World War I Photographs ands Stories of Samaria

Photographs from the Australian Calvary Campaign * in Samaria in 1918:

A wadi in Samaria

Just outside of Shchem

Jenin

and the Mas'udiyeh Railway station, the site of the first attempt in Samaria to establish Elon Moreh (read Chapter 2 here).

On the Battle of Turmos Aya, nearby Shiloh.  Here's from a research effort:

...the 12th March 1918, when the 1/4th Battalion [of the Northamptonshire Regiment] was in a major action at El Mezeirah Ridge, named 'Operation Wadi Deir Ballut'; part of the 'Actions of Mount Tell Asur (to the Turks 'The Battle of Turmus Aya). Here again the Turks were repulsed.

And a second description:

During the next night the 53rd Division made a substantial advance, and by 9 o'clock on the morning of March 11 had crossed the wadi Kola and had established themselves 3000 yards north of it. The 231st Brigade still advancing on the eastern side of the Nablus road had to face desperately bad country in the darkness of the night, and their trials were increased by heavy rain and sticky ground. Nevertheless they managed to get to the tomb of Sheikh Salim, not far from the 53rd Division's advanced post, by 11 o'clock. It was not possible for the 230th Brigade to move, and only
after extraordinary exertions were they able to send
rations to the men in the line. The 231st Brigade could not drive its attack right home to its objective because the position of the 53rd Division left the right flank open, but about midday the brigade gained touch with the 230th Brigade and began an advance on Turmus Aya, a little village almost
abreast of Sinjil. On the flat surrounding Turmus Aya there was no cover and our line had to be withdrawn slightly. When the 230th Brigade got on the move it made a rapid advance, and, though under continuous shell fire, won the ridge overlooking Sinjil from the west, compelling the Turks to abandon that place. The 10th and 74tli Divisions were ordered to consolidate the positions gained, the 53rd Division pushing forward again during the night and reaching
all their objectives by the morning of the 12th with the exception of Amurieh. We held these positions for months afterwards and there never was a fear that the enemy could break through them.

Landscape of Ein-Sinyeh and Yabroud:-

________

*

The Middle East campaign began in 1916 with Australian troops participating in the defence of the Suez Canal and the allied reconquest of the Sinai peninsula. In the following year Australian and other allied troops advanced into Palestine and captured Gaza and Jerusalem; by 1918 they had occupied Lebanon and Syria. On 30 October 1918 Turkey sued for peace.

Here, p. 13, is one soldier's list of battles in the area:

8 December 1917 - Battle of Jerusalem
9 December 1917 - Beit Iksa
15 December 1917 - Beit Hanina
21 December 1917 - Wadi Moya
27 December 1917 - Beit Izza
29 December 1917 - Ram Allah capured (now West Bank of Israel)
3 January 1918 - Beit Izza
5 January 1918 - Beit Likia
9 January 1918 - Beit Sira
18 February 1918 - Kurbeha Ibn Harith
4 March 1918 - Balua Lake (near Ram Allah)
9-12 March 1918 - Advanced towards Nablus (Yebrud and Burj Badawile occupied)
13-26 March 1918 - Turmus Aya outpost line
7 April 1918 - Burj Badawile (leaving Palestine)
8 April 1918 - Near Beitunia (Leaving Palastine)
9 April 1918 - Beit Sira (marching to leave Palestine)
10 April 1918 - Kubub
11 April 1918 - Sura Fend near Ludd

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Again, Yesha Communities Skipped Over - No US Music

I've just read that a Greenfield resident Julie Rader Schonbrun travels to Israel, West Bank with band Antigone Rising

It seems "the music of Antigone Rising, the popular New York City-based all-female country/rock band is universal, representing love and peace" and that "The band has opened for such acts as The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, Rob Thomas and The Bangles".

Some of the travel details:

According to the band’s manager, Greenfield resident Julie Rader Schonbrun, that message was “loud and clear from the crowd reactions at each show” during a tour of Israel and the West Bank last month. “It was a mob scene after each show with men, women, boys, girls, clamoring for autographs or photos with the girls,” she said.

Rader Schonbrun traveled with the band, invited through the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Consulate General in Jerusalem as Arts Envoys, a cultural initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. They performed in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Bethlehem and other regional cities, lead community outreach programs and workshops and made music with Israeli and Palestinian musicians.

“We were in awe of being in such a historical place, one of the most sacred places in the world,” Rader Schonbrun said...Antigone Rising performed for Jewish and Arab high school students in Beer Sheva...The band members also did cultural outreach programs/shows every morning with performances at night. They did television and radio appearances at Kol Ha Campus and visited an all-women’s radio station in Ramallah called Niss'A FM.

Kristen Henderson did a station visit to "Good Morning Palestine" in Ramallah. “This station had been bombed a few years back as a direct target as a media center,” Rader Schonbrun said. “They were apologetic that it was never able to be fully rebuilt.”...There was a rap band from one of the Palestinian Refugee camps (they had to be back by curfew at 11 p.m.) that rapped to the Antigone Rising song "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring."

...Rader Schonbrun said. “...We were overwhelmed by the warm and welcoming response we received from Israel and the West Bank. We can't wait to be invited back.”

Video:

And, again, (and again) this cultural/music tour, as have other activities and events, missed the Jewish residential locations in Judea and Samaria. And we have two concert halls - in Ariel and Kiryat Arba - as well as halls in most of the big communities.

I guess the American bodies that dealt with the tour simply discriminate. We aren't worthy enough for such things.

________

From Nina Camp's blog

...the van takes us through east jerusalem and we wind our way along the infamous wall that separates the palestinian cities from the israelite territory. the story of the wall (and of this country) is so vastly complicated that our embassy liaison, try as she might, simply can’t put into words or a timeline just how complicated the situation here really is. at least not in a way that we can truly understand. however, we do start to realize just how real this situation is and how difficult it is for those who are actually living through it. i try to imagine just what it would feel like to have a wall built down 5th avenue in nyc. all of a sudden, it will take 1 hour to get from 5 east 5th to 5 west 5th because there is now a wall separating the two and depending on what side you fall on, you might need a permit to get to the other side. im not trying to get political here and i certainly am not passing judgement, but i feel like regardless of where you fall in this debate (and from the looks of it politicians aren’t even close to getting a solution) for people who are living in it day to day, it’s brutal.


slowly the landscape changes from city to mountainside and before long we are approaching the city of ni’lin. the streets wind so tight i wonder if the van will make it through but eventually we near the top of a hill and come upon a small community center. we know there is a program scheduled where the women of ni’lin have prepared some song and dance for us but nothing could have prepared us for the sight of these women lined up along the steps of the community center waiting for us to arrive.


side note: Nil’in village gained international attention several years ago as they demonstrated (and continue to demonstrate) against the building of the wall and continuous land confiscations by the Israeli state and the ongoing struggle for israel and palestine to find peace.


the sight of these women, many dressed in traditional clothing (sewn and embroidered robes representing their heritage, ancestry, and affiliations), lined up waiting for us was overwhleming. i mean, who the hell are we? we play rock and roll music and they’ve never even heard of us! but here they are ready to share themselves and their culture with us. its really a bit much to wrap your head around.

as we made our way into the room (lined w plastic chairs) we were ushered into the front row. as everyone settled a gorgeous little girl in full traditional dress made her way to me. i dont know why but i smiled at her and made some faces as she stared at me. she was about 4 years old and the daughter of one of the ni’lin women. when i managed to get a smile out of her, i reached out and she jumped right into my arms. why? i do’nt know. but before long she was on my lap and curled into me. i think she was tired and the way i see it, american or not, i must have looked like as good a spot as any for her to curl up and nap.


it is a strange sensation to be stared at. we go to the zoo but seldom are we the “exhibit”. for much of this cultural exchange, that’s what it felt like. at one point i found my way to the bathroom and nearly scared the lights out of a young girl. she wasn’t expecting me to turn the corner and when she looked up, there i was. i mean, she JUMPED. there were plenty of other people around so it wasn’t like i snuck up on her.. it was my american-ness that snuck up on her.


...this blog is hardly enough to really convey what the morning held. the energy and the environment, the women and this conflict that is their lives and the openness with which they shared themselves with us is beyond what words can describe. i feel that as americans we are so jaded and accustomed to life as we know it. we seldom wonder about our borders unless we need to protect them and many of us (myself included) have our faces in our cell phones instead of looking out into the world. today i felt what it might be like for a young girl to be empowered just enough to know that her life probably wont change no matter how hard she tries. today i felt what it might be like to be so proud of your culture that when a music group from america says they will come and play for you, you open your doors so wide that they can’t help but see who you are.


this was just the morning.


after this we went to the church of the nativity. where the sweet baby jesus himself began his sanctified life. all in day’s work right?

what a crazy life this is. to think that sometime during my high school years i decided i wanted to learn how to play guitar and forced my pudgy fingers into a G chord until i could play it up to speed with “closer to fine” on a worn out cassette. this morning i was in the village of ni’lin and followed that up with a walk through the church of the nativity laying my hands on the supposed birth place of jesus christ. THE jesus christ everyone calls to when they are scared to death. THE jesus christ everyone calls when they are pissed off. THE jesus christ everyone calls to when shocked… THAT very same jesus christ!


then cappuccino.


then the concert… in a converted PALACE...

^

NYTimes' 'Aggressive' Stance versus Israel

Here's the headline at the NYTimes website:

U.S. Backers of Israel Pressure Obama Over Policy on Iran

By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — From Congress to a major conference of American Jews and other supporters of Israel, President Obama is being buffeted by calls for a more aggressive posture toward Tehran.

Why "aggressive"?

Why not "realistic"?

Or "firm"?

Or even "confrontational"?

Is the NYTimes in an aggressive mood towards Israel?

Okay, so I know the answer to that. But still....

^

Deep? How Deep?

I received this notice (via  Missing Peace):

EUROPEAN UNION
Brussels, 3 March 2012
A 98/12

Statement by the Spokesperson of the High Representative Catherine Ashton on the closure of two Palestinian television stations

The spokesperson of Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission, issued the following statement today:

“The High Representative is deeply concerned by the incursion into Ramallah by Israeli security forces to seize equipment from the Palestinian television stations, Wattan TV and Al Quds Educational TV...

I was just wondering, what would be an Israeli action that would cause the Lady to be "very deeply concerned" or on the othe rhand, "concerned".

And for that matter, what about "bothered"? "distressed"? "upset"?

Is there a scale of diplomatic expressions and terms? Well, besides this.

^

Why No Precautions?

Reported

A two-week old boy died at a Brooklyn hospital in September after contracting herpes through a religious circumcision ritual that ignited controversy in 2005 after another infant died, the Daily News has learned. The unidentified infant died Sept. 28, 2011, at Maimonides Hospital, according to a spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner, who confirmed the death after a News inquiry. The cause of death was listed as “disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction.” City officials declined to comment Friday. It’s unclear who performed the circumcision.

In 2004, city health officials revealed that a baby boy died after a circumcision carried out by a Rockland County rabbi who specializes in the centuries-old, ultra-Orthodox ritual known as metzizah b’ peh. Under the practice, the rabbi or mohel removes blood from the wound with his mouth — a practice city health officials have criticized, saying it carried “inherent risks” for babies.

As for precautions, there's this approach:

...As for metzitzah, many poskim have sanctioned the use of a pipette in order to reduce the risk of infection. Most of the Gedolei Yisroel, however, have urged that the practice metztitzah b’peh should be continued, notwithstanding several cases of complications which have occurred in recent years. We find that even though the medical basis for metzitzah b’peh is unclear, the gedolim allowed its practice on Shabbos, despite the possibility of chilul shabbos shelo b’makom sakanah. They recognized the dangers of tampering with minhag yisroel. Certainly, the risk of infection is not altered by having the father perform metzitzah; he may be more infectious than the mohel.

As a pediatrician, I will continue to provide my medical opinion only when sought by a rav or a mohel. Parents should consider their own minhagim and involve their rav when selecting a mohel, rather than choose one based on his medical expertise.

Sincerely,

David M. Klein, MD FAAP
Boro Park Pediatric Associates, PLLC
Brooklyn, NY

(Residing in Bayswater, Far Rockaway)

And worse:

...speculation that the Democratic governor-elect may tap New York City health commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden for the state’s top medical post has some Orthodox activists worried.

Crain’s New York Business reported that Frieden’s efforts seem to have caught the eye of the reform-minded Spitzer.
Placing Frieden at the helm of the state health department would likely signal an end to the state’s relatively passive approach to the metzitza b’peh controversy. Earlier this year the state’s current health commissioner, Dr. Antonia Novella, met with Orthodox leaders and announced a set of guidelines that practitioners of metzitza b’peh should use to avoid the transmission of herpes to infants. Those nonbinding guidelines were rejected by Frieden.

“It would alienate a very large faction of our community,” said Rabbi Jacob Spitzer, a Borough Park activist on health-related issues who has met with Frieden to discuss the city’s investigation of neonatal herpes, “I would strongly advise the Spitzer administration to look for another candidate.”

Gaza Man Killed

In a tunnel.

No, not Israel.

A Palestinian man was killed and two others sustained injuries as they fell inside a smuggling tunnel under the border between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip Saturday morning.

Dangerous, those tunnels.


P.S.

At least 14 rockets launched against Israel in the past week.

^

Jews Attacked - By Athiests

As CopyRanter reports:

NYC area Jews and Arabs to be assaulted by these atheism billboards.

The group behind the effort is the American Atheists.

The top board will be erected in Muslim-heavy Paterson, NJ. The bottom one will be going up in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Bets on which one will be destroyed first. I'm going with the Arabic one, probably a suicide bomber will take it out.

But I was the first - I distorted the writing of the Divine Name, the Tetragrammaton, as prescribed ("According to Jewish Orthodox tradition, the Sacred Name is not to be uttered and accordingly, the form "G-d " is used in writing or printing").

^

From the AP to the PA

AP is the Associated Press.

And I am referring to Karin Laub's story on Shvut Rachel and Shiloh.

PA is, of course, the Palestinian Authority.

And the news from there is:

Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Abed-Rabbo, stated that the Palestinian leadership will not return to the negotiations table before Israel halts all of its settlement activities.  He also stated that peace talks must have a clear timetable, and cannot be conducted while Israeli continues its invasions and violations.

...The Palestinian position is coherent with the Quartet statement as it clearly demands Israel to halt its settlement construction and expansion activities in the occupied territories, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem.

Oh, sorry, that was from October 7 last year.

Here's the really new story:

PLO Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo claimed Saturday that Israel is seeking to create a "settler state" in Judea and Samaria instead of a "Palestinian state."  The charge came as Israel legalized the Shvut Rachel community, and announced plans to legalize two neighborhoods in Shilo.

Shvut Rachel and the Shilo neighborhoods were built with government assistance, but without defense ministry permits. Plans to legalize a third such Shilo neighborhood are expected in the coming weeks.

Abed Rabbo said that Israel was continuing to build in settlements "so that it could establish a state for settlers, and not for Palestinians, in the West Bank and Jerusalem."

What was, will be.

^

Rain in Nahal Shiloh; It Pours

Picture from here:

The spot is just west and below Pedu'el. I've marked it in a diamond-shape outline below:

And here is Hebron in the snow.

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A Crucial Washington Week

Netanyahu and Obama.

Saw this trailer?



It's from a new 30-minute video, entitled "Daylight: The Story of Obama and Israel".

Details:

..."He didn't quite have a full grasp of what the full region looks like," conservative journalist Lee Smith is shown saying in the video. "This is not how you treat an ally."

...The video was produced by the group the Emergency Committee for Israel, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on its pre-AIPAC publicity campaign, including posters and billboards all over Washington that question Obama's commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon...ECI is run by executive director Noah Pollak and Michael Goldfarb, a former McCain-Palin staffer now working at the consulting firm Orion Strategies and as chairman of the board of the Washington Free Beacon, an anti-Obama news website...The ECI board is comprised of Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer, who has endorsed Rick Santorum, and Rachel Abrams, the wife of former NSC official Elliott Abrams, and the author of the controversial Israel-focused blog "Bad Rachel." The group is also the only Israel-focused advocacy organization to have formed a SuperPAC in the run up to the 2012 election.

As part of its pre-AIPAC activity, ECI took out a full page ad in the New York Times yesterday calling out donors for supporting two liberal advocacy organizations in Washington, the Center for American Progress and Media Matters, and accusing those donors of "funding bigotry and anti-Israel extremism."

Pollak also said that the video, billboards, and ads happen to refute a pre-AIPAC interview Obama gave to The Atlantic, in which Obama expressed frustration with the attacks coming from conservative lawmakers and groups like ECI that claim he is not pro-Israel.

..."Obama said today he doesn't understand why there are questions about his record of support for Israel," Pollak said. "We think this movie will set the record straight, and remind pro-Israel Americans of the facts of this administration's failure to stand with Israel at some critical moments."

Watch it.

^

Osnat Vishinsky's Day in Samaria

A major sea-change in elitist public opinion has been the purpose of the tours, first launched by the Samaria Regional Council, and then adopted by the Yesha Council, that enable politicians, op-ed columnists, cultural icons and other opinion makers to see things on the ground in that portion of the Land of Israel described as "across the Green Line".

Recently, Osnat Shir-Vishinsky wrote a letter.

Vishinsky is an actress,

a bereaved mother of a soldier, Lior, killed in the Gaza Strip in March 2004 which was a high-profile incident at the time in that her husband was quite outspoken in his criticism of the government's policies.

She had spoken of him so:

“When he said he was going to serve in the front lines… we were terrified. But he was so motivated, so determined, I could not tell him, ‘Don’t go there….’ He loved Israel. On May 12, 2004… a personnel carrier… a direct hit… cut off the life of my 20-year-old Lyor and four of his comrades…. He sacrificed his life so Jewish people can live in peace.…

and sang a song about him. She also hosted an anti-Second Lebanon War protest against Ehud Olmert's government in 2007 noting that to her mind it is "the people of Israel that are asking for a better society and political integrity".

Returning from her trip recently to the area, she penned "One Day in Samaria".

I've translated selections:

On a very cold day, I was hosted by good people, fully imbued with the love of the Land of Israel...we were astonished at the views, virgin and ancient. We met the local people and had breakfast at Givot Olam, tasted the wines of Tura Winery, we bought Samarian tehina at Mount Gerizim and had a good time at Havat Gilad.

In Samaria I bonded with the long-ago past of the Jewish people and the Book of Books. The hold of the people at these places, religious and secular, the modest way of life and the feeling that time has stopped in some places we visited attests that modest living and pioneering still exist in such a cynical world which sanctifies achievements, ratings and celebrity-status. My impressions are that the residents of Samaria are people with values, aspiring to live a different life despite all the difficulties. My hope is that these good people will know how to expell from among them the "bad weeds" and that these others will not impede the vision of maintaining a presence here.

Looking down at Shchem, so close to the Arabs of Palestine, fills me with optimism that perhaps some day we can live in good neighborliness, multual respect without the feelings of pain, hatred or fear. I am sure I will come back (when it is warmer) and not only to be able to reach the Three Seas Outlook point. My thanks to Gershon Mesika, Yossi Dayan and Boaz HaEtzni for this 'other' day.

^

Was the Ephod Really An IPod?

(kipa/tip=DG)

That's Gilad Alster's interpretation.

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The Rains Cause Flooding in the Binyamin Region

Here:-



Nahal Shiloh, Shiloh Valley, Peduel and on.

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No Double-Billing for Olmert, I Presume

Note:

Olmert to Give Keynote Address at JStreet Conference

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to give the keynote address at the annual JStreet conference, on March 26.

and note:

The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference April 29, 2012, Marriott Times Square

The Jerusalem Post is holding its first annual conference in New York on Israel-US relations, featuring top personalities from Israel and the US, as well as the newspaper’s top editors and journalists. There will be key addresses and panel discussions on the major issues facing the Jewish people in the coming years.

Special guest – former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

Since the events are a month apart, I presume there'll be no double-billing.

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The Arabs Deny; The Israelis Basically Comply

From Dore Gold's op-ed: Abbas’ Temple denial

Speaking in Qatar on Feb. 26, at an Arab League conference, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas resumed the Palestinian attack on the historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem. This diplomatic strategy began with his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, who questioned whether the Temple ever existed at the end of the July 2000 Camp David summit...Arafat then asserted that Solomon’s Temple was in Nablus, not in Jerusalem. Two years later in leading pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat, Arafat continued: “They found not a single stone proving the Temple was there ...”

...Abbas himself continued with Arafat’s ideological position on the Temple in an Israeli-Arab weekly, adding: “... they claim that 2,000 years ago they had a temple. I challenge the claim that this is so.”...Nabil Shaath spoke to al-Ayyam and spoke about the Israeli claim that “its fictitious temple” once stood in Jerusalem.

Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, also declared: “For Islam, there never was a Temple at al-Quds, but a ‘distant mosque.’” Yasser Abd Rabbo told Le Monde, in September 2000, “There was no archaeological evidence that the Temple ever existed on the Temple Mount.”...

Now, Abbas is once again renewing this line of attack...

...Since Arafat first told Clinton that there never was a Temple, there has been a full-scale effort over the last decade, on the part of the Palestinian leadership, to make this idea of Temple denial take root through programs on Palestinian television, articles in the official Palestinian Authority newspapers, and mosque sermons that aim to deny the historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem...The great irony of this new Palestinian version of Jerusalem’s history is that it contradicts the original Islamic tradition.

...the fact [is] that Umar himself allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, after the Romans and Byzantines kept them away for 500 years...what is going on here?...this is not a matter of establishing what is historical truth. Instead, the almost obsessive Palestinian preoccupation with denying Israel’s ties to Jerusalem is actually a new kind of political warfare they have decided to wage...The Palestinian Authority leaders have observed that most of the assertions they have made about Israel in recent years – like comparing it to apartheid South Africa – eventually get accepted without question or criticism. They have every reason to hope that the denial of the historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem will gain supporters worldwide.

Israel...needs to insist that its representatives understand and learn for themselves Israel’s historical rights...

In my experience, the lack of knowledge as well as fundamental slow-off-the-mark behavior - both in thought processes and action items - is killing Israel and Zionism.

As Isi Liebler notes:

...Netanyahu is blessed with an extraordinary gift of articulating Israel’s case. But unless he also ensures that the government employs competent people capable of expeditiously responding in the war of ideas, he must be held accountable for our failures in this area...Netanyahu must recognize that one of the highest priorities of his office is to provide effective liaison between the Israel Defense Forces, the Foreign Ministry and other divisions to ensure that Israel responds speedily and acts efficiently in the face of the ongoing defamatory campaigns being launched against us.

Only too often we remain the last to take action when it comes to damage control. By the time we respond to Palestinian lies and subterfuge, it is invariably too late and the initial falsehoods that dominated the media cannot be undone...Netanyahu’s direct obligation to ensure that his office is manned by the best available staff. Until now, notwithstanding a number of talented individuals serving in the PMO, overall the information services remain an abysmal failure...

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An Israel Firster is An American Firster

The controversy over the use of the "Israel Firster" epithet is growing. Did you konw they even have a website? That Larry Derfner doesn't like it? That liberals permitted it?That a Jew pushes it a lot? That Jews fund groups that permit its use? And that Alan Dershowitz is fighting it?

I see it a lot in the comments sections of the various articles and stories I review and enter into dialogue with the verbal combatants.

Of course, one response is that in supporting Israel, one is actually an American Firster as the two go very much together. America's support of Israel is a self-help exercise in addition to being an expression of admiration and mutuall identification with values of democracy, morality and human liberty.

The come-back is that Israel 'buys' America and worse, America spend way too much money on Israel and it certainly is not worth it.

On the aspect of finances, the following information contained here shows who is really buying America:

Since 1998, OpenSecrets.org, a research group analyzing money in politics, has been tracking spending on lobbyists. The Chamber of Commerce easily leads its list, having spent more than $800 million on lobbying between 1998 and 2011. The American Medical Association comes in second, with over $264 million. Then there’s General Electric, with almost $263 million. Then come the American Hospital Association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, AARP, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the National Association of Realtors, Northrop Grumman, and Exxon Mobile. Altogether, the top ten lobbying clients spent more than $2.6 billion on lobbying between 1998 and 2011.

The numbers are even more impressive when you sort the spending by industry. Health care comes in at number one, with more than $4.87 billion in spending. Finance, insurance, and real estate is just behind them, with more than $4.85 billion. Comparatively, energy firms are cheapskates: they’ve barely spent $3.6 billion.

That's a lot of money spent in trying to influence politicians and government.

I guess purchasing commercial advantages is American.  But Israelis allying with the same officials and leaders is something to be anti-semitic about?

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Once is Forgivable, Doing It Again is Plain Dumb

Reported:-

The latest unwitting recipient of a posthumous Mormon baptism was revealed as murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl — much to his parents’ chagrin. Pearl, who was captured and killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, received the Mormon rite on June 1, 2011, in Twin Falls, Idaho, the Boston Globe reported.

...Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel called for the end of the ritual posthumous baptism of Jews after learning the names of his late father and grandfather were entered in a baptism database.

The parents of Pearl, 38, gently chided the Mormon Church for the baptism of their slain son. “We appreciate your good intentions but rest assured that Danny’s soul was redeemed through the life that he lived and the values that he upheld,” said an e-mail from his parents, Judea and Ruth Pearl.

“He lived as a proud Jew, died as a proud Jew and is currently facing his creator as a Jew,” the Pearls wrote to the Globe. “For the record, let it be clear: Danny did not choose to be baptized, nor did his family consent to this un-called-for ritual.”

Church officials, in a statement to the Boston newspaper, agreed that the submission of Pearl’s name for baptism was a violation of church protocol.

It has gone far in the past ("Genealogist Bernard Kouchel conducted a search of the International Genealogical Index, and discovered that many well-known people from within Judaism have been vicariously baptized, including Rashi, Maimonides, Albert Einstein, Menachem Begin,* Irving Berlin, Marc Chagall, and Gilda Radner.") So, how does this fit with this portrayal?

The doctrines of the Latter Day Saint movement, commonly referred to as Mormonism, teach that its adherents, Latter-day Saints, are either direct descendants of the House of Israel, or are adopted into it. As such, Judaism is foundational to the history of Mormonism; the Jewish people are considered a covenant people of God, held in high esteem, and are respected in the Mormon faith system. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is consequently very philo-Semitic in its doctrine.

Or this:

there is an important place for the Jews in Mormon theology. I found this out years ago when, walking down the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, I happened on a tenderly cared-for plot of land called “Orson Hyde Park.” Hyde was one of the elders of the church, who in the 1840s had gone on a mission to the Holy City. Jews were not only a plurality of the sacred place; they were a majority. (So much for how much Muslims cared for the town back then! Islam cares for Jerusalem only when Christians and Jews are its governors.) Hyde had a vision that emerged from the arrival of increasing numbers of the People of the Book in Zion, that is, in Jerusalem. He prophesied that this was the beginning of the Jewish return. My memory tells me that right there in the park commemorating his long visit was a letter to Joseph Smith envisioning a Jewish commonwealth a hundred years later, just about in 1948, which would make his prediction a revelation.

They really should get their act together.

P.S.

on the meeting between [Israeli Prime Minister Menahem] Begin and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bailey Smith

who had said that God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jew. That’s a big theological rift already. But Begin tried to finesse the history. When questioned, he said, “Look, about religious truth, we’ll wait and see. When the Messiah comes, we’ll ask him, ‘Is this your first visit or your second?’ He’ll surely be honest with us.”

^

From November to March, A Criminal Investigatioin

Reported:

the police will now hold a criminal investigation into the actions that led to the unauthorized building in Shiloh, which the civil administration is in the process of legalizing. It is unclear who the police will investigate.

Attorney Akiva Sylvetzky of Jerusalem, who represents Shiloh and its regional governing body, the Binyamin Regional Council, said the investigation was purely technical and designed to close the door on any allegations of illegality. To do this, he said, the police must first study the matter.

“It would be irrational for the state to press charges for illegal building when that building is being legalized,” he said.

The state has already said it intends to authorize the homes, he said. Plans to do so are in an advanced stage, Sylvetzky added.

He plans to ask the court to close the case and acquit his clients of any wrongdoing.

It's a continuation from last November, as I blogged then.

If it took him three months to decide, imagine where this is going.

^

Return to the Right of Return - To Where?

There's a new "Palestine, Present and Future" site up, 3Awda.

From the introduction:

The events of 15 May 2011, as thousands of Palestinians marched towards their sites of dispossession, re-asserted the possibility to envision al-3awda (‘the return’) as a concrete act in the present, and created a new space to imagine the future. At a time when a global Palestinian diaspora is rediscovering its many voices, and in the midst of a political awakening across the Arab world, this project seeks to harness a moment of possibility and to focus a new collective energy towards return.

In this space, we not only affirm the ‘right of return’, but also explore critically and proactively the ongoing spatial, political and demographic realities of today’s Palestine. How do we imagine return not only as a physical act in the present, but also as a political horizon of justice and dignity towards which to aspire? What would such a political space mean for those people who seek to build their future in this territory? And how might this in turn create a new relationship with the Arab world beyond?

“This project calls on activists, artists, creative professionals, community organisers and entrepreneurs to engage in initiatives and to share in the shaping of a new vision towards return. It is these fragments of return, or 3awda, which make it possible to envision paths towards the future founded in collective agency rather than global politics. This project begins with the hashtag #3awda, and is limited only by our collective capacity to imagine.

I left this comment there (awaiting moderation):

In the name and sake of dialogue, does "today's Palestine" mean the territory of the Palestinian Authority only, or does it include pre-1967 Israel or parts thereof or/and does it also include parts of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan?

Really -

Will it be approved?


(This section seems to indicate Israel is part of "Palestine". Which means that "Palestine" is part of Israel.).

And you know where that leads.

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

UPDATE

Approved:

3.  ahmad says:
09:27at 02.03.2012(#)

Thanks for your comment Yisrael.

As a group, we had long debates about terminology. Ultimately, this site is a platform to feature projects by Palestinians and those who support the realisation of their legal right (and choice) to return to whatever place they – or their family – were displaced fromNb. Israelis are welcome to join this dialogue, as the feature on the Badil-Zochrot seminars demonstrates.

^

When is it Saudi Arabia Apartheid Week?

Every week a la EoZ:-

And to women, worse:

^

The Media Can Be Professional and Factually Correct

As CAMERA has noted, sometimes the media gets a straight truth right about:-

...the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which sits atop the remains of the two biblical Jewish temples. It is the most sacred site in Judaism and is Islam's third-holiest site.

That was AP's Ian Deitch. But, then again, he seems to be an expert on religion and politics (here and also here).

It pays to be professional.

^

Zehava Weiss Video Clip: Rocks vs. Car

Her testimony I translated and it is here and here is the video clip:



And don't forget this.

^

Jewish Keys

The use of a key by Arabs who insist upon remaining refugees as a symbol of their "return" is well known.

But I have just found an item on Jewish keys - but we aren't going back:

...After four years of intensive excavations, [Yoram] Haimi and Polish archaeologist Wojciech Mazurek, assisted by the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, have succeeded in uncovering the camp, including the “path to heaven,” a cynical name Nazis used for the walkway thousands of naked Jews took to the gas chambers. The two archaeologists also discovered the exact location of the gas chambers for the first time.

In addition, Haimi and Mazurek discovered many personal artifacts belonging to the murdered victims on the grounds of the death camp. The most dramatic and historically significant discoveries found at the Sobibor rescue excavations will be revealed in full tomorrow (Friday) in a comprehensive article in the Israel This Week magazine.

“During the excavation we found large numbers of keys to suitcases which Jews took to the gas chambers in the belief that they would need them after their ‘shower’” said Haimi, who has become an authority on Sobibor.

That's correct, to Sobibor, to anti-semitism - we aren't going back.

I was there once, in March 2004, and found bones that we had to rebury. For sure no going back.


^

Jabotinsky on Arabs by Jabotinsky

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the grandson, on Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the grandfather, on Arabs, and Supreme Court Justioce Joubran, here:

...The entire Likud movement would do well to unite behind Ya’alon’s remarks, if it claims to continue in the footsteps of my grandfather (Ze’ev Jabotinsky).

My grandfather concluded his most territorial and nationalistic poem (“The East Bank of the Jordan,” or as it is also popularly known, “Two Banks to the Jordan”) with the following words:

From the wealth of our land there shall prosper
The Arab, the Christian, and the Jew,
For our flag is a pure and just one
It will illuminate both sides of my Jordan.

Two Banks has the Jordan –
This is ours and, that is as well.

My two hands I have dedicated to the homeland,
My two hands to sword and shield.
Let my right hand whither
If I forget the East Bank of the Jordan.

Two Banks has the Jordan –
This is ours and, that is as well.

Justice Joubran did a good job in balancing his own private views while respecting the state and the general consensus. It may have been better if his associates had chosen to keep quiet and left his opponents behind a wall of respectable silence.

.

^

Laugh at a Muslim 'Scholar' on Jerusalem

Here, over at EoZ.

^

Remember Nick Cohen on Jenny Tonge?

The Lady is out (Baroness Jenny Tonge has resigned from the Liberal Democrats after refusing to apologise over her remarks about Israel. According to Nicolas Watt of the Guardian, this follows Nick Clegg’s ultimatum that she should apologise for her remarks or resign - and even under police investigation.) but we were forewarned, in 2010:

The Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is the next best thing. And what is giving it its popularity, what is making it seem like an alliance of sensible men and women willing to put aside petty differences, is the presence of the Lib Dems, a party which seemingly embodies moderation, compromise and a loathing of fanaticism.

But the contented intelligentsia, the happy Tory centrists, worried Thatcherites and all who think we are in a new era of stability and compromise are wrong about the Lib Dems. They are not always moderate. In crucial respects, they are far closer to the caricature of neo-fascist Tories than the Tories are themselves. They will go along with the most bloodstained conspiracy theories and endorse medieval hatreds without a thought for how their actions damage the cause of democratic liberalism. Their prejudices are barely examined, however, in part because a lazy media has refused to cover them and in part because they are not, unfortunately, confined to the party.

...Lib Dems justifiably complained about the narrowness of Westminster journalists' concerns and their lazy refusal to investigate the opinions of a country that had long ago broken away from two-party politics. But they should have been grateful that reporters have not looked too hard at the Liberals' dark side. If they had, they would have seen it sinking in a swamp of conspiratorial paranoia.

I am not taking an untypical case and exaggerating it for effect. I accept that all political parties have foul people in them, whose presence unscrupulous journalists can exploit to damn the wider organisation. So let me say from the beginning that the presence of Jenny Tonge as a peer on the Lib Dem benches in the Lords is not in itself an indictment of the Liberal politicians now in office. Rather, their willingness to defend her as she recycles some of the foulest racist theories in European history indicts them as shallow, slippery men.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict explains the shabbiness of Lib Dem thought as it explains so many other shabby arguments circulating in Europe. Its leaders ought to know that the only moral position to take is to support a two-state solution in which a free and democratic Palestine lives alongside Israel with borders that approximate the dividing lines of 1967. In theory, everyone except far-leftists, Islamists and neo-Nazis knows this. In practice, Lib Dem opinion has been seized by a reactionary version of radical chic in which murder is celebrated and racism dignified.

Let Baroness Tonge stand as an example of a malaise which has gripped hundreds of thousands of people who are playing with ideas previous generations would have described as fascist without hesitation. Instead of supporting the PLO-led Palestinian Authority, which for all its corruption and faults represents the best hope of a liberal democratic Palestine, she supports the clerical fascism of Hamas, and has gone to the Ba'athist tyranny of Syria to describe its leaders as "shrewd, plausible and actually very likeable".

I don't subscribe to "no platform" policies. I believe that the prejudiced must always be confronted. And despite knowing about her support for an organisation whose charter might have been written by Hitler, I gladly accepted an invitation to share a stage with her during a recording of Any Questions for BBC Radio 4. I was struck by the deference with which the apparent liberals in the hall treated her, as much by the coquettishness of her trite interventions on the side of the opponents of liberalism and democracy. At one point, she declared that she backed the Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin, because she "quite fancied" him, and the image of the pair together still has the power to make me sit bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night.

She admired Putin for the same reason that she applauds Hamas: he was against the West. She did not give a thought about the aspirations of real liberals and democrats in Russia, who want to change their kleptomaniac and oppressive state. All that mattered was that the Russian regime could frustrate Western plans. Do not dismiss her as an eccentric. Hers is a common and highly hypocritical version of Little Englandism found everywhere in modern liberalism. Instead of saying that they want the quiet life and to avoid foreign entanglements, its proponents hide their dislike of the policies of the rulers of their own countries behind a façade of insincere concern for the suffering of others abroad.

Mutatis mutandis, what applies to Russians applies equally to Palestinians. Tonge and many others do not sincerely wish to end Palestinian suffering. If they did, they would think about what theocratic Islamism would do and is doing to Palestinian women, Christians, gays, socialists and, indeed, Palestinian liberals and democrats, and declare themselves an enemy both of Israeli interference in the West Bank and Hamas's bid for power. They would overcome the wilful blindness in the West that refuses to see that anti-Semitism is not only about the hatred of Jews. From the czars through to the Nazis and on to today's Middle Eastern tyrannies, dictators have used the Jewish "threat" to justify their rule and stigmatise their dissenters as Jewish dupes.

I do not want to push this argument too far because, of course, when all is said and done, anti-Semitism is mainly about hating Jews. And in Tonge's discourse, tropes of thousands of years of loathing are repeated as if they occurred to her only yesterday. The all-powerful Jewish conspiracy controls everything, of course, even, somewhat implausibly, the Lib Dems. "The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips," she declared in 2006. "I think they've probably got a grip on our party."

Once baronesses start talking like this, it is only a matter of time before they embrace the "blood libel", the most ancient and dangerous racial theory Europe has produced. In Trials of the Diaspora, his scholarly dissection of English anti-Semitism, Anthony Julius explains the various fantasies collected under the heading thus: "They are known as the blood libel partly because they suppose that Jews wish to kill non-Jews (at first Christians, now more usually Muslims), partly because some of them involve the claim that Jews require non-Jewish blood for ritual purposes, and partly because so much Jewish blood has been shed in consequence of them."

The blood libel long predates the Jewish conspiracy theory, which only began to circulate after the Jewish emancipation of the Enlightenment. (Before then, even the maddest thinkers in Christendom could not manage to convince themselves that peasants in the shtetl were the secret rulers of the world.) In the first recorded instance that Julius can find, the feudal authorities executed 30 Jews in Blois, France, in 1171 for the ritual murder of a Christian, even though no body was ever discovered and no alleged victim was reported missing. He traces it through to the Nazi period where German propagandists told the occupied French that "the victory of the German armies was necessary in order that small children shall no longer be the victims of the Jews", through to Syrian television, which annexed the European anti-Semitic tradition and replicated faithfully the medieval version of the blood libel by showing Jews baking bread with gentile blood.

This year, after Julius published his book, Israel sent aid workers to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake. All over the internet, the word went out that Jewish relief workers were not sincerely helping the needy but harvesting the organs of the gentiles. The Palestinian Telegraph, of which Tonge is a patron, helped to spread the slur. She then intervened and tried to keep the story going by saying the accusations were sufficiently credible to warrant an inquiry.

Racism is a retarded and repetitious mental deformation. I would be tempted to call it "boring" if its consequences were not so grave. It produces nothing new and nothing interesting, and so it is with some tentativeness that I assert that the story of Israeli doctors stealing the livers, hearts and kidneys of the victims of natural disaster strikes me as a new form of a 2,000-year-old hatred or at least an exceptionally rare version of it. Jews are so depraved, the Haiti story runs, that even their willingness to show their common humanity and help strangers in distress should never be trusted. For Jews are not human: they are bestial creatures who use the cover of altruism to dupe credulous gentiles and hide from them their true intention to murder the people they pretend to be saving.

Presented with the conspiracy theories of such vileness and with such a pedigree, Clegg proved that he was unfit to be called a liberal or democrat, let alone deputy prime minister of this country. True, he asked Baroness Tonge to stand down as a Lib Dem spokeswoman in the House of Lords but petulantly resisted all demands to expel her from the party. The Centre for Social Cohesion, which monitors white supremacist and radical Islamists, has repeatedly asked him why he did not act. Instead of behaving like a mature politician, Clegg's temper snapped and he screamed that no one should dare question his honour. "The very suggestion that I might explicitly or tacitly give cover to racism, I find politically abhorrent and personally deeply offensive," he cried to the Jewish Chronicle, while doing precisely nothing. The Liberal Democrat leader who accused David Cameron of not dealing with supposed anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe could not speak plainly against the tropes of actual anti-Semitism in his own party.

Lord Wallace, the Lib Dems' Foreign Affairs spokesman in the Lords, went further and deployed the low tactic of turning accusations of racism back on the accuser. The worst he could say about the baroness was that she was "over-emotional". His lordship, however, explained: "The reason why we resist expelling her from the party is that we do sadly find the current Likud Party very intolerant of all criticism."

His thinking ran thus: racist ideologies are not the products of repellent minds, but merely the result of an excess of emotion. Those who oppose them do not do so honestly because they know what horrors anti-Semitism brings. On the contrary, they rather than the baroness are the truly disreputable people, who are only raising this minor matter because they are the allies of the Likud. The Lib Dems are tolerant. It's Tonge's critics, not Tonge herself, who are intolerant and show their prejudice by insisting on standing up to those who say that a Jewish conspiracy pulls all strings and that Jews are murdering gentile children.

The Liberal Democrats turn the world upside down, make black white and two and two five. In their imagination, it is intolerant to oppose bigotry, small-minded to stand up against fanaticism.

As it is impossible to write about Jews in the present climate and expect to have a sensible debate, let me replace them with blacks. Suppose a leading Lib Dem peer had said that black people were by their nature mentally inferior to whites. Would you expect liberal society to be satisfied if Clegg did not expel her from the party and screamed and shouted about his honour instead? I suspect most people would demand that he proved he knew the meaning of the word by taking action. Suppose the same Liberal peer were to go on to bring up the most poisonous myth of white supremacy and say that young black men were touring the cities looking for white women to rape. In those circumstances liberal society would consider it outrageous if Lord Wallace were to dismiss complaints by saying, "The reason why we resist expelling her from the party is that we do sadly find the current Zanu-PF party very intolerant of all criticism."

That liberal society is not holding the Liberal Democrats to account tells us much about its double standards. Baroness Tonge is an extreme example of a liberalism that has turned sour and duplicitous, but she is not a freak. Like a fairground mirror, she exaggerates real faults in the Lib Dems which will have to be confronted with vigour now that Clegg is in power...

(kipa/tip=PG)

^

And Who Is Coming to AIPAC's Conference?

Not me (so far).

Well, Obama and Bibi, you know.

The answer is (fifth name from the bottom) this woman:

Kathy Ireland is world's wealthiest supermodel-entrepreneur

She's appeared on three Sports Illustrated covers and in 13 consecutive swimsuit issues during the 1980s and ’90s — is worth an estimated $300 to $350 million via her product marketing company, Kathy Ireland Worldwide, and CelebrityNetWorth.com now lists her as the world’s richest supermodel-entrepreneur.

Here she is:

That should be an interesting session.

(kippa/tip=C)

^

The AP Story of Shvut Rachel and Shiloh

I escorted Karin Laub from AP around Shiloh, Shvut Rachel and the outlook from Givat Achiyah.

Here, from the Washington Post:

Excerpts from her story, "Israel legalizes unsanctioned settler enclave", appear below with my italicized comments in brackets []. Unfortuntely, we who are interviewed rarely get a chance to review the story before publication although quotations and additional 'factual' elements usually are run by us for approval.

But I will stress that from the outset her determination was to present a picture of "illegality" while I kept stressing "unauthorized" and referred to the reality all over Israel including kibbutzim whereby the bureacracy is overcome by first building and then all the necessary authorizations are arranged. And in Judea and Samaria, the difficulty is two-fold: not only a lazy and awkward and complex bureaucracy but also simple political considerations or prejudices can hold up legal construction by method of withholding an authorization or a signing-off on plans that are all perfectly in order.

But now, to her story:

SHVUT RACHEL, West Bank (AP) -- Israel has quietly [I would think the media 'noise' last week was heard even at AP's editorial offices]legalized one of the oldest and largest of the unsanctioned [Shvut Rachel was sanctioned and authorized and recognized in 1991 and has been registered as a neighborhood of Shiloh as it sits on land officially and legally zoned as part of Shiloh which was done in the mid-1980s] settler enclaves dotting the West Bank, a step denounced by the Palestinians and Israeli activists as a show of bad faith ahead of talks next week between the Israeli leader and President Barack Obama [actually, the belated authorization was dictated by the Peace New appeal to the High Court of Justice which finally required the Civil Adminsitration and Ministry of Defence to do what they should have done years ago].

The dispute over settlements has confounded [in truth, it is but one of many things confounding negotiations, foremost among them the refusal of the Arabs to come to the table, to accept ther parameters, to agree to security needs, to recognize refuggee resettlement outisde, to stop incitement, etc.] Washington's attempts to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, mostly on hold since 2008. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to stop construction [wait, wasn't there a 10-month moratorium? it is referred to farther below but only as coming from man Israeli spokesperson] and the Palestinians say they won't negotiate while Israel unilaterally determines the borders of their state through settlement-building.

...The stalled talks and dispute over settlements is bound to come up when Netanyahu meets Obama on Monday.

Shvut Rachel, home to 95 Israeli families, was established 21 years ago on a hilltop in the heart of the West Bank [after Arab terrorists killed 2, Rachela Druk and Yitzhak Rofe and wounded others including children, one, Harel Bin-Nun, was to survive but was then killed in 1998 by other terrorist at Yitzhar] - an area Israel would likely have to withdraw from to make way for a Palestinian state. The settlers grabbed the land without government permission [the land was not "grabbed without permission". the land was allotted to Shiloh. True, plans for construction there had not been made but after the murders of Rachela and Yitzhak, a group of Yeshiva students led by Yossi Shuker z"l set up home on the hill a 10-minute walk from my house and within a short time, full government permission was received].

Now that approval seems at hand. A planning committee last week retroactively legalized 115 apartments already built or under construction in Shvut Rachel, according to government officials and the community's acting mayor, Yaakov Moshe Levi. The move apparently resulted from pressure by peace activists to stop construction there.

In its decision, the panel also approved in principle nearly 500 more apartments, though a construction start would require further permits and could be years away, government officials said.

Hagit Ofran of Israel's Peace Now group says this amounts to establishing a new settlement, contrary to pledges by successive governments over the past two decades not to do so. Israel's Defense Ministry rejected that characterization, saying Shvut Rachel is a neighborhood of the nearby government-sanctioned settlement of Shiloh [which, indeed, it is. as I pointed out to Karin, come election time, the voting booth for Shvut Rachel is always located in Shiloh. they are not recognized as an nindependent entity by the Ministry yof the Interior].

Ghassan Khatib...denounced the Shvut Rachel decision as an escalation of Israel's practices.

...half a million Israelis already live on war-won land, [a war the Arabs precipitated and launched. Israel gained the lands which were originally slated to become part of the historic Jewish homeland by the decision of the League of Nations in a defensive military operation] in more than 130 government-sanctioned settlements and some 100 unauthorized outposts [with a population of some 350,000 which is over 10% of the total population, a situation beginning to mirror that of the Arab minority in Israel] set up by settlers who are open about their desire to impede any partition.

...Spokesman Mark Regev insists the current Israeli government "has shown more restraint on the issue of settlements than any previous government," referring to a 10-month construction slowdown in 2010. He reiterated that the fate of settlements must be determined in negotiations [yes, it is a final-status issue] and that Israel is willing to resume talks immediately.

But a visit to the West Bank's heartland suggests that an Israeli withdrawal would be increasingly difficult. Settlers control many hilltops, their communities flourishing with government support, including for unauthorized outposts.

Shvut Rachel and Shiloh [see map below], which also won retroactive approval for some 100 apartments last week, have spawned five more nearby outposts [Achiyah, Keida, Adei-Ad, Esh Kodesh, Givat Harel and Gal Yosef actually. oh, and the retreat called Yishuv HaDa'at]. Settlers operate vineyards [see pictures below] on 3,000 acres that produce more than 50,000 bottles of wine a year, as well as an olive press that produces 12 percent of Israel's domestic olive oil, said New York-born Yisrael Medad, a Shiloh resident.

"We love the land and we build here, and after that we get formalization," the 65-year-old said during a tour of the area Tuesday.

In Shvut Rachel and the area's five other unsanctioned enclaves, the government has lent a hand, even while withholding formal approval. The Housing Ministry under settler patron Ariel Sharon, later Israel's prime minister, built 68 homes in Shvut Rachel just months after it was established, even though it lacked permits, said Moshe Levi, the acting mayor.

The government also provided water, electricity and other services, just as it does for other unauthorized settler enclaves set up since the late 1990s in response to calls by Sharon for settlers to seize the hilltops.

Israel's Defense Ministry denied last week's decision means an outpost has been legalized. It described Shvut Rachel as a neighborhood of Shiloh, home to about 300 families. The two communities are about a half-mile (kilometer) apart, on neighboring hilltops separated by a valley.

"This is not an isolated outpost. This is a neighborhood of Shiloh," a Defense Ministry spokesman said of Shvut Rachel, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with briefing regulations.

Shvut Rachel is part of Shilo's municipal boundaries, Medad said.

However, a 2005 government-commissioned report classified Shvut Rachel as an outpost - as it has with other unauthorized enclaves, even if they were set up within the municipal boundaries of a mother settlement [and that report was specious and ideologically-driven by someone who ran for the Knesset on the estreme left-wing Meretz Party].

Moshe Levi said Shilo and Shvut Rachel have separate budgets and administrations.

Talia Sasson, an Israeli lawyer who wrote the 2005 report on outposts, said she was concerned the Shvut Rachel decision could pave the way for the retroactive legalization of more outposts...

Sharon promised Washington to dismantle outposts built after he took office in March 2001. The Defense Ministry official said three outposts have been removed. The military has also removed mobile homes and other structures in other enclaves, but settlers routinely return to the sites.

Now the Netanyahu government appears to be backing away from Sharon's promise. In January, Netanyahu appointed a three-member committee to review land and legal issues in each outpost.

The panel was told illegal construction on private West Bank land should be removed, and was asked to put in order the planning and zoning status of Israeli construction on public lands, said committee member Alan Baker...Ofran, the settlement monitor, said the recent government decisions have sent a clear message to the settlers: "You build illegally where you want ... and the government of Israel will approve it for you retroactively."

Well, as we know, what is legal can become illegal by the stroke of a pen or the raising of a hand in a parliamentary vote and the very same way can become legal.

What is more difficult a procedure is to correct media biases and errors.


P.S. Dan Bality's picture :

and then mine

Yaakov Moshe-Levi with Karin

what a parcelization and construction approval map look like

and here is a view Issachar P. of this morning - the valley innundated with water:

And a map to orient yourselves:

More here (Feb. 28, 2012, acting mayor Yaakov Moshe Levi points at the housing plan of the Svut Rachel settlement on the map, in the Jewish West Bank settlement of Shvut Rachel, near Nablus.) and also here (the Jewish West Bank settlement of Shvut Rachel, left, and the Jewish settlement of Shilo, right, near Nablus.)

____________

UPDATE

The following data has now been supplied to me:

695 units have been authorized for construction.
611 units in Shvut Rachel. Out of these, 90 are for existing structures and 521 for new buildings.
84 units for Shiloh, in the new neighborhood T'chelet St., 28 existing and another 56 new.
All these authorizations are not yet the final approval.

In other words, the apartment buildings in Ramat Shmuel are still awaiting.

^

Migron and Israel's Supreme Court

Israel Harel writes of "the gaping chasm that exists between the facts and the interpretations given them" in connection with Migron's legal aspects:

...Migron residents begged the High Court not to automatically accept Peace Now's petition, but to instead await the outcome of a magistrate's court case that was then considering the question of the land's ownership. But Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch did not accede to the request submitted in their name by then-advocate Hanan Melcer. Had she shown the restraint expected of a Supreme Court justice, and certainly of its president, she would have prevented a growing segment of the public (which no doubt breathed a sigh of relief upon her retirement earlier this week ) from feeling that the court is deeply and essentially biased toward the left side of the political map.

Melcer, today a Supreme Court justice, put together a well-argued document that proved the land on which Migron was built did not belong to the plaintiffs. But in any case, since the question of the land's ownership was being reviewed by the magistrate's court, which has the tools to examine the title deeds, the High Court should have refrained from issuing a ruling before the magistrate's court had issued its decision.

But Beinisch pushed for it. And now, months after she issued her ruling that Migron should be uprooted, the plaintiffs have withdrawn their suit and the perversion of justice in her ruling has been laid bare.

Thus it was to rescue the High Court, not to defend justice, that Benny Begin entered the picture. After the prosecution concluded that "the plaintiffs have no right to the land," one would have expected that the High Court of Justice to have the courage, or the honesty, to cancel its deceptive, biased ruling. But since it did not, Begin decided to try to extricate it from the legal and public imbroglio in which it found itself. It was for the court's sake more than for Migron's that Begin has worked so assiduously over the past few months.

^

Clinton Pressed Hard, Opts Defense

No, not Bill.

Hillary:-

Clinton defends administration record on Israel

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is dismissing Republican criticism of President Barack Obama's record in supporting Israel and says U.S. aid would be the highest ever.

Pressed at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing...

I like it.

^

Where is Judge Goldstone?

Someone wrote to me so:

According to the  Wall Street Journal, 2/28/12  over 125 deaths were reported across Syria the highest daily toll since the government launched artillery attacks on Homs. According to the UN the death toll in  the Syria is 7500.

This compels us to ask:–Where  is Judge Goldstone?  Where are the moral dilemmas? Where it is the angst? Where are the bleeding heart liberals? 

Where  are resolutions before the City Councils?  Where are the  campus campaigns? Where is the campaign to divest?

Nu, I ask you.

Here is the Human Rights Council in debate. Their condemantion of December.
Here are EU sanctions.  Here is the Arab League.

Here is Syria:

Syria Threatens Assault on Homs

Damascus Blocks U.N. Humanitarian Officer's Visit, Says Baba Amr Will Be 'Cleansed'.

Syrian troops massed around a rebel-held neighborhood of Homs on Wednesday, raising fears that the government was preparing an all-out ground assault there, as Damascus thwarted efforts by the U.N.'s top humanitarian official to gain entry to the country.

"Baba Amr will be under...complete control in the coming hours and we'll cleanse all the armed elements from the area," a Syrian government official said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press,

But where is Judge Goldstone?

Even a Haaretz blogger is looking for him. The situation is that bad.

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Our New Media Column

On Israel's Educational Television.

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The Language of Value-Neutralization

I found this in an academic article comparing the writing of Hannah Arendt - her famous essay on Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Israel in 1961 to Simone de Beauvoir’s “An Eye for an Eye,” on the trial of Robert Brasillach in France in 1945 referring to the Holocaust:

Eichmann’s thoughtlessness and its effects on the destruction of conditions of worldly plurality

Words can kill, it is said or to be Biblical: Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21).

These words above neutralize any value judgment one can make about the most horrific act of murderous bestiality.

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