Haaretz and It Semantic Subversion

At its English site, Haaretz published this:-

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski approved the expansion in Pisgat Zeev - a Jewish settlement surrounded by Arab towns in the West Bank - as part of a plan to construct 40,000 more homes in the area as foreign interest drives property prices up.

That seemed to me an odd description so I went to the original Hebrew and found this:-

הוועדה המקומית לתכנון ולבנייה בעיריית ירושלים אישרה אתמול (שני) תוכנית להקמת 600 יחידות דיור חדשות בשכונת פסגת זאב, בשוליים המזרחיים של כביש מספר 1. התוכנית החדשה היא חלק מתוכנית כוללת של ראש-עיריית ירושלים, אורי לופוליאנסקי, לבניית 40 אלף דירות בין השאר על רקע המחסור בדירות לזוגות צעירים ומחירן הגבוה של דירות בעיר בעקבות התעניינות מצד תושבי חוץ.

ראש העיר הודיע בעבר כי יקדם את התכניות בעקבות החלטתו על ביטול תוכנית ספדי שאמורה היתה לאפשר את התרחבותה של ירושלים מערבה. לופוליאנסקי הודיע כי אינו רואה כל בעיה בהרחבת הבנייה בשכונות ירושלים המצויות מעבר לקו הירוק ובהן פסגת זאב, נוה יעקב והר חומה. התוכנית הועברה להפקדה בוועדה המחוזית.

The italicized bit translates as: "Jerusalem neighborhoods located across the Green Line". Nothing about "settlement", nothing about "being surrounded". Besides the village of Hizma, there are no "towns" there.

Well, we have a very politicized Haaretz subverting Israel abroad.


And by-the-by, I ran into David Landau yesterday at a funeral. I told him that he should watch the way he talks, referring to "raping Israel" and all that.

He smiled and retorted: "I meant what I said and I understand Condi Rice has taken my advice".

Raw Sex Talk for Middle East Peace

NOTE: This blog post is for mature adults only.

You have been warned.

Thanks to David Landau's suggestion to Condi Rice, we now have some new additions to the political lexicon of Middle East Peace:

(with thanks to Maariv)

we start with:

intervention - gentle pressure to remove Israel from its security belt and historical homeland.

rape - vigorous pressure to do same.

and continue:

afterglow - The good feeling experienced after being massaged by the US Ambassador in that you have been invited to attend an exclusive gathering at his home to meet and discuss political matters with the long-legged Secretary of State.

analingus - praising the afore-mentioned Secretary of State.

dysfunction - when a person of left-leaning, radical, progressive ideology suggests how peace can be achieved.

exhibitionism - bragging to the media that you've had a wet-dream fantasy about the afore-mentioned Sectretary of State.

menage a trois - when David Landau will next invite his paper's owner, Amos Schocken who suggested cancelling HaTikvah as Israel national anthem, to meet with afore-mentioned, et. al.

missionary position - how David Landau sits in his editor's chair.

sexually transmitted disease - reading Haaretz.

venereal disease - reading Haaretz's editorials.



Any more suggestions will be welcomed.

David Landau Supports "Rape"

Haaretz's editor it seems has taken a bad fall out of his editor's chair.

...comments made by David Landau, editor of the Israeli daily, Haaretz, to Condoleezza Rice about Israel needing to be “raped” by the U.S. to achieve a Mideast settlement caused quite a stir among the 20 or so attendees at a confidential briefing with the secretary of state on a recent visit to Israel.

The incident, which took place Sept. 10 at the private residence of America’s ambassador to Israel, Richard Jones, has not been fully reported until now. What is contested is not the raw language Landau used but the context of his impassioned comments.

...Landau, who was seated next to Rice, was said to have referred to Israel as a “failed state” politically, one in need of a U.S.-imposed settlement. He was said to have implored Rice to intervene, asserting that the Israeli government wanted “to be raped” and that it would be like a “wet dream” for him to see this happen.

When contacted this week, Landau said the description was “inaccurate” and “a perversion of what I said.” He said his views had been delivered with “much more sophistication.” But he added: “I did say that in general, Israel wants to be raped — I did use that word — by the U.S., and I myself have long felt Israel needed more vigorous U.S. intervention in the affairs of the Middle East.”

(Kippah tip: Isi Liebler)

Anybody out there wishing to "rape" Landau?

P.S. Steve Plaut wrote:

You think this has anything to do with the fact that the Hebrew U's anthropology department has just declared rape to be an act of anti-racism and kindness, whereas Refusal to Rape is an act of racism?

My Letter in the Jerusalem Post

Peace vs peccadilloes

Sir, - Isi Leibler's drubbing of Haaretz editor David Landau for his remarks at a recent Limmud Conference in Moscow comes, unfortunately, two years late ("Shame on 'Haaretz,'" November 7). Landau's admission that he ordered the low-keying of corruption by Israeli political leaders in order to protect the peace process - known as the "etrog behavior" of left-wing journalists, a phrase coined by Amnon Abromovitch - was first uttered at a Limmud conference in Nottingham, England. It was proudly declared in response to a question I had put to him from the last rows of a lecture hall filled with almost 300 people about the journalistic ethics of the absence of criticism of political corruption.

Like now, also then: When challenged, Landau declared that the "peccadilloes" of Ariel Sharon were minor compared to the greater damage, in his opinion, caused by revenant Jewish residents in the communities throughout Judea and Samaria.

His remarks were generally accepted, which caused me disappointment in the morality of the participating British Jews.

YISRAEL MEDAD
Shiloh