There's a Virus Going Around

Remember when Moshe Yaalon was excoriated?

...The Prime Minister's Office announced Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will summon Ya'alon for a face-to-face talk on the backdrop of statements he made against Peace Now at the conference when the prime minister returns from vacation.

During the meeting, part of which was broadcast Wednesday evening on Channel 2, Minister Ya'alon used particularly harsh words against left-wing activists and Peace Now members.

When asked by one of the attendees about plans to dismantle the Bnei Adam outpost, he responded, "We again are dealing with the issue of the virus, Peace Now – the elitists, if you may – who have incurred great damage. From my perspective, Jews can and need to live in all of the Land of Israel for all eternity."

and the follow-up:

Netanyahu: Ya'alon remarks unacceptable

Prime minister condemns vice prime minister's statement that Peace Now is 'a virus', while left-wing politicians claim remarks inflaming violence. 'He should not be part of the Israeli government,' says Labor MK Pines-Paz. Kadima: These are Netanyahu's true colors

Now read this:

The disengagement plan was full of flaws...[but] The disengagement plan did have a strength, though: It was a bold attempt, the first of its kind, to deal with the lethal virus. The basic logic behind it was valid and remains so...Israel has a crucial and moral obligation to end the occupation...

Virus?

Virus?!

So, who is going to exorciate...Ari Shavit of Ha-Ha-Haaretz?

Pssst. No one. He's of the leftist elite.


(Kippah tip: Carl)

- - -

Well, Come on Over

Reported:-

Most Americans put Italy at the top of their foreign travel wish lists, at least according to a new online survey by Harris Interactive...Australia ranked second in the survey, followed by Ireland.

Rounding out the top 10: Great Britain, France, Greece and Germany (in a tie for sixth place), Japan, Spain and New Zealand.

...And Israel reappeared for the first time since 2001, at No. 11...

Ask me, I know a good few tourist spots and some good tourists guides.



(Kippah tip: BT)
- - -

So, How Young Can A Militant Be?

The term 'militant' is a media code word for "terrorist", as I have blogged.

And refer to Here. And here.

So why is it used here in relation to girl high school pupils?

Hodaya Akrish and Na'ama Asher won a prize for their project on prestate underground members sent to the gallows by the British Mandate authorities. Shira Kadmon and Shifra Ganiram, both from the militant girls school in Ma'aleh Levona in the West Bank, won a prize for a paper on the Tuvia Chen-Zion group, which split from Lehi.

Oh, that was a Ha-Ha-HaAretz report.


- - -

Ooops, There Goes Another One

Another left-of-center cultural icon has moved to 12 HaTzivoni Street, Nofim.

Menachem Benn.

Nofim is east of the Green Line


I wonder who is next?


Photo source

So, NOW, We're Misinformed?

If you will recall, I noticed that the head of NOW, America's largest feminist organization (I think), was awarded an all-expenses paid junket to visit our little acre here. The US Consulate had her visit with Arab women's groups in the territories aka Judea and Samaria. Jewish females were excluded.

Now, in America, I think that would be termed "discrimination" or "marginalization". I can imagine her asking her hosts: "do I get to see what Jewish women are doing in their communities and how they are coping with Arab terror? can I visit their special programs and observe their own self-empowerment efforts?". You know, things like that.

Well, Ms. O'Neill's response to inquiries on the subject went like this:

Hello Yisrael Medad,

In fact, I did meet with numerous Israeli women's organizations during my
visit to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. You were misinformed on that issue, as
well as on my name.

With best wishes,
Terry O'Neill

Terry O'Neill, President
National Organization for Women
1100 H Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
Office: 202-628-8669, xt 120
Cell: 301-233-8582
president@now.org

Misinformed?

As one of my friends presumed, it is quite doubtful that the NOW President met with women living in the Jewish communities in Judea or Samaria. I haven't heard of it and I am pretty sure I would have been in the know (not NOW).

Not only that, I am going to make an educated guess that the women she did meet with in Israel held to a very identified political - not feminist - agenda. One that is left, progressive, radical and one that ignores the severe problems Muslim women suffer because of their own society and culture. One that foremost blames all the problems of women on Israel and its "occupation".

Oh, where are the real liberals, those open-minded rationalists?


Did she at least meet with Tali Fahima, last seen in a kaffiyeh demonstrating on behalf of Sheikh Rayad Salah?



- - -

Another Ha-Ha-Haaretz "Really?"

A "really?" is that category of journalism reporting that immediately strikes you as being suspiciously unbelieveable.

Like this example this evening on the HaAretz site:

Israel captured East Jerusalem along with the rest of the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. Before that, Jews had no access to the Old City, located entirely in East Jerusalem, or any of its holy sites.

"Before that"?

Before what?

"No access to the Old City"?

Huh?

If before 1967, the intention had to have been and should have been explicit: "between 1948 and 1967". And that because Jews actually lived in the Old City, in the Muslim Quarter in addition to the Jewish Quarter for hundreds of years and before that, intermittedly for almost 1800 years. With full access, relatively speaking.

But that would mean that Haaretz would have to refer to the illegal Jordanian occupation of the territory in contravvention to the UN 1947 recommendation.

Oh, well. Who reads main stream media anymore for facts?


- - -

It's Dirt? It's Holy Soil

It could be completely innocent. Or not.

The Waqf is digging up the center courtyard platform.

Was it coordinated with the Antiquities Authority? No.

And the digging is being hidden:

Will anyone in government either stop this or find out by an on-the-spot visit exactly what's going on - and supervise it?



Photo credit: SE


_ _ _

What Would Happen If I Called a Muslim A Pig?

The following are excerpts from a Gaza Friday sermon, which aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV on July 16, 2010.

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2555.htm.
To view the MEMRI page for the Palestinian Media Studies Project, visit http://www.memri.org/palestinianmediastudiesproject.

Preacher: "Dearly beloved, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is subjected to a vicious campaign of Judaization and defilement, at the hands of the filthiest creatures made by Allah – the Jews. [...]

"Today, we see the brothers of apes and pigs destroying homes with their occupants still in them, uprooting trees from their land, and killing women, children, and the elderly. [...]

"A levy of blood will be paid for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Our people will never relinquish the Al-Aqsa Mosque or Palestine. We will redeem it with our souls, with our blood, with our sons, with what is most dear to us – regardless of the sacrifices we will have to make – until it is liberated, with the grace of Allah, and until this holy land is purified from the filth of the Jews

"Brothers in faith, the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains under oppressive occupation. The Jews continue to defile it with their filth. The only way to liberate it is through Jihad for the sake of Allah.

"Jihad today is an individual duty, incumbent upon each and every Muslim man and woman. According to the Islamic legal principle, when an enemy invades a Muslim country, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim man and woman. A son should set out on Jihad even without the permission of his father, a wife should set out even without the permission of her husband, and a slave should set out even without the permission of his master."

- - -

Mark Twain At Shiloh

From his Innocents Abroad, Chapter 52 (part 8):

We left Jacob's Well and traveled till eight in the evening, but rather slowly, for we had been in the saddle nineteen hours, and the horses were cruelly tired. We got so far ahead of the tents that we had to camp in an Arab village, and sleep on the ground. We could have slept in the largest of the houses; but there were some little drawbacks: it was populous with vermin, it had a dirt floor, it was in no respect cleanly, and there was a family of goats in the only bedroom, and two donkeys in the parlor.

Outside there were no inconveniences, except that the dusky, ragged, earnest-eyed villagers of both sexes and all ages grouped themselves on their haunches all around us, and discussed us and criticised us with noisy tongues till midnight. We did not mind the noise, being tired, but, doubtless, the reader is aware that it is almost
an impossible thing to go to sleep when you know that people are looking at you. We went to bed at ten, and got up again at two and started once more. Thus are people persecuted by dragomen, whose sole ambition in life is to get ahead of each other.

About daylight we passed Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant rested three hundred years, and at whose gates good old Eli fell down and "brake his neck" when the messenger, riding hard from the battle, told him of the defeat of his people, the death of his sons, and, more than all, the capture of Israel's pride, her hope, her refuge, the ancient Ark her forefathers brought with them out of Egypt. It is little wonder that under circumstances like these he fell down and brake his neck. But Shiloh had no charms for us. We were so cold that there was no comfort but in motion, and so drowsy we could hardly sit upon the horses.

After a while we came to a shapeless mass of ruins, which still bears the name of Bethel. It was here that Jacob lay down and had that superb vision of angels flitting up and down a ladder that reached from the clouds to earth, and caught glimpses of their blessed home through the open gates of Heaven.

The pilgrims took what was left of the hallowed ruin, and we pressed on toward the goal of our crusade, renowned Jerusalem...

- - -

There Goes The Gaza Strip

My good friend MT sent me this from IMRA:

Gaza: Police ban lingerie displays in stores

and then asks:


Perhaps they should also consider changing the name - Gaza STRIP!!!





Found at AtlasShrugs:





- - -

Indutably So

the French writer Pascal Bruckner has called the Western intelligentsia’s new “tyranny of guilt” — a self-effacement that forbids critical inquiry into the historical narratives of those national movements granted the sanctified status of “oppressed” — the Nakba narrative [which] cannot even be challenged.

Source



I left a comment there.

- - -

Shiloh, Construction, Vandals - Does That Sound Ominous?

Only if you presume I am referring to my home village in the Binyamin Region.


Otherwise, I am referring to this story:-

Vandals take toll on construction area

Shiloh road is still under construction between King Ave. and Central Ave. in Billings.

...vandals come with every construction project.

Some knock over cones, road markers and signs, while some steal. That’s what started happening last fall at the Shiloh Road project.

Last week someone went too far for the fourth time this spring after moving lane markers and forcing oncoming traffic into each other or into ditches.

Each time, the cones and signs were switched between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., Kitchin said.

“This group of vandals is putting all of us at serious risk,” Kitchin, operations manager of Mountain West Holding Company, said Monday. “It’s very time consuming, very frustrating and the individuals that are responsible for it, I don’t think they understand the ramifications.

...Kitchin said between 12,000 and 15,000 vehicles travel through the Shiloh Road construction project daily. The 3 1/2 mile project stretches from Zoo Drive to Central Avenue...

And you were thinking about something else, ehy?


- - -

Dig We Must

From the work of excavating Tel Shiloh:-




Photo credit: Yonah Tzoref

The Return of the Mandate?

The news:-

British-backed activist who keeps track of Israel's West Bank activities

IF Palestinians one day achieve a viable state, they will owe some thanks to a determined young Israeli activist and her British backers for its territory not being entirely eclipsed by Israeli settlements.

Hagit Ofran, a down-to-earth former university student of Jewish history, uses a four-wheel drive vehicle, pocket-sized camera and a deep sense of mission in order to monitor the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank area captured during the 1967 war.

Her findings translate into pressure on the Israeli government from abroad and within to stop further encroachment on Palestinian land.

Ms Ofran's official title is director of the settlement watch team of the Peace Now organisation. In practice, she is a spy operating in hostile territory, snooping, sniffing and piecing together snippets of intelligence to show how much illicit building is going on.

The British government is contributing £93,000 to the project this year

Do the Brits want the Mandate back?


P.S.

That's about 145,000 US dollars, or just over a half-million NIS.

- - -

The Deputy Foreign Minister and I

Follow the arrow and yopu'll find me:

Second to my right or, to the left from the viewer's angle, is Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

Topic of discssion: Israel's Internet image.

Who knows? Maybe it will improve our response to those attempting to blacken that image by twisting facts and employing bias.

Paris? Try Beirut and the Palestinian Authority for Nazi Salutes

Did you know of Paris Hilton that

Half of her family is Jewish

This came out after her picture, supposedly giving the Nazi salute appeared:



Of course, if the media would give half the attention to the propensioty of the Hezbollah and the Pals. for giving the Nazi salute, the world would be more safe rather than more silly.






Of course, they had someone to learn from, the Mufti:



Could Paris have picked up her silliness from British royalty, Prince Harry?


- - -

When Business and Politics Cross Israel is Crucified

BBC:-

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned the blockade of the Gaza Strip, describing the territory as a "prison camp".

...He was speaking to an audience of businessmen during a visit to Ankara.

..."Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp," Mr Cameron said.

"People in Gaza are living under constant attacks and pressure in an open-air prison," he said.

Here's some clear thinking:-

David Cameron panders to Turkey -- at Israel's expense

..."The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable," Cameron said. Then he added: "Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."

A prison camp? Israel's enemies are fond of using that term, with its implicit hint that the Jewish state has adopted the policies of Nazi Germany. But according to the BBC, no British prime minister has ever spoken so harshly of Israel's handling of Gaza.

Asked about it later, Cameron protested that he was only repeating what he had said in a House of Commons debate several weeks ago. But the Guardian checked: in that instance, the prime minister referred to Gaza as "a giant open prison," not a prison camp...

What ever happened to the Cameron of the Conservative Friends of Israel?

Blindsided.


Maybe Tony Blair could help him out to grasp Middle East realities?

After all, he was quoted:

"For people like myself it would be far better if we were engaging with Hamas constructively. The difficulty is when Hamas are still prepared to say 'we don't give up the use of violence ...'," he said.

UPDATED (July 28, 2010; 09:35)

Just received this:

Dear Colleague,

After much consideration and consultation with Executive Board Chairman, Andrew Heller and Parliamentary Board Chairman, Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP, Stuart Polak, Director of CFI has released the following statement to the press.

“In calling Gaza a ‘prison camp’ the Prime Minister has failed to address Hamas’ role in creating the Gaza we see today. The organisation’s obsessive hatred for Israel and continued terrorist tactics have long overridden any concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people.

“The Prime Minister should be calling on Turkey to play a positive role in tackling Hamas; to ensure that Hamas accepts the Quartet Principles and to insist on the immediate release of Gilad Shalit.

“The Prime Minister’s words certainly did not reflect the wider context and I’m sure this will be urgently addressed by the Government. This oversight is regrettable as he has never pulled any punches where Hamas are concerned. Describing Hamas as a theocracy who target innocent life, he has always been very clear on what sort of organization they are and that there should be no moral equivalence with Israel.”

It is our view that the PM’s failure to make any mention of the role of Hamas in the ME in his speech in Turkey was a serious oversight. Especially, considering the Conservative Party’s excellent track record on Hamas.

This statement has already been picked up by Conservative Home and we believe the Jewish Press will print the statement as well as perhaps some of the national papers.

Be assured we will continue our work with the Conservative Party and with the Coalition Government on this issue.

Kind regards,
Nathalie Tamam
____________
Nathalie Tamam
Political Director
Conservative Friends of Israel


Well, a bit of Brit contretemps.


And Melanie Phillips.


- - -

Stone Unturned Or Should That Be Unhinged?

Oliver Stone apologises

Director Oliver Stone has been forced [!!!] to apologise over a ‘Mel Gibson-style’ rant against Jews.

The double Academy Award winner claimed that the Russians suffered more during the Second World War and that there was a Jewish ‘domination of the media’.

Stone also claimed that Jews monitor every comment made against them and that they had ‘f***** up’ US foreign policy for years.

...His latest comments brought swift condemnation Jews in the US and Israel and forced the 63-year-old to make a contrite apology.

He said: ‘In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret.

‘Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry,’ he said, adding that the Holocaust was an ‘atrocity’.
Hitler

...In a misguided attempt to put the Holocaust into context, he added: ‘Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30m.’ Asked why he focused so much on the Holocaust, Stone said: ‘The Jewish domination of the media.

‘There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.’

Pitiful from a guy with a Jewish father.

Really.


- - -

You Will Need To Read This

You will want to buy it.

Chaotic Cohen

Roger Cohen is either dumb, malicious or plain Jewish-anti-Jewish for some reason even though he brought his daughter here to Israel to celebrate her Bat Mitzva at the Kotel.

After his pro-Iranian stance of last year, praising the status of Iranian Jews against all knowledge and logic, which he partly recanted, he now is championing a Turkish-American killed on the Marmara flotilla ship.

I won't excerpt the article (it makes me sick) but I'll just make two points.

a) as regards discrimination in the amount of attention between Jews and Israelis and other, I don't recall Cohen going overboard getting overly excited in a self-pained fashion about Jewish deaths during the Second Intifada period as he does of this death;

b) this quotation: "Israel’s self-defeating suffocation of Gaza" is evil. We are not suffocating Gaza and the column of his pal, Nicholas Kristoff, a fortnight ago is one proof. I guess he really wanted to write "snuffing".

No missiles, no closure.

No rockets, no closure.

No mortars, no closure.

Freeing Gilad Shalit or even proper Red Cross supervision, no closure.

It is not Israel that is self-defeating itself but the Gazans, the Hamas who are the ones engaged in self-defeatism.

Oh, and Roger Cohen, too.



Evelyn Gordon makes some other good points.



- - -

The Russian Jabotinsky - The International Workshop

Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russian Fridns of the Hebrew University in Moscow, Tulane University, Literary Museum of Odessa, Russian State University for Humanities and other academic institutions are currently engaged in an international workshop devoted to the study of various aspects of Ze've Jabotinsky's life output. I attend just the first session tody as my Russian is poor.

Here's the invitation at the location is the Hebrew University School of Humanities, Room 2407:

The second volume of Jabotinsky's journalistic and literary output in the original Russian, covering 1902 (over 700 pages). The first volume up until 1901 is also over 700 pages.

The frontispiece of the second volume (I was informed that of the material in these two volumes, 70% is not in the possession of the Jabotisnky Institute as the work being done is researching previously closed in inaccessible archives to find the old newspapers and journals):-

Prof. Arye Naor delivering his lecture of Jabotinsky's nationalism of liberalism:-

A portion of the workshop participants:-

Two More Photographs from Shiloh of One Hundred Years Ago

The Olive / Grape-press about 300 meters south of the Tel:




Another agnel of Walli Yeitim from the north:





- - -

Anybody Read This Book?

Described as

A COMPELLING TALE OF 2,000 YEARS OF JEWISH HISTORY. A Jewish physician, Joseph, deserts his comrades in their final battle against Rome. Mortally wounded, a necromancer saves his life and bestows immortality upon him. The catch—Joseph will go into the long exile with his people and experience their humiliations, triumphs, and tragedies down through the corridors of time. And on one particular day of the year, he will live in dread, expecting personal tragedy to strike at the families he sires, the women he marries, and the children he cherishes.

and also thus

The book details the life of Joseph, a fictional Jewish physician/warrior at Beitar on the 8th of Av, the day before the final defeat of the Bar-Kochba rebellion by the Roman empire. Abandoning his comrades at arms, he deserts the city only to find himself attacked by Romans. Hanging between life and death, a mythical kabbalist offers Joseph the option of immortality -- with a catch. He must accompany the Jewish people into exile and in addition to bearing witness to the 9th of Av tragedies which would afflict the Jewish people for generations, the same day would mark personal calamities in his private life as well.

This 800 page book of historical fiction is a fascinating journey through Jewish life in the Middle East, Arabia, Spain, France, England, Germany and many parts of Europe from 135 c.e. at the fall of Beitar in Israel through the 1600's in the Netherlands. Joseph's travels take him through the ancient library of Alexandria, to the Parthian empire and the city of Nehardea where the Talmud was authored. Joseph meets and debates with the Amoraim; Shmuel, Rava, Rabba, Rav Ashi and Rabina.

My friend Marcia told me he seems to have been in Betar in Brooklyn due to lines from the youth movement anthem. Jameel has a mention on his blog from five years ago.

I'll be looking out for it.

Come to the Women's Dance Festival at Shiloh

Starting at 5 PM.

Modern Dance, Folkdancing, African Dance, Bellydancing, Flamenco,, Movement Improvisation, Contact

Now They Are Publishing Political Pornography

Oiy vey.

Midnight on the Mavi Marmara
The Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How It Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Moustafa Bayoumi, Editor

About the Book
“We have been attacked while in international waters. That means the Israelis have behaved like pirates … The moment they start to steer this ship towards Israel, we have also been kidnapped. The whole action is illegal.”
— Henning Mankell, aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla

...In these pages, a range of activists, journalists, and analysts piece together the events that occurred that May night, unpicking their meanings for Israel’s illegal, three-year-long blockade of Gaza and the decades-long Israel/Palestine conflict more generally. Mixing together first-hand testimony, documentary record, and illustration, with hard-headed analysis and historical overview, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara reveals why the attack on Gaza Freedom Flotilla may just turn out to be Israel’s Selma, Alabama: the beginning of the end for an apartheid Palestine.

CONTRIBUTORS: Ali Abunimah, Eyad Al Sarraj, Lamis Andoni, Omar Barghouti, George Bisharat, Max Blumenthal, Noam Chomsky, Marsha B. Cohen, Juan Cole, Murat Dagli, Jamal Elshayyal, Sümeyye Ertekin, Norman Finkelstein, Neve Gordon, Glenn Greenwald, Arun Gupta, Amira Hass, Nadia Hijab, Adam Horowitz, Rashid Khalidi, Stephen Kinzer, Iara Lee, Henning Mankell, Paul Larudee, Gideon Levy, Alia Malek, Lubna Masarwa, Mike Marqusee, Yousef Munayyer, Ken O’Keefe, Daniel Luban, Kevin Ovenden, Ilan Pappé, Doron Rosenblum, Sara Roy, Ben Saul, Adam Shapiro, Raja Shehadeh, Henry Siegman, Ahdaf Soueif, Raji Sourani, Richard Tillinghast, Alice Walker, Stephen M. Walt, Philip Weiss, and Haneen Zoabi.

Publication September 1 2010 256 pages

No pictures?


Well, if it's printed, will they be liable for libel?

(Kippah tip: RL)


- - -

Pres. Obama Is In The Same Boat As Israel

Reported:-

President Obama said Secretary Tom Vilsack rushed to judgment when he dismissed Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture amid charges of racism.

"He jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles," Obama told consumer correspondent Elisabeth Leamy in an exclusive “GMA” interview.

- - -

He's Jewish????

- - -

Very Wise Words

קינדערלאך
טייערע קינדערלאך

געדענקשע, דיא גרעסטע זאך
אין דער וועלט
איסט צו טיען עמעצען
איין טויווע

“Children, precious children, remember,

the greatest thing in the world is to do someone else a favor.”

(Kinderlach, tayera kinderlach,

gedankeshe, die grusta zach in der velt

ist tzu tien amachen ein toiveh)

Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman ben Elimelech of Piaseczno,

known as the Aish Kodesh

That Loyalty Oath - Just That You Should Know

Here:-

It turns out it is precisely democratic countries that are open to immigration that require candidates for naturalization to make pledges that deal with values and political principles these nations see as central to their worldview. In Norway the formulation is: "I pledge loyalty to my country Norway and to the Norwegian society, and I support democracy and human rights and will respect the laws of the country." In Britain: "I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values." In Australia: "I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect." In South Africa: "I will ... uphold and respect its Constitution and commit myself to the furtherance of the ideas and principles contained therein."

In the American oath of allegiance there are echoes of the justification of the republican form of government, which grew out of the rebellion against the British monarchy: "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty ... that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies ... that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law ... that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by law." This is far-reaching language because it made it possible to strip the citizenship of immigrants who refused to serve in the army or were perceived as members of groups whose aims contradicted the constitution, such as anarchists, Nazis and Communists.

These examples suffice to show that it is precisely democratic states that require candidates for naturalization to accept the conceptual principles of the country whose citizens they want to become.

- - -

ISMer: Watch Out

No, not from the IDF.

The Pals.:-

...while most activists read about Mideast politics, volunteers can be clueless about conservative Palestinian culture. That's led to tensions, including sexual harassment. Some Palestinians assume female activists are permissive because they don't behave like conservative Palestinian women.

During last week's workshop, Jamjoum, 52, laid the rules out. He asked women to cover their arms and legs. For men: long pants only. Another volunteer explained how to dodge sexual harassment...

...One ISM veteran - a 23-year-old American calling herself Saegan - highlights an activist's life. Like other volunteers, she would only identity herself with a pseudonym. During her 6 months with the group, she has been battered by tear gas alongside Palestinians, but also fended off a Palestinian man who tried to rape her while she slept in a West Bank village.

It's tough at times being humanitarian.



(Kippah tip: RC)


- - -

Gaza Faces New Occupation Threat

Besieged.

Starved.

Oppressed.

Cut-off.

Hunger.

Health problems.

There's no end to the tribulations of the Gazans.

Now, a new threat - how to occupy your time in sunny Gaza.

Eight dollars to enjoy a swimming pool.


Reported:

The beach club, one of several commercial ventures recently launched by groups and individuals linked to Hamas, illustrates the Islamist movement's growing dominance of an economy crippled by a four-year-old Israeli blockade.

The 1.25 million dollar (one million euro) resort is owned and operated by the Islamic Foundation, a charity established by Hamas's spiritual founder, Ahmed Yassin, that has long provided aid to poor families and orphans.

Some 2,000 people have visited each weekend since the foundation established the club and an adjacent fish farm earlier this year, with most paying the eight dollars per family admission fee and many dining at its restaurant.

"These projects provide a service to citizens in order to relieve the burdens of the (Israeli) occupation and the devastating war," said foundation chairman Abdelrahim Shihab.

"The project encourages economic growth ... But our priority is the citizen and not the investment."

(Kippah tip: LBD)


- - -

Could Mel Gibson Still Be Antisemitic?

Rumoured:-

A furious Mel Gibson said, “I want Jew blood on my hands,” his girlfriend of three years, Oksana Grigorieva, told authorities who are investigating the actor for domestic abuse, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.

It’s a fresh example of the hate-filled speech that has helped make the actor infamous.

The anti-Semitic slur was allegedly made by Mel in reference to a high-profile Hollywood figure who is Jewish and who Mel believed had “publicly humiliated” him.

Gibson hired individuals to place this person under surveillance, Oksana told authorities.

“Oksana says Mel told her, ‘I want Jew blood on my hands,’ and said he wanted the person taken to the desert, stripped naked, knee capped and left in the heat,” a source close to one of the investigations involving Mel told RadarOnline.com exclusively.

Where is the ADL when they're needed?

Rabbis Hier & Cooper?



- - -

My Right Word: Temple To Be Rebuilt - But in Brazil. As A Church

My Right Word: Temple To Be Rebuilt - But in Brazil. As A Church

Temple To Be Rebuilt - But in Brazil. As A Church

The New York Times is always a great place to pick up stories, even if it was picked up from The Guardian..

Like this one:-

...a Brazilian megachurch received planning permission to build a 10,000-seat replica of Solomon’s Temple in the city of São Paulo.

As Tom Phillips of The Guardian noted, a Brazilian newspaper, Estado de São Paulo, reported that the church will cost an estimated $200 million and should be completed in four years.

According to a post on the blog of Bishop Edir Macedo, the founder of Brazil’s evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which is building the replica, the structure will be 180 feet high, making it nearly twice as tall as the Christ the Redeemer statue that towers over Rio de Janeiro.

Take a look at the artist's rendition:



Well, well.

It looks quite impressive.

Justice for the Judge?

Meet Judge George Bathurst-Norman:



No, sorry, wrong picture.

Here:



Ooops. Sorry, wrong picture.

Here:



On Jul 1, I blogged about an outrageous case of British injustice involving a judge, brought out of retirement, to oversee a trial involving the claim that because Israel supposedly committed "war crimes", demonstrators with impunity could cause 180,000 pounds sterling worth of damage.

I found out he was actually born in Mandate Palestine and that element is still being investigated if it had any influence on his obscene views although his father seems not to have been actually a Mandate official. Melanie Phillips hat-tipped me.

Jonathan Hoffman has been on this in a parallel effort to work for true justice.

And now?

This, excerpted:

A senior judge was under investigation yesterday after being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in court that may have swayed his jury into acquitting a group of protesters.

Judge George Bathurst-Norman was said by critics to have persuaded a jury to clear a group of campaigners who smashed up a factory making parts for Israeli warplanes.

Summing up in the criminal damage trial, he compared Israel to the Nazi regime and accused the country of ignoring international law.

The judge added that 'there may be much to be admired' about the chief protester, and that 'in the last war he would probably have received a George Medal'.

The Office for Judicial Complaints, which deals with objections over the conduct of judges and magistrates, confirmed that an inquiry into how Judge Bathurst-Norman handled the trial of five political activists at Hove Crown Court in June is under way.

Its findings will be considered by Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge and Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, who have the final say on any disciplinary action.

A number of complaints are said to have accused the judge not just of anti-Israel rhetoric but specifically of anti-Semitism.

...Describing evidence shown in court, Judge Bathurst-Norman told the jury that he could only describe the 'horrific' events shown as 'scenes which one would rather have hoped to have disappeared with the Nazi regimes of the last war'.

In his summing up, he gave his backing to the evidence of one defendant, Ornella Saibene, a former Greenham Common activist.

The judge said: 'She took us through the horrors, and there really is no other word for it than horrors, that emerged in the press and on the news and the footage as to what the Israelis were doing in Gaza.

'You may think that perhaps "Hell on Earth" would be an understatement of what the Gazans endured.'

...Jonathan Hoffman, of the Zionist Federation, said: 'This opens the door to any group which thinks the British presence in Afghanistan is wrong to go and smash up plants supplying British forces.'

Will true justice win out?

Stay tuned.


(Kippah tip: JH)
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Dror Etkes Doesn't Read My Blog, Apparently

Or maybe he does.

Dror Etkes headed up the Peace Now Settlement Watch Team and is now much more radical and heads up that of Yesh Din.

I found this in Der Spiegel:-

A gray pick-up truck speeds up to the metal gate at the entrance to Shilo, a Jewish settlement halfway between the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Nablus and which is home to 2,500 people.

Dror Etkes, 41, puts on sunglasses and a blue cap. He is hoping not to be recognized. Settlers in the West Bank consider Etkes, who has spent more than nine years making note of every new house built in the more than 120 Israeli settlements here, their number one enemy. A settlers' newspaper once printed his picture with the caption "Dror Etkes, head of the peace movement's intelligence service."

So Etkes employs various tricks to gain admittance to the settlements. Nearly every one of them, for example, contains a minimarket. When the guard at the Shilo gate asks where he's headed, Etkes replies, looking bored, "To the minimarket." The guard believes him and opens the metal gate.

'A Bad Joke'

Just a couple hundred meters on, Etkes finds what he's looking for -- a "For Sale" sign advertising "10 family homes." From the top of a hill, Etkes watches Palestinian workers who are using wooden slats to prepare a framework for concrete. "The foundations are from December," Etkes states knowledgeably and clicks his camera shutter button.

Now Etkes has further proof that there has not in fact been a "freeze" on settlement building since November, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have the world believe. In any case, the Israeli cabinet also made exceptions in the moratorium for public buildings such as synagogues and preschools, as well as allowing private homes already under construction to be completed...

My gosh.

a. this site (and this one) has a about a dozen photos of our construction work which the Americans have observed (just last week a relatively senior diplomat was by). no secret as they also have satellite overpass photography. better than Etkes' overflights.

b. the foundations were a bit earlier but we have had permission to build there from about a dozen years ago and had done infrastructure work years ago.

c. those 10 homes are already sold, and 6 are occupied (or should that be lived in?).

d. we have more under construction if Dror wants to know. all legal.



And don't mix this construction company up with my Shiloh.


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Madonna, Kabbalah Kutie, Discovers Real Kabbalah

There is a more esoteric element in Kabbalah termed gilgul neshamot (see here).

That means, alternatively, recycling of souls, reincarnation, transmigration or metempsychosis.


Well, it seems Madonna has reached this stage:-




She is reported to be coming to Israel soon with Rabbi Yehuda-Phillip Berg (aka Shraga Feivel Gruberger) for a birthday celebration, I think.



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And We're Still Weeping

As you probably read, the group Boney M appeared in Ramallah.

I saw Israel's Channel 10 news report and while Shlomi Eldar praised the event as a turnabout and how this reflects on the "improvement" in Pal. society, he didn't inform his consumers if the audience was all Christian, half Christian or no Muslims at all which would, given the jumping around and uncovered body parts, would explain exactly what part of Pal. society we were observing.

Anyway, CF asked me to highlight this:

When the iconic 1970s disco group Boney M rocked Ramallah this week, the local music festival prevented the band from performing one of its biggest hits.

Lead singer Maizie Williams said Palestinian concert organizers told her not to sing "Rivers of Babylon." The song's chorus quotes from the Book of Psalms, referring to the exiled Jewish people's yearning to return to the biblical land of Israel.

Palestinians often question the Jewish historical connection to the Holy Land. Organizers said they asked for the song to be skipped, deeming it "inappropriate."

"I don't know if it is a political thing or what, but they asked us not to do it and we were a bit disappointed that we could not do it because we know that everybody loves this song no matter what," she said...

Heck, girl, welcome to historical denial.

They don't "love" the historical truth about the Jewish people's connection with the Land of Israel.


P.S.

The lyrics:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down;
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down;
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.

When the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Require from us a song -
Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

When the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Requiring of us a song -
Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Let the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts
be acceptable in Thy sight here tonight

Let the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts
be acceptable in Thy sight here tonight

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down;
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion.

By the rivers of Babylon (the waters of Babylon)
there we sat down (You got to sing a song)
ye-eah we wept, (Sing a song of love)
when we remember Zion. (Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)

By the rivers of Babylon (by the rivers of Babylon)
there we sat down (You hear the people cry)
ye-eah we wept, (They need their God)
when we remember Zion. (Ooh, got the power)

By the rivers of Babylon, (oh yeah yeah)
where we sat down (yeah yeah)
Ye-eah we wept.........

Now, what could possibly upset a Pal. about those words?


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Moshe Arens Asked; Moshe Arens Replies

Moshe Arens was addressed regarding a comment on his Haaretz op-ed:-

I read a (critical) talkbacker's comment in Haaretz on this topic that way back then it was Misha that raised up Bibi from store mgr. to deputy ambassador as a result of Misha's friendship with Bibi's father. Would Misha care to comment?

The response:

I was appointed ambassador in Washington in 1982, five years after the Likud came to power, a period during which two ambassadors identified with the Labor Party - Simha Dinitz and Eppie Evron - continued to represent Israel in Washington. In those days it was the ambassador's prerogative to choose the DCM (#2). I first offered the job to Zvi Rafiah, a Labor member or sympathizer, but he having just left the foreign service, turned me down.

Then I turned to Bibi, not because he was the son of a friend of mine, but because I had seen him in action organizing an international conference on terrorism in Jerusalem, to which he managed to bring a number of high-ranking Americans, including George Bush Sr. He turned out to be an excellent DCM, and thereafter an excellent ambassador to the UN.

I certainly did not offer him the position in an attempt to build up a personal following for myself in Likud - he was not a member of Likud at the time.

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More Pal. Lies

I spotted this item earlier this week:

Israel demolishing Palestinian villages in the West Bank while financing and encouraging Israeli illegal settlements Since 1967, Israel has prevented the growth of Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley by cutting off their water supply or declaring large areas as live fire zones. The IDF's Civil Administration destroyed a Palestinian village Monday morning that had earlier been cleared out when its water supply was cut off. The IDF demolished about 55 structures in the West Bank village of Farasiya, including tents, tin shacks, plastic and straw huts, clay ovens, sheep pens and bathrooms. These structures served the 120 farmers, hired workers and their families who lived in the Jordan Valley village.

and there's more here from Amnesty and here's Ha-Ha-Haaretz's report.


I managed to get a response (in Hebrew) from the Civil Administration spokesperson who makes the following points:

a. 10 eviction orders were delivered.
b. the Beduin had invaded, illegally, an area that is an Army live-fire zone.
c. on the day the demolition was carried out, the shacks and other temporary
structures were uninhabited.
d. most of the residents actually live in permanent structures in Taisir and Tubas.
e. no appeal was ever made.
f. not only can the Civil Administration not find the name Farasiya but even in the
Pal, Authority registration the name doesn't appear.
g. no packing machinery was seen or discovered at the site and therefore, wasn't
destroyed.
h. it is a lie that the site has been a residential location for 45 years.


Wait for the next lie.


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The Pals. Can't Even Lie Plausibly

Yesterday, I caught this:

Facing ban, Israeli dairy company leaves settlement

Ramallah – Ma’an – A leading Israeli dairy company has moved its factories from the occupied Golan Heights into Israel and will be allowed to market its produce in the West Bank, the National Dignity Fund announced Thursday.

President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government led by Salam Fayyad started the fund, in April banned the sale or purchase of settlement produce in the West Bank, and the deadline to clear shelves of settlement goods is 31 July.

Fund director Omer Qabaha said the move by Tara dairy, which was included in a booklet listing settlement producers that was recently distributed to Palestinian homes and shops, out of the illegal Ketzarim settlement was an accomplishment and said he hoped other companies would follow suit.

A good fellow blogger I alerted, DF, was quick off the mark and he sent me this:

Even on a Friday, Tara’s customer relations department is on the ball.

Here is their response.

David

Dear David

Tara has no factory on the Golan Heights and there were never any products marketed under the name Tara processed at the dairy processing plant on the Golan

Shabbat Shalom


Ralph Ginsberg

Israel Dairy Board

Ha.


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Ben-Dror vs. New Israel Fund

If you'll recall, Ben-Dror Yemini published a letter attacking the NIF from within, from a participant at one of their sponsored Shtil seminars. Here.

Were it not for the presence of politics, we all would have had so much in common. But the radical left was so present in the room that it seemed obvious that everyone was speaking in one voice. All the sentences began with "we" and not "I". It seemed like no issue was complex nor were there different views regarding the issue. The IDF was a conquering army, Israel was a colonial state, only the Palestinians suffered and this was the only real issue at heart.

It has been two weeks since and I am still disturbed by what I have experienced...Is the Fund itself openly working towards removing the "Jewishness" from the State? Is the Fund trying to turn Israel into a country for all her inhabitants alongside a Palestinian state? Is the Fund backing the fact that the aim of the Palestinian society sector within "Shatil" is to strengthen the expression of the Palestinian nation, and that on the Jewish side of the spectrum the aim is to strengthen freedom of religion and not Jewish identity and the national expression of the Jews in their homeland? Is the Fund backing the fact that Shatil's sector for immigrant absorption is dealing just with that and not promoting or legitimizing immigration? I cannot help but wonder why the Fund defines its political right limitations (for example, the advert looking for social activists for the Golan Heights was postponed by the notice board of Shatil), but does not restrict its political left: for example, denouncing any form of violence or violation of the law by organizations and their activists.

Are you aware of this "atmosphere" amongst the leaders of organizations which the Fund supports? Can the Fund give coverage to the issue of loathing and denouncing Israel and its institutions? I have never participated in struggles or protests, only with building and developing. My allegiance to the Fund and Shatil was uncompromising after the publication of the report. I was their strongest defender and I absolutely identified with their goals and activities. I can say unequivocally, that this has been one of the main causes of the feelings of my feelings of late.

I am not complaining about specific people...I feel that you, as manager of the Fund, would want to hear and know these things. Perhaps the Fund and all of its leaders should currently be hearing this voice not from a high perch of criticism but rather from its legitimacy in the eyes of social activists such as me. In the eyes of people who up until today, thought that they belonged to the liberal left but cannot be part of it or its activities anymore without feeling that they are harming their existence as Jews in a Jewish state. I know that your previous home was the Jewish federation of San Francisco and I also know that one of the aims, amongst others, of this organization, is to strengthen Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. This is a good enough reason for me to believe that you still represent this vital goal today. These are tough times to be an Israeli both at home and abroad. I as an Israeli Jew, who believes in "Tikun Olam" and trying to build a more just and egalitarian society and who has devoted and will continue to devote her efforts to achieve this goal, could not carry on in life without writing this letter to you with all its honesty and pain.
I hope to hear from you soon,

All my regards,
Shlomit
Israel

Details: here; and here; and here.


Just you should know (pardon my Yiddish inflection), there's a full-page ad by the other participants, from the most radical lefties, crying they've been done foul. I am not going to translate it (it's in Hebrew).





Ben-Dror has (devastatingly) responded here in Hebrew.

His bottom line: you're bad even if you do good things, just like the ambulance driver saving a victim but on the way to the hospital causes a traffic accident himself.


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Irgun Referral

I blogged about the new Steve Stern novel, the Frozen Rabbi.

I missed this at the time:

One afternoon in 1999, 15-year-old Bernie Karp finds a perfectly preserved shtetl rabbi encased in the ice of his family’s freezer. His father explains: “Some people got taxidermied pets in the attic, we got a frozen rabbi in the basement. It's a family tradition.” He goes on to say that the “saintsicle” met his unfortunate fate a century ago, after tipping into a lake while in a mystical trance. After his initial adoption by Bernie’s great-great-grandfather back in the Pale of Settlement, the rabbi has been passed down through successive generations, an unwieldy heirloom trundled around the world as if he were a pair of sabbath candlesticks.

“He brings luck,” is the reason everyone gives. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong kind. The Karp family's afflictions are legion, all of them detailed here. First, there is the tale of Salo Frostbissen, who dies rescuing his daughter from vicious assailants. That daughter is the ingenious but afflicted Jocheved, who disguises herself as a man and hauls the rabbi across the ocean to Ellis Island. In New York City, he is then passed to son, Ruben, who eventually becomes a haunted, angry Irgun militant and settles on a kibbutz before the birth of Israel in the 1940s. The final owner is Ruben’s son, Julius, a dull home-appliance salesman in fin de siècle Memphis.

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A Must Read

Palestinians in the Arab World: Why the Silence?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

When was the last time the United Nations Security Council met to condemn an Arab government for its mistreatment of Palestinians?

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CNN - Raping the Media Consumer

CNN has a show called PRISM.

It is portrayed a "a provocative news program that will challenge viewers to step outside of their comfort zones, to see the news from a different vantage point, be it: cultural, political, geographical, economical, historical, by different ages, genders or faiths."

Well, they did that today at 19:10 or so Israel time.

They covered the "rape by deception" case.

Details:

...Saber Kashour, the Israeli Palestinian who admitted pretending to be a single Jewish man before having sex with an Israeli woman...Kashour told CNN the relations with the woman, who has not been identified publicly, were consensual...Kashour, who acknowledged having told the woman he was single, said he is known as "Dudu," a nickname for the Jewish name "David," but also his own nickname.

"Apparently, later she discovered that I was an Arab and complained to the police," he said.

..."It is terrible, but the law says very clearly that if someone has sexual intercourse using deception about his identity to conduct the act, it can be considered rape," said Leah Samael, a lawyer specializing in civil rights and human rights cases.

But, if the circumstances had been different -- if a religious Jew had said he was not religious in order to woo a potential suitor -- "he would not be brought to court," she said. "And I am not sure that, on this occasion, it is a reason to charge. To have intercourse in daytime in a deserted building in the center of town -- I say the circumstances speak for themselves."

She added, "The thing that interests me in the case is the need, the necessity, of Arabs in Israel to pretend. To speak without an accent so as not to be seen as Arabs. To dress not to look like Arabs."...

Criminal law rarely applies to minor lies, like dyed hair or a changed name," said Dana Pugach of the Noga Legal Center for Victims of Crime. "But it would apply to the more meaningful lies," she said.

"For example, where a doctor persuades a woman to have sex claiming it would be a part of the medical treatment. As for this particular case, it is not the fact that he was an Arab and claimed to be Jewish. The court emphasized the fact that he claimed to be single while he was married, which would be relevant in the context of a romantic relationship."...

CNN highlighted it on Prism. Leah Samael continued in the Ben Wedeman report with a racist spin. Then she's also on a bonus live interview. Gideon Levy is quoted that if a Jewish man had pretended to be Muslim to have sex with a Muslim woman, would he have been charged? No. But does he really know that? He doesn't.

Leah continued by saying a Pal. can't sleep with a Jew. It's sheer racism according to her.

But all of her talk was simply conjecture as well since we are talking law - and the law is that deception is rape. But Samael went on - this is encouraging apartheid. An almost five minute story.

I think we need a strong female voice on this.



P.S.


In 2008, the High Court of Justice set a precedent on rape by deception, rejecting an appeal of the rape conviction by Zvi Sleiman, who impersonated a senior official in the Housing Ministry whose wife worked in the National Insurance Institute. Sleiman told women he would get them an apartment and increased NII payments if they would sleep with him.

High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein said a conviction of rape should be imposed any time a "person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him."

Rubinstein said the question was also whether an ordinary person would expect such a woman to have sex with a man without the false identity he created.

In the past, men who misrepresented themselves in this way were convicted of fraud.

One such case was that of Eran Ben-Avraham, who told a woman he was a neurosurgeon after which she had sex with him, and was convicted of three counts of fraud.

Look Who Is Skirting the Issue

She's skirting the issue of peace, that is.

Has she met the females of Yesha?

President of Leading U.S. Women's Rights Organization Meets Palestinian Leaders and Activists

Terry O'Neill, President of the National Organization for Women (NOW) participated in a series of discussions, workshops, and meetings with Palestinian activists and community leaders in Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Nablus. The purpose of Ms. O’Neill’s three-day visit, sponsored by the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, was to share her experience as a political organizer and activist for women’s rights and social justice. During her visit, Ms. O’Neill and Palestinian women leaders and activists engaged in lively discussions about the challenges facing Palestinian and American women in their respective societies, and how to sustain commitment to progress on these issues.

...NOW is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States, and is dedicated to bringing about equality for all women. As president of NOW, Ms. O'Neill advocates on a multitude of issues affecting women on national and global levels, including discrimination based on sex, race, and socio-economic background, women's health, combating domestic violence, economic empowerment, and constitutional equality. A former law professor, Ms. O'Neill taught at Tulane University and at the University of California at Davis, where her courses included feminist legal theory and international women's rights law, in addition to corporate law and legal ethics.

Ms. O’Neill’s visit is one of many programs sponsored by the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem throughout the year to promote dialogue and mutual understanding between Americans and Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

I am sure that the women of Yesha, that is the Jewish female residents of Judea and Samaria, could have learned something from Ms. O'Neill and for sure, she could have learned something from them.

But is the US interest in feminism, women's rights, etc. or in making sure discrimination between Jews and Arabs is institutionalized?

Is Hillary Clinton really so much against women?



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They Never Get Tired

Press Release July 21, 2010

Peace activists sent protests to the office of artist Arkadi Duchin, calling upon him to cancel a performance tomorrow at a West Bank settlement.
Gush Shalom: performing at a settlement is not an artistic act but a political one

Tel Aviv area residents who contacted Gush Shalom said that they had sent messages of protest to the office of the well-known artist Arkadi Duchin, of whose music they are fond, and called upon him to cancel his scheduled appearance tomorrow at the Yellow Hill in the Gush Etzion settlements on the West Bank. Settlers there issued an invitation to "come and hear Arkadi Duchin in a refreshing summer concert."

The Gush Shalom movement says that the continuing phenomenon of artists performing in the settlements for monetary gain is a badge of infamy. "We have no problems with such artists as Ariel Zilber, who is an outspoken supporter of the extreme right and for whom settlements are his home grounds. Tel Avivians still deciding to go to Silber's performances or buy his CD know exactly with whom they are dealing. We have a serious contention with Arkady Duchin and several other artists, who display a moderate image to the general public, who do not express a clear political position but who do appear in the settlements in return for substantial payments.

It is important to emphasize that a performance at the settlements is not a neutral artistic event - a performance in a settlement means taking a political stand in the main political controversy which splits the Israeli society for more than forty years. It is an act of support and legitimacy to a phenomenon which the entire world regards as a phenomenon in blunt violation of International Law, and which many Israelis see as a threat to their future and the main obstacle to peace. It cannot be expected that an artist such Arkadi Duchin could go on appearing in the settlements without having to pay a price for it among peace seekers in Israel.

Contact:
Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson 054-2340749

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Does This System Work in Other Areas?

Like perhaps in place of a loyalty oath?





As for this claim in the story:-

[Cabinet minister Dan] Meridor sharply criticized the proposed amendment, saying it was an unnecessary provocation aimed at Israeli Arabs. The Likud minister quoted Ze'ev Jabotinsky in his testimony before a committee that examined the future of the British mandate in Palestine in 1937, and said that the constitution of the state that will be established needn't explicitly spell out its national character – it is enough that there will be a Jewish majority.

I'll be investigating it. I don't think the matter was as simplistic as Dan presents it.


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