Thursday, April 30, 2015

Who Is That on the Temple Mount?


Franz Werfel.

On his trip in 1925.

More:



Before arriving:

Still aboard the Vienna, Werfel noted in his “Egyptian Diary” that the Zionists were regrettably repeating the anachronistic mistake of nationalism: the Jews believed, Werfel wrote, that they were compelled to prove that they, too, could “do the same thing they have so despised and mocked in other nations.”

After his stay:

...The journey through Old Testament lands shocked Werfel into an intense preoccupation with his Jewish origins that went far beyond his admitted interest in Israel’s religion and history. In the months following his return from the Middle East, he spent time almost every day reading about Jewish history, customs, and rituals; he relearned Hebrew, written and spoken, and studied German translations of the books of the Old Testament and the Talmud....
-   -   -

...He took daily walks through the narrow streets of the Old City, returning over and over again to the places of worship of the world’s three monotheistic religions. He met the Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem; talked to physicians, architects, and philosophers, arguing with them about the pros and cons of Zionism; and visited numerous agricultural schools and cooperatives in the countryside surrounding Jerusalem.
_________

P.S.

From his wife's diary:

From Cairo we went to Palestine. Our train reached the border at El Cantara about midnight; it was icy cold, and a gale blew us along the platform as we got out for the strict passport and customs inspection. The Russian Jew who was to help us looked gloomy. We asked why. "Only five Jews today," he explained. "You two, and three others."  I said this meant that only four Jews had arrived - because I was a Gentile.  "Never mind," he said severely. "You're coming here with Herr Werfel, so you're Jewish." My attempt to talk him out of his chauvinism failed. 

More:



_________________

UPDATE



Some of Mann’s friends were astonished that he could maintain his friendship with Alma when he had been such a prominent opponent of Nazism. After all, she was an unrepentant anti-Semite who spoke openly and often of her preference for Aryans and her disappointment with Jews, even though she had married two of them, Mahler and Werfel. At a social event in California in 1942, when Werfel was still alive, she had been heard remarking that the Nazis had done ‘a great many praiseworthy things’ and that the concentration camps were ‘fabrications put out by the refugees’...Werfel remained tied to her, almost against his will. He hated her infidelity and her anti-Semitic outbursts – ‘we’re tearing one another to shreds,’ he lamented in one letter – but somehow always came back for more...
...Hilmes is the first of Alma’s biographers to treat her anti-Semitism and belief in her own godliness as driving forces in her life, rather than a form of unthinking prejudice. In The Bride of the Wind (1991) – the title is taken from the famous swirling Kokoschka painting of himself in bed with Alma – Susanne Keegan presented Alma’s anti-Semitism as tangential to her personality: a ‘tasteless’ aberration. Keegan noted that she had many Jewish friends and treated Jewish men such as Schönberg and Mahler as ‘honorary Gentiles’, if they were brilliant and creative enough. Hilmes puts a rather different gloss on it...

...In the diaries that Hilmes has uncovered, Alma is far more unguarded in her frequent expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment. She calls Canetti a ‘half-crippled, nihilistic Jew’ and writes warmly of a meeting with Hitler, when, under the influence of a bottle of champagne, she admired his ‘kindly, soft eyes’. As Hilmes sees it, Alma deliberately sought out relationships with talented but ugly Jewish men so that she could lord it over them. She would try to improve them, even sanctify them with her love, and when this failed she would feel contempt for them. When the initial glow of feeling for Werfel wore off, in 1924, she wrote that he ‘has shrunk back down to the short, ugly, fat Jew’ that he was when they first met. Her anti-Semitism was so deep-rooted that it applied even to her own children. She favoured Manon, the ‘Aryan’ child of Gropius, over Anna, the surviving child from her marriage to Mahler. When Manon died, aged 17, she lamented the death of ‘an angel’: Manon was her own ‘posterity in the purist form’. When she told the writer Claire Goll that she had lost her only daughter, Goll responded, ‘But Alma … don’t you have two others as well?’ to which Alma said: ‘Yes, but those two are both half-breeds.’ In her diary, she was more merciless still about Anna, lamenting her misfortune that ‘a 150 per cent Jewess had been born from my womb.’
Many women have aspired to ‘conquer’ men. Some have sought to be muses, under the impression that enabling a man’s creative work is itself a form of genius. It takes a strange personality indeed – something more than Hilmes’s ‘hysteric’ – to see it as her mission to inspire powerful Jewish men to worship her in order that she could then liberate them from their Jewishness. Alma recorded in her diary in 1914 that she ‘quivered with joy’ when a friend of hers, a professor of cultural history, remarked that she had led Mahler away from Judaism. ‘That was what I always felt, but I was even happier when I finally heard the word from someone else! I made him brighter. So my presence in his life was a mission accomplished after all!? That alone I always wanted, all my life! To make people brighter.’

...She behaved with the conviction – calcified by alcohol, a habit she deemed Aryan, often berating the Jews around her for not drinking enough – that she was performing God’s will.

This played out most blatantly in her relationship with Werfel. Alma’s dislike of his Jewishness was a source of tension from the outset. There were happy moments, when she sat at the piano playing Bach for him – she refused to play for anyone but her husband. But then there were the other times, when she shouted at him for being a ‘weakling’ – for taking the side of the Spanish democratic government against Franco, for example – or yelled at him in front of dinner guests: ‘Don’t forget, I’m not a Jew! I’m not a Jew!’ So far as she was concerned, the lack of sensitivity was all on Werfel’s side, as he failed to understand the sacrifices she had made for him in leaving her Christian life in Vienna behind. One year, Alma and Werfel spent the Christmas holidays with their friend Paul von Zsolnay on the Italian Riviera. Christmas Eve, she told her diary, was happy for the two Jews but ‘very sad’ for her because ‘nobody took any notice of the thirsting Christian woman yearning to bring back her childhood.’

In August 1945, Werfel suffered a fatal heart attack, aged 54. Alma did not attend the funeral – ‘I never go to those things,’ she said – but she is known to have helped Georg Moenius, the Catholic priest who performed the ceremony, to write the funeral address. In it, Moenius rather curiously spoke of the different kinds of baptism that were possible: baptism by water, baptism by emergency and finally ‘baptism by desire’, when in the last moments before death someone can become a Christian ‘by the mere force of this desire’ without any explicit rites. The suggestion – never absolutely confirmed – is that Alma finally forced on the ailing Werfel (who had so often affirmed his Jewish faith) a baptism by desire, a desire that was actually all hers. If she willed something enough, it must be so. If a symphony should have been arranged differently, if a man should have held different beliefs, if any artist needed brightening, it was Alma’s Christian calling to intervene.

In her eighties, Alma, now living in Manhattan, was in very poor health. She had a weak heart and after several mild strokes seemed confused...The old lady’s New York doctors diagnosed diabetes and urged her to cut down on the drink, but she rejected both the diagnosis and the advice. Since diabetes, in Alma’s view, was a Jewish disease, she couldn’t possibly have it...
^

'Staying Human', Palestine-Style

I received a report on the activities of Mazin Qumsiyeh





a Professor (director of the main clinical cytogenetics laboratory) and also Director of the "Palestine Museum of Natural History", whose mission is to

work to research, educate about, and conserve our natural world, culture and heritage and use knowledge to promote responsible human interactions with our environment

During the last seven days, the report notes, there were visits by delegations of internationals (a German group, an Italian group, a group of mixed academics, mother and grand-daughter from the US, etc), with "good talks" by Karl Sabbagh, an author who engages in "partisan debunking of Jewish claims to the land", and by Miko Peled, resident Israeli (sone of extreme left-winger Matti Peled, brother of Nurit).  It is located at Mar Andreas campus of Bethlehem University in Al-Karkafa neighborhood below the Paradise Hotel and above ARIJ (Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem). 

Here's from the report:

The lecture by Miko Peled was particularly insightful as he explained how peace is impossible with Zionists as they hold racist genocidal ideas integral the make-up of Zionism. He explained how it is not true that Oslo process failed; on the contrary it was a brilliant success that accomplished exactly what it intended to accomplish: normalize theft and ethnic cleansing and create a quisling Palestinian Authority (subcontractor to the occupation).

We are saddened to see the unfolding events in Baltimore, USA and the devastating earthquake in Nepal. It was disgusting to see the Israeli apartheid regime claim doing humanitarian aid in Nepal (also securing “Israeli” babies born to surrogate mothers). The media stunt is sick especially considering the devastating destruction Israel inflicted on the people of Gaza and still preventing humanitarian relief from 1.7 million imprisoned people in Gaza (most of them refugees ethnically cleansed by the fascist Israeli regime).

The report ends:

Of course we welcome you in Palestine anytime: join us in the struggle or to visit and learn.  Stay human )

"Human"?

^


Monday, April 27, 2015

Another Reuters Roil

Just caught this:

(Reuters- Israel invited bids on Monday to construct 77 new homes in two settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem, drawing a swift Palestinian condemnation. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said the planned projects were a violation of international law and showed Israel was not interested in peace.
Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors and opposes settlement-building on land Palestinians seek for a state, said only tenders for 18 of the 77 units were new, and the others were reissued after previous offers were not taken up.
The Israel Lands Authority said 41 of the homes are to be built in Pisgat Ze'ev and 36 in Neve Yaakov, where 63,000 Israelis already live.  The two settlements comprise mainly apartment blocs and are defined by Israel as integral neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

Well, are they homes or apartments?  And 63,000 residents.  Does that sound like a "settlement" to you?  At least they noted Peac Now's opposition stance.

And as for Neveh Yaakov, one would presume that someone at Reuters is intelligent to review this material and add a line of history:

Neve Yaakov...was established in 1924 on a 65 dunams (0.065 km2; 0.025 sq mi) parcel of land purchased from the Arabs of Beit Hanina...Until they were abandoned in 1948, Neve Yaakov and Atarot were the only Jewish settlements north of the Old City.

The first houses were ready for occupancy in Av (summer) 1925...The village, home to 150 families, suffered from financial problems and lack of a regular water supply...the inhabitants of Neve Yaakov were attacked during the 1929 Palestine riots, and many families returned to the Old City...When the Jordanian Arab Legion advanced toward Jerusalem from the north during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Neve Yaakov and Atarot* were abandoned in the wake of advance warning that they were about to be attacked. The region was occupied by the Jordanians until 1967 until after the Six-Day War, when Israel captured the Old City and environs.

I especially note the use of "occupation" for the period of Jordanian rule. 

Cannot the media unlock itself from prejudicial concepts, do homework and question the narratives groups and people push?

_________

*


In 1912, the Palestine Land Development Corporation (PLDC) purchased land in the hills north of Jerusalem from the neighbouring Arab village of Kalandia.  In 1914 the tract was settled by Zionist youth of the Second Aliyah...After the outbreak of World War I, the project was abandoned until 1922, when a group of workers returned to the area to continue reclamation and planting work. This group leased some of the land to local Arabs and acquired more tracts for settlement. The plan was to ready the land for sale to individuals and groups. When the venture proved unsuccessful, the Jewish National Fund bought 375 dunams of the best land. It was on this land that Atarot was established. 

^

Sunday, April 26, 2015

"Some" History a la the NYRB

I found this encapsulation in a book review in the far-left NY Review of Books

In 1929, when some Palestinian Arabs organized a violent opposition to Jewish settlement and killed some Jews, the British colonial government suppressed the rebellion and enforced a peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs. 

A.  That first "some" included thousands of Arabs across the entire country.

B.  That second "some" was 133 Jews, almost 70 of them in Hebron, brutally and violently done to death.

C.  That enforced suppression didn't last more than a few months.  And there was no peaceful coexistence.

Did you expect better editing from the NYRB?

^

Another Sterling Biased NYTimes Headline

Diaa Hadid of the New York Times gets the essence of the story in her first lead-in paragraph on April 25, 2015

JENIN, West Bank — Two Palestinian men were fatally shot by the Israeli police after attacking officers with knives, one at a contested shrine in the West Bank and the other at a checkpoint near East Jerusalem, a police spokeswoman said Saturday.
It could have been written also:

After attacking officers with knives in separate incidents, two male Arab residents of the West Bank were fatally shot by the Israeli police.

But what really bothers me is, of course, the headline (for which the correspondent/reporter usually is not responsible)

Israeli Police Officers Kill Two Palestinian Men

and the dateline, Jenin.

The headline has the story backwards.  The headline permits a reader to assume that, out of the blue, the evil Zionist jackbooted military personnel picked off an Arab or two, for fun.

The dateline has nothing to do with the events:

The first shooting took place at the Zayyim checkpoint on the outskirts of East Jerusalem late Friday...The second shooting occurred on Saturday near the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron,..

Odd.

P.S.  In this third incident no one was shot, killed or wounded but the Mayor's car got stoned:

Also on Saturday, a man wounded three Israeli police officers when he struck them with his car, Ms. Samri said. She said the incident appeared to be an intentional attack. It occurred near Mr. Abu Ghannam’s neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

^

Friday, April 24, 2015

More Tolkien's Jewish-Themed Content

I've mentioned the employment of Jewish themes in Tolkien's work beefore and I found another:-

Some Tolkien scholars have linked the Arkenstone with an allegory of the Jewish ark of the covenant, making it the most longed for possession of a folk displaced from their spiritual homeland



(I'm watching The Hobbit on Dubai One).


^

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The NYTimes' Diaa Hadid and the Wicked Witches of the Waqf

CAMERA has already criticized the piece in the New York Times on the ladies who I started calling the "Wicked Witches of the Waqf" back in March 2013 (and several more times).

What Diaa Hadid does not manage to include or mention-in-passing, and which I found insulting and not only unprofessional journalism, is the violence of these women, especially, for example, against infant children last year just after Pesach, including verbal insults and threats, spitting and actually hitting.  It was filmed. This wasn't the only instance.  Here they are this morning.  They are there now every day. All she does is quote an spokesman:


Mr. Rosenfeld said, the women have progressed from chanting at Jewish visitors to chasing them;

He said, they said.

The are violating the human rights and the law in what they are doing.  They are actively interfering with this paragraph of Israel's Law for the Protection of the Holy Places:

Whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

And as I have pointed out previously, Muslims are seeking, no less than Jews, to return in Spain to places they hold holy (and suspected of threatening with terror) but they will not tolerate Jews seeking what they do. They demand heritage recognition but Jews are not equal to them. Hadad couldn't include that interesting aspect?

She also writes this:


A small group of religious Jews have for years sought to pray at the site, and more Jews have visited in the past few years, increasing tensions 

It's the fault of the Jews - not of the intolerant Muslims, who cannot even share (unless they are forced to as in Hebron), or even recognize the Jewish historical past and heritage of the site, who have no though of religious coexistence.  The Jews are bothering the Muslims, the Muslims who conquered Jerusalem and originally honored the location of the Temple and permitted Jews to visit.

But at the least, she notes an alteration of the status quo - in favor of the Muslims -


“they have changed the dynamic.”

And, for the readers with sensitive reactions, she includes this:

a woman hollered — “Settlers!” — referring to religious Jews

Prejuducial identification attitudes there.  And she does note this:

One older woman, in particular, called Jews pigs and apes.

But draws no conclusions from langauge like this to thinking on Jews to actions against Jews.

^

What Is He Looking At?

Instead of looking and recording all the building violations and possible damage to historical antiquities on the Temple Mount, the policeman seems to be only interested in her:-




^

800,000 Is A 'Lucky' Number

From story one:

Since 1967, approximately 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to a joint report by the Palestinian Authority and the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

From story two:

Prisoners Day is marked every year in solidarity with the more than 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. ‘We will not leave our prisoners in jail alone,’ rally organiser Abdullah Abu Rahma said.  ‘We will defend their right to be released, because the majority of them have been arrested illegally by Israeli forces.’  With Israel having arrested some 800,000 Palestinians in the occupied territories since 1967 – equivalent to 40 percent of the male population – almost every Palestinian family has been affected.

Either they are making things up, or they are fixated on the number 800,000 or they can't count.

P.S.  Or they can't tell the difference between humans and trees?

^

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Why Not Label?

Just read this:

The foreign ministers from 16 out of 28 European Union countries sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini asking her to push forward the process of labeling goods produced in Israeli settlements that are sold in grocery chains across the continent.

Why not?

Only, please, the label should read:

MADE IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA
THE HEART OF THE JEWISH HOMELAND

I think the sales would increase.

^

and from Israellycool.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

If Stalin Was Surprised, Imagine Obama's Reaction

If Stalin was surprised when Hitler broke the Pact, imagine Obama's reaction to Iran (God forbid):-


Stalin ordered many friendly gestures toward Germany, including speeding up the deliveries of Soviet products there. He did not in the least react to a warning from Churchill about a prospective German attack against the Soviet Union. During the ten days before the Nazi invasion—all kinds of information about the German threat notwithstanding—Stalin did his best or, rather, his worst, to affirm his faith in Hitler and in Germany. I do not know of a single instance of such abject behavior (for that is what it was) by a statesman of a great power.
The German attack shocked Stalin into silence at first. (Molotov’s words after the German declaration of war were also telling: “Did we deserve this?”) Stalin’s first orders for the Soviet army were not to respond at all. It took him hours after the invasion—until noon—before he ordered the army to resist.
There is still a controversy about how shaken he was during the first days of the Nazi onslaught. Eventually he pulled himself together. On July 3, 1941—eleven days after the German invasion—he addressed the peoples of the Soviet Union as a patriot. By that time some Nazi troops were more than one hundred miles inside the western Soviet Union and advancing toward Moscow.

^

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Shiloh and Carbon14

Page 266:

The richest Iron I pottery assemblage in the highlands of Cisjordan was unearthed in Stratum V at Shiloh (Bunimovitz and Finkelstein 1993). This settlement came to an end in an exceptionally heavy conflagration, which left destruction debris of over 1 m thick. This Shiloh V assemblage can be labelled middle Iron I (Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2006a), as it falls between the earliest post-Egyptian-domination Iron I pottery groups, and the terminal phase of the Iron I in the lowlands. Several samples of carbonized grain found in two silos which belong to this stratum provided a calibrated date of 1056–1008 BC (1081–1032 BC according to the Bayesian model). Albright (1929) affiliated this destruction layer with the aftermath of the Israelite defeat in the battle of Eben-ezer, related in 1 Samuel 4. Though the First Book of Samuel may preserve memories from the formative phase in the history of Ancient Israel (for instance, regarding the importance of Shiloh – a site which was not inhabited in the later days of the Iron Age when the biblical material was put in writing), there is no way to verify the historicity of the story of the battle of Eben-ezer. 

^

The 'We Didn't See A Thing' Alter-Reality


Locals told Ma'an that Israeli forces also raided several areas surrounding Ramallah including Sinjil, Turmusayya, al-Luban al-Sharqiya, and al-Luban al-Gharbiya.  Israeli forces detained seven Palestinian youths and took them to identify the suspect's body, but none were able to identify him, witnesses said. The suspect was not been carrying an ID card.

Some of the youths taken to identify the body said the suspect was injured with a bullet in the head, and that there was a "clean knife with no blood on it" next to him.

"Clean"?

There are two soldiers wounded from stab wounds.

Do Arabs always deny reality?

The site (the red X) of the attack and nearby Arab villages and Jewish communities:



_______________-

Naftali Bennett's reaction.

Obama's 'Bar Mitzva Present'


STEVE INSKEEP: So many of the concerns and questions about the Iran deal seem to me to focus on what kind of a country you think Iran is.

People are asking, "what will happen in 10 or 15 years as the deal starts to expire," or they're asking "what will Iran do in the region during the period of the deal?"

All of those concerns seem to get down to the nature of the government itself, which makes me begin this by asking: Do you believe that Iran's government is a government that is capable of changing its ways?

OBAMA:  ... Let me flip the question, Steve...We're now in a position where Iran has agreed to unprecedented inspections and verifications of its program, providing assurances that it is peaceful in nature. You have them rolling back a number of pathways that they currently have available to break out and get a nuclear weapon. You have assurances that their stockpile of highly enriched uranium remains in a place where they cannot create a nuclear weapon.

And that lasts not only for the first 10 years, but the inspections and verifications that are unprecedented go for another decade after that.

Now, ideally, we would see a situation in which Iran, seeing sanctions reduced, would start focusing on its economy, on training its people, on reentering the world community, to lessening its provocative activities in the region.

But if it doesn't change, we are so much better if we have this deal in place than if we don't.

And so I'm not trying to avoid your question. I — I think that there are different trends inside of Iran.

I think there are hard-liners inside of Iran that think it is the right thing to do to oppose us, to seek to destroy Israel, to cause havoc in places like Syria or Yemen or Lebanon. And then I think there are others inside Iran who think that this is counterproductive. And it is possible that if we sign this nuclear deal, we strengthen the hand of those more moderate forces inside of Iran.

But the key point I want to make is, the deal is not dependent on anticipating those changes. If they don't change at all, we're still better off having the deal.

INSKEEP: But you raise a very interesting point there when you're talking about Iran's enriched uranium.

Most of its enriched uranium is supposed to be set off to the side and diluted; it may, however, remain inside Iran. Eventually, the deal expires. Perhaps the uranium is still there, which is why...

... where the regime changes is a significant question.

OBAMA: Actually, that's not how it works, Steve, because once you've diluted a process or...

INSKEEP: It can't be...

OBAMA ... stockpiles have — have maintained at 300 kilograms or below, they're not going to have been able to horde a bunch of uranium that somehow they then convert to weapons-grade uranium.

What is a more relevant fear would be that in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.

Keep in mind, though, currently, the breakout times are only about two to three months by our intelligence estimates. So essentially, we're purchasing for 13, 14, 15 years assurances that the breakout is at least a year ... that — that if they decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go for a bomb, we'd have over a year to respond. And we have those assurances for at least well over a decade.

And then in years 13 and 14, it is possible that those breakout times would have been much shorter, but at that point we have much better ideas about what it is that their program involves. We have much more insight into their capabilities. And the option of a future president to take action if in fact they try to obtain a nuclear weapon is undiminished.

So, it's a hard argument to make that we're better off right now having almost no breakout period, no insight, and letting them rush towards a bomb, than saying, over the course of 15 years, we have very clear assurances that they're not going to do anything.

And at that, at the end of that period, maybe they've changed, maybe they haven't. If they haven't changed, we still have the options available to me — or available to a future president that I have available to me right now.

INSKEEP: Obviously, the tradeoff for the concessions on the nuclear program is the lifting of many sanctions against Iran.

OBAMA: Yes.

A friend wrote to me this:

the President brought up the issue - the 13-year 0 breakout time scenario - as a way to dodge a question about letting Iran keep its stockpile. What could he possibly be so afraid of on the stockpile issue, that he would instead talk about how a decade from now Iran will be able to go nuclear at will?

Thirteen years, you know, marks a Bar Mitzva.


^

Najis

Consider this:

Najis Things
Issue 84: * The following ten things are essentially najis:
• Urine
• Faeces
• Semen
• Dead body
• Blood
• Dog
• Pig
Kafir


Najis?

In Islamic law, najis are things or persons regarded as ritually unclean. According to Islam, there are two kinds of najis: the essential najis which cannot be cleaned and the unessential najis which become najis while in contact with another najis.  Contact with najis things brings a Muslim into a state of ritual impurity (in opposition to ṭahārah, ritual purity). 

Kafir?

Najis things » Kafir
107. An infidel i.e. a person who does not believe in Allah and His Oneness, is najis. Similarly, Ghulat who believe in any of the holy twelve Imams as God, or that they are incarnations of God, and Khawarij and Nawasib who express enmity towards th e holy Imams, are also najis. And similar is the case of those who deny Prophethood, or any of the necessary laws of Islam, like, namaz and fasting, which are believed by the Muslims as a part of Islam, and which they also know as such. As regards the people of the Book (i.e. the Jews and the Christians) who do not accept the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah (Peace be upon him and his progeny), they are commonly considered najis, but it is not improbable that they are Pak. Ho wever, it is better to avoid them.

108. The entire body of a Kafir, including his hair and nails, and all liquid substances of his body, are najis.

109. If the parents, paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather of a minor child are all kafir, that child is najis, except when he is intelligent enough, and professes Islam. When, even one person from his parents or grandparents is a Muslim, the child is Pak (The details will be explained in rule 217)...


^

Wrongly Written Headline

The headline reads:


Palestinian Shot Dead After Stabbing 

Two Israeli Soldiers In West Bank


Now, why couldn't that have been written so:


After Stabbing Two Israeli Soldiers 

Near Shiloh Arab Attacker Shot Dead


Well, why not?

_______________________

Well, here is the headline for Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smit's story in The Independent:



Palestinian shot dead after stabbing 
two Israeli solders in the West Bank


At least the JTA did it correctly:


2 Israeli soldiers stabbed in West Bank, attacker killed


BBC did it the wrong way:


Palestinian killed after stabbing two Israeli soldiers




^

Marie Ha-Ha Harf on Iran's Centrifuges

.





The context:

QUESTION: May – I just want to follow up on the inspections. I asked you yesterday about precedent, if there is any precedent --

MS. HARF: Yes.

QUESTION: -- that the IAEA could follow. Absent precedent – or maybe there is in Iraq precedent – by the way, this reminds me of the Iraq (inaudible).

MS. HARF: This is amazing.

QUESTION: So how would they do it? I mean, they would have offices, they would come like in (inaudible)? How would they do it?

MS. HARF: In terms of the centrifuge storage – I’m trying not to laugh; this is just amusing to me – but in terms of the centrifuge storage, so they will be stored by – they will not – excuse me. The centrifuges will not be stored by the IAEA. It will be stored under IAEA surveillance and monitoring. And yesterday I said they will be stored in facilities that are monitored by the IAEA. They – we have confidence in their ability to do this. I don’t have more details for you on where else they might have done this – in other countries, I think you’re asking, right?

GraphicZionism: How Wonderful the World Is

.




BTW.

^

Medad's Rule #1 in the Arab-Israel Israel Conflict

Medad's Rule #1 in the Arab-Israel Israel Conflict: 

In the final analysis, Arabs kill more Arabs than the number of Arabs claimed killed by the "Zionists".

Latest example:

Syria says it is ready to offer Palestinians its firepower to support their battle with the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group, which has besieged a Palestinian refugee camp near the capital Damascus.  ISIL, which currently controls parts of Iraq and Syria, launched an attack on the Yarmouk refugee camp in southwestern Syria on April 1...On Tuesday, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad met with a delegation from the umbrella group of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by Ahmad Majdalani.

"Syrian authorities are ready to support the Palestinian fighters in a number of ways, including militarily, to push ISIL out of the camp," said PLO official Anwar Abdul Hadi, who was at the meeting.

More rules to follow as I develop them.

The next one will be based on this:

A Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has condemned the Arab world for its silence on the ISIL militants' attacks and takeover of parts of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria...More than 1,000 Palestinians have been reportedly killed since the ISIL took over some 90 percent of the camp, Press TV reported.

Ahmed Tibi, a member of the Arab Joint List party, called the ISIL attack on the Palestinian refugee camp “a crime against humanity” and condemned the international community, particularly the Arab countries, for remaining silent on the deadly violence in Yarmouk.

Rule #2:

The Arab world cares much less about the issue of 'Palestine' than the Jews.


^

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

A Portrayal of History

How can history be twisted?

One example, from The King's Speech:


Christopher Hitchens and Isaac Chotiner challenged the film's portrayal of Winston Churchill's role in the abdication crisis. It is well established that Churchill encouraged Edward VIII to resist pressure to abdicate, whereas he is portrayed in the film as strongly supportive of Prince Albert and not opposed to the abdication. Hitchens attributes this treatment to the "cult" surrounding Churchill's legacy. In a smart, well-made film, "would the true story not have been fractionally more interesting for the audience?" he wondered. They also criticised the film for failing to indict the appeasement of the era. While the film never directly mentions the issue, Hitchens and Chotiner argue that it implies that George VI was against appeasement, especially in the final scene portraying "Churchill and the King at Buckingham Palace and a speech of unity and resistance being readied for delivery". Far from distancing himself from Chamberlain's appeasement policy, King George VI dispatched a car to meet Neville Chamberlain when he returned from signing the Munich Agreement with Hitler in September 1938. The King and Chamberlain then stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, acclaimed by cheering crowds. This led historian Steven Runciman to write that by acting as he did to endorse Chamberlain's foreign policy, King George VI perpetrated "the biggest constitutional blunder that has been made by any sovereign this century."

How will today's appeasers be portrayed?



Monday, April 06, 2015

The Obama 'Iffy' Speech


This week, together with our allies and partners, we reached an historic understanding with Iran, which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and make our country, our allies, and our world safer.
This framework is the result of tough, principled diplomacy. It’s a good deal -- a deal that meets our core objectives, including strict limitations on Iran’s program and cutting off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon.
This deal denies Iran the plutonium necessary to build a bomb. It shuts down Iran’s path to a bomb using enriched uranium. Iran has agreed that it will not stockpile the materials needed to build a weapon. Moreover, international inspectors will have unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear program because Iran will face more inspections than any other country in the world. If Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification.
And this is a long-term deal, with strict limits on Iran’s program for more than a decade and unprecedented transparency measures that will last for 20 years or more. And as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.
In return for Iran’s actions, the international community, including the United States, has agreed to provide Iran with phased relief from certain sanctions. If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place. Meanwhile, other American sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, its human rights abuses, its ballistic missile program, all will continue to be enforced.
As I said this week, many key details will need to be finalized over the next three months, and nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed. And if there is backsliding, there will be no deal.
Here in the United States, I expect a robust debate. We’ll keep Congress and the American people fully briefed on the substance of the deal. As we engage in this debate, let’s remember—we really only have three options for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program: bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities—which will only set its program back a few years—while starting another war in the Middle East; abandoning negotiations and hoping for the best with sanctions—even though that’s always led to Iran making more progress in its nuclear program; or a robust and verifiable deal like this one that peacefully prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
As President and Commander in Chief, I firmly believe that the diplomatic option—a comprehensive, long-term deal like this—is by far the best option. For the United States. For our allies. And for the world.
Our work -- this deal -- is not yet done. Diplomacy is painstaking work. Success is not guaranteed. But today we have an historic opportunity to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in Iran, and to do so peacefully, with the international community firmly behind us. And this will be our work in the days and months ahead in keeping with the best traditions of American leadership.

So, it's all iffy?

If only Obama wasn't president.

^

Iran and The Wife Who Slit Her Husband's Throat

I'm serious.

If you do not think that Iran is serious about eliminating Israel and that it is rational, read this news item and replace, where appropriate, the words wife/woman with Iran and husband with Israel:


DILLONVALE, Ohio – A Dillonvale woman charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault after authorities say she claimed she was dreaming about filleting a fish when she sliced her husband's throat in his sleep went before a Jefferson County judge for her arraignment Monday. Bond was set at half a million dollars for Judy Jones, 44, in a shocking case of domestic violence that authorities say could have ended in murder if the couple’s daughter hadn’t acted. "She made threats that she was going to kill him,” Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla said. “And she almost did early Saturday morning. So she's been charged now with the prosecutor handling the case got her charged with felony 1s and 2 for attempted murder and aggravated assault." This all happened at the family's home at 19 2nd Street in Dillionvale and Abdalla said this isn’t the first time Judy Jones thought about killing her husband.

My point?

One would think people just do not do these things.

But they do.

And Iran will seek to attack Israel when convenient and continue its terrorism program to destabilize the Middle East and then attack, eventually, the democratic West.

It has happened before.

It will happen again.




Friday, April 03, 2015

Jeremy (J Street) Ben-Ami Coming to the West Bank

Really.  He'll be on the West Bank:


Jeremy Ben-Ami, president and founder of J Street, will speak on “Prospects for Arab-Israeli Peace in the Wake of the Israeli Elections” 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 14
 in the Humphrey Forum
 at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 
301 19th Ave. S., on the U of M West Bank campus, in Minneapolis.  Ben-Ami will be joined by Humphrey School Professor Brian Atwood, chair of Global Policy and former dean.

I presume the construction and residency there on that West Bank is legal?


(kippa tip: JW) 

-----------------------------

A response:



__________________

Seems that George Washington University also has a problem with J Street.

^

Fifth Seder Question

Why is this deal any different than any previous one?




^

"Droves" Follow-up

Peace Index Poll finding:

“The Arabs are voting in droves”: We looked into the level of opposition or support for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s call to the Jewish population on election day to go out and vote since, with “the Arabs voting in droves,” the right was in danger of losing. The Jewish public is definitely divided on this question. Forty-eight percent think the criticism of the prime minister’s words is justified while 47% feel it is unjustified.

Oh, and

only 13% of the Jewish public thinks Netanyahu sincerely supports a two-state solution. Twenty-two percent believe that he indeed supports this solution but views it as infeasible in the near future, while the majority (52%) says that he does not sincerely support this solution. 

^

Thursday, April 02, 2015

Temple Mount Construction - Illegal? Or Not?

There's a new structure, albeit not that large, inside the Temple Mount.

Not Jewish, though.


I do not know if they have a building license and doubt they do and am pretty sure they didn't ask for one but if anyone knows - and that goes to all my Muslim Waqf friends reading this - let me know.

In any case, this poster, borderline satire but which led to the arrest of two activists who were placing them on the walls of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City,


asks, nicely, that the Temple Mount compound by vacated by seven o'clock tonight so that the necessary construction for the Paschal Sacrifice could begin.

The vagaries of life.

^

Another Novel With A Temple Mount Theme

I have noted the many novels in this last decade or so that incoporate the Temple Mount as a main theme (TV series not counted).

Here is yet another:




From the blurb:

Moments before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the seven Archangels remove powerful, ancient artefacts from the Jewish temple. These are given into the safekeeping of seven men. Throughout the ages, these men and their descendants become known as the Seven Sentinels.

^

GraphicZionism: Kerry's Iranian Progress

.




^

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Iran's Negotiating Stance

.




^

By The Sweat Of Our Brows We Live

The vagaries of political history and semantics.

Back in 2000, you could read this

Middle East peace was given the slimmest of second chances yesterday after President Bill Clinton browbeat Israel and the Palestinians to agree to end the violence.

In 2013, you could read this:

Obama, a Democrat, never enamored himself to the Israeli people, nor to their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.  The U.S. leader was accused of trying to browbeat Israel into making concessions to the Palestinians, particularly in his efforts to halt settlement-building in the occupied West Bank, and of refusing to impose red lines on Iran's atomic project.

Back in 1992, Bill Clinton told the New York Community Relations Council that he would not

browbeat Israel

Here:



He had accused President Bush Sr. of doing that:

in 1992 candidate Clinton ostentatiously denounced George Bush for coddling dictators and for having "chosen to browbeat Israel, the region's sole democracy, while nurturing ties to Syria's despotic regime." 

Even Tom Friedman of the NYTimes recorded it. The term was pronounced in Clinton's second major foreign policy address of the election campaign a Manhattan hotel five days before the New York primary before the Foreign Policy Association in early April.

Last month, it was Hillary Clinton's turn at browbeating admission:

Clinton has called Netanyahu a “complicated figure” and admitted that, as secretary of state, “I was often the designated yeller,” browbeating Netanyahu as she represented the Obama administration’s insistence that Netanyahu make concessions to Israel’s enemies.

Oh, and the term has been used again to describe President Obama's actions, like here:

...after the Obama administration browbeat Israel into accepting a separate inquiry by a panel appointed by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the HRC investigation continued. That’s what “fair and balanced” means at the U.N.: two panels, one biased, one supposedly not.

And in a phone call to Netanyahu.  A Republican congressman used the term:

Allen West, a Republican running against Democratic Rep. Ron Klein in Florida's 22nd District, said Obama was "browbeating" Israel.

I guess we Israelis are still livining by the sweat of our brows

^