Nadia Matar Arrested

Last night, after a demo against Condi Rice and Ehud Olmert's plans to hand over sovereign Israeli territory, Nadia was arrested (here, in Hebrew).

Why Arutz 7 doesn't have this up in English, I don't know.

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UPDATE

(from a close acquaintance)

I am unable to sleep after witnessing what I did this evening.

I went to a demonstration to protest Olmert and Rice's meeting and the pressure being put on Israel for more and more concessions - not that our Prime Minister is not ready to yield. The rally was called for 7:00 PM at French Square which is opposite the Kings Hotel at the corner of Ramban and King George, Jerusalem.

Nadia Matar of WIG (Women in Green) spoke as did Elyakim Haetzni and a couple of other people. Peace Now had a demonstration closer to Olmert's house . We finished our demonstration and were ready to disperse when the police suddenly said that they wanted to arrest Nadia who was sitting on a wall in the
Square with some people around her - all quiet.

A heavyset policeman was standing next to me and seemed to be running the show. I asked him why he had ordered the action and he said that it was because she 'had a history'. There were about 20 people standing around and we all were shocked. Nadia had done nothing wrong; we were all witness to this. If they thought that she had why did they wait until everything was quiet and the main part of the crowd had left (there were probably 200 people there at the height of the rally and signs were distributed that said "Israel is not Olmert's Real Estate"/ "Condoleezza Rice Go Home",and the like). It was obvious that the police knew that had more people been present there would have been stiff opposition to their even approaching Nadia who was just sitting and not doing anything.

There were about a dozen police there and suddenly the heavyset one charged into the group and directed others to take Nadia. She was dragged by 4 of them -two held her legs and two her arms - and another woman who tried to protect her was also taken into custody. Both were practically thrown into a van with others following and trying to prevent this - to no avail. There was no effort to protect their modesty; Nadia's cap also fell off. While trying to take hold of her, the police had pushed other people around without a care.

I had never seen this kind of police violence - although I had heard of it. A man in the group had a van and a bunch of us piled into it and went to the police station in Talpiot. We had all been witness to this and wanted to be sure that Nadia and Michelle (?) were ok. The police did not let us see them and we finally went to a waiting room. Originally, we had been told that they would be kept only for an hour - to be investigated but it was much longer. Finally, Nadia's lawyer, Ephraim Katsir, arrived, and we had a chance to speak with him, too. He spoke to some of the police and kept us apprised of what was happening.

A bit later, Ephraim told us that Nadia and Michelle were going to be held overnight. While we were waiting a letter had been composed - complaining about the police violence. Several people signed. We left after Ephraim told us that there would probably be a court hearing tomorrow - Thursday. Someone undertook to let us know if it will take place for sure.

I do not know what to do with these facts. Just wanted to record them and let you know. Meanwhile, a short distance from our rally, Ehud Olmert and Condoleezza Rice were meeting; Peace Now was permitted to stand just outside the barriers of the PM's home - no doubt Rice could see those who support Olmert. Interesting to me was the fact that Hezbollah can have open rallies in the US and make all kinds of threats - but freedom of speech is not permitted in Israel.

Justice, justice shall you pursue. Nonsense!! This arrest was nothing less than a political obscenity.

Chana

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UPDATE


Arutz 7 gets it up:

Published: 09/20/07, 1:50 PM
Nadia Matar Arrested After Peaceful Protest

On the Altalena and a New DocuDrama - My JPost Oped

Take liberties with history, and you can fool millions

THE JERUSALEM POST
Sep. 19, 2007

At the Venice Film Festival early this month, British director Peter Greenaway spoke of his latest effort, Nightwatching, a movie about Rembrandt van Rijn. The film, in the style of docudrama, zeros in on three women in the painter's life.

"I can't prove every single fact, but you can't disprove it either," Greenaway told a press conference.

Maybe you can get away with that kind of approach on a Rembrandt docudrama and just hope for the best, but what if elements of Israel's history were portrayed on the basis of the "but you can't disprove it either" school of thought?

Israeli playwright Motti Lerner has shown he has no problem with taking just that line.

Lerner, the grandson of one of two woman presumed to have revealed to the Turkish authorities the spying activities of Sarah Aharonson in Zichron Ya'acov in 1917, leading to her arrest, torture and eventual suicide, is a theater personage of note. He has previously staged Messianic Pangs, The Murder of Isaac - with its infamous urination scene - and Bus 300, as well as Kastner's Trial among others.

In A Battle in Jerusalem, a television drama shown over Channel 1, IDF soldiers during the 1948 war are assigned to take an Arab position near Jerusalem. After a day of difficult fighting they retreat, but blow up the position with their wounded in it.

IN DESCRIBING the plot of The Murder of Isaac, Lerner explained that he sought to inculcate into his art the idea "that religious fanaticism was and is grounds for innumerable wars; and the fact that nationalistic and racist fanaticism still constitute[s] a central component of our culture."

The play was refused a stage in Israel, so Lerner took it to Germany for production. But it was the Kastner play that attained for him a place in all Israeli law schools - and no small amount of notoriety - when the subject of "freedom of expression" is taught.

In its script, produced for Channel 2 television more than a decade ago, Lerner takes liberal license with his Hannah Szenes character and suggests she handed two Palestinian Jewish parachutists over to the Hungarian police.

The incident not only didn't take place; it couldn't have. Szenes was already imprisoned when the parachutists arrived in the Hungarian capital. The scene was a figment of Lerner's imagination.

High Court president Aharon Barak decided, in the majority opinion, that an artist's right to freely express himself even if he actually falsifies what happened is protected from libel action. Justice Mishael Cheshin passionately dissented, arguing that the historical truth must take precedence.

LERNER, as he's written in a paper presented at Brandeis University, believes that Israeli society suffers from a "disease" - "that most Israelis do not recognize the simple and clear truth that there is a Palestinian people… [this] disease is the total denial of the Palestinian narrative… we, Israelis, must admit that this disease, which I've just described, is not very different from the same old racism that we suffered from for more than 20 centuries."

Now Lerner has a fresh project. Channel 2 will soon be showing a Lerner docudrama that purportedly portrays what happened when the Altalena arrived in Israel in June 1948.

Already, evidence is mounting that Lerner will be taking liberties with history. Yoske Nachmias learned that his character in the series will be firing a submachine gun at IDF soldiers at the Kfar Vitkin beach, a clash that occurred a day prior to the shooting that took place off Tel Aviv's beachfront; and that Menachem Begin will be hiding behind the Nachmias character, trying to protect himself.

The real Nachmias observes that this scene is completely fabricated. But neither the producer nor scriptwriter, as far as we know, appear to be interested in correcting the distortion.

WHATEVER the distortions of the past, Lerner's future crimes against history can still be corrected. In the first instance, the series should contain a prominent and explicit disclaimer stating that this is a work of fiction, and that any similarity with actual events is purely coincidental. If Law and Order can do it, Channel 2's Keshet franchise surely can.

Secondly, instead of calling the ship the Altalena, why not call the boat Shimshon?

Haim Hazaz published a book entitled In One Chain about the Irgun's Meir Feinstein and the Lehi's Moshe Barazani who, sentenced to be hanged, preferred to blow themselves up with a smuggled primitive hand grenade. All the names of the characters, major and minor, were changed. It did not detract from the story, and made it clear that Hazaz was interpreting a historical reality in a fictitious manner.

He could not have known what conversations transpired between the two heroes. But his approach emphasized that history and theatrical interpretation are two different things.

Only about 100 people who were involved in the Altalena incident are still alive. But millions may eventually accept the Motti Lerner docudrama take on the Altalena incident as genuine history. Very few will likely go on to read a genuine history book that would present an alternative to Lerner's narrative.

The medium of docudrama is subtle and facile and prone to convincing an unwitting audience that what they see is real and true.

Given Lerner's propensity for ideological antipathy to many of his subjects, as well as his record of playing fast and loose with history for (questionable) dramatic worth, the playwright should be forced to make these small alterations before his latest work airs on Israeli television.

The writer comments on political, cultural and media themes and blogs at www.myrightword.blogspot.com

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Note: the original version of this article can be read here

Me Lecturing

The Begin Center has initiated a new program of special government office internshup called the Israel Government Fellows and we just started their orientation seminar.

Here I am lecturing:-

Shiloh Seen From Maaleh Levona

Someone named Kmelion sent my wife a photo snapped from Maaleh Levona looking south-east to Shiloh.

Enjoy.

Jabotinsky Speaking

Here's a too short excerpt from a speech Ze'ev Jabotinsky made in 1934 regarding the Jewish claim to TransJordan.

The speech was made for publicity purposes (in the full version I've seen, you can see his wife, Joseph Schechtmann and others sitting in a studio as if an audience) and he speaks in Yiddish. There are Hebrew subtitles.

Since I see Ze'ev Jabotinsky the grandson and the very end, obviously someone downloaded this from a television interview with him.

El-Dura Didn't Die?

The third person present at that screening, however, Luc Rosenzweig, former editor in chief of Le Monde, under questioning from the court answered "the theory of the set up [of Mohammed's death] has a greater probability of being true than the version presented by France 2," according to the trial-court judge's written opinion.

Source

And see here.

The Religion of Peace?

A Queens teen was arrested yesterday after placing fliers in his teachers' mailboxes asking them to convert to Islam - then made threats once he was caught, authorities said.

Yaseen Chowdhury, 17, of Woodside, wrote the fliers himself and put them in the mailboxes at the Renaissance Charter School in Jackson Heights, sources said.

When confronted there about the fliers, he made unspecified verbal threats, according to the sources.

Chowdhury was charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime.

Little Known Fact Corner

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian-born, is director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Did you know that:-

He's the eldest of five children from an upper-middle-class family in Cairo; that he grew up with a French nanny and had a private school education; that at 19, he became the national youth champion in squash; that he studied law and joined the foreign service, eventually serving in New York;

and that

While working on his doctorate on international law at New York University, he went to New York Knicks basketball games and to the Metropolitan Opera, and stayed up late talking American politics and drinking wine in Greenwich Village bars. His first girlfriend, he said, was Jewish.

R & R at Auschwitz

Here.

Judaism, Rosh HaShanna - Not Even a Factor

After the game, Green, who is Jewish, said the victory was not extra special because it came on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. “It’s not even a factor,” he said.

Yeah?

Well, that was last week.

This week I understand the Mets are sinking fast.

Hitting?

The JPost headline blooper of today:

IDF reports hitting terrorist in hunt for Hamas cell in Nablus

Hitting?

Maybe "hitting terrorists"?

OrthoMom Disappoints

OrthoMom disappointed me.

She posted an item about Jews going to Tashlich and getting their automobiles ticketed. But she didn't mention in her post the obvious:

Driving on Yontif?

OM, not even a joke or humorous reference to that oxymoron?

Something like "well, maybe next year for Rosh HaShanna they get to throw their cars in the lake?"

Wonkette Follow-up at Gawker

Gawker slips back into sleazy antisemitic innuendo:

What the hell is that skywriting going on right now? Um, near as people can tell from 23rd Street, it seems to be about the U.N. We can't tell at all from SoHo. Is it about the black helicopters that run up the East River on behalf of the secret Jewish world government? Because we hear that's true.

Good comments there.

Gush Katif

The movie Israel's media won't show.

Here Come the Lefties

PSC Public Meeting - 6 October 2007

End the Occupation – Freedom for Palestine: Building a new Anti-Apartheid Movement

PSC is holding an international conference on 6-7 October 2007 with representatives of solidarity movements from Europe, North America, South Africa and the Middle East. It's purpose will be to plan for a campaign for 2008 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, and to build a new mass anti-apartheid campaign. This is a closed conference for organisation representatives.

For those interested in meeting the Delegates, there will be a public session at 4.30 p.m. on Saturday 6 October, with speeches from the Palestinian representatives, who will talk about the current situation and their expectations of the international campaign, and a summary of the key issues covered in the first day of the conference.

End the Occupation – Freedom for Palestine: Building a new Anti-Apartheid Movement

Speakers include: Mustafa Barghouti, Naeem Jeenah (South Africa PSC), Ahmed Youssef (Spokesperson for Ismael Haniyeh)

4.30p.m. on Saturday 6 October

At Congress House, TUC, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3 LS. Nearest tube stations: Tottenham Court Road, Holborn.

This meeting is open to all members, supporters and other members of the general public.

Jenny Najar
Director
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Lebanese Lounge
50 – 52 Hanbury Street (off Brick Lane),
London
E1 5JL
Tel: 020 7539 9200

Let's Turn the Tables

Here's a pro-Pal. appeal.

You know what, use the e mails at the end and turn the tables on them. Write to express how supportive you are of the Festival's action against the anti-Israel people.

Bassemah Darwish, a member of the jury of the San Diego Women's Film Festival and fellow jury members, but in particular the Film Festival director, Jennifer Hsu are under severe pressure and attack by Israeli lobby groups and supporters in the US because they voted to observe an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel within the festival.

We could help them if we send short letters to the Festival's board of directors (listed below with contact details) explaining why the Boycott of Israeli films in the festival is justified (give links to supporting documentation) and why they should reconsider their position of firing Jennifer as the Film Festival director.

If anyone of you know Israeli activists who support the Boycott campaign, please pass on this message and ask them to do the same

Thanks,
Leigh

Again, just turn this around and protest their activities and reject theri boycott attempts.

Write to:


San Diego Women Film Foundation Board of Directors:

Yvonne Silva
Multicultural Events Coordinator for The San Diego Union-Tribune
(619) 293-2605
yvonne.silva@ uniontrib. com

Amy Berry
Community Relations Manager for Cox Communications
(619) 266-5286
amy.berry@cox. net

Renee Herrell
Founder of San Diego Women Film Foundation, Nonprofit Fundraising Consultant
(619) 688-9498
renee@reneeherrell. com

Carrie Shields
Public relations manager for Bailey Gardiner (BG)
(619-295-8232 x108)
carrie@baileygardin er.com

Shannon O'Connor
shannon720@gmail. com

Leave It To Ehud

...to be slick.

Treasury to reimburse Olmert for legal costs during war probe


The state treasury has decided to reimburse Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the legal expenses of his appearances before the Winograd Commission probing the war in Lebanon, it emerged Tuesday.

Responding to a reporter's question, Justice Ministry Managing Director Moshe Shilo said Olmert was the only witness that asked to be reimbursed.

Thank God for Academics

In Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 51, No. 5, 772-792 (2007) I found this article:-

Suicide Bombings and Targeted Killings in (Counter-) Terror Games by Daniel Jacobson & Edward H. Kaplan

The summary reads:-

This article develops sequential game models for key operational terrorist (how often to attack) and government (how often to execute targeted killings) decisions taken during a (counter-) terror campaign such as the second intifada. Key results include the following: The government initiates targeted killings when the marginal number of Israeli civilian lives saved from prevented terror attacks exceeds the marginal number of Palestinian civilian lives lost in such ``hits''; targeted killings are not employed if they are either ineffective or extremely effective at thwarting terror (since terrorists will not induce their use); even after accounting for downstream terror attacks motivated by prior targeted killings, a civilian casualty—minimizing government can optimally order targeted killings over time; and low-level cycles of violence can occur when the government is more patient than the terrorists, but higher, stable levels of violence result when the terrorists are the more patient players in the game.

Amazing.

Yesha Council Head in Spanish TV Interview

If you comprehend Spanish, like Dani Dayan, presidente de la Asociación de Colonos de Cisjordania, click here.

Who Have Dual Loyalty to the US?

“It would almost defy credibility that the North Koreans would be willing to risk so much to engage in a nuclear weapons-related proliferation,” said Evans Revere, the president of the Korea Society in New York and a former senior American diplomat in Seoul.

What do you think caught my eye in the above statement?

Right -

a former senior American diplomat

The fact that here is yet another American State Department official who, probably, I presume, due to the lure of oil money, is working up-front for the Arab side against Israel. And that means, in my lexicon, against the US.

The charge of dual loyalty has always been thrown in the face of Israel supporters but I would maintain that the real danger comes from these fromer diplomats, Like Ed Abingdon, former US Consul-General in Jerusalem who was PRing for Arafat having spent seven years at a Washington lobbying firm that represented the Palestinian Authority for as much as $750,000 a year and gave defense testimony for Hamas-funders or a former Political Officer at that Consulate, Lara Friedman, now #3 at Americans for Peace Now who is their Director of Policy and Government Relations.

I could come up with a few more but trust me, they'll never find themselves in the unfortunate position of two former AIPAC officials now on trial.

So, who has the really invidious dual loyalty?