Media Chassid Joke

A chassid goes into an electronics store and asks how much a certain televison set costs.

"I'm sorry," says the salesman, "we don't sell TVs to chassidim."

The next day he goes back, dressed in a homburg and a short jacket, payos hidden, and goes over to the same television set.

"How much is this?," he says, "I want to buy it."

"I'm sorry, says the salesman, we don't sell televisions to chassidim."

He returns to the store on the third day. This time he has cut off his payos, shaved off his beard and is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

"How much is this television? I want to buy it," he says.

"I'm sorry, we don't sell televisions to chassidim."

"How did you know I'm a chassid?" he yells.

"Well, sir, from my experience, only chassidim think that microwaves are televisions."

Anti-Beilin Letter in The Forward

Carter’s Israeli Chorus

Yossi Beilin assures the Forward’s readers that the rhetoric in Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” “is entirely harmonious with the kind of criticism that Israelis themselves voice about their own country. There is nothing in the criticism that Carter has for Israel that has not been said by Israelis themselves” (“Carter Is No More Critical of Israel Than Israelis Themselves,” January 19). Beilin is being more than a bit duplicitous.

The Israelis who do bandy about terms like “apartheid,” “imperialism” and worse are extreme radicals from the fringes of the left. These borderline post-Zionists are not your average Israelis. Indeed, they are just as wrong, malicious and immoral as Carter.

Diatribes do not contribute to a rational debate in Israel, even when they are loud enough for a peanut farmer in Georgia to hear.

Yisrael Medad
Shiloh, West Bank

A 'Black Paper'

In a previous post, I informed you that members of the UK Parliament's International Development Committee visited me at Shiloh and we discussed issues.

Well, the report is out and it is such a hatchet job.

Try this on:

The settlements

65. Over 420,000 Israeli settlers live in the OPTs in about 160 settlements and 100
outposts.112 The location of settlements in the West Bank can be seen in Map 1. All settlements established on land which is occupied are in breach of international law. Under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is under an obligation as the occupying power not to transfer its citizens to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.113

The Roadmap is clear that Israel should freeze all settlement activity including the
natural growth of existing settlements, and dismantle all outposts built since former
Prime Minister Sharon's election in March 2001.114 The UK Government’s view is that
settlement building is contrary to international law and is an obstacle to peace.115

66. The Hague Regulations prohibit the occupying power from making permanent changes to the occupied area apart from in relation to narrowly defined military needs or unless the occupied population benefits from such changes.116 A recent report by the Israeli NGO Peace Now notes that the property rights of Palestinians have been systematically violated in the course of settlement building. Using data from the Israeli Civil Administration the report found that Palestinians privately own nearly 40% of the land on which settlements have been built. The report also found that over 50% of land deemed ‘state land’ by Israel has been declared as such through controversial means and mostly for the benefit of settlements.117

112 Ev 84 [DFID]; Q 243 [Mr Shearer]. Outposts are unauthorized ‘temporary’ structures which have been erected close to existing settlements. See, The Sasson Report Concerning Unauthorized Outposts, www.pmo.gov.il.
113 Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 and considers it belongs to the state of Israel. This is not recognized by the international community.
114 The Roadmap, ‘a performance-based roadmap to a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,’ was agreed in 2003 between the GoI and the PLO and approved by the Quartet.
115 www.fco.gov.uk.
116 The Hague Regulations are discussed at www.btselem.org.
117 Peace Now, Breaking the Law in the West Bank: One violation leads to another, October 2006.

During the Mandate days, there were 'White Papers' of British policy.

This one's all black.

In Case You Were Looking for Me

Just in case you were looking for me, I was on a two-day field study trip in the framework of my MA studies at Hebrew University.

We went to Nitzan to talk and meet with the evacuated from Neveh Dekalim. To Sderot and to a Beduin "non-recognized" settlement.

And we had lunch at the T'nuvah-li dairy restaurant in Sderot.




And here's the view of Gaza from the western edge of Sderot:



No Kasams were fired during our tour.

Waiting

Then Mayor Teddy Kollek and Professor Israel Eldad arguing on the Temple Mount about its future.

Comedy? Only Jews

Have you seen the trailer for this film:-

West Bank Story is a comedy short, directed by Ari Sandel and co-written by Sandel and Kim Ray. The film is a parody of the classic musical film West Side Story, which in turn is an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. The film follows the romance between the owners of two rival falafel restaurants, one an Israeli and one a Palestinian. The film stars Ben Newmark as the Israeli soldier and Noureen DeWulf as the Palestinian cashier.

Seems it was among the finalists in the best live action short film category of the Oscars.


It's here.

Lovering's Love

John Lovering from Cardiff University doesn't like nationalism, or basically, its imposition from above, by an elite.

So here's part of his letter to the London Review of Books:-

When Sabah Salih insists that the liberation of Turkey’s Kurds can only come through nationalism, which Kurds does he mean: Alevis or Sunnis? Secularists or fundamentalists? Agas or peasants? Workers or business-owners? Men or women (Letters, 14 December 2006)?... Kurdish nationalism, like all others, involves the imposition by an elite of an ideology in which only particular interpretations, interests and people prevail.

...This patronising neo-Orientalism seems to owe much to the long media campaign by groups in Europe and the US associated with the PKK which has captured the imagination of much of the diaspora and many romantic well-wishers. It has benefited, too, from a lot of dewy-eyed Western journalism from the left and noisy anti-Turkish and anti-Iranian propaganda from the right. What poorer Kurds need, like everyone else, is more multiculturalism, more democracy, real
economic development, and above all, a radical improvement in the position of women.

I wonder, would he write the same about something called "Palestinian nationalism"?

Seems Someone Sympathizes with Katzav

President George W. Bush's father accused the news media of "personal
animosity" toward his son and said he found the criticism so unrelenting he
sometimes talked back to his television set.

"It's one thing to have an adversarial ... relationship -- hard-hitting journalism -- it's another when the journalists' rhetoric goes beyond skepticism and goes over the line into overt, unrelenting hostility and personal animosity," former President George Bush said.

The elder Bush, the 41st U.S. president, had a relatively collegial relationship with the press but things turned sour during his losing 1992 re-election campaign. He got so fed up with media coverage that supporters at the time circulated hats with the slogan "Annoy the Media -- Re-Elect Bush."

"I won't get too personal here -- but this antipathy got worse after the 43rd president took office," the former president said. He was speaking at a reception for a journalism scholarship awarded in honor of the late Hugh Sidey, White House correspondent for Time magazine.

"And so bad in fact that I found myself doing what I never should have done -- I talk back to the television set. And I said things that my mother wouldn't necessarily approve of," Bush's father said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

Nabbing at Annab

I found this sentence in a letter in the New York Times today:-

"Any variation of 'Free Palestine' is simply a plea for real justice and a
lasting peace, as is the reminder that the Palestinian refugees have always had
the inalienable, legal and sacred right to return to their original homes and
lands."

The letter was composed by Anne Selden Annab of Mechanicsburg, Pa. and I searched around an found her site (and there's another collection of her writings here).

Being who I am, I entered a comment although I am not sure it appears.

Here it is:-

"Congrats on getting published in the NYTimes. However, I really don't think the "sacred right" of which you write is the one that needs to be debated.

Arabs living in Palestine decided that Jews should not be able to immigrate to the country in great numbers, to buy land there and to attempt to establish a political framework to enable them to rule the land. While that is a position that can be understood and even considered admirable, it was morally, historical and legally misconstrued in that the land the Arabs were living on and in was the territory of the Jewish national homeland. That the Jews possessed a right to reconstitute their national existence there was recognized by the entire civilized world who conditioned the Zionist enterprise on assuring the personal and civil rights of the non-Jewish residents.

But the Arabs wanted to have it all and in the end, after 27 years of constant violence directed at Jews (newcomers, Orthodox with no discrimination), despite a compromise suggested by the United Nations which would award them 75% of the original Mandate area with 45% of the population of the new state to be of Arab demographics, they still wanted it all and launched a war.That war negated any suggested inalienable, legal and sacred right of return.

The recent violence (2000-2005) which saw the horrific acts of suicide bombers - a threat, by the way, not yet over - most certainly indicates a perverse attitude that needs to be corrected. How can someone hate another human being so much that they would kill themselves and specifically, in the process, seek out infants, children and non-combatants?"

Of course, I could have added that the current Pal. behavior is atrocious (and an update is here):-

Hamas gunmen stormed the home of a militant from the rival Fatah movement
on Friday, witnesses said, setting off a deadly gunfight and capping a day
of factional violence across the Gaza Strip that killed at least 13 people,
including a 2-year-old boy.

The fighting, among the deadliest in nearly two months, marred the
first anniversary of Hamas’s victory in Palestinian elections. After nightfall,
the fighting showed no signs of slowing, as the sound of gunfire echoed
throughout Gaza City.

Channel One TV News Clip - Founding of Shiloh

January 23, 1978.

From their archives.

Here.

Chanan Porat.
Geula Cohen.
Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook.

Oh, in Hebrew, of course. But great pictures.

Bonking Beilin

Beilin is bonked (yes, it's a word).

Steve Berman, a commercial real estate developer in Atlanta, was one of 15 councilors who resigned last week from the board of the Carter Center. A friend of Yossi Beilin, he attacks him in The Forward for expressing support for Jimmy Carter.

A classic take down of Israel's loony left.

A Word, Yossi Beilin, From An Old Friend

Yossi, last week you published an opinion article on this page defending the legacy of Jimmy Carter and his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” (“Carter Is No More Critical of Israel Than Israelis Themselves”). As one of the 15 councilors who resigned last week from the board of the Carter Center — and as an old friend of yours — I feel I must take you to task for defending both the book and the man.

Yossi, you and I have been friends for eight years. We have been to each other’s homes, and I have supported your peace efforts both materially and spiritually. I have often argued with other Jews in the United States and Israel, trying to persuade them to take your views more seriously. When I sent our letter of resignation to the Carter Center last week, I wondered to myself what you might think of it.

But truth be told, I wasn’t completely surprised to read your description of Carter’s book as an “impassioned personal narrative” and “a stark warning to both Israelis and Palestinians.”

I wasn’t surprised, but I was saddened. Saddened that you defended Carter’s book, despite its offering a far-from-unequivocal condemnation of Palestinian terrorism; saddened that you seem to have taken up for a person who can’t keep his stories straight.

The Israeli left is still suffering from its inability to cut off ties with Yasser Arafat after he had clearly demonstrated his lack of interest in suppressing terrorism and returned to the criminal habits that consumed his past. After the second intifada broke out in 2000, most of us came to understand the essence of Arafat and what he was about. Those on the Israeli left were among the few to still buy his disclaimers to the contrary.

More troubling still, Yossi, is your disregarding the encouragement Carter’s book may give to the hate groups that populate the landscape in America and patiently await their opportunity to marginalize the Jewish community here.

In your book “My Brothers Keeper,” you eloquently wrote about the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jews, primarily those of us here in America. One of your central themes was that both communities often misunderstand each other’s points of communal interest. You have aptly proven your hypothesis by failing to appreciate just how sensitive many American Jews are to this critical issue.

When Carter says that there is “tremendous intimidation in our country that has silenced” the media, or when he says that “there cannot be an open and honest discussion in this country on our policies in the Middle East,” the Web sites of various hate groups here rabidly endorse the former president’s words. For many American Jews, that is cause for worry.

But Yossi, what pains me most is that you seem to have chosen to ignore Carter’s attack on your own credibility. I have seen him claim in numerous media appearances that Israel is the only stumbling block to peace. When questioned about the tremendous conciliation Israel showed in accepting President Clinton’s peace package in 2000, Carter proceeds to falsely assert that Israel never accepted the peace plan forwarded by Clinton.

Yossi, you should know better. You were Israel’s justice minister at the time, and your Cabinet voted on December 27, 2000, to do exactly what Carter claims you didn’t do: vote to accept Clinton’s plan.

At what point, Yossi, do words and actions finally resonate with you? When do you finally come to accept a person’s writings and public musings — even if contradicted by subsequent clarifications and elaborations — as the sum of their parts?

Three years ago I flew to Switzerland to show my support for you and your fellow authors of the Geneva peace accord. I remember how proud I was of your tremendous accomplishment, and of my fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter. He was the featured speaker at the ceremony, and spoke eloquently when he said that the only alternative to your Geneva plan was sustained violence.

Unfortunately, it now appears that Carter has the impression that the violence has mostly been initiated by Israelis and that Palestinians have played little role in creating the mess we are all in. This departure from broker to advocate, I am afraid, can only encourage Hamas rejectionists and prolong the violence.

On this page last week, you looked back to Carter’s Camp David summit and all that it has done for the region — and then went on to give the man a free pass to selectively interpret history. Why, Yossi, are you unable to see this person in full? Is it the cultural gap between America and Israel? Is it the loss of yet another icon of the political left to moral relativism?

Jimmy Carter has attacked Israel and our people, Yossi, and you would be wise not to embrace the man. If you do so, you will only further alienate the already weakened Israeli left from American Jewry and from the voting public in Israel — and the five Knesset seats your Meretz-Yahad Party currently holds may in the future look like a bounty.

To be fair, I can't stand Beilin's politics.

In 2003, I had this letter published in the NYTimes:-

To the Editor:

Yossi Beilin and Yasir Abed Rabbo, in seeking to justify their virtual diplomatic negotiating exercise, point to ''hard-liners in Israel'' who ''have criticized the details of the agreement'' (''An Accord to Remember,'' Op-Ed, Dec. 1).

The portrayal of hard-liners is self-serving. The scathing criticism of the method and the results of their efforts is across the board, from left to right in Israel.

Its impracticability, its yielding to terror, its dissolving of Israel's raison d'être, its vacating of crucial security needs and the forced abandonment of portions of the Jewish people's historic homeland without reciprocal demands on the Arab population all combine to nullify the relevance of the festival in Geneva.

And here's my recent letter on the article Berman attacks that wasn't published:-

Yossi Beilin soothingly assures The Forward's readers that Jimmy Carter's book and its latent apartheid message "is entirely harmonious with the kind of criticism that Israelis themselves voice about their own country. There is nothing...that has not been said by Israelis themselves ("Carter Is No More Critical of Israel Than Israelis Themselves", Jan. 19). Beilin is being more than a bit duplicitous.

In the first instance, the Israelis that do bandy about terms ike "apartheid", "imperialism" and worse are extreme radicals in their philosphy, from the fringes of the left. Borderline post-Zionists are not your average Israeli, and this includes Mr. Beilin. Secondly, they are just as wrong and malicious and immoral as Carter. Screeding is not a positive value that contributes to a rational debate in Israel, even if it may be loud enough for even a peanut farmer in Georgia to hear. If there is harmony, it is in a devil's choir.

The Gates Were Locked

Newly disclosed letters written by the father of Anne Frank illuminate his desperate attempts to get the family out of the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a New York-based institution that focuses on the history and culture of Eastern European Jews, said yesterday that it had discovered the file among 100,000 Holocaust-related documents about a year and a half ago.

“We have come across the file which belonged to Otto Frank, documenting his efforts to immigrate his family and get them out of Holland,” said Cathy Callegari, a spokeswoman for YIVO, which is to release the letters on Feb. 14. Time magazine first reported on the letters yesterday on its Web site.

...Ms. Callegari said the documents included letters that Otto Frank had written to relatives, friends and officials between April 30 and Dec. 11, 1941, when Germany declared war on the United States.



The letters document how he tried to arrange for his family — his wife, Edith; his daughters, Margot and Anne, and his mother-in-law, Rosa Hollander — to go to the United States or Cuba.

He failed, and the family took refuge in July 1942, hiding for more than two years before being arrested. Anne Frank described the family’s life in hiding in a diary.

The British had closed the gates to Palestine in their 1939 White Paper and entry into the UK was minimal. The 1938 Evian Conference fizzled. America and Canada were closed.No one wanted the Jews. (Canada 2)

Anne Frank's diary continues to reverberate.

Again, Yiddish in the NYTimes

As a Yiddish proverb has it: Badarf men hunik ven tsuker iz zis?

What's he talking about, you ask?

Here.

Shprecht a bisselleh Shakespeare.

One Year Since Amona

One year has passed since the police pogrom-like action at Amona which has been followed up by Orit Struck's civil society organization.

On the occasion, my neighbor, Shevach Shtern, accompanied MK Dr. Yuval Sterinitz and other MKs to the site.

Who Is Letting the Race Issue Out of the (Ink)Bottle?

The press is striking back at President Moshe Katzav and accusing him of seeking to manipulate the race issue by portraying himself as a poor Oriental Jew (he was born in Persia/Iran and grew up in a transit camp).

Here's the political cartoon in today's Ha'Aretz and you judge who is being discriminatory and racist?



There's a play on words here.

The text has the Dreyfus-like figure telling Katzav that "it's not Breasts' Island but Devils' Island" (the Hebrew word for devil or evil spirit is shed and shaidim in plural while the word for breast is shad or, in plural, shadayim). While the spelling appears similar, the pronunciation is not.

Now, besides the fact that the real name of the prison location for Dreyfus was Devil's Island and not Devils' Island, the cartoonist, Amos Biderman, a former religiously observant Jew, by the way, seeks to portray Katzav as an idiot or someone with so little knowledge that he would make such an elementary mistake.

Not to mention the basic legal principle that since he hasn't been tried, he's not guilty of anything and all the information the media is reporting is conjecture, if not wild accusations, or, at the very least, wishful thinking.

Katzav could, of course, be guilty. Clinton was and sneaked around. But Clinton had a long record of peccadillos (here and here and here) whereas this Katzav business just burst upon us, after Miss A attempted to blackmail him.

In any case, win or lose, his complaint upon being treated one way because of his background seems to hold water with this caricature as an example.

Ubber Chochom

The Yiddishism "Ubber Chochom" means, basically "smart-*ss" or wiseacre.

You want a more concrete example?

Read on.

Questions for Sarah Silverman

Funny Girl

Interview By DEBORAH SOLOMON

Q: The opening credits of your new television sitcom, “The Sarah Silverman Program,” include a scenic glimpse of a cemetery plot, as your voice explains that your parents are both deceased. Is that actually true? No. They’re both pretty retired.

How do they feel about being knocked off in your show, which makes its debut on Comedy Central on Feb. 1? They’re fine with it. It was a way to bring a little bit of pathos to a self-centered character. It’s like Mr. Rogers said, There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love if you knew their whole story, and I figured if I added dead parents —

Even so, the show’s protagonist, who is named Sarah Silverman, is not exactly Mr. Rogers’s type. A model of political incorrectness, she becomes enraged when she is forced to watch a commercial for a humanitarian-aid group. Whom is she based on? I would describe her as ignorant and arrogant. The character is a lot of myself and a lot of my mother.

Much like Sacha Baron Cohen, you specialize in a kind of shock comedy that seems designed to give offense. What do you think of him? “Borat” was the most retarded yet most important movie I’ve seen in many years.

In the documentary “The Aristocrats,” you set a new record for outrageousness by claiming, with a straight face, “Joe Franklin raped me,” referring to the elderly television host. I heard that he threatened to sue you. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t really mad. I think he was just milking the extra publicity.

Do you see your work as social commentary? I don’t see it as anything. I try not to look at it. Deconstruction is a comedy killer.

How are things going with your comedic other, Jimmy Kimmel? Excellently! All my friends are comics, but I don’t know that you would know them — Mark Cohen, Doug Benson, Todd Glass, Todd Barry.

Why don’t you have any female friends? Tig Notaro, she’s a woman. She’s probably one of my best friends. She’s a comedian.

Tell us about your childhood in Bedford, N.H., where you were the youngest of four daughters. Isn’t your oldest sister a rabbi? She got into it on her own, after grad school, even. We grew up in a place with very few Jews. I didn’t look like the other kids. I had hairy legs, hairy arms, hair everywhere. I looked like a little monkey.

This doesn’t sound like a description of an idyllic childhood. I wouldn’t want to do it again. I had a lot of depression as a kid.

During adolescence, you mean? From 13 to 16. I didn’t go to school for months. It was so awful. I didn’t know how to express what it was. I remember trying to explain it to my stepdad and saying, “I feel like that terrible homesick feeling, but I’m home.”

Were you treated at the time for depression? I had very bad experiences with doctors. I got sent to a psychiatrist who put me on Xanax when I was 13. I went back for my next visit, and he had killed himself.

That’s a pretty good story, but is it true? I swear to God. I had to wait for the rest of the hour for my mom to pick me up.

You eventually wound up at New York University, where you dropped out after a year to work in comedy clubs. I didn’t really drop out. I just didn’t go back.

Do you wish your new show were appearing on HBO, if only because Comedy Central bleeps out the swear words? No, I spent two years developing shows at HBO, right before this. I wrote two pilots with Larry Charles. Neither of them was even shot. They’re so good too.

And then you were rescued by Comedy Central. Yes, I’m one of those lucky people who’s attracted to people who like me.

Okay, so there's nothing wrong in being funny. A bit of self-deprecation is alright, too.

Full frontal Judity?

But let's not get carried away Sarah.

------------
Her blog.

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

UPDATE

See this article in The New Yorker

HOSTILE ACTS
by TAD FRIEND
“The Sarah Silverman Program” puts the mean back in funny.

Excerpts:-

So “The Sarah Silverman Program,” much the meanest sitcom in years—and one of the funniest—premières this week, perforce, on Comedy Central. Silverman, the telescope-necked comedienne, has had trouble finding the right showcase for the contrary elements of her persona: the post-feminist tomboy who’s sexually cocky and emotionally frigid, the eerily alert counterpuncher who’s totally self-involved. (In her 2005 concert movie, “Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic,” Silverman makes out with her own mirrored image.) She is best known for jarring “The Aristocrats,” the documentary about a legendary joke, with her deadpan claim that “Joe Franklin raped me,” and for dropping the epithet “chinks” into a joke on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” Unlike many comedians, Silverman excavates prejudice less by digging into her own background (though in one episode she insincerely promises “full-frontal Jew-dity”) than by strip-mining the turf of other minorities, particularly blacks and gays. Her game is to throw out stereotypes in a little-girl voice and with a winsome look that suggests no offense can legitimately be taken. You might admire Silverman’s boldness, or you might feel that there’s something sneaky in her appropriation of slurs that never wounded her—that it’s the standup equivalent of the person who cuts in line and then can’t believe you object.

The show’s credits beguile us into anticipating yet another wry, candid-seeming look at a comedian’s private life...The show’s only formal rigor is Sarah’s own: her beefs and run-ins always showcase her intolerance (at the expense of Silverman’s winsome streak). When a driver in a red Ford Focus pulls up alongside her red Ford Focus and cheerily observes, “Hey, same car!,” Sarah parrots his remark with an expression of utter spastic disgust.

...At times, you wonder whether you’re laughing with Silverman or at her, and then you realize that she’s laughing at you.

Silverman dispatches empathy with a kind of emotional judo. When Sarah and an older black woman start chatting at the market, a bond seems possible:

WOMAN: You know, family is the most important thing in life. It’s who you are.
SARAH: That is so wise.
WOMAN: Well, that’s just what comes with being seventy.
SARAH: No, you’re not! There is no way you are seventy! You look too young! . . . (The woman moves in for a hug, but Sarah halts her.) Oh, now that you’re closer I can tell you’re old.

...Touché. The brilliance of the show—the force of its argument that sitcoms turn us into loserish loners—is also its abiding flaw. We admire the purity of Silverman’s scornfulness, but we don’t want to hang out with her the way we did with Mary and Rhoda. Not that she’d let us get that close anyway. “The Sarah Silverman Program” is like a club so exclusive that only the owner can get in—not even God is on the list.

Proof

A thank-you letter from the Rt Hon MP Malcolm Bruce finally arrived.

To remind you all, I entertained several UK MPs who were on a visit for the purpose of investigating the sinking of good money into a very bad project: the Pal. Authority.

Well, that's not how they would have phrased it.

Here's the letter:-

A Very Admirable and Appreciated Gesture

A Public Letter on Iran's Holocaust denial Conference by Gholam Reza Afkhami and over one hundred others

To the Editors:

We the undersigned Iranians,

Notwithstanding our diverse views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict;

Considering that the Nazis' coldly planned "Final Solution" and their ensuing campaign of genocide against Jews and other minorities during World War II constitute undeniable historical facts;

Deploring that the denial of these unspeakable crimes has become a propaganda tool that the Islamic Republic of Iran is using to further its own agendas;

Noting that the new brand of anti-Semitism prevalent in the Middle East today is rooted in European ideological doctrines of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and has no precedent in Iran's history;

Emphasizing that this is not the first time that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has resorted to the denial and distortion of historical facts;

Recalling that this government has refused to acknowledge, among other things, its mass execution of its own citizens in 1988, when thousands of political prisoners, previously sentenced to prison terms, were secretly executed because of their beliefs;

Strongly condemn the Holocaust Conference sponsored by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Tehran on December 11–12, 2006, and its attempt to falsify history;

Pay homage to the memory of the millions of Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and express our empathy for the survivors of this immense tragedy as well as all other victims of crimes against humanity across the world.

But the Iranian bomb is mighty.

We need more than a pen.

Quakers Beat Up Pals. - No, Really

Palestinians beaten at Guilford College

Three football players at Guilford College, a school with a Quaker background, face assault and ethnic intimidation charges after an attack on three Palestinian students, authorities said.

The victims were beaten with fists, feet and brass knuckles early Saturday by attackers who called them "terrorists" and used racial slurs, the News & Record of Greensboro reported Tuesday.

School officials believe about 12 people were involved in the altercation, Nic Brown, spokesman for the college in Greensboro, told The Associated Press. Administrators were still trying to determine whether some were fighting or trying to break it up, Brown said.

A school statement said the altercation, in a campus courtyard, lasted less than five minutes. The students involved were acquaintances without a history of conflict, and at least some of them were under the influence of alcohol, the school said.

Two of the students who were attacked, Faris Khader and Osama Sabbah, are students at Guilford. The third, Omar Awartani, is a student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh who was visiting.

I sympathise.

At the age of 3.5 in the Bronx, I was beaten up and an attempt was made to steal my tricycle while I was in the courtyard of P.S. 75 while I was being called "dirty Jew".

This was my second most early remembrance of my life.

I never thought of changing my status of Jew but I always tried to be clean ever after.

A Media Insight

Nice observation:-

...the language of the media has more in common with the language of diplomacy and politics than the media would care to admit. Truth — or, if you prefer, “reality” — is not the object of either, though it is essential in both cases to keep up the pretense, however transparent, that it is. The more the media bang on about “reality,” the more apparent it is that what they mean is the version of reality which it is their rhetorical project to establish in the public mind as the only legitimate one.

That is of course what politicians do all the time, as the endless references to “spin” by those, including the media, who are the victims of it confirm. But a further stage in the media’s progress towards ever more unashamed partisanship is marked by the fact that they are now spinning with the best of them.

...As in so many other political spheres, perception is all, and in the media’s own perception of history, both have the status of established fact. Therefore, presented once again with the task of effecting an American retreat from engagement with a foreign enemy, the media were disposed to stress every point of similarity between Iraq and Vietnam, including the characterization of both struggles as civil wars.