Just How Many?

A few postings ago, here, I pointed out the favorable discrimination the Arab population merits as regards demolition orders.

The situation, of course, is not that cut-and-dried as I will be the first to admit. Nevertheless, yuou should be aware of some of the last stats via Aaron Lerner of IMRA:-

7,380 approved demolition orders against Palestinians not implemented
Date: 13 January 2006

Hatzofeh newspaper Correspondent Chagai Huberman reports today that as of now there are no less than 7,380 demolition orders against illegally built homes built by Palestinians in the West Bank filed by the Israeli Civil Authority and approved by the courts that have not been carried out.

In addition, Huberman notes, the Civil Authority has initiated a program under which Palestinians [but not Israelis] can apply for the head of the Civil Authority to waive the demolition orders on both legal and such humanitarian grounds as : the person invested all his savings in the house, the head of the household has many children, etc.

With regard to illegal construction inside the Green Line, Huberman reports that data from the Ministry of Interior shows that during the period
2003-2004 alone no less than 352 illegal Bedouin outposts were built in the Negev.

Huberman notes that the Arab MKs were rewarded for voting in favor of the retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria by the approval of the hook-up of hundreds of illegal Bedouin outposts in the Negev to electricity.

And David Bedein has this:

Israeli Ethnic discrimination: Arbitrary enforcement of the law in Israel?

Over the years, Israel has coped with homes and neighborhoods that were established without proper authorization or legal permits.

In 1984, the Israel Ministry of Housing issued a report that over 10,000 homes were illegally constructed by Israeli Arab residents on the Acre-Tzfat road.

1984 was an election year in Israel. Ezer Weitzman, running with Benyamin Ben Eliezer on the Yachad Party ticket, campaigned in the Arab sector and promised to legalize these homes if elected.

After the July 1984 election, in which Labor and Likud were essentially tied in the number of seats, the YACHAD Party, with its three seats, entered the coalition on the condition that the 10,000 homes be legalized. And that is what happened.

In early 2003, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, headed by former UN Ambassador Dore Gold, issued a position paper which documented are more than 6,000 illegal and unauthorized homes built in Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. That study, authored by human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, a scholar-in-residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, can be located at:

The question remains: Will the government of Israel only demolish Jewish neighborhoods that have been constructed without proper permits? Is that not arbitrary enforcement of the law against only one ethnic group, while another ethnic group is allowed to flaunt the law?

Looks to Me Like a Mistake

There's picture in the latest issue of Newsweek.

The caption at the site goes "A young Jew at the Wailing Wall in Old Jerusalem" but in my copy of the magazine it reads "Israelis prayed for their leader at the Western Wall".

The way I see it, this kid, who is wearing an orange wristband, and appears to be grimacing with inner pain, was photographed during the summer. He has short sleeves on and the sky above is bright and sunny. He was an anti-disengagement activist.

Newsweek has turned him into a Sharon-lover.

Of course, there are plenty of Jews, even those among the expellees who do not desire Sharon's death.

But Newsweek, methinks, was fooling around with the pictures.

Hamas & Jerusalem

The PA wants Hamas to run in its elections and wants those elections to include eastern Jerusalem Arab residents (by the way, why can't Jews who live in the territories vote whereas Arabs in Israel vote for the Knesset?).

It's a problem of sorts although why not a mail ballot, I don't know.

Anyway, America is pressuring and so, according to CNN, this is what Ehud Olmert told his cabinet ministers:

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who assumed the post following the massive stroke of Ariel Sharon, had said the proposal should proceed because Hamas candidates had not entered East Jerusalem and were not campaigning there.

Shortly thereafter, Haaretz reported:

No. 2 on Hamas party list arrested at East Jerusalem rally

Police arrested on Sunday the number-two man on the Hamas party list for the upcoming Palestinian parliamentary elections, Sheikh Mohammed Abu Tir. Two candidates for the Hamas list in Jerusalem, Mahmoud Tutah and Ahmed Atun, were also arrested.

Also arrested were two people who organized the event. The five are suspected of illegal campaigning in East Jerusalem. The candidates were planning to hold a press conference at the entrance to the Temple Mount, but police arrested them immediately upon their exit from the Temple Mount grounds.

Isn't it silly to see an Israeli Prime Minsiter - Acting being made a fool of?

Whoa! Hey, that's the Wrong Emphasis

In his report, Steven Erlanger includes this sentence about the problem with Hamas' participation in the PA elections:

Hamas calls for Israel's destruction in its charter, but says it could abide by a long-term truce with an Israel within its 1967 boundaries. That is unacceptable to Israel, which says it will not return to the 1967 lines, which were the armistice lines of the unconcluded 1948-49 war.

It's not just the borders that are unacceptable. It's the very idea that all we are discussing here with the Hamas is a long time truce.

A long time truce?

You gotta be kidding.

You mean as long as it takes them to obliterate Israel or eradicate it? What are we talking about - something conditional and a matter of time? And how long will that take once our brilliant leaders continue to disengage and weaken Israel so the 1967 lines become dangerous to the extreme?

And under Olmert's direction, and perhaps Tsipi Livni's ministerial responsibility at the post of Foreign Affairs, we go merrily on.

Israeli English

A comic interlude.

A friend of mine, IB, spotted a case of wrong spelling in an ad on an Israeli web site so she wrote to them, thus:

Hi,
I don't know if you are the right address to send to, but nothing else seemed to fit.

There is a typographical error in the advertisement about the Torah CDs. The opening should read "Let there be sound."
But the last 'e' is missing in "there". It is only in the large one at the top of the home page. In the in other places where I have seen this ad, "there" is spelled correctly.

And lo and behold! She received an almost immediate reply:

Thanks allot

Oh, well. It was a good try.

There Goes a Pope

Did you know that Giovanni Battista Montini, who later became Pope Paul VI, is linked now to the theft of property of Jewish, Serb, Russian, Ukrainian and Roma victims during World War II in Yugoslavia?

Find out more here.

More on Terminology

No sooner than I finished posting the last bit of my thinking, I find this at William Safire's column:-

In wartime, words are weapons; we have seen how Israelis and Palestinians are highly sensitive to connotations in their conflict. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon preferred to refer to land in dispute west of the Jordan River by biblical names: Judea and Samaria, evoking Hebrew origins; Israeli diplomats long tried "administered territories." Palestinians call it the West Bank and have won that terminological battle.

On another word-war front, the construction within the West Bank to protect Israelis from rocket attacks and penetration by suicide bombers is called "the wall" by Palestinians intending to evoke memories of the cold war's hated Berlin Wall. Israelis counter by calling it "the fence," a less onerous and more familiar description of a line of separation, recalling to Americans the Robert Frost poetic line "Good fences make good neighbors." (In fact, it is both fence and wall, depending on the place.) After perusal of thesauri, the Bush administration adopted the undeniably accurate word barrier, which has been accepted as neutral by much of the news media and stirs no objection by Israel.

Terminology: Refugee Camps

I have been waging a campaign to find and use alternative terminology for terms that have become pejorative and prejudicial as regards the presence of Jews in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

I suggested revenant instead of "settler".

I suggested communities instead of "settlements".

And now, I found someone who has discovered a new term for refugee camps.

the camps - more accurately, concrete exurban slums

And who was that?

Lorraine Adams in a NYT book review.

More on Occupation

So says the BBC:

Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It has annexed the area and sees it as its exclusive domain.

Under international law the area is considered to be occupied territory.

The area is often called Arab East Jerusalem because the majority of its residents are Palestinian, and Palestinians hope to make it their future capital.

And then you have this excerpt from the new novel by Elias Khoury, "Gate of the Sun":

On Palestinian identity before 1948, Khalil admits to Yunes: "Palestine was the cities - Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem and Acre. In them we could feel something called Palestine. The villages were like all villages. . . . The truth is that those who occupied Palestine made us discover the country as we were losing it."

Finally. Peres.

My good friend David Bedein is undoubtedly pleased with this, having been after Shimon Peres and his financial irregularities for years.

HaAretz is reporting:

Comptroller launches campaign finance probe against Peres
By Zvi Zrahiya, Haaretz Correspondent

State Comptroller Micah Lindenstrauss launched an investigation Saturday into a $320,000 campaign contribution to MK Shimon Peres from billionaire businessman Haim Saban as well as donors outside the country.

Saban, who recently took controlling interest in telecommunications giant Bezeq, made the donation in 2004, when Peres was in the midst of campaigning for chairmanship of the Labor Party.

Peres received the sum from three donors: Israeli billionaire Bruce Rapoport, who currently resides in Switzerland, contributed $100,000; American tycoon Daniel Abrahams, who gave $120,000; and Saban, who donated $100,000.

A Sense of Proportion is Called For

An anonymous (Stern?) senior IDF source proclaimed:

that the behavior and actions of extremist Jewish groups operating in Samaria pose a far greater threat than terror actions to the people of Israel. If left unchecked, the problem will continue to increase, he said, and turn into a matter of national concern.

In an unprecedented statement that revealed frustration at the failure of security forces to nab those responsible for destroying Palestinian olive trees in the West Bank, the officer likened the actions of the extremists to "a volcano waiting to erupt."

Hey, can we get a better sense of proportion here?

Terror kills, maims, wounds.

The IDF still has all the guns as do the police. The threat posed by rambunctious and unruly kids cannot compare to suicide bombers and other Hamas, Jihad and Fatah operatives.

This officer is the real threat to Israel's society and democratic fabric.

So, Who Do You Blame?

A while ago, a tragic incident occured.

An Arab youngster in Jenin who was holding what appeared to be a real rifle was shot, from a distance, by Israeli troops who presumed they were being fired on. He died and his family contributed his organs to Jews and Arabs.

It seems that these situations are not due soley to the reality of what many prefer to refer to as "the occupation".

It can happen in other places not occupied but due to special circumstances usually involving the child involved.

Here's what happended in South Florida:

Police shoot teen in school standoff

Student pointed pellet gun at deputy
January 13, 2006, 11:26 PM EST

LONGWOOD -- A Milwee Middle School eighth-grader, who last year threatened to blow up a school bus, showed up for class Friday with a pistol in his backpack.

However, classmates of Chris Penley, 15, didn't know it was a pellet gun.

Neither did a veteran Seminole County deputy sheriff, who made a split-second decision to open fire when Chris pointed the weapon at him.

The deputy's single shot gravely wounded the boy, who was on life support Friday at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

- - - - -

Chris raced into a bathroom and was confronted by Lt. Mike Weippert of the SWAT team.

"They pleaded with him to drop what appeared to be a 9 mm Beretta handgun," Eslinger said.

Chris then aimed the gun at Weippert, who was between the boy and two occupied classrooms.

The deputy fired once.

The pellet gun is powered by a carbon-dioxide gas cartridge. Barrels on such guns are normally red or pink, to distinguish them from real guns, Eslinger said. But the barrel on Chris' gun, he said, had been painted black and was virtually identical to the real thing.

Friday's shooting left parents questioning security at the school and the safety of their children.

"These kids have gone crazy," said Cheryl Bratcher, who has two children at Milwee.

When in Rome...

I have complained that many journalists who come to cover Israel do not know the langauge, do not know adequately our history, Zionism and worse, the Arabs.

Now, we have another problem - not knowing enough of Jewish ritual customs.

Just received this from LH:

-------- Original Message --------

Got this from a Beit Shemesh list:
From: xxxxxx>
Date: Jan 13, 2006 7:53 AM
Subject: a true story / listener's identity known to me
To: "Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@sa12.bezeqint.net

Whilst listening to the BBC World Service's report on the health of Ariel Sharon , this past Motzei Shabbos, I could not help myself from laughing aloud. The BBC Correspondent reported how the journalists camped outside Haddassah Hospital had just watched a group of Ultra-Orthodox Jews come outside the hospital building, raise their heads up to the seventh floor, where Sharon was recuperating, and sing some prayers for his recovery.

I guess the BBC's Correspondent had never seen Kiddush Levanah before.

Kiddush Levana.

Morality and the Fight against Terror

A few postings below, I recalled Dan Halutz's run-in with moralists who felt his defence of the pilots who dropped a bomb on a house in an attempt to kill a terrorist who was responsible (and would become responsible) for many innocent civilians being killed was atrocious and hauled him before Israel's High Court of Justice.

Well, who do you think is now in the same situation? Read on:

Ayman al-Zawahiri -- Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in the al Qaeda terrorist network -- was not killed in a CIA airstrike on a remote Pakistani village, according to a Pakistani intelligence official.

U.S. sources said al-Zawahiri was the target of Friday's strike and initially reported that he may have been among the 18 people killed.

The Pakistani intelligence official said it was not known whether al-Zawahiri was in the area.

Pakistan's Foreign Office said Saturday it had lodged a protest with the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan over the attack on the village of Damadola, near the Afghan border.

"Pakistan will also take up this matter in the next meeting of Tripartite Commission," a statement read. The group is made up of senior military and diplomatic representatives from coalition forces, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Friday morning's strike killed eight men, five women and five children, Pakistani intelligence sources told CNN. Three homes were targeted.

"We are conducting tests to identify the bodies," one intelligence official said.

In the war against terror, these actions may occur. They are to be condemned only if the intelligence and operational planning were lapse or inadequate. Whether or not the US did its best, we'll eventually find out. As for Israel, I believe it did its best but now that Halutz is making a 180-degree turn-about, his morality is now endabgering innocent civilian lives - ours.

We will reach every point where there is Israeli occupation on our land

The title of this blog posting is from an interview with a man who intends to do just what he says.

World Daily Net has the entire interview here.

Here's another excerpt that confirms what all of us "crazies" have been saying about the security barrier and its "security value".

WND: When you talk about "our land," are you referring to the West Bank, or do you mean you will try to drive the Jews from all of Israel with your rockets?

OUDAI: Of course the whole thing [all of what you call Israel] is part of Palestine and we'll never give it up.

WND: Are your West Bank rockets the same as the Qassam rockets in Gaza that can go about three miles? I have heard about a new rocket, the Jenin-1.

OUDAI: For security reasons and for the safety of this process of transferring rockets from outside and the process of producing them I cannot give details. I can say that for the moment we have two series of rockets – Jenin and 2 and Arafat-1 and 2. The Jenin distance is 3.5 kilometers to 5 kilometers; Jenin 2 is 6 kilometers.

As for our Arafat rockets, I cannot give at this moment much details. All I can say is they will be very much improved in comparison with any other rocket of the Palestinian resistance. The Arafat rockets will prove two things: First, that they can reach every goal we want all over the enemy state. Secondly, it will prove to the Israelis that Arafat's spirit is still alive and that he is continuing to fight the Israelis and to hit them even after his disappearing.

WND: Your group and other terror organizations have credited Israel's security fence with frustrating your ability to carry out suicide bombings, basically because now you cannot get in to carry out the bombings. I assume the fence has no impact whatsoever on your ability to launch rockets.

OUDAI: Correct. An important goal of the rockets is to tell the Israelis that you have built a huge wall on which you spent billions of dollars but still we are hitting you with our rockets and reaching every target we want. This wall will not defend you from our rockets which have defeated your wall and all the security measures you have taken to prevent our attacks.

Maybe It's Not Bias After All? (naw)

Sharons' conditon a la Reuters

Sharon still in coma, doctors concerned
Fri Jan 13, 2006 8:04 AM ET

By Megan Goldin

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Doctors gave Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a battery of neurological tests on Friday to judge whether he was coming out of a coma but Israeli media reports said concern was rising at his failure to regain consciousness.

...and a la BBC

Doctors deny Sharon coma concerns

An Israeli hospital has denied reports that doctors are concerned they have been unable to wake Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from a drug-induced coma.
Israeli media had quoted officials and sources as saying there was concern about the pace of Mr Sharon's progress.

And here's one from Australia which I can't tell from the headline whether if it's Sharon shedding blood, other Jews or Arabs:

Sharon improves, bloodshed goes on
By Chris Otton in Jerusalem
13jan06

Media bias?

Incompetence?

Wishful thinking?

Olmert, Medad, Halevi and The New Republic

Yossi Klein Halevi, a former chanich of mine in Betar, is now a respected journalist and well-deservedly, I might add. He is also a filmmaker and the author of several books. (*)

On the staff of The New Republic, Yossi's article on Ehud Olmert was published this week.

He interviewed me for background and here's the relevant paragraph:-

Some old comrades are enraged at Olmert for what they perceive as an even greater betrayal of the Revisionist legacy than his support for partition. In a speech last summer to a dovish American group, the Israel Policy Forum, Olmert claimed that Israelis long for peace because "we are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies." Notes Yisrael Medad of Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center: "It's one thing to endorse partition because of demographic reasons. But to play the defeatist in the middle of a war is a repudiation of everything Revisionist Zionism always stood for."

The entire article is here (at present, subscribers only. if you want the entire article, you may ask me for it).

(*) Here's what JewsWeek wrote about him:
He's the hippest Jewish commentator on all things cultural and political vis-a-vis the Middle East. His writings in the New Republic and other publications have made him beloved by center-liberal Jews the world over. Then he went and wrote At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden, and became the uber-mensch of interfaith exploration. Think of ol' Yossi as the intellectual hottie of our day.

Really, David?

David Twersky is an old friend from way back. From way way back.

I in Betar; he in Habonim. I at Shiloh; he on Gezer for a long while.

I in Israel; he in America.

Nevertheless, with all the differences and even some similarities, I found his following statement troubling:-

"It appears to us that Chavez did not intentionally speak about Jews," said David Twersky, director of the AJCongress's Council on World Jewry. "I don't think we should raise the flag of antisemitism when it doesn't belong."

And what did the President of Venezuela say on Christmas Eve?

Read on:

Chavez lamented that while the world had enough resources for all, "some minorities, the descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones who threw out [South American liberator Simon] Bolivar from here and also crucified him in a way in Santa Marta, over there in Colombia — a minority took possession of all the planet's gold, of the silver, the minerals, the waters, the good land, the oil, the riches, and they have concentrated the riches in a few hands. Less than 10% of the world's population possesses over half of the world's riches, and more than half of the planet's population is poor, and every day there are more poor in the world."

.

I doubt David doesn't know what antisemitism is, and what it can lead to.

The American Jewish Congress also knows what antisemitism is.

Maybe one should ask David Twersky? (dtwersky@ajcongress.org)

So, what am I missing here?

Nothing Can Compare

It's Haj time again.

I respect other people's religions. Each man has a right to formulate his conception of the Divine, principles of belief, patterns of worship and I cannot deny that religion can attract irrational thinking and even worse behavior.

Nevertheless, year in and year out, we learn of the happenings at Mecca and this year, it has happened again.

Below is an excerpt from the AP report:

At Least 345 People Die in Hajj Stampede
By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer

Thousands of Muslim pilgrims rushing to complete a symbolic stoning ritual during the hajj tripped over luggage Thursday, causing a crush in which at least 345 people were killed despite Saudi attempts to prevent stampedes that have plagued the annual event.

The stampede occurred as tens of thousands of pilgrims headed toward al-Jamarat, a series of three pillars representing the devil that the faithful pelt with stones to purge themselves of sin.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said 345 people were killed. More than 1,000 people were injured, said Dr. Abbasi with the Saudi Red Crescent.

The site is a notorious bottleneck for the massive crowds that attend the annual hajj pilgrimage and has seen deadly stampedes in the past, including one in 1990 that killed 1,426 people and another in February 2004 that killed 244. Seven of the past 17 yearly pilgrimages have seen deadly incidents at al-Jamarat.

The stampede took place despite Saudi efforts to improve traffic at the site, where all 2.5 million pilgrims participating in the annual hajj move from pillar to pillar to throw their stones, then exit.

Saudi authorities replaced the small round pillars with short walls to allow more people to throw their stones without jostling for position. The walls extend down through the bridge and protrude underneath, so pilgrims below can also carry out the stoning without going above.

I have studied various religions and I do not think anything can truly compare with the above described rock-throwing act (although throwing stones at Jews is more wicked) and the self-flagellation on Ashoura.

Yes, in Judaism's history there have been persons who have fasted, rolled in the snow and even had themselves whipped symbolically. But this was not the norm. This was not a mass phenomenon.

I somehow feel that a people that can do this to themselves in such a way, can do much worse to others.

Another Clinton-Jewish Angle

No, not her (gasp!)

The Yeshiva University angle.

The Village Voice has some interesting observations on Hillary Clinton's foray to Yeshiva University.

Here are some excerpts but read the entire piece.

Last month, Yeshiva University presented Hillary Clinton with an honorary degree...

...she improved her standing in the Jewish community. Today, polling data show 72 percent of the state's Jews give the senator high marks, as compared to 62 percent of New Yorkers overall. That's up from the 52 percent of Jews who had a favorable view of Clinton when she first took office. Among Jewish leaders, you'd have to search far and wide to find anyone who claims Clinton isn't a friend of Israel.

Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant and observant Jew, says Clinton "has redefined herself for many Jewish voters." Gone is the 1999 image of her Arafat kiss. He adds, "She has been able to reverse it all."


There was a time when Clinton couldn't say anything right. Six years ago, the then candidate was still struggling to emerge from the Suha flap. She condemned Arafat's remarks and blamed her own actions on a faulty translation. But that didn't satisfy a segment of the Jewish community—the most strident Israel supporters.

...Over the past six years, she has rarely missed a chance to demonstrate a commitment to her Jewish constituents. On Israel, she has become a stalwart, boasting a solid record, sticking to the policies of the pro-Israel lobby. The latest example? Pushing the Bush administration to get tough on the nuclear-happy Iran. Last fall, she repudiated Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for demanding Israel be "wiped off the map." When he denied the Holocaust last month, she wrote Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, denouncing his rhetoric as "outrageous" and urging action. Last week, when Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon had a stroke and Ahmadinejad expressed hope that Sharon would not survive, Clinton fired off a statement calling the Iranian president's comments "despicable" and wishing Sharon "a speedy recovery."

...But will her inroads among Jewish leaders translate with the average Jew on the street? In the Orthodox community, Hikind and others say, people still have a gut reaction to the Arafat kiss. And they still cannot understand why she'd be so popular.

I guess you can fool any Jew any time.

He had his maideleh. She's our shiksa.