This Op-ed Will Not Be Published in Haaretz

The op-ed/essay below was commissioned by Haaretz for a special supplement to be distributed not only to the paper's subscribers but for the General Assembly convocation that is meeting in Jerusalem next week with over 3000 of the top Jewish communal leaders of the United States.

I was just informed that it will not appear.

My editor wrote to me:

I just wanted to let you know that the English edition editor decided to kill the opeds, so your piece will not be running in the supplement. I'm sorry about that and appreciate the work you put into it.

Freedom of expression, Haaretz-style.

Read and enjoy, or not.
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'SECULAR ZIONISM': NO LONGER A FAITH-BASED PROGRAM

Is "secular Zionism" already – or is it soon to be – an oxymoronic term, one that contradicts its own essence? Has secular Zionism lost its ability to maintain the faith?

Of course, 'secular Zionism' is not identical to 'secular Zionists'. On the one hand, it is readily obvious that not all religiously observant Jews are Zionists. All one needs do is to watch the Israel flag burning ceremonies of the Neturei Karta at Lag B'Omer time or recall those black-coated ones hugging Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at one of his antizionist conferences. On the other hand, one need not be religious to be a Zionist and the majority of Jews who are Zionists are secular in their private worlds not to speak of non-Jews, many of whom seem to be more assertive and non-yielding in their political support of an independent Jewish polity than a good few Jews as well as Zionists.

Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine today a scene like the one that took place in 1937 when David Ben-Gurion asserted in his testimony before the Peel Commission in 1937 that if he had to identify the basis of the Jewish claim he would admit that ''The Bible is our mandate''. Secular Zionism today, it is my understanding, rejects religion as a component in nationalism. It was Ze'ev Sternhell who, a decade ago in Le Monde, formulated it this way: "The new Israeli, Jewish but secular…has begun over the last years to forge an independent identity which has nothing to do with the religion of his forefathers and 'divine promise'". Religion is rejected mainly due to a fear that it is irrational and therefore, uncontrollable.

But even without religion, secular Zionists were, in the past, the standard bearers of Jewish resurgence in the land of its forefathers. The first kibbutzim were considered instruments in the "conquest of the land". The first community to be established over the former Green Line in the late summer of 1967, even prior to the Kfar Etzion return, was Merom HaGolan of the Kibbutz Me'uchad movement. What then is the danger in the concept "secular Zionism", not only for its own continuity but for the state of Israel?

A.B. Yehoshua, a fellow traveler, expressed it this way: "Zionism…was only intended to mean there should be a state of Israel, and it only applied to the formation of the State by 1948. After the State was achieved, it stopped meaning anything."

In essence, secular Zionism thus promotes removing the soul from Jewish nationalism. Not only are the areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, intrinsically bound up with the historical formation of the Jewish people and the development of its religion and culture, excluded in a political sense from ever belonging to Israel as the expression of the entirety of Jewish national feeling but they are removed from what Jewishness is in a very existential sense.

Secular Zionism thus formulated cannot accept a Tabernacle at Shiloh where the tribal portions of the Land were allotted or a Hebron where David was first king or a Shchem where Joseph is buried. "Territories" become a terrible burden for they define the Jewishness of Zionism as an intercopulation that secular Zionism feels is a negation of their worldview. And since it is themselves that is what is important, for true secularism is a form of liberation of the individual which places the person - and not the nation and not the homeland -

But it also has turned on itself. Sternhell's magnum opus of Zionist criticism, his "The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State" attacks the socialist, liberal and democratic values of Israel's pioneers of the Mapai party and the Histadrut labor federation.

Amos Oz also contributes to the self-destructiveness that is secular Zionism. In an effort to be liked and appreciated, for that is the basic human frailty he shares with those who shake off the aspect of religion that nurtures Zionism, he was able to write a perfidy such as this two years ago: "The Jews were kicked out of Europe…just like the Palestinians were first kicked out of Palestine and then out of the Arab countries, or almost". In his desire to be held as a paragon of humanism, or to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature that constantly eludes him, he frees Zionism's enemy from the essential evil it has displayed through riots, serving Hitler and most recently, the suicide-bomber phenomenon. Zionism is no different that Palestinianism. Secularists of the world, unite! would be his rallying cry and only the upsurge of Hamas would seem to unsettle him.

Secular Zionism, in this self-destruct mode, is also a handicap for mainstream Zionism. It justifies the opponents of Israel as a Zionist creation, from Williamsburg to Durban to Ramallah. Sternhell's prognosis of ten years ago was that "the second Zionist revolution - humanist, rationalist and secular - is already under way". I would suggest it has taken a detour and is way off track. Far, far off the road to Zion.

But there's a catch. With this losing of faith and the losing of its way, a failing secular Zionism faces competition from religious Zionism and that places a greater responsibility on those who believe. If religious Zionism is to be truer to the original path of political Zionism, despite its secular roots, it cannot remain insular-oriented nor can it permit itself the luxury of ignoring those among it who seek the extreme. Faith without deed is an inadequate political philosophy.

Obama's Lying, Already

As LGF points out, Obama has lied.

The advisor he fired is working.

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr Obama, responded swiftly: “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”

Ben LaBolt and the Obama campaign were lying.

According to a report on Middle East Newsline, President-elect Barack Obama has dispatched his “senior foreign policy adviser”, Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria to outline Obama’s policy on the Middle East.

HH #190

Here at Jewlicious.

November 29th - Good-and-Bad News

In Zionist history, November 29 is a very problematic day.

On the one hand, the UN officially recognized the right of the Jewish people to establish a Jewish state. Yes, a "Jewish" state (so all you liberals who are upset that Israel adopted a law defining Israel as a "Jewish democratic state" can relax now).

On the other hand, the decision mandated a severe partition of the historic Jewish homeland which way back in 1922-23 was mapped out as including territory on both banks of the Jordan River. Israel lost historic areas and the loss endangered the survival of the state by drawing ridiculous borders, borders that never came into being because the Arabs, local and foreign, refused to recognize those lines and invaded the country leading to Armistice boundaries.

And now, it has another significance: Rah Emanuel's date of birth is November 29th, 1959.

Will he, too, be good-and-bad news?

The Unstoppable Obama Photoshopping Mania

And If You Didn't Like the "Mad" Caricature...

...here, then will this photoshop art work do?

The Obama Crew

Here they are:

Roel Campos (former Securities and Exchange commissioner)
Eric Schmidt (chairman and CEO of Google)
Antonio Villaraigosa (mayor of Los Angeles)
William Donaldson (chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2003 to 2005)
Laura Tyson (professor at Haas School of Business of University of California at Berkeley; chairman of the National Economic Council from 1995 to 1996; chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1993 to 1995)
David Bonior (member of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 2003)
Robert Rubin (chairman and director of the Citigroup executive committee; secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department from 1995 to 1999)
Jennifer Granholm (governor of Michigan)
Paul Volcker (chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987)
Richard Parsons (chairman of Time Warner)
Anne Mulcahy (chairman and CEO of Xerox)
Roger Ferguson (president and CEO of TIAA-CREF; former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve board of governors)
Lawrence Summers (professor at Harvard University; managing director of DE Shaw; secretary of the U.S. Treasury from 1999 to 2001)
Roger Ferguson (former Fed Vice Chairman, CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association - College Retirement Equities Fund)
Penny Pritzker (CEO of Classic Residence by Hyatt)
Robert Reich (professor at University of California at Berkeley; secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1993 to 1997)
William Daley (Midwest chairman for JPMorgan Chase; secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce from 1997 to 2000)

The "Obama Rakes Rahm" Clip

At a 2005 event hosted by Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy

The YESHA Web Site

Want to keep up on Yesha Council news and views?

Here.

P.S. Yesha stands for the Hebrew place names: Yehuda, Shomron and Gaza (Judea, Samaria and Gaza)

Delayed Illustration

I posted about the "Yes We Can" phenomenom here.

And finally found a proper accompanying illustration:

Open Air prison Camp?

Rashid Khalidi:

characterized Gaza as an "open air prison camp."

Well, there is a fence on one side but that's to protect Israelis from above-ground land-based terror (it doesn't help against Qassams or tunnels).

The fence on the south keeps that out of Egypt who doesn't desire their presence.

And then, there is the unfenced sea.

Election Posters

Famous Beni Albaz (father of...) utilizes the (in)famous "He is Innocent" cry of Aryeh Der'i claim to promote Arkady Gaidamak:



I went all along Meah She'arim Street and nary an election poster but rather posters warning the residents not to vote:

Just Who is "The Settler From Brooklyn"?

Martin Kramer makes a great observation:-

...Christopher Hitchens [a columnist for Vanity Fair]...announces that the Khalidi family "hold[s] a celebrated house and position in the city [of Jerusalem] since approximately the time of the Crusades. I have had the honor of being invited to this very house. If Rashid chooses to state that he doesn't care to be evicted from his ancestral home in order to make way for some settler from Brooklyn who claims to have God on his side, I think he has a perfect right to say so."

Let us leave aside the typically English schoolboy enchantment with assumed Arab aristocracy (please, don't get me started). Rashid Khalidi was himself born and raised in... Brooklyn. Here is testimony from a witness: "I lived in Brooklyn and watched young Rashid and his brothers grow, even held him as an infant while listening to his father, Ismail, talk about Palestine and the diplomatic issues he dealt with." On the maternal side, Rashid's roots in Brooklyn go back a good ways: "His grandmother," he is reported to have told an audience, "who immigrated to America from Lebanon was a member of First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn." His mother and father married in that church, and he attended Sunday school there.

So were Khalidi to forgo the familiar pleasures and privileges of Columbia University for the rigors of Jerusalem, wouldn't he also be a settler from Brooklyn?

Just to clear: I myself was born in the Bronx and grew up in Queens.

Israel's GSS: We Base Ourselves on...Polls

So far, only in Hebrew (here), but it seems that the warnings by GSS [Shabak] head Yuval Diskin at the cabinet meeting last week on the very real threat of a political assassination from the rightwing in Israel was based on public opinion polls.

According to the report at Maariv's web site, a former senior GSS administrator admitted that since the poll was obviously not conducted among so-called radical extremist rightwingers, the worth of such a poll, at the least, in unprofessional. He also added that the GSS collects information from universities and other organizations like the Israel Democracy Institute whose own political leanings are suspect.

So, this is intelligence gathering?

A bit silly if not stupid, no?

Actually, not very intelligent either.

The Brainwashing of College Students on the Middle East

From An Area of Darkness, recollections by Jay Nordlinger

When I was young, I was quite the little Arabist — cocksure, arrogant, wholly misguided. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and there were many Arab students — most of them Palestinian — in my high school. I befriended them, loved them. Was intensely interested in them. Some wore keys around their necks, and they claimed that these were the keys to the homes back in Palestine their families had been forced to abandon. I was mightily impressed. Later on, I knew to doubt the authenticity of those keys....I was taught to believe that the Arab-Israeli conflict was very much like the American South: a civil-rights struggle. The Arabs were the blacks — the victims, the oppressed. The Israelis were the whites, the oppressors. Menachem Begin was pretty much George Wallace; his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, was Bull Connor (they even looked alike). Arafat, of course, was Martin Luther King. It seemed very clear.

In due course, I grew up, but it took a while. I enrolled in the Near Eastern Studies Department at the University of Michigan, where I took several courses, including the Arabic language. The department was dominated by extremists. The graduate assistants, certainly, were Arabs to the “left” of the PLO, meaning, they took Arafat and Co. to be sell-outs, untrue to the cause. There was no discussion of the legitimacy of Israel: It wasn’t discussable; Israel was illegitimate, and every worthy person knew it.

One day, we trooped into an auditorium to see a documentary on the conflict. I can’t remember the name of the documentary or of the documentary-maker, but I can see her, and she was on hand to introduce her film and to take questions. The film featured mainly radical Palestinians talking about dismembering Israel.

During the Q&A, a middle-aged white woman — a little fat — raised her hand and asked the following question: “These were such extreme voices. You’ve made a wonderful film, but couldn’t you have found some softer, more moderate voices?”

In the row in which I was sitting were several Arab students — older ones, graduate students — and one of them, in front of everybody, stood up and said words I will never forget. I won’t forget the words, or his face, or his relatively quiet, determined tone. He said: “I will kill you.” (This was directed at the woman who had asked the question.) His buddies got him to sit down.

But that’s not the important part — what he said is not the important part. The important part is, no one said a word. No one reacted. We all sort of coughed, and looked away, nervously. We all pretended that what had just occurred had not, in fact, occurred — or that it was normal, acceptable. We simply ignored it.

Eventually, I took another path, both at the university and in my own thought. I could never be convinced that America and its influence were evil. I could not be convinced that Israel was illegitimate. And I could not accept the “I will kill you” and our complete cowardice, or complicity, in the face of it.

I sort of vowed, inwardly, that I wouldn’t be afraid, wouldn’t be intimidated, by Arab extremism. We all dance delicately around it. We tend to sweep it under the rug. We look away, all politically correct, and cough. I further vowed that, unlike my fellow white liberals, I would pay Arabs the compliment of treating them as full human beings, accountable for their words and actions, capable of good or bad, like everyone else — morally responsible. I wouldn’t treat them as children, unable to help a certain savagery. I wouldn’t “understand” that savagery, in the sense my teachers intended. I wouldn’t have double, or triple, or quadruple standards. All men were equal.

I can only presume it has gotten worse.

What Temple Mount? Oh, That ImaginaryTemple Mount?

IsraelNN.com reports

PA Official Claims Temple Mount is Not Jewish

Top PA officials continue to deny Israel's connection to Judaism's most sacred spot in the world - the Temple Mount. The latest to do so is Ahmed Qurei, known also as Abu Ala, who has led and continues to lead Palestinian Authority negotiations with Israel. In a small media briefing this past Wednesday, Qurei said, "Israeli occupation authorities are trying to find a so-called Jewish historical connection between Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, but all these attempts will fail. The [Temple Mount] is 100 percent Muslim."

"The world must be mobilized against all these Israeli attempts to change the symbols and signs of Jerusalem," Qurei said. "There was no so-called Jewish Temple. It's imaginary. Jerusalem is 100 percent Muslim."

based on Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily.com.

But whay was more interesting or astounding than the above hogwash, was that Klein writes that he was one of three journalists present for the briefing and that of the others, an Arab affairs correspondent for a major Israeli newspaper chose not to publish the remarks while the reporter for PA newspaper Al-Ayyam did.

Brawling Monks Video Clip

I posted in print here and now the clip:

New Pop Art

Source

What Would Politics Be Without...Yiddish

Noemie Emory in the Weekly Standard:-

Is it not perhaps a little unseemly for pundits and activists, who talk mainly to themselves and each other, have no accountability, no responsibility, and work under pressures no harder than deadlines, to complain endlessly about their betrayals at the hands of politicians and presidents, who, while responsible for the fate of the country, have the temerity to stray from their exquisitely crafted ideas? History is seldom made by pundits and machers who kvetch in tranquility. It is made by politicians who muck about in the arena, seizing their chances as fate presents them, in a climate of unforeseen happenings.

(Kippah tip: Jennifer Rubin)

Condi's Great Moral Error

Here's a snippet from the Quartet Statement today as pronounced by Condoleeza Rice:-

The Quartet reiterated its call to the parties to fully implement their obligations under phase one of the Roadmap, including in relation to freezing settlement activity and the dismantlement of the infrastructure of terrorism.

These two cannot be equated and interlocked.

Terrorism has existed since the beginning of the Zionist enterprise. Arab terror does not depend nor is it related to this or that act of Jewish national effort, nor to the amount of territory under Jewish control or sovereignty nor to anything a Jew does, good or bad. Arab terror is the constant.

Arab terror is Islamic, is anti-colonialist, is Marxist or whatever but it is always anti-Jewish. Fatah was Marxist, Hamas is Islamic, PFLP was Leninist or Maoist or whatever. The important thing was that it was against Jews.

Jews could have their homeland partitioned and Jordan created, have what was left partitioned by a Royal (Peel) Commission in 1937, and again by the Woodhead Commission in 1938, by the UN in 1947, etc., etc., etc. But no Arab would agree to any border configuration.

In linking, even semantically, terror and Jewish residency, a great moral error is being made and a political failure is advanced.

Violence In The Holy Land - Brawling Monks

Brawling Monks.



Once again, monks come to blows at Church of Holy Sepulcher

A physical altercation erupted on Sunday between rival monks at one of Christianity's holiest sites; police have detained two clergymen for questioning.



Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the fighting erupted between Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Christianity's holiest shrine in Jerusalem's Old City. The church is traditionally believed to be the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

Police called in to break up the brawl detained one monk from each side. Rosenfeld says the incident flared over preparations for the annual ceremony held by the Armenians to commemorate the 4th century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus.

Here too

Background:

In 1767, weary of the squabbling, the Porte issued a firman that divided the church among the claimants. This was confirmed in 1852 with another firman that made the arrangement permanent, establishing a status quo of territorial division among the communities.

The primary custodians are the Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Roman Catholic Churches, with the Greek Orthodox Church having the lion's share...Times and places of worship for each community are strictly regulated in common areas.

Establishment of the status quo did not halt the violence, which continues to break out every so often even in modern times. On a hot summer day in 2002, the Coptic monk who is stationed on the roof to express Coptic claims to the Ethiopian territory there moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians, and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fracas.

In another incident in 2004 during Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open. This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Orthodox and a fistfight broke out. Some people were arrested, but no one was seriously injured.

The most recent of these incidents occurred on April 20, 2008 (Palm Sunday), where a brawl broke out due to a Greek monk being ejected from the building by a rival faction. Police were called to the scene but were also attacked by the enraged brawlers.

Amira Hass Discovers Gaza (Surprise, Surprise)

Here's Amira Hass (or Haas as I prefer) on her arrival in Gaza via the sea for her paper, Haaretz:-

We would be allowed to sail to Gaza. No surprise as the organizers had reached an agreement with the Israel Defense Forces because it justly realized preventing us from passing would only damage Israel's image.

At our port of call a fleet of different sized sailing ships awaited us and their sailors waved at us and shed tears. On the shores, crowds of people lined up. So many beards, I thought looking at the men and the changes brought about by Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip.

Don't you just love it when a Leftist meets reality.

Uri Avnery Surely Can

Surely can be a nuisance.

Here he's on the Obama slogan chant:-

There is no chance for progress towards Israeli-Palestinian peace without American pressure on the Israeli government...All the American Presidents after Dwight Eisenhower have been afraid of exerting such pressure...To be effective, American pressure does not need to be brutal. It should be gentle, but firm and consistent. This may suit Obama's temperament.

If the new American administration...comes to the conclusion that Israeli-Arab peace is an essential requirement of the American post-Bush policy, then the new President must inform our new Prime Minister of this fact...Many Israelis would thank him for that. Quite possibly, our next Prime Minister would also thank him in the hidden recesses of his (or her) heart.

Will the new American President do so? Is Barack Obama able to do so?

There is only one possible answer: Yes, you can!

But will he?

Michelle Obama's Protection

Vanity Fair is with her:-

Given all the other things Mrs. Obama stands for, do we really need to critique every dress, hairstyle, and daily make up job as if she were some teenage contestant on America’s Next Top Model?...

...The next time you feel the urge to get snarky about her outfit, how about looking in your own closet and considering how well your wardrobe, not to mention your face and figure, would measure up to the 24/7 glare of the cameras? If Mrs. Obama occasionally misspeaks, recall the last time you yourself said something you might have phrased better—and count your blessings that your missteps don’t end up on YouTube and the evening news.

She's just like you, is she not?


Read more.

More Israeli Democracy

David Bedein of Israel Resource News Agency sent me the following:

Subject: Answer rec'd from T.A. police - justifying right to detain demonstrators

Spokesperson of Tel Aviv police department responded to query placed by our news agency, which inquired as to why it was that peaceful demonstrators carrying signs "Against Peace Now Incitement" were detained by police at Rabin rally last night.

Her answer:"Police have determined that carrying signs which say 'STOP PEACE NOW INCITEMENT' at a Rabin memorial rally would constitute a provocation and disturb the peace of the public at large"

It would seem appropriate to challenge that policy by contacting Israeli government officials and Knesset members, and by asking friends abroad to protest this policy to their local Israeli consulate and Israeli embassy abroad. Protesting Israeli government policy to local consulates and embassies abroad works very well.

DSB

Don't laugh you in the United States. This type of thought-police behavior may be coming your way.

This Sound Familiar?

“Like many of his contemporaries at the turn of the century, he thought large-scale war between great powers was obsolete...surely civilization had progressed beyond that point in a new century, when nations were more and more dependent upon one another for commerce and common sense had made such nightmares ludicrous.”

Now, you may be thinking of a certain President-elect saying/thinking that but, in truth, it was...Winston Churchill, in 1900!

And, of course, he developed a different concept a few years later:

In political exile following World War I, he warned of the rise of dictatorships in Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the Soviet Union, so much so that his critics, who did not want to think anymore about great confrontations, called him a warmonger. When he denounced the agreement reached at Munich in 1938, he warned that there could “never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power.” ...

...Like Lincoln, he saw the importance of bolstering public morale, and he understood how deadly it was to talk of peace deals when the nation was losing. “We shall go on and we shall fight it out,” he declared. “And if at last the long story is to end, it were better it should end, not through surrender, but only when we are rolling senseless on the ground.” No one doubted him when he promised to die with pistol in hand fighting the Nazis in the streets of London.

These were the qualities that made Britons choose him over other men, and to follow him in a desperate struggle against the greatest odds.

It's Sunday. NYTimes Wedding Announcements Day

Jessica Anne Gomperts, a daughter of Gerri Gomperts and Victor Gomperts of Westfield, N.J., was married Saturday evening to Stuart Ivan Goldstein, a son of Barbara Goldstein of Westwood, N.J. Cantor Martha T. Novick officiated at Cipriani 23rd Street in New York.

A female cantor. Obviously not tenor.

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

Jordan Michelle Brudner, the daughter of Gale Meltzer Brudner of Greenwich, Conn., and Philip T. Brudner of Boca Raton, Fla., was married Saturday evening to Daniel Joshua Gaspar, a son of Nina Gaspar and Andrew Gaspar of New York. Rabbi Harlan J. Wechsler officiated at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York.

No, it's not Harlan's name that I'm highlighting but his counter-clockwise watch.

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

Rachel Suzanna Weisberg Turow, a daughter of Annette Turow of Glencoe, Ill., and the author Scott Turow of Evanston, Ill., was married Saturday evening to Benjamin Lawrence Schiffrin, a son of Janet Schiffrin and Kenneth Schiffrin of Roslyn, N.Y. Rabbi Bruce Elder officiated at the Chicago Cultural Center, and Rabbi Robert J. Marx participated.

I had four Rabbis at mine and my wife's wedding.

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


and, finally, Mazal Tov to Wolf (Ze'ev) Blitzer, former correspondent for the Marxist daily Al HaMishmar and current CNN super media star:

Ilana Michelle Blitzer, the daughter of Lynn Blitzer and Wolf Blitzer, the television news anchor, of Bethesda, Md., was married Saturday evening to Joseph Orrin Gendelman, a son of Lori and Bruce Gendelman of Palm Beach, Fla. Rabbi Jonathan Schnitzer officiated at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington, with Cantor Josh Perlman taking part.

And their story:


The road that would eventually lead Ms. Blitzer to Mr. Gendelman began near a hotel hot tub in Aspen, Colo., in July 2001. While on vacation there, Ms. Blitzer and her mother met Mr. Gendelman’s father and Jordan, a younger brother of the bridegroom. After hanging out poolside, the Blitzers and Gendelmans decided to meet for dinner that evening. By the end of the night, the families had become friends.

Over the next few years, Mr. and Mrs. Blitzer and Mr. and Mrs. Gendelman continued to see one another on summer vacations in Aspen. In July 2004, while the parents dined, their conversation turned to Ilana Blitzer’s search for a New York apartment.

As it turned out, Jordan Gendelman was moving out of his Upper West Side apartment, so they suggested Ms. Blitzer take a look.

Jordan’s father, who was convinced that Joseph Gendelman, his eldest son, and Ms. Blitzer were meant for each other, jokingly told Ms. Blitzer’s mother, “I’ll put on a beautiful rehearsal dinner, if you put on the wedding.”

Although they had attended the same university, Joseph and Ilana had never met.

Ms. Blitzer liked the apartment well enough to take it, in September 2004. At that time, Mr. and Mrs. Gendelman were visiting New York, and took Ms. Blitzer out for lunch, where Mr. Gendelman snapped a few pictures of Ms. Blitzer, telling her, “These are for Joseph,” he recalled.

He immediately e-mailed them to Joseph, who then lived in Miami. Joseph eventually sent Ms. Blitzer a friendly text message on her phone.

“Did you see the pictures?” she wrote back.

He responded, “Why do you think I’m writing?”

The two stayed in touch by e-mail and phone until they agreed they should meet for a formal date.

When Mr. Gendelman arrived at Ms. Blitzer’s apartment, she opened the door — and fainted.

“I was just so nervous, I forgot to eat,” she explained.

In October 2007, Ms. Blitzer returned from work to that same apartment, only to find Mr. Gendelman and a strange-looking contraption on the counter.

“What is that thing?” she asked.

Mr. Gendelman warned, “It’s a breathing machine — you might need that.”

Then, in the exact spot where she had fainted, he handed her an engagement ring.

It's Not "Yes, We Can". It's "Are We Able?"

The campaign slogan might have been a bit, er, off the mark.

Could it be that instead of "Yes, We Can", it should have been: "Are We Able"?

Read on:

Obama Team Weighs What to Take On in First Months

With the economy in disarray and the nation’s treasury draining, President-elect Barack Obama and his advisers are trying to figure out which of his expansive campaign promises to push in the opening months of his tenure and which to put on a slower track.

Mr. Obama repeated on Saturday that his first priority would be an economic recovery program to get the nation’s business system back on track and people back to work. But advisers said the question was whether they could tackle health care, climate change and energy independence at once or needed to stagger these initiatives over time.

The debate between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach has flavored the discussion among Mr. Obama’s transition advisers for months, even before his election. The tension between these strategies has been a recurring theme in the memorandums prepared for him on various issues, advisers said.

“Every president is tempted to take on too much,” said one Obama adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “On the other hand, there’s the Roosevelt example and the L.B.J. example, which suggest an extraordinary president can do an awful lot. So that’s the question: Is it too risky for the president to be ambitious?”

Much of the issue may be out of Mr. Obama’s hands. The $700 billion financial bailout threatens to push the deficit into the stratosphere. “The poor man has his hands tied by the economic and financial mess we have right now,” said John Tuck, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan. “I don’t know what his options are. They’re very, very limited.”

Or even:

"Am I Able?"

UPDATE

Hannah Friedman singing “Oh Obama Don’t Break My Heart.”



(Kippah tip: Jewlicious)

Oh. It's Generation "O", Now?

Damien Cave of....the New York Times is pushing it:

Generation O Gets Its Hopes Up

GENERATION O is that college kid at the White House gate early Wednesday morning, lifting his shirt to reveal “Obama” painted in red on his chest.

Or that stylized Obama T-shirt that makes irony look old, the “Obama Girl” on YouTube, or the thousands of notes on Barack Obama’s Facebook page: “U are the best!!!” “yeah, buddy.”

And, of course, Generation O is the president-elect himself.

Oh.

Oh no.

For The Record: They're Jerks - And Sexist

A Fox News report cited unidentified campaign sources who said Palin did not know Africa was a continent and could not name the three countries in NAFTA -- the United States, Canada and Mexico.

"I think if there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about NAFTA or about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context, and that is cruel and mean-spirited, it's immature, it's unprofessional, and those guys are jerks," Palin said.

It's not fair and it's not right," she said.

She also described accusations that she spent exorbitant amounts of money on clothes for the campaign as "sexist."

Source

Okay, that's settled.

And this one:

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said.

or was it a bathrobe?

Denial?

Wonkette Wonks Lieberman

Writing

why won’t Harry Reid strip away this asshat’s chairmanship already, and why is Lieberman pretending that he has leverage? One would think that a Supermajority could shed the one 66-year-old virgin who actively campaigned against it.

Virgin?

Maybe Wonkette was...wanking?

Cantor Goes For It

Newsweek sees a rising star in the Republican Party:-

...Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia plans to seek the all-important Minority Whip post, a position he has been rumored to covet for weeks, according to sources close to the Congressman. The post is currently held by Roy Blunt of Missouri.

...In a decidedly unfriendly environment for Republicans across the country, and even in once solidly Red Virginia, the 45-year-old GOP congressman had won 63 percent of the vote.

...Politico last year called Cantor "a dominant Republican voice," and many insiders expect him to play a large role in helping to rebuild the damaged GOP. Telegenic, intelligent, and a vigorous fundraiser, Cantor has built a formidable brand of his own. He is known for an emphasis on fiscal discipline, lowering taxes and government accountability...Cantor said House leadership and especially Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have alienated voters by flexing partisan muscles at a time of economic crisis...

As I noted before, having met him twice and acted as a translator for him at a Jerusalem rally, I, too, can add that I am impressed with his manner, his grasp of situations and a fresh presence. His Temple Mount Bill shows he is willing to take a principled stand.

I wish him luck and wouldn't mind helping out.

There Really Was An Auschwitz

If you read German, you can go here and see the plans.

What plans?

These:

Original plans for the construction of the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz, including a gas chamber and crematorium, have been found in a Berlin apartment, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The daily Bild published copies of some of the 28 plans, which the head of Germany's federal archives, Hans-Dieter Krekamp, called "authentic proof of the systematically planned genocide of the Jews of Europe."

Barak Gets Really Nasty (and Downright Dirty)

Barak, Ehud Barak (not the other Barrack), heightened the rhetoric here in Israel.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke at the memorial ceremony for slain Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin on Saturday night and warned that “extremists” were plotting another assassination. “We once called them 'stray weeds'--now they're nothing less than cancerous growths,” he said. “Yitzchak,” he addressed Rabin, “we promise you that we will remove this evil from our midst.”

and here:

Labor Chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak referred to the extremists’ threats, “We used to call them weeds, today they are no less than cancerous growths…There was writing on the wall then that we weren’t wise enough to see. Today, the stone shall cry out of the wall,” he said.

Cancer?

Let's see, how is cancer treated?

Chemotherapy
Radiation Therapy
Brachytherapy
Surgery
Angiogenesis Inhibitors Therapy
Biological Therapy
Bone Marrow Transplantation and Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation
Hyperthermia
Lasers in Cancer Treatment
Photodynamic Therapy

None of that sounds good or proper or decent in a political sense or in a social sense.

Exactly what does Barak have in mind?

That Mutt Remark

He said it, not me:

But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me.

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA AND VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN FOLLOWING THEIR MEETING WITH THE TRANSITION ECONOMIC ADVISORY BOARD
HILTON CHICAGO, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 2:53 P.M. EST, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2008


Okay, you want the context?

Everyone wants to know what kind of dog are you going to buy for your girls. Have you decided on a private or public school for your daughters?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: ...With respect to the dog, this is a major issue. I think it's generated more interest on our website than just about anything. We have -- we have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypo-allergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypo-allergenic. On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog. But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me. So the -- so, whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.

For All?

Here's the back page of a special election booklet that was distributed by the Meir Porush mayoralty campaign in Jerusalem.



A place for all?

And for women?

Where are the women?

Not even one woman?

And he's asking for the vote of the National Religious party backers.

Not including a woman would indicate that he's still semi-obscurantist so why should a NRPer vote for him?

Women, They Think Of Everything

On Jenny and Randolph Churchill

While their marriage had now been reduced to a mutual concern for each other's health, she and Randolph still decided to embark on a world tour together, taking with them a leadlined coffin in case he died en route. He was so ill that Jennie was pinning her hopes on marrying the highly eligible Count Kinsky as soon as she was free. In Rangoon, however, her hopes were dashed. There, Jennie received a telegram announcing the Count's engagement to another woman.

Randolph made it home to England but died aged 44, in January 1895, and was buried at Blenheim.

And her end?

The end came out of the blue. One day, while visiting a friend in Somerset, Jennie, who was wearing some shoes she had just bought in Rome, slipped on the oak staircase. A bad fracture ended in gangrene and amputation of a leg, and a couple of months later she suffered a fatal haemorrhage.

'I do not feel a sense of tragedy but only loss,' wrote Winston loyally. 'Her life was a full one. The wind was in her veins.'

Source

The Continuing Condi Confabulation

In her remarks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Rammallah yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continued to project a problematic policy for Israel as she confabulated(*).

Let me highlight with selections from her words.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much, Mr. President...we know how hard you are working to build a truly democratic Palestinian state. You are someone who is yourself devoted to democracy, and I just want to take note of that.

[a democracy? like what other?]

When President Bush came into office in 2001, and it was a very difficult situation between Palestinians and Israelis, indeed the intifada was raging, large-scale Israeli military operations were taking place, many, many innocent Palestinians and Israelis were losing their lives. [hey, she corrected herself from yesterday. maybe someone read my blogpost?]

...I think that President Bush’s vision of a state of Palestine, an independent state of Palestine at peace with Israel, while it will not come in a single, dramatic moment, it will come because the commitment of the Palestinian and the Israeli people to their peace will not waiver.

[sorry but the commitment of Pals. can never match that of the Israelis who have constantly yielded on territory and security in order to reach peace with all its Arab neighbors as well of the Arab community in the borders of the Jewish national homeland]

It’s critical that in moving forward on the peace process we remember that other pillars were established at Annapolis as well, and those pillars cannot be separated; indeed, the work that is being done on the ground to improve the lives of the Palestinian people, the work that is being done to build the democratic institutions of a Palestinian state, the work that has been done to reform security services and to really improve their capability and to have them be professional security forces. I’m very much looking forward to going to Jenin because I think it is an example of this relationship between security provided by Palestinian forces for the Palestinian people, the willingness to fight extremists...

[but they don't fight extremists!] (**)

...I also want to note that settlement activity, both actions and announcements, is damaging for the atmosphere of negotiations. And the party’s actions should be encouraging confidence, not undermining it. And no party should take steps that could prejudice the outcome of negotiations and the United States will not consider settlement activity to affect any final status negotiations, including final borders. Borders are to be negotiated between the parties in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338...I think we’re on the record about our views of the settlement activity, and that has been American policy in the past. I think perhaps we’ve spoken as clearly about it as anyone, perhaps more clearly, the President and I. And it is going to continue to be the case that settlement activity is inconsistent with the atmosphere that really helps promote negotiations.

[Neither 242 or 338 deal with the rights of Jews to live, settle, thrive, develop and grow in the areas of Judea and Samaria and, indeed, Gaza. The right to do so, despite the bad 'atmosphere' Condi talks about, is enshrined in the decision of the League of Nations: The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.]

...And just as Oslo was a basis, Madrid was a basis, Annapolis is a basis. And while we may not yet be at the finish line, I am quite certain that if Palestinians and Israelis stay on the Annapolis course, they are going to cross that finish line and can do so relatively soon.

[and just as the Pals. ignored their responsibilities and commitments as per Madrid and Oslo, they are and will ignore Annapolis]

Condi, what are you talking about?

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

(*)

con·fab·u·late (kn-fby-lt)

1. To talk casually; chat.
2. Psychology - To fill in gaps in one's memory with fabrications that one believes to be facts.

(**)

Update from Jenin:

About 600 Palestinian security personnel were deployed in Jenin in May, some of whom were trained in Jordan under an American-sponsored program to back up the forces already there. Most have since been redeployed to other parts of the West Bank, including Hebron.

Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, the United States security coordinator, told reporters that the exercise had been a “great success,” and that the Israelis said they had reduced their incursions into Jenin by about 40 percent.

Down by 40% still leaves 60% terror.

And He's Still Fooling the Media

Jon Friedman at CBS still doesn't get it about Obama's media approach.

Excerpts from his:

How Obama Can Win Over The Media
MarketWatch Media Columnist Explains What Obama Must Do To Become America's "Communicator-In-Chief"

..."There has to be a new era of transparency," Stengel [Rick Stengel, the managing editor of Time magazine] told me, raising his voice to be heard over the din. I asked Stengel what the next president's priority should be.

"Communicator-in-Chief," Stengel said animatedly. "That's his main job."

Speaking for the media, who have been frustrated by outgoing President George W. Bush's infrequent public pronouncements over his eight years, Stengel urged Obama to be a constant presence in our lives.

"The more press conferences, the better," Stengel said, suggesting one a week.
I met Obama in October 2006 in Phoenix at a magazine conference. This was before he formally declared himself a candidate for the White House.

[In Phoenix 2006] Obama clearly enjoyed meeting people and making small talk. But I thought I got a glimpse of a slightly churlish Obama, too, when I asked him, rather bluntly, if he was worried about peaking in popularity with the media any time soon.

He cocked his head and took in my question, looking displeased at being buttonholed in such a friendly setting. "No," he declared, throwing cold water on my theory. He then explained that he was confident he could continue to do well.

Obama showed himself to be a guarded, private man on the campaign trail. Befitting his Harvard Law School pedigree, he chooses his words very carefully. He seemed to agonize when he had to speak off the cuff during his debates with his opponent on the campaign trail, Sen. John McCain, and wasn't at his best when he had to wing it.

I'd advise our new president to loosen up a bit when he deals with the media from this point on. The easiest way to get potential antagonists on your side is to smile and make light jokes. But Obama sometimes acts uneasily,

Everyone in the media will be watching Obama, waiting for him to trip up and look bad. [really?] It's nothing personal against him. But as I have written in this space before, the media love nothing more than to build you up, and then knock you down. This phenomenon takes place in every strata of life, from politics and business to sports and entertainment.

As Bush knows from his own experience, Obama won't always have the media in the palm of his hand. He should take advantage of every opportunity.

Remarkable, amazingly remarkable.

And this fellow claims to have covered Obama for over two years?

Rahm Emanuel Loses Security Clearance

Rahm Emanuel, President-Elect Barrack Obama's selection to be his Chief of White House staff, has been informed by the relevant security and intelligence agencies that his security clearance for the sensitive position has been denied.

Emanuel's situation seems to be analogous to that of other Jews working in government service who have had close connections to Israel or Israelis.

Emanuel, who, according to his father, his son is the namesake of Rahamim, a Lehi (Stern Group) combatant who was killed. Rahm’s surname was adopted by his family in 1933, after Rahm’s paternal uncle, Emanuel Auerbach, was killed in a skirmish with Arabs in Jerusalem. His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a pediatrician and former member of the Irgun, a militant Zionist group active in the British Mandate of Palestine between 1931 and 1948. [source]

It has been understood that Arab heads of state as well as American Arab fraternal organizations have privately conveyed to Obama their dismay that someone even remotely involved with Zionist terrorist massacres against Palestinian Arabs could be raised to such a level of service.

Both the Israeli familial connections as well as the obvious links to foreign political parties seems to have dashed Emanuel's aspirations for advancement. It also should be recalled that Emanuel was a civilian volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, serving in one of Israel's northern bases, rust-proofing brakes. [source]

Besides the famous Jonathan Pollard case, in recent years other instances of zealous government protection from deep within the intelligence community have been observed to sabotage careers of promising Americans of the Jewish faith who also are involved with Israel. The AIPAC spy case and the David Tennebaum affair as well as the stubborn refusal of the intelligence community to agree to a pardon or clemency for Jonathn Pollard would indicate a rather unyielding approach, if not downright discrimination against Americnas of Jewish background and Israel connections.

Washington has been rife with rumors these past few nano-hours whether Obamna would cave in again to the media pressure and dismiss the appointment.

Obama's response has not been forthcoming before this satirical blog post was set off into the cyberspace of the blogosphere.

"But It Isn't 3 AM Yet"

When the call does come, all the citizens of the world hope that the challenge will be met and that justice and right will be done.

(On that 3AM phone call)

A Brave Statement on Tattoos

The UK's Liz Jones makes a very brave point.

In an article blasting the fashion of tattooing, "Why DO women have these tramp stamps?, she writes:

They criss-cross the nation's women, rendering their victims permanently scarred. They peep out of shirt collars, above the waists of jeans or between the straps of a pair of sandals. They wink at you as someone passes the sugar across a table. They are a mark of temporary insanity, instantly turning the classiest, chicest woman into trailer trash. Not for nothing are they known as 'tramp stamps'...tattoos, the most tasteless, tacky, tawdry, terrible plague to infect our nation since mad cow disease.

...Helen Mirren, who has the Indian Lakesh symbol, meaning 'whole woman', inscribed just below the thumb on her left hand, she rolled her eyes. (Helen Mirren is, by the way, the only woman in her 60s I can think of who doesn't look ridiculous sporting a tattoo). She got hers when she was drunk one night on a theatre tour in Minnesota. 'It was years before tattoos became fashionable. I'm appalled they have become middle class,' she said. 'There is no respect for rebellion any more.'

And then, she zeros in:-

My best friend's grandmother has a tattoo, a series of numbers, on the inside of her wrist. Her tattoo, more of a brand, really, was once navy, but has faded with time. It is most definitely not a fashion statement. She was given the tattoo when she was a small child, upon entering a Nazi concentration camp. She is proud of her tattoo, an indelible reminder of mankind's inhumanity to man. Her disfigurement is a badge of courage, not a woolly-headed fashion statement.

My thought, too.

They'll Get More Than Balls Back

This isn't cricket:

According to author Julian Norridge baseball originated in Britain, and part of his proof comes from a reference in Jane Austen's novel "Northanger Abbey." Norridge, whose book "Can we Have our Balls Back, Please?" focuses on Britain's role in writing the rulebooks for a long list of sports, says Austen mentioned baseball in the opening pages of "Northanger Abbey," which was written in 1797-98.

Norridge says that Austen referenced the sport while introducing her tomboy heroine Catherine Morland, writing: "It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of 14, to books." He argues in his book that the reference indicates British people were familiar with the sport prior to its supposed invention much later in the United States.

It was another base concept, if not another ball.

Uri Avnery?!

I opened up the November 6 edition of the International Herald Tribune and there, on the opinion page, 14, there's a whole page devoted to how the US election is viewed by the world.

And who represents Israel?

Its Foreign Minister?

Opposition leader?

University academic?

Outstanding philosopher?

Religious figure?

Political activist?

I could go on but you're waiting, right?

It was Uri Avnery, described as "founder of the Israeli peace movement Gush Shalom".


Who is it in the IHT's editorial board that promotes one of the most negligible, radical political figures on the current (and past) Israel scene?

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

UPDATE

Here's Avnery explaining how he managed to get in:-

Immediately after Obama's victory, the International Herald Tribune (the world-wide edition of the New York Times) asked ten people around the globe for comments. All were published on Thursday, November 6, 2008.

So, who is that person responsible?

Condi Flubs; Joins the Side of the Terrorists

Condoleeza Rice has turned out to be either insolent, cruel or plain not quite that smart regarding the conflict between Arabs and Jews in the area the League of Nations set aside for the reconstitution of the historic Jewish national home, an area illegally removed by the British Mandatory power and which they Arabs in several wars and riots tried to take away totally.

Yesterday, she met the press and, among other things, had this to say:-

Let me just close by saying that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that should be resolved and should be ended because it will be so important to Palestinians to live in their own state and for Israel to live alongside a democratic neighbor who can help to secure the peace.

The United States is fully committed to that goal, and I remain committed to that goal until the day that we leave office. But I want to say that I am very grateful that in the last almost eight years now we have been able to move a situation which, at the time when President Bush came to office, was the second intifada, with hundreds of Israelis under siege, with Palestinians dying in large numbers, a situation in which the thought of peace between Israelis and Palestinians was one that was quite distant with the undeniably important, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to reach peace at Camp David.

Oh, only Pals. were dying? No Jews?
And weren't a good few of those Pals. dying by their own hand in suicide bombing attacks?

And aren't Jews still dying, stabbed by Pals., shot at by Pals., being rocketed by Pals.? Here, yesterday, before you spoke:

Palestinian Authority terrorists in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket at the western Negev city of Sderot Thursday morning in a continuation of a spate of attacks on southern Israel.

and this morning:

Southerners woke up to another day of rocket attacks Friday, as Palestinian terrorists fired five Kassams at western Negev neighborhoods. The rockets landed in the Sderot, Eshkol and Sha'ar Hanegev regions. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. One of the Kassams landed near a kibbutz reservoir, while a second hit the fence surrounding another western Negev kibbutz. The other rockets hit open areas.

And she continued to "explain" that flub:

I do want to emphasize again that in 2001, when President Bush came into office, we had a raging intifada, we had Israel under siege.

Siege? Just a siege? A bit euphemistic, no? The background to this ignoring of dead, wounded, maimed Israelis is gone, missing from her remarks? No, it isn't. Not at all.

Here's her world-view, in plain sight:

There were still people who talked about, well, there are freedom fighters and then there are terrorists. The President laid that aside for all time.

Ah, but Condi, they are and there still are terrorists. Not freedom fighters at all. You can't just lay that aside. That is the core of the conflict.

And, in ignoring the Jewish dead, Condi, you may have joined the side of the terrorists.

An Easy Test for Obama and a Nice Gesture, Too

Here's an easy test for Obama as regards the Middle East.

Hundreds of Africans, black Africans, have been attempting to get into Israel via Egypt by illegally crossing the Sinai desert and sneaking across the border which, unfortunately, is fairly porous. It's a situation Israel could be addressing better.

Dozens of them have been shot at by the Egyptians, injured and many killed.

Here, from this morning:

10:31 Two African infiltrators caught near Eilat, one hurt by Egyptian border guard (Haaretz)

and from a background report a week ago:

Egypt detains some 1,000 infiltrators since January

Egyptian security authorities have foiled attempts of 999 illegal immigrants who tried to sneak into Israel via the Egyptian border since the beginning of this year, the state MENA news agency reported on Saturday. The Egyptian border with Israel in the Sinai peninsula is the scene of frequent attempts by illegal immigrants of different nationalities to cross into Israel for work or smuggling. Since the beginning of this year, Egyptian border guards have shot dead at least 24 illegal immigrants in a bid to curb the border infiltration.

Now, getting back to the Obama test. Maybe some nice reporter could ask him or ask Rahm Emmanuael if President-Elect Barrack Obama, considering his African roots, would make a plea to Hosni Mubaraek of Egyptian to order his army to at least stop the lethal methods used to halt the illegal activity of these Africans?

That would be a nice gesture, no? Even humanitarian, not political.

The Slow Coming of Democracy

Yesterday, I highlighted my complaint that there is discrimination in the way the press/media and the cultural elites relate to extremists of the Left and specifically, in a case of Arabs and supporters who screamed that a demo in downtown Um El-Fahm is terrible but they tmeselves managed to pull off a demo in downtown Jerusalem, shouting pro-Hezbollah slogans, without any problems or unruly reactions from passersby.

Another of my problems was that whereas Jewish activists were receiving expulsion orders and administrative orders, for example from today's news:

An order banning "Land of Israel Faithful" activist Yaron Tilhav from Judea and Samaria for three months was served on him early Friday morning at his residence in Peace House between Hevron and Kiryat Arba. Detectives from the Judea and Samaria police arrived at 2:00 am and surrounded Peace House while serving Tilhav.

The Land of Israel Faithful responded by saying that the restraining orders are not subject to public scrutiny, and are being carried out by "people working hand in hand with the government in fulfilling the political whims of [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak." Two residents of the Samarian Jewish outpost of Adi Ad and one from the Samarian Jewish community of Yitzhar are entering the final month of a similar three-month ban.

the "Wall" anarchists, etc. who acted with even more violence against Israeli security personnel were seemingly immune from these draconian devices of oppression.

Well, maybe there's a "change" in the coming:-

In the interest of issuing restraining orders against Israelis and foreigners "who disturb the peace" and "lead violent activity," the Israel Defense Forces has asked the Israel Security Agency (Shabak, Shin Bet) and the police to provide it with information on left-wing figures active in Judea and Samaria, according to the Haaretz daily...So far, such orders have only been issued against nationalist activists suspected of subversive activities. The army is focusing on a number of activists involved in violent protests against the security/separation barrier, those who ostensibly help Palestinian Authority Arabs harvest their olives and others. A number of leftists were seen in the area where an olive grove owned by a Jew was torched earlier this week.

Haaretz continues:

A document formulated by the IDF Central Command, entitled "Means of Operation Against Leftist Activists in the Area of Judea and Samaria" states, among other things, that the goal was to issue restraining orders against Israelis and foreigners "who disturb the peace" and "lead violent activity."...Among the activists the intelligence services were asked to provide information about is Yonatan Pollack of Anarchists Against the Fence.

Pollack said he was not surprised the army was seeking a restraining order against him. "On Sunday two weeks ago the Shin Bet called and summoned me to the police station on Dizengoff Street. They said they had had enough of my activities and if I kept it up they would take steps, either criminal or administrative ones. I told them that all my activities were open and if there was anything illegal, they were a matter for the police."

Pollack also said he presumed that "since there's a lot of talk now about restraining orders against right-wingers, they would use that against us to show balance, although there has almost never been a case of a left-wing activists suspected of violence and certainly not of violence like that of the right-wing activists."...

Haaretz also writes

The army further asked the police and the Shin Bet to keep their work on the matter secret.

and, so, now we know that someone from the inside opposes this policy and is leaking material to the media.

Democracy is slow in coming.

If Not the Messiah, Well, Maybe a Rebbe?

You've seen these pictures of the last Lubavutcher Rebbe around:





I guess it was inevitable:

Has Santa Come Early Here in Jerusalem?

Is this a Jerusalem Santa Claus, come early?





Naw, it's Meir Porush



running for office of mayor.

Jenin Again

Condi Rice is off to...Jenin.

...my purpose here is to continue to work on the Annapolis process and all of its elements by going to Jenin to look at and, I hope, to underscore the progress that is being made on the ground in building the institutions of a future Palestinian state, particularly the security institutions where there’s been significant progress, and then continuing to talk with the parties about how they might move forward on core issues.

There it is, that showcase of America.

I claim that all the hoo-ha at Jenin to illustrate that the Pals. are capable of providing enough security for Israel so that it can further withdraw is a facade. They aren't dealing with terrorists and Israel still has to raid.

P.S.

And as for Jerusalem:

QUESTION: Right now, the Israeli Government not formed is a problem, obviously. Are you relieved that Tzipi Livni decided not to form a government with the Shas, which would have been a problem for the Jerusalem question? Instead of – she decided not to form it and to wait for February. Do you think it’s a good sign?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I’m not going to comment on internal Israeli politics or the decisions that Tzipi Livni made. I would note that the government has remained committed to the process; that she, as Foreign Minister, has remained committed to the process. And I would just state what is obvious: In order to create a Palestinian state, all issues are going to have to be resolved. And that includes – there will have to ultimately be a resolution of the issue of Jerusalem one way or another.

But I can’t comment on and won’t comment on her decision. That was her decision.

Left, Good; Right Bad; Arabs Excused

One thing I feel jealousy over is the ability of those on the leftwing of the political spectrum not feel responsible nor even to be held responsible by the media for the outrageous behavior, at times, criminal, of those more extreme than themselves whereas those of the rightwing are always being forced to apologize for or be held responsible for the actions of those on the fringe.

An example:

While teenagers in Hebron or other communities are caught on film either throwing rocks at Arabs and their sympathizers or cursing soldiers, etc. - and I am not viewing their actions with sympathy or support - the very same type of activity by anarchists at a wall protest are either ignored or played down, rarely to be brought into media discussion.

And now, there's a new example.

As I noted previously:

The High Court of Justice has decided to approve a petition by Baruch Marzel's Jewish National Front party for the right to hold a Jewish Pride Parade and rally in the Lower Galilee Israeli Arab city of Umm el-Fahem, a stronghold of the radical Islamic Jihad movement. However, the ruling stipulates that the event be held after the city's municipal elections, which are scheduled for November 11, and that the marchers stay out of the center of town.

There was criticism galore. How could the court permit these 'fanatics' to cause such a disturbance? Don't they know they are causing a riot? Well, at least they won't be marching in the center of the town.

Well, read on what happened today, in the center of Jerusalem:

Hundreds of Arabs belonging to the Islamic Movement marched in Jerusalem Thursday afternoon to protest the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing construction of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in a downtown area once used as a Muslim cemetery. No violent incidents were reported, with dozens of police on hand.

I repeat:

Jerusalem Police said the protest passed off without incident.

See for yourselves:




So, if I understand the situation

a) the Arabs of Um El-Fahm are naturally expected to riot if a few Jews demonstrate Jewish pride and that violence is implicitly understood, if not supported by the left, liberal progressives.

b) Marzel, Ben-Gvir, etc., are thugs who are to be ostracized and their civil liberties restricted.

c) Hundreds of Arabs from East Jerusalem marched through downtown center Jerusalem and nothing happened despite solidarity chants for Hezbollah (which I heard while watching the TV report) and no one protests the irresponsible provocative behavior.

d) and I conclude that whatever the Left does is good and fine and the Arabs are justified in what they do or cause not to be done and that equality really doesn't exist for the Right.

St. Barrack?

An English view




Source at here.

Knife Edge? Razor Edge!

If you check my previous blog post (here), you'll understand the irony of this:-

As counties and Ritchie's office reconciled their unofficial vote totals Wednesday, Coleman's margin fluctuated but was at 475 votes Wednesday afternoon: Coleman had 1,211,642 votes, or 41.99 percent of the total votes cast, while Franken had 1,211,167 votes, or 41.98 percent.

ZOA "Congratulation" To Obama

ZOA CONGRATULATES PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA

"The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has congratulated President-elect Senator Barack Obama and his running mate Senator Joe Biden for their victory in the presidential elections....We are proud to point out that Senator Biden was the keynote speaker at a recent ZOA National dinner, where he proclaimed, "I am a Zionist . and the U.S. should not pressure Israel."

"As Senator Obama emerged on the national stage during this election campaign, the ZOA had cause to note a number of deeply troubling aspects to his record and candidacy. As we have said on earlier occasions, we were deeply shocked to discover the views and attitudes of his pastor Jeremiah Wright and his Trinity United Church, which Senator Obama attended for two decades. In particular, we were shocked by Rev. Wright's bigotry and animus against the U.S., against whites, wild anti-white conspiracy theories, anti-Israel words and deeds, the honoring of black racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, promoted divesting from Israel, accusing Israel of state
terrorism and his blaming Israel for the 9/11 attack by murderous jihadists. We have also been deeply concerned by Senator Obama's association with other deeply radical and hateful figures, including Father Phleger and former Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, again, among others.

"Additionally, the ZOA has been deeply concerned about the numerous virulent
anti-Israel activists and propagandists with whom Senator Obama has associated over the years - people like former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi, who has called 'resistance' against Israel 'legitimate' and berated Arab academics from participating at events at pro-Israel think tanks...

"There has also been Ali Abunimah..and that, in 2004, Obama told him, "Hey, 'I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front... [You] Keep up the
good work!"

"Equally, our concern is highest regarding President-elect Obama's past and present advisers on the Middle East. The ZOA has noted that the majority of these - Zbigniew Brzezinski, Daniel Kurtzer, General Merrill 'Tony' McPeak, Robert Malley, Samantha Power, Susan Rice to name several of them - all have records that indicate, variously, deep hostility against Israel, keenness on engaging and legitimizing terrorist movements like Hamas, support for down-grading or even cancelling the Israeli-American alliance and blaming the Jewish lobby for controlling U.S. Mid-East policy...

...we urge the incoming Obama administration to review some of the cost-cutting measures to the American military that President-elect Obama foreshadowed in the campaign. By common consent, we are living in a period of great perils with several far-flung theaters of conflict. Now is not the time for ruinous and false military
economies that might embolden our enemies and increase the dangers while reducing our ability to tackle them successfully and decisively.

"We fervently hope that President-elect Obama will live up to his public declarations of support for Israel. We trust and expect that his promise that he will 'do everything, everything' to ensure that the Iranian regime does not obtain nuclear weapons will be honored. We also hope that his statements of support for Israel exercising its legitimate right to self-defense as he expressed it during the 2006 Lebanon war and his forthright condemnation of the cowardly terrorists who use civilians as human shields behind which to attack Israel, as well as other, more general expressions of support and friendship for Israel that marked his campaign,
will be hallmark of his Administration's Middle East policy.

"We at ZOA hope that his past associations and statements - including one
that Hamas and Hizballah, both dedicated to Israel's elimination, have
'legitimate claims' (David Brooks, 'Obama admires Bush,' New York Times, May
16, 2008) - will not be predictive of his future policy towards Israel.

"

Now, that's how to congratulate someone.

Obama - So Goooood For The Jews

Well, 'good' according to Ralph Peters who, in the New York Post on November 1, 2008 published this

"Obama 2012: His Triumphs Abroad"

Looking back on the four years of his first administration, President Obama can be proud: He made the US welcome among the family of nations again; he reduced our reliance on military force; and he gave us peace by reaching sensible accommodations with our enemies.

The lies told about him in the 2008 election were exposed as sheer bigotry. Far from being "soft on radical Islam," President Obama was the first world leader to welcome Jewish refugees after Iran's nuclear destruction of Israel's major cities (his only caveat - a fair one - was the refusal to accept Zionist military officers and their families, in light of Israel's excessive etaliation).

(Kippah tip: DemoCast)


Actually, that's not at all funny, or good.

A View of the Media's Performance

Found it here