Yalkut Shimoni & the Temple Mount - Let's Not Be Forlorn

The Yalkut Shimoni is a commentary on the Tanakh first published in 1521 but compiled in the early 13th century.

As the Temple Mount Movement pointed out in their weekly political ad in Makor Rishon, there is an interesting link up between our troubles with Yishmael, symbolizing the Arabs, and the Temple Mount.

At the end of this week's Biblical portion, the YS writes:

וישכנו מחוילה עד שור וגו' הכא את אמר נפל ולהלן את אמר ישכון אלא כל ימים שהיה אברהם אבינו חי ישכון וכיון שמת אברהם אבינו נפל. עד שלא פשט ידו בבית המקדש ישכון כיון שפשט ידו בבית המקדש נפל. בעולם הזה ישכון אבל לעתיד לבוא נפל:

Translation:
[On the verse Genesis 25:18] "They lived from Chavilah to Shur, which borders on Egypt, going towards Asshur. He lived in the presence of all his brethren,", the Hebrew word used for 'live' is "fall" and the YS comments that not until he stretched out his hand, i.e., acted aggressively, towards the Temple did he fall, i/e/, descend in importance and material and spiritual value.

The Islamists insist on denying Jews their rights to the Temple Mount and the state authorities aid in this shame. Jewish antiquities are destroyed. Jordan now wants to build a fifth minaret. Plans are being prepared for a synagogue up there. Things could get out of control.

But an ancient Midrashic commentary seems to indicate that not all is to be viewed forlornly.

This Must Be Islam

I had this post earlier about Muslim men groping Muslim women in Cairo (imagine what they'd do to Jewish women). And I asked, "is this Islam"?

Well, here's a not nice story:-

Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday sentenced an East Jerusalem woman to 15 years in prison for assisting in the "honor killing" of two of her daughters, and in the attempted murder of a third.

Sara Shakirat's son, 29-year-old Maher Shakirat, committed the two killings and was also carried out the attempted murder.

Amani Shakirat, 20, and her pregnant 28-year-old sister Rudeina were found dead at their home in the village of Jabel Mukaber in May 2005. Police couldn't say whether the women had swallowed acid, or had been strangled. Their sister Leila, 24, was found in serious condition. Relatives said that she had swallowed acid in a suicide attempt.

The incident began when the parents suspected that Rudeina had damaged the family's honor by being unfaithful with her husband's uncle. Rudeina, who was in the ninth month of her pregnancy when she was killed, did not know who the father was. Maher Shakirat asked his parents' permission to kill all three sisters, on the grounds that the pther two were party to Rudeina's secret affair.

On May 2, the father sent most of the family members out of the house, and Maher asked Rudeina and Amani to drink the acid that he had bought, so that he would not have to kill them himself. The two women drank the acid, but did not die, after which Maher strangled them both with a cord.

At this time, Sara Shakirat was in the house, and backed up her son. She even called the third daughter, Leila, and invited her to the house so that Maher could kill her too.

When Leila arrived, Maher tried to strangle her and threw acid over her, but she survived and even acted as a witness for her mother during sentencing.

But there's a Jew in this story, a far left-wing, radical Jew who defends Arab terrorists who kill Jews and her name is Leah Tzemel. And what did she do?

Sara Shakirat's attorney, Leah Tzemel, asked the court to reduce her sentence as she had acted in accordance with Arab tradition, which states that she is responsible for her daughters' moral behavior.

Luckily, the judges weren't stupid, this time:-

But judges Moshe Ravid, Orit Efal-Gabay and Aharon Farkash, rejected this request, saying rather that punishment in such cases should be more severe, "in order to thwart and eradicate such shocking acts that harm defenseless women on the grounds of desecration of family honor."

Arab tradition to kill someone for being less than sexually proper? This Tzemel defends?

Woe the sacred platform of human rights!

Israel's Government Sessions

The Ramon sexual harassment case has provided a voyeur's view into...the government meeting room.

The newspaper clipping below (from Ma'ariv, Nov. 16, p. 8) contains a few lines I found fascinating. For those you can read Hebrew, look at the last paragraph in the right-hand column, three lines from the bottom.



For those who need a translation, Ramon is asked by the judge, how could it be that at a fateful government session dealing with the Lebanese War he took out time to enter the soldier's phone number in his cell phone.

Ramon replies, "Generally, the first hour of the government meeting is important. Afterwards, the ministers begin to speak and this is generally not interesting...".

By itself, this is hilarious. But then I noticed this Haaretz story:-

A recently published article severely criticizes Israel's diplomatic and security decision-making processes. Chuck Freilich, former deputy head of the National Security Council, wrote the article for Autumn 2006 issue of the Middle East Journal.

Israeli leaders are motivated largely by trying to remain in office and to satisfy their coalition partners, and Israeli policy is characterized by a lack of organized planning and reactions to passing events, Freilich writes.

Israel's decision-making system, Freilich says, acts under two major constraints: the security threat to the country, and the proportional representation electoral system, which, he says, causes extreme politicization of the process. Over the years, the number and complexity of the agencies dealing with national security in Israel has grown considerably, but this has not found expression in the decision-making process. He adds: The Israeli National Security Council, which was set up in 1999, has a marginal position, and prime ministers prefer to lean on personal advisers. The three previous prime ministers, he notes, all used the services of personal lawyers for sensitive diplomatic missions.

In his analysis of the "pathology" of Israel's decision-making process, Freilich points out that the prime minister has no staff of his own; that the government is a federation of ministers appointed because of their political sway rather than their executive talents; and that the government usually makes its decisions without discussing alternatives, essentially merely approving decisions prepared in advance. The problem is not just the lack of a suitable decision-making forum at the national level, he writes, but also a lack of actual policies. Prime ministers find this convenient, because they are not committed to a formal policy and can change their positions at will.

[Here's the abstract:

National Security Decision-Making in Israel: Processes, Pathologies, and Strengths
Charles D. Freilich

This article presents a first of its kind typology of Israeli national security decision-making processes, focusing on five primary pathologies and a number of strengths. It will demonstrate that these pathologies are the product of an extraordinarily compelling external environment and domestic structural factors: chiefly, the extreme politicization of the decision-making process stemming from the proportional representation electoral system, the consequent need to govern through coalition cabinets, and the absence of effective cabinet-level decision-making support capabilities.]


So, next time you think the government ministers know what they are doing, think again. One could be entering into his cell phone memory a girlfriend's number and a few others could be daydreaming.

BBC Back to Old Tricks?

I haven't been media-watching as ferociously as I had been in the past but this caught my eye for two reasons:-

Israelis kill W Bank 'militant'

Muhammad Ahmedan was buried hours after the shooting

Israeli troops in the West Bank say they killed a Palestinian militant.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops had spotted an armed gunman in al-Ein camp near Nablus and opened fire.

First of all, the continued use of the term "militant" to describe an armed gunman.

Secondly, I severely doubt that Israeli troops would use the word "militant". That's putting words in someone's mouth. And that's not ethical.

If any BBC person is reading this, if you have a direct source for that use of "militant", can you let me know?

And if you keep reading the BBC story you'll find this:-

As they often do in Gaza, Israeli forces phoned the five houses beforehand to warn of the coming attacks.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the militants' homes were hit because they were being used to store weapons and to hold "terrorist meetings".

The word "terrorist" is placed by the BBC in quotation marks but the word 'militant' is not.

They really can mix up their language, especially as they include the reason for the homes of the 'militants' to be targetted: weapons storehouses.

And even the nice, respectful behavior of warning before shooting passes unnoticed.

But This is the Most Extremist Issue

Tony Blair is getting us here in Israel in trouble.

Blair pushes US on Palestine conflict

TONY BLAIR sought yesterday to increase the pressure on the US Government to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a way of preventing moderate Muslims from being exploited by extremists.

Appearing by video link before the Iraq Study Group, set up by President Bush to chart a new course for the country, the Prime Minister said repeatedly that the biggest factor in getting moderate Muslim countries to support the new Iraq would be progress on the Palestinian issue.

This is ridiculous. The "Pal." opposition to Israel, Zionism and Jews, ever since 1920, has been the most extremist position an Arab can take. To try to weaken Israel so as to resolve the issue and then to presume that this will lower the "extremist level" of the Arab/Islamic world is just plain silly and dangerous.

And how dangerous? Well, it could drag American policy that way:-

His demand coincided with growing signs that the bipartisan group was increasingly concerned over expectations that it could plot an end to the war. Privately members concede that no “magic solution” exists.

The expected report from the group, led by James Baker, Secretary of State to Mr Bush’s father, has assumed such importance for Republicans, Democrats and some foreign policymakers that aides are trying to dampen expectations. Mr Blair said that the Iraqi Government recognised that events outside the country were as important as developments inside.

Progress on a wider Middle East settlement would take away the issue that was most exploited by extreme elements, he said. Iran and Syria should be given the strategic choice of whether to be part of the solution or face isolation.

This is insane.

What, They Just Discovered Barbecue?

From NYMagazine:

It's somehow happened that, in the midst of the greatest barbecue boom New York has ever seen, nearly all of the cuisine's major restaurants are either owned or operated by Jews. Given the wide berth our people have historically given pork, this seems worth commenting on. Meyers's launching of Blue Smoke was just the beginning. Josh Cohen has just reopened Biscuit in Park Slope; Adam Perry Lang has become a major star in competition BBQ, in addition to launching his Daisy May's empire; Andrew Fischel's RUB was anointed by Adam Platt as the city's best barbecue; and the field will only become further Semiticized this spring, when Mark Glosserman and Robert Richter launch Hill Country BBQ in the Flatiron district. Don't get us wrong. There are some very fine Gentile barbecuers in New York: John Wheeler at Rack & Soul and John Stage at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que are both expert practitioners. Still, we're surprised someone didn't coined the phrase sooner: Bar-B-Jew.

This is Islam?

OrthoMom and others were very upset by the Modesty Patrols gone awry in Meah Shearim and Geulah. I too think that they were over-the-top (pun, well, yeah, intended).

Anyway, seems that there's a situation in Cairo that is way-out-of-hand.

Silence and Fury in Cairo After Sexual Attacks on Women

There is fear in the shops along Talat Harb Street, and shame. It is not because of what the people who work here say they witnessed, the crowds of men groping women and pulling at their clothing. They fear the police returning, and they are shamed by their own silence.

Recently, reports surfaced on Egyptian blogs, on television and in newspapers that groups of men had roamed the city streets during a holiday weekend and attacked young women — actually chased them down in packs. There were accounts from witnesses and victims.

“All of a sudden, these guys attacked us and came in between us and harassed us,” a reveler told Al Ahram, the semi-official newspaper. “They groped us in a way that is worse than anyone on the crowded street could imagine.”

Mr. Abbas is a young man who never goes anywhere without his digital cameras. He said he witnessed packs of young men hunting down young women, grabbing at their bodies. “I saw two girls wearing those khaliji abaya,” he said referring to the black flowing gowns favored by women in the Persian Gulf region. “Guys surrounded them and pulled their clothes and veils and groped them.”

...Last year, the police watched as thugs sexually assaulted women who protested a referendum to change the way the president is elected.

The "Settlement Movement"

Nope, not what you think.

The settlement movement started in London. Victorian England, increasingly concerned with urban poverty, gave rise to a movement whereby those connected to universities settled students in slum areas to live and work alongside local people. Through their efforts settlement houses were established for education, savings, sports, and arts.

The British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres (BASSAC) is a network of such organisations in the United Kingdom. Birmingham University has produced a brief history of the settlement movement in the UK. Examples of the earliest settlements dating back to 1884 are Aston-Mansfield, Toynbee Hall, and Oxford House. There is also a global network, the International Federation of Settlements.

The movement gave rise to many social policy initiatives and innovative ways of working to improve the conditions of the most excluded members of society. The Poor Man's Lawyer service came about because a barrister volunteered his time and encouraged his friends to do the same.

In the United States, the two largest and most influential settlement houses were Chicago's Hull House (founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889) and the Henry Street Settlement in New York (founded by Lillian Wald in 1893). United Neighborhood Houses of New York is the federation of 35 settlement houses in New York City. The concept was continued by Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker hospitality houses in the 1930s.

Today, settlements are still community-focused organizations, providing a range of services in generally underserved urban areas, though they are staffed by professional employees rather than students, and no longer require that employees live alongside those they serve.

See, that's why you should refer to us as civilian Jewish revenants residing in the Jewish communities in portions of the Jewish national homeland.

On The Minors Who Were Arresting Protesting

This is important so I'm quoting all of it at least two of the girls involved are from Shiloh):-

They're still minors - even if they are annoying girls
By Nadav Shragai

What is veteran Youth Court judge supposed to do when the defendant before him, a 15-year old, tells him outright that she does not recognize his authority as judge, scorns the robe he wears and rejects the authority and the laws of the State of Israel and of the court to try her?

Uri Ben Dor, the vice president of the Youth Court in Jerusalem, encountered this dilemma when K. appeared before him for a hearing on extending her detention. He tried to speak kindly to her, but K. told him that because he is not a rabbi and the court does not derive its authority from the laws of the Torah, but from the laws of the State of Israel, she chooses not to cooperate with him, even if that means continuation of her detention.

Ben Dor decided that the girl should remain behind bars.

However, Judge Noam Solberg decided to release from detention a girl who joined in anti-disengagement action, because he believed the maximum jail term for the crimes she was accused of - creating a public disturbance - would be no longer than the girl had already spent in jail for refusing to sign a conditional release.

S., also 15 years old, spent nearly two months in jail with serious criminals in Jerusalem's Russian Compound and in the Neveh Tirtza prison even though she could have been released conditionally shortly after her arrest. The judge before whom she appeared decided to deal with the problem in a different way and postponed the date of the next hearing for four months, on the assumption that the girl or her parents would break and choose the option of being released and so sign the conditional release. He was mistaken. The girl and her parents preferred the prison cell to recognizing the court. In the end, the Public Defender's Office appealed S.'s continuing detention and she was sent home.

In another case, in which a 14-year-old girl was charged with resisting arrest, she was released by the court under more lenient conditions, but did not agree to sign the guarantee. She, too, refused to recognize the court's authority, as it is not based on the Torah and Sanhedrin. For five weeks the girl was imprisoned in Neve Tirtza. She was released only at the conclusion of her trial, and the judge ordered her father to sign the guarantee in her name or else the father himself would be sent to jail for four months.

State of Israel vs. anonymous

All of these girls were arrested during the course of the protests against the evacuation of Gush Katif and northern Samaria in the West Bank or other right-wing protests. Sometimes they were involved in violent clashes with Arabs or the security forces. Their refusal to acknowledge the court's authority and cooperate with it very much embarrassed the judicial system, which often found itself helpless in the face of this phenomenon.

This problem led nearly all the professionals working in this field to accept the invitation of MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) to take part in a special Knesset discussion under the auspices of the Knesset's Child Welfare committee. Six months ago, Yachimovich asked the attorney general to release the minors from detention, "because this is a blatant violation of the rights of minors," and she also invited one of the girls who spent many weeks in jail and refused to be released conditionally, to the session of the committee she heads.

B., who spent seven weeks in jail, told the committee members that during the time of the disengagement she and her friends saw how "judges were mobilizing to suppress our demonstrations and enable the expulsion. I saw friends my age who were hit and then were accused of assaulting policemen. We saw how the Supreme Court was allowing the transfer of Jews, but prohibiting the transfer of terrorists and Palestinians.

"What I absorbed is that the entire judicial system is based on one big lie. Everything is predetermined. I realized there is no justice here, and that I would not be part of this show. The show can go on without me."

"I was in jail during the summer vacation," continues B. "For 10 days they didn't let me phone home, and I didn't see my parents except in court. I really wanted to be home, but it was much more important for me to keep my conscience clean."

Shai Nitzan, the deputy state prosecutor, said the state had never seen such a phenomenon. "People usually respect the law and are happy when keeping them in jail until the conclusion of proceedings is not requested," said Nitzan, "but this phenomenon kept changing. It started with a refusal to identify oneself. Minors said, 'We are not identifying ourselves.' Hundreds refused to identify themselves. They said 'nothing matters to us, even if we have to sit in jail.'

"The state had to decide whether to capitulate to this demand and release them without them identifying themselves and risk losing the opportunity to enforce the law in their case, or insisting on them identifying themselves. In the end, we insisted and we issued indictments, like the one issued against 'anonymous, fictitious ID number 100.'

"This was an organized phenomenon. There were organizations instructing them to act in this way in order to cause the rule of law to collapse, until they saw it wasn't working. It really was sad to see that as a result of this, there were girls who were minors who remained in detention for a number of weeks."

MK Yachimovich told Nitzan that there "is a blatant and glaring lack of policy in the judges' behavior toward the girls under arrest." "Undoubtedly the same girls really infuriate the judges when they openly announce that they don't recognize the Israeli judicial system," Yachimovich said. "Moreover, sometimes the parents are not willing to release them conditionally, because they are partners in what they see as an ideological protest. But all these things certainly are not sufficient cause to hold girls who are minors in detention for such a lengthy period."

Of particular interest were the remarks made by the head of the Internal Security Ministry's youth department, Commander Suzy Ben Baruch, who has some 30 years of experience dealing with children for the police. Ben Baruch also acknowledged "the embarrassment could not be overlooked. There was serious deliberation over what to do with them. But the moment the parents didn't bother to come and are not willing to accept a conditional release and even urge their child to remain in detention, a basis was created for declaring the minor as 'a minor in need.' That's when a welfare officer enters the picture, and then it is a serious situation." Ben Baruch says the system did "everything" to prevent a situation in which a child is removed from his parents' custody and placed with a foster family or in an institution: "Throughout the entire period of the disengagement, I ran from Ma'asiyahu Prison to Dekel Prison. Together with the juvenile parole service I walked among the girls in the jails. They all know me.

"A certain MK who heard about one of the arrested girls told me 'I'll persuade her to sign.' She went into the cell full of energy, but when she came out of there, she told me 'carry on with your work.' Very quickly she realized that she too couldn't persuade them."

A political mouthpiece

The Labor and Social Affairs Ministry district juvenile parole officer, Drora Tal, told of the difficulties in dealing with the girls detained for lengthy periods: "We were very helpless in facing them, even though we had solutions, including religious kibbutzim in the north willing to accept them. They objected to going and the idea of dragging them there by the hair didn't seem like an option to me. Some of these youths also took everything out on their parents, so even the parents were helpless when facing them. In some of these cases, the parents weren't the ones deciding, but these girls didn't come from a vacuum. They were only the political mouthpieces of others and that's not fair to them. They came from a community and people in the community can still influence the youth, for better or for worse."

In the end, no girl was removed from her parents' custody nor declared a minor in need. The welfare services did not show a readiness to take such a far-reaching step, but the threat hovered in the air constantly.

MK Yitzhak Levy (National Union-National Religious Party), who during the disengagement met often with the families of the detainees and visited them in jail, surprised the professionals at the forum when he said: "I'm not scared by the declaration of a minor as a minor in need. I think that is perfectly fine, and I'm in favor of threatening parents in this case. When the parents are threatened, maybe they will come to sign in order to release the child. I can understand parents who wage an ideological battle, but I can't understand parents who wage an ideological battle at the expense of their children and leave them in a place of risk, and in my eyes, a jail is a place of risk."

Nitzan, who received a religious-Zionist education, addressed the committee not only as the representative of the judicial system, but also as a parent. "In this story," Nitzan said, "the parents should be ashamed. I also have kids and if they were to tell me, 'leave us in jail, because it's very important for the sake of the Jewish people,' I wouldn't agree. I'm telling you that a parent who does such a thing ought to be ashamed."

Yachimovich asked to distance herself from the sweeping condemnation of the parents. "I really am not a party to this," Yachimovich clarified. "A parent who respects the ideological battle of his child and doesn't release him conditionally in order to enable him to take upon himself a punishment of ongoing detention, as in the case, for example, of conscientious objection to the occupation, is doing something legitimate. In the relationship between parents and children, the parents can decide to respect their children's struggle, including the heavy cost they must pay for it."

So, a question arises: who should now be in jail for risking the lives of minors in Sderot and other Western negev towns by not providing adequate protection?

Hint:-

In a response to the High Court of Justice, the state said yesterday there was no way to protect Sderot schoolchildren from the threat of Qassam missiles, because it would be impossible to reinforce all classrooms in the city before the start of school next fall. The state is asking the court to reject two petitions filed by Sderot residents demanding the reinforcement of all educational institutions in Sderot and environs against Qassams.

"There is no disputing that studying in the non-reinforced classrooms entails a certain security risk to students," the state argued in its response. "However, it seems that for the time being, there is no alternative. This risk is not significantly different from the risk to which students are exposed en route from home to school and back, by bus or private car, which of course are not reinforced against Qassam missiles, or from the risk to which they are exposed during the day when they are in many other places besides reinforced classrooms, such as other parts of the school, extracurricular activities, places of entertainment and various public institutions and even in their homes, many of which are within missile range and are not reinforced. The state does aspire to provide 100-percent protection to every inhabitant - and certainly to every child - but it is obvious that this goal could only be achieved in a utopian world. In reality, all the state can do is attempt to get as close as possible to that goal, within the bounds of the limitations and circumstances within which it operates. The most that the state can provide to the schoolchildren in the Gaza envelope communities is protection during most school hours, and the protection of the homerooms only."

Demographic Fluidity

Palestinians are leaving the territories due to the harsh security and economic situation there, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Israel Radio reported that thousands of Palestinians have received permits to emigrate to Arab and other foreign countries.

Ahmed Suboh, a Palestinian Foreign Ministry official, said at a Ramallah press conference that over the last four months, foreign and Arab diplomats in the territories have authorized 10,000 Palestinians to enter their countries.

Suboh said that some 45,000 additional emigration requests were currently being evaluated by various foreign representatives.

The Foreign Ministry official noted that Palestinian emigration was likely to continue with the deterioration of the security situation.

Today's Quiz

Who said this?

Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear insight into the value of that. Have you heard of his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of the world together in Palestine, with a government of their own - under the suzerainty of the Sultan, I suppose. At the Convention of Berne, last year, there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal was received with decided favor.

I am not the Sultan, and I am not objecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the world were going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let the race find out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride any more.

Write me if you want the answer.

yisrael.medad@gmail.com

Well, We Know What Fox Can Now Do

Fox News reporters freed for $2 million
Terrorists used cash for arms to 'hit Zionists,'

JERUSALEM – Palestinian terror groups and security organizations in the Gaza Strip received $2 million from a United States source in exchange for the release of Fox News employees Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, who were kidnapped here last summer, a senior leader of one of the groups suspected of the abductions told WND.

The terror leader, from the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees, said his organization's share of the money was used to purchase weapons, which he said would be utilized "to hit the Zionists."

He said he expects the payments for Centanni and Wiig's freedom will encourage Palestinian groups to carry out further kidnappings.

Officials associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and its security organization, the Preventative Security Services, confirmed to WND money was paid for the release of the Fox News reporters.

A senior leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, the declared "military wing" of Fatah, said the group received a small percentage of the $2 million, which all parties interviewed said was transferred in cash...

...A spokeswoman for Fox News Channel told WND she could not provide an official statement about whether Fox was aware of money paid to free its two employees.

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

UPDATE

From Drudgereport:-

**EXCLUSIVE** INTERNAL MEMO DENIES PAY-FOR-HOSTAGE AT FOXNEWS...

Internal FOXNEWS memo to employees from Roger Ailes: 'I just saw an article on the internet from WorldNetDaily.com by Aaron Klein which claims we paid $2 million in hostage money during the Centanni & Wiig kidnapping crisis. The story is absolutely 100% false. Not a cent of hostage money was paid, and it was never considered'...

Anyone Seen a Flood?

Would this be helpful for confirming the Flood?

At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high.

On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction — toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface.

The explanation is obvious to some scientists. A large asteroid or comet, the kind that could kill a quarter of the world’s population, smashed into the Indian Ocean 4,800 years ago, producing a tsunami at least 600 feet high, about 13 times as big as the one that inundated Indonesia nearly two years ago. The wave carried the huge deposits of sediment to land.

Most astronomers doubt that any large comets or asteroids have crashed into the Earth in the last 10,000 years. But the self-described “band of misfits” that make up the two-year-old Holocene Impact Working Group say that astronomers simply have not known how or where to look for evidence of such impacts along the world’s shorelines and in the deep ocean.

Scientists in the working group say the evidence for such impacts during the last 10,000 years, known as the Holocene epoch, is strong enough to overturn current estimates of how often the Earth suffers a violent impact on the order of a 10-megaton explosion. Instead of once in 500,000 to one million years, as astronomers now calculate, catastrophic impacts could happen every few thousand years...

...About 900 miles southeast from the Madagascar chevrons, in deep ocean, is Burckle crater, which Dr. Abbott discovered last year. Although its sediments have not been directly sampled, cores from the area contain high levels of nickel and magnetic components associated with impact ejecta.

Burckle crater has not been dated, but Dr. Abbott estimates that it is 4,500 to 5,000 years old.

It would be a great help to the cause if the National Science Foundation sent a ship equipped with modern acoustic equipment to take a closer look at Burckle, Dr. Ryan said. “If it had clear impact features, the nonbelievers would believe,” he said.

But they might have more trouble believing one of the scientists, Bruce Masse, an environmental archaeologist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He thinks he can say precisely when the comet fell: on the morning of May 10, 2807 B.C.

Dr. Masse analyzed 175 flood myths from around the world, and tried to relate them to known and accurately dated natural events like solar eclipses and volcanic eruptions. Among other evidence, he said, 14 flood myths specifically mention a full solar eclipse, which could have been the one that occurred in May 2807 B.C.

Half the myths talk of a torrential downpour, Dr. Masse said. A third talk of a tsunami. Worldwide they describe hurricane force winds and darkness during the storm. All of these could come from a mega-tsunami.

Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, Dr. Masse said, “and we’re not there yet.”

At the David Bar-Ilan Media Conference

I was at the College of Judea and Samaria today at Ariel for the annual David Bar-Ilan Memorial Conference on the Media and the Middle East (*). I understand that you can view it at their web site.

It was the best one yet. Interesting, informative, good speakers. My question directed to Dr. Raanan Gissin was picked as one of those to be responded to.

Anyway, I had an opportunity of talking with Ruthie Blum, an outstanding feuilletonist and interviewer at the Jerusalem Post and all-around "good guy", very politically correct as far as I am concerned with a bantering sense of humor (I hope she's mutual on this). Oh, her question was read out, too.

And I had this picture taken to prove it to you all:-



(Pic. credit: JH)


The conference was well-attended and was a fine contribution to the College's academic program.

----------------------------------------
(*)
The conference schedule:

Monday, November 13, 2006

Program Itinerary
09:00 - 09:30 Registration
09:30 - 09:45 Opening Remarks
Speaker: Prof. Zilla Sinuany-Stern, Vice President, Academic Affairs, CJS

Session 1
09:45 - 11:15 The Propaganda War: Israel vs. Hezbollah
Chair: Dr. Ron Schleifer, Department of Mass Communications, CJS
Speakers:
Amir Gissin, Director, Public Affairs Dept., Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Steve Linde, Managing Editor, The Jerusalem Post
Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, and Department of Israel & Middle Eastern Studies, CJS

Session 2
11:30 - 12:30 Keynote Address
Chair: Yigal Cohen-Orgad, Chairman, Executive Committee, CJS
Speaker:
Gilad Adin, Director-General, News Division, Channel 10
Topic: Israeli Media on the Front

Session 3
14:00-15:30 Foreign News Reporting & the 2006 Lebanon War
Chair: Steve Leibowitz, Editor-in-Chief, IBA TV News
Speakers:
Steven Erlanger, Jerusalem Bureau Chief, New York Times
Dr. Ra'anan Gissin, Strategic Consultant & Former Media & Hasbara Adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Prof. Stewart Purvis, Dept. of Television Journalism, City University London, Former Editor-in-Chief of ITN and Member of Independent Panel Review of BBC Middle East Coverage

Session 4
15:45-17:00 Political Satire & Its Impact on Israeli Society
Chair: Dr. Galit Ben-Israel, Department of Israel & Middle Eastern Studies, CJS
Speakers:
Uri Orbach, Correspondent, I.D.F. Radio & Yediot Ahranot
Ruvik Rosenthal, Columnist, Ma'ariv, Lecturer, Open University & Author
Dr. David Alexander, Department of Communications, Haifa University
Jackie Levy, Correspondent, I.D.F. Radio & Yediot Ahranot

17:00-17:15 Closing Remarks
Speaker: Jeff Barak, Israel Correspondent, The Jewish Chronicle (UK), & Former Editor-in-Chief, The Jerusalem Post

This is What Barak (A.) Said About Judaism

At a graduation ceremony of the Reform Movement in Israel, former President of Israel's Suprem Court, Aaron Barak, had this to say about Judaism:-

"Judaism is not made out of one skin (cloth). It has many different streams and different and counterposing outlooks. Thus, for example, if in the world of Judaism there exists of particularistic stream and a universal stream, it is but proper for an interpreter [he is referring to himself here as a judge who delivers a legal opinion on conversion, Temple Mount, etc. - YM], to adopt the universal stream, because this stream is more akin with the values of the state of Israel as a democratic state than the particularistic stream".

You don't believe it?

Well, here's the newspaper clipping from Haaretz, Friday, November 10, 2006, p. A10.



Now, what really gets me upset is not this outrageous opinion, demeaning the Orthodox branch of Judaism, as if it is not democratic, and preferring Reform.

No, it is his circular reasoning method.

In order for him to prefer Reform, he assumes that the state of Israel, whose character he has directed and channeled through his law decisions, is a certain type of state with democratic values that are only obtainable by rejecting particularism and preferring universalism = Reform. That's hogwash, you should all excuse that non-kosher reference.

He doesn't like 'particularism' as his own personal viewpoint and ideology that has nothing to do with facts and therefore considers it undemocratic. Moreover, he ignores what damage has been done to Judaism and the Jewish people and their peoplehood by universalism has done over the centuries.

And by the way, let's not forget how he ended up on this Reform platform:-

Former High Court of Justice president Aharon Barak has agreed to accept an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, although he is to write the ruling on a petition by the college, which is the academic arm of the Movement for Progressive Judaism. The ceremony is to take place this morning at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

In raising the issue, Mordechai Eisenberg, the chairman of the Movement for Fairness in Government, the ultra-Orthodox version of the Movement for Quality Government, yesterday leveled a serious accusation at Barak: receiving favors from a party in a legal proceeding.

The Courts Administration confirmed the facts of the case but said the ruling would apparently be written by another justice. Barak finished his term on September 14, and was succeeded by Dorit Beinisch. According to the law, the outgoing court president has three months in which to write the rulings in all the cases in which he or she was involved.

Barak headed an expanded panel of seven justices in a petition submitted by the Israel Religious Action Center, the legal arm of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, against the Welfare Ministry. The petition demanded an end to the custom of placing non-Jewish children for adoption with Orthodox families only.

Panel member Justice Mishael Cheshin was replaced after his retirement by Justice Edmond Levy. However, Barak still appears in the file as head of the panel.

Barak refused a request from Haaretz for a response. Legal experts who spoke with Barak yesterday said he will not be writing the ruling in the alloted three months. The Movement for Progressive Judaism said it had waited to grant the degree to Barak until after he retired.

Professor Barak, sir, were you being particularistic or universal in ignoring the apparent ethical error in your appearance?

Going Jewish

McDonalds in Ramat Aviv goes kosher

Branch employees prepare facilities to go kosher.

Company management clarifies: Decision private initiative not related to us
[G-d forbid they should be blamed for this cuisinary alteration]

According to branch employees, preparations were being made to make the facility kosher, and in a few days, there will be no more cheeseburger or dairy products available for sale, and the ice creams would be separated from the meat.

“We received orders from above that the branch was to go kosher within a few days,” a branch employee said.

The McDonalds branch in the Ramat Aviv mall has never been kosher since its establishment. Israel’s McDonalds CEO Omri Padan is not interested in the franchise's branches being kosher, and only makes them so when he has no choice.

McDonalds’ management said that it was McDonalds that initiated the decision to make the Ramat Aviv branch kosher, and it was it is located in a mall that closes on Saturday’s anyway. There are four other non-kosher McDonalds branched that operate in the area.

The owner of Ramat Aviv mall Lev Leviev explained, “It was a private initiative of the McDonalds chain itself. I have no connection to McDonalds’ decision.”

Meanwhile, McDonalds opened another kosher branch at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. This new addition brought the total number of branches in Israel to 119, 14 of which are kosher.

I Also Edit

Found this here (and the home site is here) and it says a lot about what I do, among other things:-

Jabbing Judt

So, you judge.

Was there "pressure"?
Was it justified?
Does Judt deserve a platform when he has so many others?
What's wrong with what the ADL did?

Volume 53, Number 19 · November 30, 2006

The ADL and Tony Judt: An Exchange

By Abraham H. Foxman, Myrna Shinbaum, Reply by Mark Lilla, Richard Sennett

In response to THE CASE OF TONY JUDT: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ADL (November 16, 2006)

To the Editors:

Re Tony Judt and the cancellation of his October 3 speech by the Polish Consulate in New York:

In an e-mail to Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Professors Mark Lilla and Richard Sennett said they were planning to publish their October 13 letter to Mr. Foxman in The New York Review of Books[November 16], and suggested we do the same. They have rejected Mr. Foxman's request for a meeting saying, "We would be very happy to discuss the matter in that venue."


Below is Mr. Foxman's response to their letter.

Myrna Shinbaum
Director, Media Relations & Public InformationAnti-Defamation League, New York City

October 17, 2006

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) calls the accusations that it is responsible for canceling of a program featuring Tony Judt at the Polish Consulate "baseless," and says the campaign by professors ignores "due diligence" of the facts.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

On October 13, we received a letter from Mark Lilla of the University of Chicago and Richard Sennett of the London School of Economics accusing ADL and me of vio-lating democratic principles of debate by threatening and pressing the Polish consulate general to cancel a speech by Tony Judt. More than one hundred other academics, journalists, and others signed on to the letter from Professors Lilla and Sennett.

What is so shocking about this letter is that a group claiming to be defending fundamental values of free expression in a democratic society—values that ADL has worked to ensure for decades—employs techniques which completely debase those values.

Neither the principal authors of the letter nor any of the co-signatories ever sought me out to get the perspective of ADL as to what did and did not happen. Professors Lilla and Sennett simply credit as "fact" the comments and opinions of the president of the group that sponsored the event and leap to the unsupported conclusion that "These facts argue against the press release the ADL circulated...disclaiming any role in the cancellation of Professor Judt's lecture"; they have acted as judge and jury without engaging in the least bit of due diligence to ascertain whether there are facts they do not know; and they use inflammatory words like "threaten," "pressure," and "intimidate" that bear no resemblance to what actually transpired.

ADL did not threaten or intimidate or pressure anyone. The Polish consul general made his decision concerning Tony Judt's appearance strictly on his own.

ADL is justifiably proud of its ninety-three-year record of defending free speech as a bedrock principle of a healthy society. It is disheartening to see leading scholars ignore the very doctrine they invoke by rushing to judgment against our organization. Their behavior is a much subtler and more dangerous form of intimidation than the baseless accusations conjured up against ADL. Now, by raising the specter of "threat and intimidation," Professors Lilla and Sennett want ADL to fall into line and behave as though "the rules of the game in America..." do not also oblige them "to encourage rather than stifle public debate."

When teachers speak out on the rules governing "fundamental principles of debate in a democracy," particularly scholars of the stature of Professors Lilla and Sennett, they have a responsibility to the academy, their students, and society to do so with the highest degree of respect for those principles. Sadly, Professors Lilla and Sennett appear to have lost sight of this responsibility.

Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
New York City


Mark Lilla and Richard Sennett reply:

While we are grateful for Mr. Foxman's response, we are also puzzled by it since he does not address the main contentions of our letter.

The issue is not, as Mr. Foxman would have us believe, whether the Polish consul general, Krzysztof Kasprzyk, made his decision "strictly on his own." It is whether the ADL did indeed "threaten," "intimidate," and "pressure" him into making a decision by calling so shortly before Professor Judt's lecture was scheduled to take place. Since our letter was circulated, Mr. Kasprzyk has confirmed just that, telling The Washington Post that "the phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure. That's obvious—we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that."[1] He then told Larry Cohler-Esses of The Jewish Week, whose reporting on this matter has been invaluable, that "when you look at it from the outside, a call like this [from Jewish organizations], just asking about this on the very day of the event can be seen as exercising a very—I don't know if this is the word—a delicate pressure."[2]

Yes, Mr. Kasprzyk, it is the right word. The Post article is also important because it reveals that the ADL was not the only organization to call the consul general, though we did not know this when we drafted our letter. David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, told the Post that he also telephoned, though "as a friend of Poland." "The message of that evening," he is quoted as saying, "was going to be entirely contrary to the entire spirit of Polish foreign policy." He said something similar to The New York Observer shortly thereafter, remarking that "I wanted to alert him because we've worked with Poland for a long time, and Poland has worked since 1989 to build a strong relationship with Israel after decades of poor relations under the Communist regime—and because I knew that Tony Judt was not a universally popular figure in the Jewish community. We had a nice conversation."[3]

Even without knowing the substance of those "nice" calls from the ADL and AJC, any impartial observer will recognize them as not so subtle forms of pressure. We are further convinced in this judgment by the fact that both organizations celebrated the consul general's decision as soon as it was made. Mr. Harris told The New York Sun, "Bravo to them [the Poles] for doing the right thing," and Mr. Foxman told The Washington Post, in the article already cited, "I think they made the right decision."[4]

Why Mr. Foxman offered us a "face to face" meeting to "put the facts on the table" is more puzzling still. What would he have said then that he could not have said in his press releases, interviews, and, now, his letter to The New York Review? If there have been any errors regarding fact, we would be happy to correct them. We can only conclude that, at some very basic level, Mr. Foxman does not "get it." He does not seem to recognize that public debate and discussion is a healthy thing in a democracy, and that sound public policy in domestic and foreign affairs depends on it.

Mark Lilla
University of Chicago

Richard Sennett
London School of Economics
New York University

Notes
[1] Michael Powell, "In NY, Sparks Fly Over Israel Criticism," The Washington Post, October 9, 2006.

[2] Larry Cohler-Esses, "Judt Supporters Rally to His Side," The Jewish Week, October 13, 2006.

[3] Suzy Hansen, "Judt at War," The New York Observer, October 16, 2006. See also Larry Cohler-Esses, "L'Affaire Judt Rattles ADL; High-Brows Snub Foxman," The Jewish Week, October 20, 2006.

[4] Ira Stoll, "Poland Abruptly Cancels a Speech by Local Critic of the Jewish State," The New York Sun, October 4, 2006.

Olmert's Really Dangerous or Just Plain Nuts

I always suspected that Olmert's talk about "back-burning" convergence/realignment was BS.

Here's the JPost story:-

Before leaving for Washington on Saturday night, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reaffirmed his commitment to territorial withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.

"You can read my lips: 'I'm ready for territorial compromises‚ and I haven't changed my mind," Olmert said in an interview with Newsweek-Washington Post.

In the interview, Olmert breathed new life into the realignment plan, which would see Israel retain highly populated settlement blocs within Judea and Samaria and relinquish isolated areas. Until now, analysts had assumed that Olmert had dropped the plan.

But on Saturday he said it could still be on the table, with some modifications.

"After the fighting in Lebanon, and also the failure of the Palestinians to cope with continued terrorist attacks, I have second thoughts about the ability to accomplish the two-state solution through realignment. It is definitely not dead but it has to be reexamined," said Olmert.

According to a government source, Olmert might be willing to give up 90 percent of the West Bank. The source added that this scenario would only be implemented if the Palestinians completely halt terrorism.

...Israel's war with Hizbullah caused politicians to re-think the wisdom of unilateral concessions and ended, until Saturday, any talk of realignment in the near future...

..."One thing I can promise: Under no circumstances am I going to withdraw from the need to engage in a serious dialogue with the Palestinians," he said in the interview. He reconfirmed his commitment both to Bush's road map and to a two-state solution. "We have to find the best partner to do it. A lot depends on the Palestinians," he said.

A partner for negotiations might be found if the negotiations between Fatah and Hamas lead to a unity government of technocrats that halts terror, recognizes Israel and agrees to abide by all past diplomatic agreements, Olmert said.

Once that happens, he said, "I'll be ready to sit down with such a government even if it includes Hamas representatives."

This reads like some racy, adult literature - "Take me, quick, take me, she panted".

Bungling Bugger

Melanie Phillips sent me here where Lord Norman Lamont, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1990-93, had this to say about Israel:-

Sadly, the West is perceived as having a long history of imposing its will on the Middle East to protect its own interests...

Of course, Israel should be recognised. But, like it or not, the creation of the state of Israel is seen by many Arabs as an act of Western colonialism. Some, on the Right, such as the late Julian Amery, did support the creation of Israel as a noble colonial venture. While Tony Blair was absolutely right to condemn President Ahmadinejad's outrageous comments about wiping Israel off the map, why was he so puzzled? He knows better than anyone that resentment over the partition of Ireland has lasted for more than 80 years. It is hardly surprising that bitterness over the appearance of a brand new state, with a population of six million people, is still there after 58 years. It is sad to say, but, after the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, to many Arabs Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks now seem less outrageous, and his popularity has soared.

Ah, "brand new state" as if (a) Israel was actually not the "reconstituted Jewish national home", as phrased by the League of Nations and (b) let's ignore that half the Arab states are actually 'brand new', too.

"Noble colonial venture" or an act of justified historical recompense?

"Sad to say"? Have you told them it is outrageous and evil to plan to destroy another state?

Eeks.

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

Bugger

n.

2. Slang A contemptible or disreputable person.
3. Slang A fellow; a chap: "He's a silly little bugger, then" John le Carré.