adventurous eaters can enjoy squid or octopus.

Okay, the non-kosher bit is really stupid but let's be generous with J Street, in the holiday spirit.

They are so pro-Israel, that they decided to transfer the Israeli custom of keeping but one day of the festival, unlike Diaspora communities onlifated to keep two.

How's that?

Er, what time did the holiday go out?

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Are You Sure This is The Solution?

.

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Has He Lost Direction?

.

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All You Have to Do is Threaten Violence

For the Muslims, it's simple: threaten violence.  

Provoke violence.

Scream and yell, and throw chairs and chant.

And what happens?

The police capitulate.

And the courts declare, "it's too sensitive a matter for the law".

Continuing the banning of the children -

AFP:-

Israel limits non-Muslim visits to Jerusalem mosque

JERUSALEM — Jerusalem police closed the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound to non-Muslim visitors on Thursday, in what they said was an effort to avoid a repetition of recent Palestinian unrest.

The decision followed disturbances on Wednesday...

"A decision was taken after the past 24 to 48 hours of incidents...and measures have been taken to prevent incidents on the Temple Mount," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, using the Jewish term for the compound in the walled Old City, which houses the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques.

...Rosenfeld said that there had been no reported disturbance there on Thursday and the limitation of visitors was a preemptive move which would be reviewed later in the day.

"At the moment it's quiet and we want it to continue to be quiet," he said.

Clearer at JTA:-

Israel Police barred Israeli Jews and tourists from the Temple Mount following threats of Muslim violence

The ban on Thursday came a day after violence between a group of Orthodox Jews and Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount. The group was prevented from entering the Temple Mount.

The Thursday ban came after Muslim groups threatened to protest the visit of Jewish children to the Temple Mount as part of an educational program to study Temple rituals, including the Shavuot holiday ritual of bringing first fruits to the Temple.

Hundreds of Jews visited the Temple Mount on Wednesday, the holiday of Shavuot, though thousands attempted to gain entrance, according to Arutz-7.

Jews generally are not permitted to pray or bring any ritual objects to the Temple Mount, which is considered Judaism’s holiest site, in order to avoid confrontation with Muslim worshipers at the Al-Aksa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site. The site is overseen by the Muslim Wakf, the Muslim religious administration charged with managing the Temple Mount site.

There was no "violence between Jews and Muslims".

There were violent attacks by Muslims against Jews and attempts to deny Jews basic civil liberties.

Sorry.  To "preempt" their freedoms of access and worship.

Actually, a few Jews did enter early in the day:

Pictures from the Bikkurim (First Fruits) re-enactment at the Little Kotel near the Iron Gate:

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More Graphic Zionism

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Peace Now's Slapping Israel Around

From this report:

In a reply to a Supreme Court petition by the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, the government said it had taken steps in recent weeks to authorize retroactively four West Bank outposts built without official permission.
"The intention to legalize outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry's new process and is blatant reassurance to settler interests," Peace Now said in a statement.

...Last week, Peace Now and Israeli media reports said Netanyahu has been quietly curbing some settlement activity by freezing tenders for new housing projects, in an apparent effort to help the U.S. drive to renew peace talks.

a) the Oslo Accords do not deny Israel the privilege of continuing the construction of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.  Indeed, "settlements" are not a cause of the conflict.

b) if the court is satisfied legalities are in order, Peace Now is judicially wrong.

and note this headline:

 Israel to 'legalise' wildcat settler outposts: NGO

the outposts are not strictly "illegal" but rather unauthorized as a result of bureaucratic and political considerations, in the main.

c) if a "slap in the face" is problematic, Peace Now has been slapping Israel around for three decades, ever weakening its public diplomacy.

d) even if a "Palestinian state" be established, Heavens forbid, the idea that Jews cannot live there and build homes there is morally abhorrent - I'd call it apartheid - and illegal.

^

Inspired by the Women of the Wall

Inspired by Women of the Wall, a new organization is launching to advocate gender equality in Jewish public ritual life. Men of the Mikvah will go to local mikvaot around the country each month to be balaniot. It's time for a more, um, supportive balanit.
 

No, no mikveh life guard positions are open.

As yet.

^ 

The Children's Ascent to Temple Mount Thwarted

Following up on my earlier report, some 100 children who planned to tour the Temple Mount this morning were denied entrance.  Police closed the Mount to all non-Muslims.

Pictures:

And now the JPost report:

Jerusalem Police on Thursday closed the Temple Mount to visitors due to the sensitivity created in recent days.

The police stated that they would act forcefully against any party who violates the order.

More.

________________

UPDATE

From Jordan, on:

 

threats by extremist settlers to storm the mosque, according to Palestinian sources.  The settlers want to storm the mosque in order to organise what they are calling a pilgrimage for their youths.

The sources added that small groups of Israeli settlers moved into Al-Aqsa compound from "Bab Al Maghariba" (Maghariba Gate), protected by Israeli special police. Furthermore, the Israeli troops stationed at the outer gates of Al-Aqsa compound are scrutinizing Palestinian worshippers’ ID cards in an attempt to hinder them from entering the compound.

Meanwhile, the extremist Jewish rabbi, Yisrael Ariel, stormed Al-Aqsa mosque earlier in the day, along with a group of Jewish extremists from Kiryat Arba – a settlement on the outskirts of Hebron.

Rabbi Ariel was escorted by the Israeli police during his tour of Al-Aqsa compound.

Earlier, the rabbi had announced that he would storm Al-Aqsa Mosque to mark what they call the "Torah Revelation".

^

Another Temple Mount Photoshop

BREAKING UPDATE

The Temple Mount was closed this morning

to all non-Muslims on order from the

Jerusalem Police Chief and we can only surmise

that the Muslim threats worked.

 

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

Following up on this post, this photoshopped postcard was first produced around 1978:

Let's not forget this:

the second bloody massacre of Jews by the Arabs took place, in 1929. The story put about that the Jews planned to tear down the Mosque of Omar, and to rebuild the Temple on the site – a tactic that has been used to arouse the Arabs to this day.
 

elaborated:

 
Zionist literature published throughout the world used the imagery of a domed structure on the Temple Mount to symbolize their national aspirations. Zionists had appropriated an Islamic minaret from the Ottoman period on the old city wall as a symbol for their propaganda. A Zionist flag was depicted atop of a building very reminiscent of the Dome of the Rock in one publication, which was later picked up and redistributed by Arab propagandists.

see here

 

Haj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem distributed leaflets to Arabs in Palestine and throughout the Arab world which claimed that the Jews were planning to take over the al-Aqsa Mosque. The leaflet stated that the Government was "responsible for any consequences of any measures which the Moslems may adopt for the purpose of defending the holy Burak themselves in the event of the failure of the Government…to prevent any such intrusion on the part of the Jews." A memorandum issued by the Moslem Supreme Council stated, "Having realized by bitter experience the unlimited greedy aspirations of the Jews in this respect, Moslems believe that the Jews’ aim is to take possession of the Mosque of Al-Aqsa gradually on the pretence that it is the Temple", and it advised the Jews "to stop this hostile propaganda which will naturally engender a parallel action in the whole Moslem world, the responsibility for which will rest with the Jews".

 

There is this testimony, too, from the book "Days of our Years" by Pierre van Paassen (Hillman-Curl Inc, 1939), page 360:

Upon receipt of Mr. Vincent Sheean's dispatch from Jerusalem, wherein a minor disturbance at the Wailing Wall was attributed to the provocative attitude of young "Jewish Fascists," the publisher of my paper, no doubt perturbed by the storm of indignation the story produced in American Jewish circles, instructed me to proceed posthaste from Paris to Palestine and investigate. The New York Jewish community, which had for years been thoroughly informed on day-by-day events in the Holy Land by a corps of resident correspondents representing the three great Yiddish dailies, unanimously rejected Mr. Sheean's interpretation that a parade by a troop of Jewish boy scouts in the vicinity of the Wailing Wall had been responsible for the outbreak of the disturbances. That incident, these journals argued (and they were subsequently proved correct), had been a mere subterfuge on which the Arabs had seized to bring their long-smoldering revolt to a head. In fact, no person even superficially acquainted with Jewish aims in the Holy Land and with the eminently humane record the Jews had established in their dealings with the Arabs, could possibly believe that the Palestinian Jews in one moment deliberately destroyed what they had striven for long years to establish: a close collaboration with the Arab population as the sole basis for a successful restoration of the Jewish land.

Those who remembered what had happened eight years earlier realized at once that the party of Arab landlords, headed by the Mufti of Jerusalem who had been sentenced to ten years of labor in 1921 for incitement to riot and soon thereafter amnestied by a Jewish High Commissioner, had returned to the attack. The flag-waving incident at the Wall had been as good a device as any to throw sand in the eyes of public opinion. Clever propagandists easily - and did - magnify this intrinsically insignificant demonstration on the part of children into a challenge of Jewish chauvinists. The Mufti had carefully prepared the stage for what was to follow: early in the upheaval of 1929, foreign public opinion was provided with a false premise on which to judge later developments.

And contemporary fanaticism:

A senior Palestinian official called for protecting Al-Aqsa Mosque from a “new Nakba” threatening it due to the occupation practices that aim to impose Jewish control over it in preparation to demolish it and build the alleged temple on its ruins.

Yousef Edais, head of the Supreme Council of the Islamic courts in Palestine, called on the residents of Jerusalem and the 1948-occupied territories to intensify their presence in Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order to confront the repeated raids into its courtyards by the settlers and the extremist Jewish groups.

Edais said in a statement on Wednesday that Al-Aqsa Mosque has been witnessing daily raids by Jewish groups under the protection of the Israeli police, warning of attempts to divide it as they did in the Ibrahimi Mosque. He warned of a scheme made by settlers’ leaders and senior Jewish rabbis to divide Al-Aqsa; stressing that it is a purely Islamic endowment and that the Jews have no right in it.

They have no bounds.

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This Is NOT An Islamophobic Post

This Is NOT An Islamophobic Post.

It's just funny.

Mohammed Ahmed, a 21-year-old of Illonois, was arrested in Florida.

He

...answered an online ad posted by an undercover detective posing as a hooker...Ahmed was arrested when he arrived for his paid liaison.  Ahmed, an Illinois resident, was in the Sunshine State on his honeymoon when busted for soliciting prostitution and pot possession.  When Ahmed did not return to his bride at the Omni Hotel, she called police to report him missing. The woman was subsequently told by cops that her husband was not MIA, that he had been arrested - for seeking to pay for sex from a hooker while he was celebrating his nuptials.

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A Basic Problem

From this article:

The basic problem is that, for the last two generations, it has been Palestinian policy to teach their children, and anyone that will listen to these Arab language screeds that Israel has no right to exist. The kids get indoctrinated with anti-Semitic propaganda at a young age and as adults they continue to be bombarded by anti-Semitic propaganda. Thus most Palestinians (unless they were educated outside of the Middle East) take it for granted that any peace deal with Israel is just a tactical move in the effort to eventually destroy Israel and drive all Jews from the Middle East. People outside the Middle East have a hard time comprehending this attitude...

...Palestinian attitudes towards the non-existence of Israel goes beyond teaching their kids that Israel doesn’t even exist. The children are taught that what the rest of the world calls Israel is really just a bunch of Zionists illegally occupying Arab land. While Arabs love to call Israelis "Nazis", it is the Arab world that is the true heir to the Adolph Hitler's vision of how the world should be. A major weapon in the Palestinian arsenal is anti-Semitism...

^

This Will Drive the Muslims Wild

What a little photoshopping will do - stay tuned.

The actual photo provided so that you can see it was faked, despite proble Waqf insistence that it's real:

Oh, and these two gentlemen, despite the beard and yarmulke, are Muslim:

^

Dr. Michael Rosenak z"l

My instructor in Jewish religious and Zionist thought and philosophy during my year in Israel 1966-1967 at the Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'Aretz, Michael Rosenak, has passed away at the age of 81.

He was brilliant, challenging and a friend to us upcoming leaders of youth movements.

Professor Rosenak was on the founding team who established the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows in 1981 and was a central driving force in the formation of the unique educational ethos of the Fellows Program. 

He was a member of HaShomer HaDati and made Aliyah in 1958.

His six points that "lay foundations for a comprehensive religious Jewish education" are knesset Yisrael (the community of Israel), adam (existence), bnai Noach (humanity), hod (problem-solving), chochmat lev and hiddur (beauty), and da'at (understanding).

On the Machon program, his introspections into Franz Rosensweig were riveting. 

And I thank him for tolerating my Betar outlook.

^

After the Jordan Butt-in, Egypt's Turn

After Jordan butting-in on the matter of the Temple Mount*, it's Egypt's turn.

This week, the Egyptian Ambassador to Palestine Yasser Othman paid an inspection visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, 

during which he was briefed on the recent Israeli practices against the mosque, especially the escalation of daily incursions into him, and repressive measures against the worshipers and terraces of science students and insulting the Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Hussein by his arrest.

Among those conferring with him were the Mufti of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Shaykh Muhammad Hussein, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab Chairman of the Islamic Waqf, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a member of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, and Joseph Mukhaimar, Abdullah Siam deputy governor of Jerusalem and Amer Abu Sham.

Ambassador Osman said that

Egypt has stood and stands all the time with the legitimate national rights of the brotherly Palestinian people, and his today come commissioned by the Egyptian leadership, to emphasize on this matter and to send a message rejection of the unilateral measures taken by the Israeli side...the position of Al-Azhar also was clear about the encroachment of Israeli-Aqsa Mosque, and that Al-Azhar also has warned of sharing temporal and spatial Al-Aqsa Mosque, warning of growing extremism in the Israeli side, according to what was produced by the recent Israeli elections...noting that the Israeli actions last in the Al-Aqsa Mosque was unprecedented and violent against worshipers and students terraces science.The Mufti warned the Israeli government of the consequences of doing these procedures legislation, which aims to initiate the application sharing time at the Al Aqsa Mosque as a prelude to the split, and perhaps unlock racist extremist ideas which demands remove it.

To remind you: Egypt is run by the Muslim Brotherhood, partners with Hamas.


______________

*

Found:-
 

The official Jordanian news agency has reported that Jordan's ambassador in Israel is conducting intensive negotiations with the Israeli foreign ministry and Prime Minister's Office in an attempt to immediately halt "the entrance of extremist Jews into the Temple Mount area.   According to the report he claimed that the Israeli government "is responsible for preventing the systematic attack on holy sites.

Here:

- Jordan's Ambassador to Israel, Walid Obeidat, has called for an immediate end to the entry of Jewish extremists into Al Haram Al Sharif compound in occupied Jerusalem.

Obeidat, who made intensive contacts with the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the prime minister’s office, under the directives of Minister for Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs Nasser Judeh, said Israel, as the occupying power in Jerusalem, should stop the regular attacks against the holy sites in Jerusalem.

Such acts, he added, violate international resolutions and charters, undermine efforts to achieve peace in the region and provoke anger among Arabs and Muslims around the world.

And more.


^

We're Now "Ferocious"

There is "judaising".

There is "storming".

And there is no end, it appears, to the Arab ability to foam at the mouth in reaction to anything Jewish or Zionist.

Here, from the Al Qassam website 

Ezzet Al-Resheq, political bureau member of Hamas movement, has lashed out at Zionist fanatic groups that called for storming the Aqsa mosque on Thursday. 

Resheq said on his Facebook page on Tuesday that the call was part of ferocious attempts to Judaize the Aqsa mosque and holy shrines.  The Hamas leader urged the Palestinian masses to head to the Aqsa mosque and to repel those groups.

He also asked the Arab and Islamic countries to assume their responsibilities in defending the Aqsa.

Zionist groups calling themselves the coalition for the temple had called for massive storming of the Aqsa mosque and for organizing festivals in it to commemorate the day when the Torah was revealed to Moses.

There was this, too:

Islamic Jerusalem Conference called on Monday on a press release the UN Security Council and the Secretary General of the United Nations to stop Israeli settlers and Jewish extremists ' desecrating of Al- Aqsa Mosque.  "Any attack against Al-Aqsa Mosque or violation of its sacredness  will have grave impacts on the regional and international arena," Izzat Jaradat,  Secretary General of  the Islamic Jerusalem Conference, stated.

________________

Some of the 100 Jews who entered the Temple Mount compound today, the Shavuot holiday, what is termed "repeated Jewish incursions into Aqsa courtyards by settlers and extremist Jewish groups".

And this report:

Clashes at Al-Aqsa mosque compound
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Clashes broke out on Wednesday around the Al-Aqsa mosque compound as Israeli rightists tried to enter the holy site.

Dozens of Israeli right-wingers raided the compound through the Moroccan gate, and clashes broke out at the Bab al-Hutta gate as Israeli forces escorted rightists into the mosque area.

Witnesses told Ma'an that 17 Israelis tried to enter the compound area via Chain Gate, before local Palestinians obstructed them. A group of Israeli rightists and Palestinians began pushing each other, before Israeli forces intervened to protect the Israelis, witnesses said.

An Israeli organization called Temple Mount Organizations published invitations on their Facebook page encouraging Israelis to enter the Al-Aqsa compound for the religious holiday of Shavuot.

^

Who Is Setting a Fire?

Yesterday, fire was spotted near Tel Shiloh.

In response to a concerned resident who saw the smoke and inquired, the Shiloh residents' group-list was informed that some one was clearing his field of weeds with a controlled blaze.

Today we read:

Monday evening, May 13 2013; a group of extremist Israeli settlers set ablaze Palestinian olive orchards and farmlands that belong the villages of Qaryout, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.  Local sources reported that the armed settlers burnt the agricultural lands, and prevented the villagers from reaching their lands to put the fire off. Bashar Qaryouty, coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Qaryout village, reported that the burnt lands were planted with wheat and olive trees. Qaryouty added that the size of the torched lands is approximately 25 Dunams (6.17 Acres), and added that the Israeli army eventually called for an Israeli fire truck as the fires approached the Shiloh illegal settlement, built on the villagers’ lands.

More details, here:

dozens of settlers from the settlement of Shilo started the fire that burnt the land cultivated with barley, wheat, and olives.  He charged that the Israeli occupation forces provided protection for the settlers and blocked the land owners, 25 individuals, from extinguishing the fire.

The truth?

As I have posted here several times, after a long legal battle, the court judgment was that a plot of land directly north-west of the Tel of Shiloh, which the Arabs claimed as their's, which they never cultivated for over 30 years, and were supported by Rabbi's for Human Rights in their campaign, belonged to a certain Moskowitz (no, not Dr. Irwin).

In order to prevent the overgrowth from catching fire - or being purposely set ablaze - he initiated a controlled fire.

That's it.

No Arab trees, or bushes, field crops or anything else belonging to anyone from Qaryut was damgaed or burned or destroyed.

It's a fake story.  Untrue.  A lie.

Another Pallywood production.

They attempted to set a "fire" of black propaganda.

_____________________


UPDATE


I checked the UN's OCHA report - PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS WEEKLY REPORT - and they seem not to have included this incident therein.


^

Mad Men's Don A ... Jew?

From a New Yorker piece:

To recap: Don’s real name is Dick Whitman. His prostitute mother died in childbirth; his dad, her john, beat him. His fundamentalist stepmother called him a “whore’s child.” Then his father got kicked in the head by a horse, and the stepmother moved in with her sister, herself a prostitute, living in a brothel. The stepmother, heavily pregnant with Don’s half brother, prostituted herself to her brother-in-law, as the teen-age Don knelt outside her door. He watched them, through the keyhole, have sex. C’mon, now. This is no longer the backstory of a serial adulterer; it’s the backstory of a serial killer.

We haven’t even got to the part where Whitman goes to fight in Korea, accidentally blows up his superior officer, Don Draper, steals his identity, forms a secret relationship with his widow (she’s motherly, yet also somewhat prostitute-like, since he pays for her upkeep), becomes a greaser, and seduces a model who is also concerned primarily with appearances. Eventually, he gets into advertising, and when his half brother, Adam, finds him, Don rejects him, and Adam hangs himself. It’s not that none of this makes sense, or could make sense; it’s just too much, overdetermined. None of the other characters has this sort of reverse-engineered psychology, and for good reason: it’s a lazy way to impose meaning. Nested among better scenes, the flashbacks feel like a high-school production of “The Grapes of Wrath.” 

(Back in Season 1, when Don was canoodling with the department-store heiress Rachel Menken and reading “Exodus,” I wondered if his dark secret was that his mother was a Jew. Life was so much simpler then!)

 Oh, oh.

^

Haredim and 'Palestinians' Share Certain Values

Have you read Evie Gordon's latest op-ed?

Where she wrote:

Haredi leaders also share the Palestinians’ approach to negotiations. Both groups view themselves as aggrieved victims who aren’t obliged to contribute anything to a solution, and for whom no concession is ever enough...Also like the Palestinians, the haredim apparently see no need to offer any “confidence-building” measures of their own.. it takes two to compromise, and so far, haredi leaders have shown no willingness to do so.  And though many ordinary haredim are less intransigent than their leaders, that’s irrelevant as long as they continue backing those leaders to the hilt – which they do.

Well, see the graphics, from my collection of posters, that should indicate a very twisted approach to the issue:

From the walls of Zichron Moshe, Geula and Meah Shearim

^

The Children are Invited to the Temple Mount

Did you know that "148 settlers stormed and desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque guarded by the occupation forces, including a former member of the Knesset, Michael Ben-Ari, and Likud activist "Judea Glick" and that this was "amid an atmosphere of anger and continuing protest of the violation of the sanctity of the Mosque"?

You didn't?


Did you know that  

The Israeli organizations calling itself the "coalition of the organizations structure" called on Israelis to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque on what they call "holiday Sha - the descent of the Torah", which corresponds to tomorrow and the day after tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday), and called for children to storm the Aqsa on Thursda and pointed out that the celebrations and ceremonies will be held inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque and in areas close to him, with the participation of a number "rabbis", while noting that the Israeli Deputy Knesset Speaker "Moshe Feiglin," will take part in the celebrations Thursday, which will be held on the Mount of Olives...In a related noted, "Al-Aqsa Foundation" that the occupation campaign has escalated against the Al-Aqsa Mosque with the most recent publication of an article by a member of the Knesset, "Mordechai Yogov" of the "Jewish Home" Party - led by "Naphtali Bennet" - where the construction of a synagogue in the southern part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is demamded...Deputy Chairman of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, said the repeated Israeli incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque are "a qualitative escalation is unprecedented in its kind and punch convergence of his days."

Well, if you go here, you can see the pictures like more of these:

The poster for the Shavuot poster which I blogged this past week:

^

Muslim Quarter, Arab Quarter

One Kevin Bushnell, a Mondoweiss follower, caught me out on an error I published:

You have caught Jeremy's mistakes, to be sure. But the four traditional quarters are the Jewish, Christian, Armenian, and Muslim (not Arab) Quarters, at least since the 19th century.

So, I guess even an American Jew who makes aliyah to Israel and becomes a citizen, who then lives and works in Israel - and even participates in the government! - can, even after decades of living and working in Israel, also make mistakes on the level of Jeremy Bowen.

You'll forgive me if I subsequently doubt the veracity of the claims to the land of "Judea and Samaria" made by the Yesha.

I left this comment:

thank you for correcting me.  Yes, Muslim and not Arab.  And as for your additional comments, I can assure your readers that that one error should not put you off from trusting my historical recounting about Jewish nationalism, the Land of Israel and the Arab campaign against Israel and its Jews.  as for what some might think are some snide expressions you composed, I forgive you - even if you knew what you were doing.

I think I wrote "Arab" so as not to be considered an Islamaphobe.  

Oh well.

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Yechiel Kadishai is 90

Yechiel Kadishai celebrated his 90th birthday last night at the Begin Center.

He was Menachem Begin's personal political secretary for three decades.  He was a Betari, member of the Irgun, fought in the ranks of the Brigade in World War II, participated in the demolition attack on the British Embassy in Rome and was a Betar emissary to South Africa.

The Begin Center's Archives are in his honor.

I first met Yechiel in 1966 when, during my year as a participant on the Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'Aretz program, I was requested by my leaders to purchase 10 copies of Begin's memoirs, The Revolt, have him sign them and send them back to the US so that the movement could sell them for much more than what I paid for them, including the post.  What financial brilliance we possessed then.

On recommendation, I called Yechiel and he told me to come to the Knesset where he would take the books and shortly thereafter return them, signed.  Which he did.

And we've been friends ever since.

From last night:

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Eastern European Food - The Academic Approach

Does this qualify for the Kosher Cooking Carnival?

Call for Papers

Food for Thought:Culture and Cuisine in Russia and Eastern Europe, 1800-present

Symposium at the University of Texas – February 7-8,  2014

The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies in cooperation with the Department of History and the Center for European Studies at the University of Texas at Austin are hosting a one-two day symposium on the culture of food in the Russian Empire (and Soviet Union) and its successor states as well as “Eastern Europe” broadly defined. Drawing on a wide range of sources and disciplines, speakers will explore how patterns of food cultivation, preparation, and consumption are embedded in local, national, and trans-national cultural configurations. Scholars from all disciplines are welcome to apply, but organizers especially welcome contributions from history, literary and cultural (including film and media) studies, and
anthropology. We hope to reexamine the history and culture of the region through the lens of its food—that is, cultural attitudes, marketing and packaging, memories and representations of particular foods, patterns of eating, cultural dietary restrictions, or local cultural difference that were expressed through divergent patterns of food preparation and consumption. How was food as “tradition” experienced, how was its cultivation and production gendered, how was it tied to religious or ethnic differentiation, in what ways was it processed, “packaged” or otherwise modernized—for example, tied to global patterns and flows.  How was it tied to private and public socialization—the kitchen versus the restaurant or cafeteria and what did this mean for local or national cultures? How was food depicted in film and literature, described in cookbooks, marketed at home and abroad? Did food take on new meanings—cultural, political, or otherwise—under communism? And finally, what about food culture or food nostalgia after communism? We hope for creative approaches to these and other questions related to the production, consumption, exchange, and service of food in Russia and Eastern Europe from 1800-present.


Featuring Dr. Ronald LeBlanc as Keynote Speaker
“From Russian Vegetarians to Soviet Hamburgers: Tolstoy, Mikoyan, and the
Ethics/Politics of Diet.”

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