Even The Left Gets Things Right

Aluph Benn is Haaretz's editor-at-large with a small worldview, tinted by a color between pink and red. Nevertheless, he can get things right although, of course, the result he desires is the exact opposite of what is good for Israel.

For example, peruse these examples from his op-ed in the NYTimes (oh when will a rightwinger from Israel be granted 900 words there?):

The Arabs got the Cairo speech; we got silence.

This policy of ignoring Israel carries a price. Though Mr. Obama has succeeded in prodding Mr. Netanyahu to accept the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, he has failed to induce Israel to impose a freeze on settlements. In fact, he has failed even to stir debate about the merits of one: no Israeli political figure has stood up to Mr. Netanyahu and begged him to support Mr. Obama; not even the Israeli left, desperate for a new agenda, has adopted Mr. Obama as its icon.

As a result, Mr. Netanyahu enjoys a virtual domestic consensus over his rejection of the settlement freeze. Moreover, he has succeeded in portraying Mr. Obama as a shaky ally.

and

as far as most Israelis are concerned, Mr. Obama has made a mistake in focusing on a settlement freeze. For starters, mainstream Israelis rarely have anything to do with the settlements...More important: in the past decade, repeated peace negotiations and diplomatic statements have indicated that larger, closer-to-home settlements (the “settlement blocs”) will remain in Israeli hands under any two-state solution. Why, then, insist on a total freeze everywhere? And why deny with such force — as the administration did — the existence of previous understandings between the United States and Israel over limited settlement construction? There is simply too much evidence proving that such an understanding existed. To Israelis, the claim undermined Mr. Obama’s credibility — and strengthened Mr. Netanyahu’s position.

and

...Mr. Obama seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis. We are close emotionally and politically, but we are different. We speak Hebrew and not English, we live in the Middle East and have separate historical narratives. Mr. Obama’s stop at Buchenwald and his strong rejection of Holocaust denial, immediately after his Cairo speech, appealed to American Jews but fell flat in Israel. Here we are taught that Zionist determination and struggle — not guilt over the Holocaust — brought Jews a homeland.

All Benn wants to do is help out Obama, though.

I want to help out Israel.

That's being more right.

===========

Benn's piece is a reworking of this

Cartographic Pics

From: A Geographical Rendering of Judaea, or the Land of Israel, in Which the Positions of the Most Famous Places in the Old and New Testament are Precisely Depicted a hand-colored copperplate map of the Holy Land, featuring notable cities from the Bible, appeared in Le theatre du monde ou nouvel atlas (Theater of the world, or new atlas), a work by Jan Jansson (1588-1664) that was published in Amsterdam circa 1658. It depicts the kingdoms of Judea and Israel, along with territory stretching north to present-day Beirut and land on both sides of the Jordan River as far south as the Dead Sea. It also includes a key to major cities, priestly towns, and towns belonging to the Philistines. The map is an exact copy of the “Typus chorographicus” of Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), which was adapted from a map by the German cartographer, geographer, and mathematician Tilemann Stella (circa 1525-89). This map was first published by Jansson in 1652 in his Accuratissima orbis antiqui delineation (Atlas of the ancient world).

and



From: Palestine, Tribes, and Jerusalem by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (1697-1782), published 1783. D'Anville was one of the most important French geographers of the 18th century. He worked during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. D’Anville’s approach to geography was geometric; he believed that man’s presence was worthy of acknowledgement only insofar as it helped the cartographer to establish the boundaries of a place. He focused on fidelity to what was documented about the territory in question using knowledge gleaned from travel journals, historical accounts, old maps, poems, and more. D’Anville was especially passionate about mapping ancient civilizations. This map of Palestine was part of his attempt to re-map the lands of the Old Testament. It displays insets of the city of Jerusalem, the territories of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and the locations of the region’s cities in relation to each other.

While Not Quite Srugim, It Resonates

The "Unattached" trailer:




Will Muqata claim this is a Srugim spin-off?

Wall Posters

Hadassah has lost the public's faith:


National Service or any work for the army prohibited:


Food products with immodest pictures on the wrappings are a no-no (*):



(*)

Now just in case you think this a bit ridiculous and obscurantist Judaism, read on:

Winery's Nude Nymph Causes State Ban Winery says they will not be changing its label

Mon, Jul 27, 2009

For some wine lovers a nude nymph is artistic expression while for others it is offensive trash. A wine label showing a nude nymph is too much for Alabama's liquor control agency, which has told restaurants and stores not to sell the product.

The label on Cycles Gladiator wine, produced by Hahn Family Wines in Soledad, Calif., shows a vintage 1895 advertising poster for Cycles Gladiator bicycles. The French poster features a nude nymph flying beside a winged bicycle.

Bob Martin, staff attorney for the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said the board's license bureau rejected the label last year as inappropriate for sale in the state. Early this month, a citizen sent a bottle of the wine to the board's enforcement bureau to show it was being sold in stores, he said.

The board then sent a letter to stores and restaurants reminding them that sale of the product is prohibited, he said Friday.

Alabama's liquor regulations prohibit labels with "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner," Martin said.

Hahn President Bill Leigon said Friday the company had been selling its product in Alabama since 2006 until it ran into problems with the label. "It is not pornographic," he said.

Undergoing Harrassment

Condi Rice, the former Secretary of State of the US, was wont to complain about Israeli harassment of local indigenous Arabs and point to roadblocks as a major cause.

Well, I was harassed today.

How?

I left Shiloh just after 8AM in a car driven by my neighbor to get to Jerusalem for a conference aat the Knesset.

At the junction of Turmos Aya, Sinjil, Highway 60 and the road leading off to Maaleh Levona, two army jeeps and some soldiers on the road were blocking everything. We were caught up to quarter of an hour for apparently no real reason as they really didn't seem to be checking thoroughly.

Here are two clips and some pictures - but keep in mind, no apartheid roads. You can see by the license plates that both Jew and Arab are in this together:

1) approaching the junction (Turmos at left; Sinjil ahead; Maaleh Levona to the right) -


2) it begins to crowd up -


3) free-for-all who can get ahead of whom -



The two clips:

(The voice you here is my neighbor talking on his mobile. Notice that almost all the cars coming from the south

in the opposite lane were with PA license plates)

Reflections on Matisyahu

The Burden of Light: Matisyahu at a Crossroads

...Once your media profile is well established, it’s hard to modify. And that problem, faced by anyone who sustains a meaningful career, is greatly magnified when you have helped to construct the box into which critics eagerly put you...It’s a long way from New York City to Boise, a distance that has as much to do with ideology as geography. For all of its diversity, vast stretches of the United States remain strongholds of a white, Christian worldview that struggles to make sense of other cultural heritages even when it is open to doing so. That Matisyahu has achieved sufficient market penetration to merit features in those hinterlands as well as in the major cities and college towns where his name first circulated testifies to his talent and dedication. But the increased exposure has also contributed to an awkward lag in the reception of his work...Whether he wants to talk about other matters or not, his interviewers relentlessly force him back to the subject of his religious convictions.

And Matisyahu, as someone who cares deeply about his faith, takes the responsibility too seriously to play the rock star who brushes off difficult topics. It’s clearly a good thing that his music is helping to educate previously oblivious Americans about what it means to practice his kind of Judaism. At the same time, though, one gets the nagging sense that he will soon weary of pieces that wrap discussions of his music inside discussions of his religion.

...The release of Matisyahu’s new album Light, now due in late August, was put off at the behest of his record label. Significantly, it’s a major label, Epic, even though the trend in the music industry has been for many long-established artists to migrate to independent labels. That confirms the commercial potential that his work is deemed to have. But the decision to expand and revise the record’s contents suggests that there may be trouble ahead. Such delays are often a warning sign, suggesting that the artist has failed to produce the sort of music that label representatives expected, that they have deviated from the form that made them a desirable commodity.

So far, Matisyahu hasn’t conveyed any displeasure at the label’s decision. Yet if we read between the lines of the interviews he has been giving on his current concert tour, originally intended to accompany the album’s release, it’s not hard to see that he has been struggling with the burden of expectations. Although he continues to confirm his religious devotion in interviews, he has parted ways with the Lubavitchers in favor of an approach more open to kabbalistic Judaism. And although the album contains plenty of reminders of his music’s reggae roots, it also takes bold steps in the direction of rock and electronica...

So, Where is the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah?

From: The U.S.-Israeli Dispute over Building in Jerusalem: The Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood by Nadav Shragai

From the Executive Summary:

• Many observers incorrectly assume that Jerusalem is comprised of two ethnically homogenous halves: Jewish western Jerusalem and Arab eastern Jerusalem. Yet in some areas such as Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik, Jerusalem is a mosaic of peoples who are mixed and cannot be separated or divided according to the old 1949 armistice line.

• In the eastern part of Jerusalem, i.e., north, south and east of the city's 1967 borders, there are today some 200,000 Jews and 270,000 Arabs living in intertwined neighborhoods. In short, as certain parts of eastern Jerusalem have become ethnically diverse, it has become impossible to characterize it as a wholly Palestinian area that can easily be split off from the rest of Jerusalem.

• Private Jewish groups are operating in Sheikh Jarrah seeking to regain possession of property once held by Jews, and to purchase new property. Their objective is to facilitate private Jewish residence in the area in addition to the presence of Israeli governmental institutions. The main points of such activity include the Shepherd Hotel compound, the Mufti's Vineyard, the building of the el-Ma'amuniya school, the Shimon HaTzadik compound, and the Nahlat Shimon neighborhood. In the meantime, foreign investors from Arab states, particularly in the Persian Gulf, are actively seeking to purchase Jerusalem properties on behalf of Palestinian interests.

Just How Does Something Become "Illegal"?

A veryinteresting observation:

In 1967, under attack, Israel struck back and conquered the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, and Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem (the West Bank) from Jordan...legal experts accepted Israel's right to "occupy" and settle its historic homeland, because the areas had been illegally occupied by invading Arab countries since 1948.

One organization, however - the International Committee of the Red Cross - disagreed.

Meeting secretly in the early 1970s in Geneva, the ICRC determined that Israel was in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Based on the Hague Convention, GC IV was drawn up after World War II to protect innocent civilians and restrict brutal occupations. Unilaterally, the ICRC turned it into a weapon to delegitimize and demonize Israel.

As far as is known, the ICRC did not rely on any legal precedents; it made up "the law."

Judge and jury, its decisions lacked the pretense of due process. Since all decisions and protocols of the ICRC in this matter are closed, even the identities of the people involved are secret. And there is no appeal. Without transparency or judicial ethics, ICRC rulings became "international law." Its condemnations of Israel provide the basis for accusing Israel of "illegal occupation" of all territory conquered in 1967.

Although most of the international community, its NGOs and institutions accept the authority of the ICRC and other institutions, such as the International Court of Justice, as sole arbiters of what is "legal," or not, it's strange that some Israeli politicians and jurists cannot defend Israel's legal claim to the territories. And Israel's case is strong.

ADOPTED IN 1945, the UN Charter (Article 80) states: "...nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which members of the United Nations may respectively be parties."

This means that the designation of "Palestine" as a "Jewish National Home," incorporated in the British Mandate and established by international agreements adopted by the League of Nations and US Congress, guarantees Israel's sovereign rights in this area. All Jewish settlement, therefore, was and is legal.

Gaps In Gapes' Report

And to think he had tea at my table.

The Foreign Affairs Committee today published a new report “GLOBAL SECURITY: ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES”.

Melanie Phillips deals with its ridiculousness.


(Kippa tip: BT)

Oops, There Goes Another

IDF: More than 300,000 settlers in West Bank

...As of June 30, the settlements had 304,569 residents, an increase of 2.3 percent since January.

Most of the growth was in the most religious communities, including the ultra-Orthodox settlements. Modi'in Ilit gained 1,879 residents, a 4.5 percent increase. Beitar Ilit gained 1,074 residents, a 3.1 percent jump. [see the NYTimes report]

Excluding these two communities, the growth rate in the other Jewish settlements was 1.75 percent.

Generally, growth rates are higher in the second half of the year, because many families move over the summer. [and since the summer is over for another month, high growth will continue]

Among local councils, Har Adar (near Jerusalem) saw 5.7 percent growth, and Alfei Menashe (near the Sharon region, north of Tel Aviv) reported a 2.7 percent increase. [those two are secular though] Kedumim recorded 2.1 percent; Emanuel, 1.2 percent; and Kiryat Arba, 0.9 percent.

...The report also noted a 4.4 percent increase - 425 people - in settlers living outside municipal areas.

However, these figures do not include all of the residents of unauthorized outposts, as some are regarded as residents of adjoining settlements. The highest growth rates by percentage were in small settlements such as Itamar, Elon Moreh and Kfar Tapuah.

This graph has no input from the Yesha Council or any of the local/regional councils:





Source

It Is Quite Clear

Barry Rubin:

...Remember the 1990s’ version of the Sirens’ song?

Here’s the plan: Create a Palestinian Authority, give them lots of money and guns. Let them bring in tens of thousands of Palestinians. Turn over more and more of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

And by governing they will learn responsibility. And Yasir Arafat will become moderate, and a statesman. And there will be no more terrorism or incitement to terrorism. And there will be a two-state solution.

And what about the 2006 song: Stop the war with Hizballah and the UN will establish a strong force to patrol south Lebanon. Hizballah will not be able to return or to build military installations. Arms smuggling will be halted. For we are the entire international community, almost 200 nations strong.

And each time, the chorus goes: if this doesn’t work out, we will support you. We will recognize the risks you have taken, and the concessions you have given, and the losses you have suffered. And the name of Israel will be exalted as a great peacemaker. And the media will say nice things about you.

The above is written in what I hope to be an entertaining style. But it is deadly serious — as dead as hundreds of Israelis are as a consequence of Western advice and promises, along with hundreds of Palestinians whose deaths are also a direct result of these failures.

That’s what happened. And here we are at the end of that process as if none of it has happened.

As if the concept of having a “reset” of policy is just a euphemism for short-term memory loss.

If Israel’s leaders and people believed that a freeze in settlement construction would actually bring benefits...it would happen despite all the political obstacles. But the Israeli public is, for good reasons, doubtful.

If only, we were told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would accept a two-state solution, how we will appreciate you! And he did. And they didn’t.

...With all seriousness, the absolute refusal of American and European leaders and journalists even to acknowledge this history and their own behavior guarantees Israeli refusal to heed their Siren song.

Repeatedly, without being tied to the mast, I have raised this issue in private conversations—What about your unfulfilled promises in the past? What about the risks we’ve taken unrewarded? What about all the other concessions that have backfired?--to Western political figures and diplomats. Not a single one responds.

Let me emphasize that: they don’t deny, they don’t apologize, they don’t even make a counter-argument. They simply go on without any reference to what I’ve just said. Not once have I ever heard an effort to address this issue from anyone in an official position. That’s no exaggeration.

They are the ones with wax in their ears. But if they refuse even to acknowledge the consequences of their past demands and advice, why should we listen to their latest versions of the same tune?

You Really Don't Want To Be On His Bad Side

Shas' spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef slammed US President Barack Obama and other western leaders for pressuring Israel to freeze construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

"'You can't build here, you can't build there' – it's as if we were their slaves," the rabbi protested. "We are being ruled by slaves," he said, adding that, "Our messiah will come and throw them out."

Rabbi Ovadia also bemoaned the current reality in the Temple Mount, saying: "Where is our temple? There are Arabs there!" He then promised that the messiah "will throw all these evil ones out of here."

How To Solve Mideast Problems?

Immigrants who choose to live and work in Scotland could earn British citizenship more readily, according to Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy.

Writing in Scotland on Sunday, he says moving to Scotland could see immigrants earn points towards their application. Points are granted according to things like skills, age and potential salary. Mr Murphy said he wants to see Scotland become a melting pot - but he stressed new arrivals must be controlled under a tight immigration policy.

New Haveill Havalim

#227

Picture Quiz

What caught my eye in this photograph that caused me to post it?





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

And, the answer is:



A new road.

An apartheid road that only Arabs can use.

A road connecting Silwad down to Turmos-Aya / Hirbet Abu-Falah.

Woodstock Revival in Jerusalem

I think I stayed in Camp Betar that day, so I didn't get to Woodstock but this year In Jerusalem, there's a revival:

Jerusalem Woodstock Revival

The Jerusalem Woodtock Revival will take place at the Kraft Stadium in Jerusalem on August fifth. Jerusalem is set to rock with a 5-hour music marathon on Tu B'Av, the traditional Jewish day of love. The event also commemorates 40 years since the historic 3-day Woodstock Festival in upstate New York, in the summer of '69.

The line up:

Bob Dylan by Ronnie Peterson
Crosby, Stills, and Nash by Long Time Gone
Neil Young by Geva Alon
Jimi Hedrix by Lazer Lloyd ("Yood")
The Doors by Crystal Ship

Details Kraft Stadium, Sacher Park near City entrance
Nadia Levene: 050-822-7887, ladidah2000@gmail.com

65 NIS until August 1st, 85 NIS after August 1st.
17:00

More background here.


I'm sure I saw a poster but can't locate it on-line.

Guess I'll have to snap a pic by myself.

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

And here it is, straight off the poster billboard:

And They Don't Come From Syria?

A bit of a dumb claim:

The insult was most bitter among the Syrian Sephardic community, a general term for Jews with roots in Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. The Syrian Jews are considered one of the elites of Brooklyn, something they will always make sure to remind visitors of.

What? They don't come from Syria?

You Mean They All Weren't Expelled?

There goes another Arab propaganda myth:

Arab responsibility for Palestinian refugees
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

"The radio stations of the Arab regimes kept repeating to us: 'Get away from the battle lines. It's a matter of ten days or two weeks at the most, and we'll bring you back to Ein-Kerem [near Jerusalem].' And we said to ourselves, 'That's a very long time. What is this? Two weeks? That's a lot!' That's what we thought [then]. And now 50 years have gone by." [PATV, July 7, 2009]

With these words an Arab resident of a refugee camp recounts the reason why his family left Israel in 1948, in an interview broadcast on PA TV this month.

Click here to view the interview on PA TV.

Turn A Few Pages

An excerpt from a book the NYTimes actually reviewed:

We in the West are living in the midst of a jihad, and most of us don't even realize it — because it's a brand of jihad that's barely a generation old.

Islam divides the world into two parts. The part governed by sharia, or Islamic law, is called the Dar al-Islam, or House of Submission. Everything else is the Dar al-Harb, or House of War. It's called the House of War because it, too, according to the Koran, is destined to be governed by sharia, and it will take war — holy war, jihad — to bring it into the House of Submission.

Jihad began with Muhammed himself. When he was born, the lands that today make up the Arab world were populated mostly by Christians and Jews; within a century after his death, those areas' inhabitants had been killed, driven away, subjugated to Islam as members of the underclass known as dhimmis, or converted to the Religion of Peace at the point of a sword. The Crusades of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not wars of conquest by Europeans but attempts to take back what had once been Christian territory. America's very first foreign conflict after the Revolutionary War was with the Barbary pirates, who, sponsored by the Muslim governments of North Africa — just as terrorist groups today enjoy the sponsorship of countries like Libya, Iran, and Syria — had for generations been preying on European ships and selling their crews and passengers into slavery. (Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, over one million Europeans — including people like Cervantes, Saint Vincent de Paul, and French playwright Jean Francois Regnard — became chattel in North Africa, a minor detail that rarely makes it into Western history textbooks, perhaps because it would compel textbook writers to accord jihad a major role in their narratives of Western history.)

In 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, then the U.S. ambassadors to Britain and France respectively, met in London with the Tripolitanian envoy to Britain and asked him why his pirates were preying on American ships; he explained, as Adams and Jefferson reported afterward to the Continental Congress, that the pirates' actions were "founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

The book?

SURRENDER: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom by Bruce Bawer

Obama Observation

Six months after Barack Obama became the first black man to move into the previously all-white residential facility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, he is fighting to prevent integration in Jerusalem.

Jeff Jacoby