The displaced Jordanians have a home in Jordan.
Jordan will not accept them.
They refuse to attempt to occupy their own land.
They continue to squat on Jewish land.
It is time for GW to begin to divide Jordan and create a new Jordanian State for the these displaced Arabs in their UN given land!
January 10, 2008
Rightists flood King David hotel with faxes in protest of Bush visit
Letters addressed to US president urge him to release Pollard and refrain from advancing Israeli territorial concessions in Jerusalem as part of peace agreement with Palestinians
Roi Mandel Published: 01.10.08, 17:03 / Israel News
The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which is hosting US President George W. Bush and his entourage, has been flooded with faxes sent by right-wing activists protesting the negotiations on the establishment of a Palestinian state and a possible agreement on certain territorial concessions in the capital.
Roi Mandel Published: 01.10.08, 17:03 / Israel News
The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which is hosting US President George W. Bush and his entourage, has been flooded with faxes sent by right-wing activists protesting the negotiations on the establishment of a Palestinian state and a possible agreement on certain territorial concessions in the capital.
Important Guest Palestinians indifferent to Bush visit / Ali Waked Ramallah residents unmoved by important guest visiting their city. Sharing complaints about traffic and insult to Arafat's memory, most say they believe visit will do no good. 'My grandmother, who can't read or write, can also talk about the need for a vision and state of our own,' Palestinian waiter tells Ynet Full Story
The faxes also urged the Americans to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
On Wednesday rightists were asked to send their letters directly to president Bush through the hotel's fax number, which was posted on the internet.
Hotel staff passed the letters on to the American delegation.
"I asked President Bush to free Pollard," Ilana Atiya told Ynet, "I wrote to him that there was no point in having dinner with Minister Rafi Eitan – who sent Pollard on his mission (during his days as a Mossad handler) – while Jonathan is still imprisoned. All Pollard did was send us information that was vital to our security; this information should have been sent to Israel by the American government in accordance with the pact signed between the countries."
Atiya sent a second letter asking Bush "to refrain from advancing Jerusalem's division and not place Israel at the center of all the Mideast's problems.
"I told Bush that if Jerusalem were to be divided, my neighbors and I will be attacked with suicide bombers and missiles," she said.
"I told Bush that if Jerusalem were to be divided, my neighbors and I will be attacked with suicide bombers and missiles," she said.
Gazan Welcome For Bush: American School Bombed
by Ezra HaLevi (IsraelNN.com)
Arab terrorists bombed the American school in Gaza Thursday, apparently in response to US President George W. Bush’s demands that the PA give up terrorism.
Three men reportedly fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at the second floor of the school Thursday morning, shortly before students arrived for classes.
The school’s security guards were told to leave the premises prior to the attack. They complied and the school’s art facility was destroyed.
The American-funded school is located near the village of Beit Lahiya. Most of its American teachers left Gaza when Hamas came to power, fearing attack. The students at the school come from wealthy families and classes take place in English. Many will study at American universities after graduation.
This is the second time this year that the school has been attacked. Last April, the facility was set on fire by arsonists and earlier an American guest and two teachers at the school were kidnapped and later released.
The school’s principle Ribhi Salem pleaded with local terrorists not to attack the school, saying it is fully licensed by the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority in Gaza and is not associated with the American government beyond receiving funding from the US State Department. "The school's staff and students are all Palestinians, and it is licensed by the Ministry of Education,” Salem said. “Its mission is purely educational with nothing to do with politics."
The school’s web site declares: “We are all extremely proud to be a part of the vision for the future of Palestine.”
Classes were cancelled as a result of the attack.
Arab terrorists bombed the American school in Gaza Thursday, apparently in response to US President George W. Bush’s demands that the PA give up terrorism.
Three men reportedly fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at the second floor of the school Thursday morning, shortly before students arrived for classes.
The school’s security guards were told to leave the premises prior to the attack. They complied and the school’s art facility was destroyed.
The American-funded school is located near the village of Beit Lahiya. Most of its American teachers left Gaza when Hamas came to power, fearing attack. The students at the school come from wealthy families and classes take place in English. Many will study at American universities after graduation.
This is the second time this year that the school has been attacked. Last April, the facility was set on fire by arsonists and earlier an American guest and two teachers at the school were kidnapped and later released.
The school’s principle Ribhi Salem pleaded with local terrorists not to attack the school, saying it is fully licensed by the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority in Gaza and is not associated with the American government beyond receiving funding from the US State Department. "The school's staff and students are all Palestinians, and it is licensed by the Ministry of Education,” Salem said. “Its mission is purely educational with nothing to do with politics."
The school’s web site declares: “We are all extremely proud to be a part of the vision for the future of Palestine.”
Classes were cancelled as a result of the attack.
January 7, 2008
Jerusalem belongs to the Jews by history, religion and law
By Ted Belman
Jews all over the world are rallying to save Jerusalem as the united and undivided capital of Israel. Their efforts will reach an apex during the visit by Bush next week. But the fight for Jerusalem has been going on as a result of Annapolis which wants it divided and the fight will continue after Bush leaves.
Abbas demands that Israel abandon all the land seized by Israel in ‘67 including all built up settlements thereon which Israel incorporated into Jerusalem. Olmert wants to divide the city based on Jewish areas vs Arab areas. An agreement is nowhere in site, thank G-d.
It is important to understand what the law, such as it is, provides.
In Jerusalem IS a Jewish issue (http://www.israpundit.com/2007/?p=6617 ) I described Israel’s legal claim to Jerusalem and advised that the proper legal disposition is by referendum among the residents of Jerusalem allowing them to decide. Not only the Jewish residents, who outnumber the Arab residents by a ratio of 2:1, will vote to keep it in Israel but all polls indicate the Arab residents will too.
But it is also important to understand what Jerusalem means to the Jews and Judaism and what it means to Muslims and Islam.
Daniel Pipes, in a seminal article written in 2001, titled The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem, fully sets out the the differences in the claim of the Muslims and that of the Jews.
After setting out the meaning of Jerusalem to Judaism which needs no elucidation here, he compares it to Islam.
It is not the place to which they pray, is not once mentioned by name in prayers, and it is connected to no mundane events in Muhammad’s life. The city never served as capital of a sovereign Muslim state, and it never became a cultural or scholarly center. Little of political import by Muslims was initiated there.
One comparison makes this point most clearly: Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) 154 times, or 823 times in all. The Christian Bible mentions Jerusalem 154 times and Zion 7 times. In contrast, the columnist Moshe Kohn notes, Jerusalem and Zion appear as frequently in the Qur’an “as they do in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, the Taoist Tao-Te Ching, the Buddhist Dhamapada and the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta”—which is to say, not once.2
That being so, he asks,
Why did two surveys of American Muslims find Jerusalem their most pressing foreign policy issue?
6and answers, Because of politics. An historical survey shows that the stature of the city, and the emotions surrounding it, inevitably rises for Muslims when Jerusalem has political significance. Conversely, when the utility of Jerusalem expires, so does its status and the passions about it. This pattern first emerged during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century. Since then, it has been repeated on five occasions: in the late seventh century, in the twelfth century Countercrusade, in the thirteenth century Crusades, during the era of British rule (1917-48), and since Israel took the city in 1967. The consistency that emerges in such a long period provides an important perspective on the current confrontation.
It is also because of religion but not as you might expect. Bat Ye’or, the author of Eurabia and Dhimmitude, advises,
“Once a region has been conquered for Islam, it is always Islamic and must be re-conquered from the infidel, regardless of the passage of time.”
This is the core of the entire conflict and this is what drives the Muslims.
It is safe to say that if Jerusalem came under the control of the Muslims/Arabs, it would once again be downgraded in importance because it can’t be allowed to challenge the importance of Mecca.
Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. The Jews will fight to keep it, all of it.
Jews all over the world are rallying to save Jerusalem as the united and undivided capital of Israel. Their efforts will reach an apex during the visit by Bush next week. But the fight for Jerusalem has been going on as a result of Annapolis which wants it divided and the fight will continue after Bush leaves.
Abbas demands that Israel abandon all the land seized by Israel in ‘67 including all built up settlements thereon which Israel incorporated into Jerusalem. Olmert wants to divide the city based on Jewish areas vs Arab areas. An agreement is nowhere in site, thank G-d.
It is important to understand what the law, such as it is, provides.
In Jerusalem IS a Jewish issue (http://www.israpundit.com/2007/?p=6617 ) I described Israel’s legal claim to Jerusalem and advised that the proper legal disposition is by referendum among the residents of Jerusalem allowing them to decide. Not only the Jewish residents, who outnumber the Arab residents by a ratio of 2:1, will vote to keep it in Israel but all polls indicate the Arab residents will too.
But it is also important to understand what Jerusalem means to the Jews and Judaism and what it means to Muslims and Islam.
Daniel Pipes, in a seminal article written in 2001, titled The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem, fully sets out the the differences in the claim of the Muslims and that of the Jews.
After setting out the meaning of Jerusalem to Judaism which needs no elucidation here, he compares it to Islam.
It is not the place to which they pray, is not once mentioned by name in prayers, and it is connected to no mundane events in Muhammad’s life. The city never served as capital of a sovereign Muslim state, and it never became a cultural or scholarly center. Little of political import by Muslims was initiated there.
One comparison makes this point most clearly: Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) 154 times, or 823 times in all. The Christian Bible mentions Jerusalem 154 times and Zion 7 times. In contrast, the columnist Moshe Kohn notes, Jerusalem and Zion appear as frequently in the Qur’an “as they do in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, the Taoist Tao-Te Ching, the Buddhist Dhamapada and the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta”—which is to say, not once.2
That being so, he asks,
Why did two surveys of American Muslims find Jerusalem their most pressing foreign policy issue?
6and answers, Because of politics. An historical survey shows that the stature of the city, and the emotions surrounding it, inevitably rises for Muslims when Jerusalem has political significance. Conversely, when the utility of Jerusalem expires, so does its status and the passions about it. This pattern first emerged during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century. Since then, it has been repeated on five occasions: in the late seventh century, in the twelfth century Countercrusade, in the thirteenth century Crusades, during the era of British rule (1917-48), and since Israel took the city in 1967. The consistency that emerges in such a long period provides an important perspective on the current confrontation.
It is also because of religion but not as you might expect. Bat Ye’or, the author of Eurabia and Dhimmitude, advises,
“Once a region has been conquered for Islam, it is always Islamic and must be re-conquered from the infidel, regardless of the passage of time.”
This is the core of the entire conflict and this is what drives the Muslims.
It is safe to say that if Jerusalem came under the control of the Muslims/Arabs, it would once again be downgraded in importance because it can’t be allowed to challenge the importance of Mecca.
Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. The Jews will fight to keep it, all of it.
January 4, 2008
Will my Grandchildren Be Jewish?
By Aron Moss
Question:
I fear for the future of the Jewish people. When I look at my family and where they are headed it is not very promising. My grandfather was a rabbi, but I am not sure my grandchildren will even be Jewish. What is the secret to keeping Judaism alive?
Answer:
I have yet to meet a Jew who doesn't proudly claim, "My grandfather was a rabbi." It seems that three generations ago everyone was a rabbi.
What they really mean is that their grandfather was an observant Jew. He probably had a beard, prayed every day, and was knowledgeable in Torah. He may have been a cobbler or merchant or baker, but he was a committed Jew.
Anyone who identifies as Jewish today only need go back three or four generations to find observant Jews in their family. And from there an unbroken chain of Jewish living that goes back more than three thousand years. Not that everyone has always been observant. There were plenty of unobservant Jews. But we don't know their grandchildren. They have been lost to the Jewish community.
Jewishness without Jewish observance cannot last more than a couple of generations. Unless they return to living Jewishly, the children of unobservant Jews will stop being Jewish altogether and assimilate. A family of unobservant Jews will lose one or the other - either the Jewishness, or the unobservance. You can't have both.
This is not a new phenomenon. Throughout Jewish history there have been individuals and groups who tried to keep a Jewish identity without Jewish practice. It has never worked. A vague Jewish ethnic feeling, devoid of any spiritual purpose and with no compelling message that is relevant to life, cannot last long. Only proud and authentic Judaism, that offers relevance and meaning, direction and inspiration, will stand the test of time.
In the times of the Chanukah story, a small band of faithful Jews stood up against the vast majority of Jews who subscribed to Hellenism, the Greek way of life. We celebrate Chanukah today because we descend from those faithful few.
The solution to Jewish continuity is no secret, it's obvious. Living breathing Judaism produces living breathing Jews. Do for your grandchildren what your grandfather did for you - be a living example of what it means to live a vibrant Jewish life. They don't need their grandfather to be a rabbi, but they need him to be a proud and practicing Jew.
- Rabbi Aron Moss teaches Kabbalah, Talmud and practical Judaism in Sydney, Australia
Question:
I fear for the future of the Jewish people. When I look at my family and where they are headed it is not very promising. My grandfather was a rabbi, but I am not sure my grandchildren will even be Jewish. What is the secret to keeping Judaism alive?
Answer:
I have yet to meet a Jew who doesn't proudly claim, "My grandfather was a rabbi." It seems that three generations ago everyone was a rabbi.
What they really mean is that their grandfather was an observant Jew. He probably had a beard, prayed every day, and was knowledgeable in Torah. He may have been a cobbler or merchant or baker, but he was a committed Jew.
Anyone who identifies as Jewish today only need go back three or four generations to find observant Jews in their family. And from there an unbroken chain of Jewish living that goes back more than three thousand years. Not that everyone has always been observant. There were plenty of unobservant Jews. But we don't know their grandchildren. They have been lost to the Jewish community.
Jewishness without Jewish observance cannot last more than a couple of generations. Unless they return to living Jewishly, the children of unobservant Jews will stop being Jewish altogether and assimilate. A family of unobservant Jews will lose one or the other - either the Jewishness, or the unobservance. You can't have both.
This is not a new phenomenon. Throughout Jewish history there have been individuals and groups who tried to keep a Jewish identity without Jewish practice. It has never worked. A vague Jewish ethnic feeling, devoid of any spiritual purpose and with no compelling message that is relevant to life, cannot last long. Only proud and authentic Judaism, that offers relevance and meaning, direction and inspiration, will stand the test of time.
In the times of the Chanukah story, a small band of faithful Jews stood up against the vast majority of Jews who subscribed to Hellenism, the Greek way of life. We celebrate Chanukah today because we descend from those faithful few.
The solution to Jewish continuity is no secret, it's obvious. Living breathing Judaism produces living breathing Jews. Do for your grandchildren what your grandfather did for you - be a living example of what it means to live a vibrant Jewish life. They don't need their grandfather to be a rabbi, but they need him to be a proud and practicing Jew.
- Rabbi Aron Moss teaches Kabbalah, Talmud and practical Judaism in Sydney, Australia
American Friends of Likud....
What political party in Israel do you support? You can join the American Friends of Likud-
Dedicated to educating the public about Israel and events taking place in the Middle East, and raising a general awareness of Zionism. AFL provides a solid partnership of public support for the State of Israel, its citizens, and its democratically elected officials.
While American Friends of Likud maintains close links to Israel's Likud party, we remain an independent democratic movement. AFL takes an active role in the World Zionist Congress, joining our World Likud movement in representing the American voice of Likud in Israel. We are also partners with the Jewish Agency for Israel and members of the American Zionist Movement and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.
The Likud includes many factions and Mahigut Yehudit is one of them!
Who is Mahigut Yehudit?
Simply Jews - Manhigut Yehudit wants to turn the State of Jews in to the Jewish State!
With no added definitions. We do not call ourselves Orthodox, Conservative or Reform -- neither "right-wing" nor "left-wing."
Like the overwhelming majority of Jews, we believe in God, Who has brought us back to our Jewish home --the Holy Land of Israel. In Israel, the natural predisposition of the Jewish People to illuminate the world with God's light is brought to perfection, enabling us to perform our task in the most consummate way.
The natural predisposition of the Jewish People is to illuminate the world. Our aim is to create a genuinely Jewish consciousness in the Land of Israel, motivated by the awareness that our faith and our country are intrinsically woven together. An Israeli society predicated on Jewish faith -- the Torah -- is an ethical and loving society whose ultimate goal is to illuminate the entire world with God's benevolence.
The Modern State of Israel in Crisis
The Zionist movement, which founded the modern State of Israel, was a product of the millennia of longing for return to the Land of Israel. However, it was also a product of the times in which it was born. Basing itself on secular 19th century Western values, Zionism came to fill the need for a safe haven for the Jews of the world. Miraculously, the Zionist movement succeeded in building the complete infrastructure of a modern state -- replete with a strong army, high tech, immigration absorption etc. out of the wilderness.
In its essence, though, the secular Zionism on which Israel was built negates holiness. In doing so, it has stripped itself of the tools necessary to reflect the Jewishness of Israel and its ultimate holy purpose.
The very Zionist ideology that built the modern state of Israel has now turned against itself. We are now witnessing a complete unraveling of the fabric of Israeli society. The very Zionist ideology that built the modern state of Israel has now turned against itself as it seeks to counter its Biblical roots and Divine purpose. This self-destructive bent is the ultimate conclusion of the secular ideology upon which Zionism is based.
The Essential Question: Is Israel a State of Jews -- or a Jewish State?
Until now Israel has been a state of the Jews. It is vital to our future to transform Israel into a Jewish state. Israel's elected officials must lead the country with policies based exclusively on Jewish identity, values and ethics.
An Alternative
In 1994, Moshe Feiglin began the Zo Artzeinu ("This is Our Land") protest movement that opposed the self-destructive Oslo Accords with a massive civil disobedience campaign.
It became clear, though, that it was not enough to protest; we had to offer a fundamental alternative -- a new strategic objective -- in place of the process of collapse that gave rise to the Oslo Accords. Such an alternative would need to be based on both an alternative ideology that would inspire the nation and possess the means for implementation.
Belief-Based Leadership Only leadership motivated by an authentically Jewish vision will be capable of meeting all the challenges. There is only one way to truly imbue the State of Israel with the meaning it deserves and needs: to promote an alternative leadership for the State of Israel that is based on Jewish belief. Only leadership motivated by an authentically Jewish vision will be capable of meeting all the challenges currently facing the State of Israel and the Jewish People. Only leadership of this kind will be capable of reinvigorating the State of Israel and the Jewish People and leading it towards the realization of the vision of the prophets.
Leadership of the Likud
In 1998, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) was established as the successor to Zo Artzeinu.
Our aim is to enlist thousands of believing members in the Likud -- Israel's central ruling political party -- and to elect a party leader who will be motivated by Jewish ideals and values. As the Likud's candidate for Prime Minister, this candidate would be the natural leader of the national camp and would be elected as the Prime Minister of the State of Israel.
Our weapon is our ideology. What began as a dream has become a reality. Already today, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) has the largest bloc inside the Likud's Central Committee. In a very short time we became known as the group which "does not come with a price tag." Our weapon is our ideology and tens of thousands of supporters have already joined our ranks. Many Israelis throughout the political spectrum believe that we are the future of Israel's political life and the path we have chosen is correct and viable.
Dedicated to educating the public about Israel and events taking place in the Middle East, and raising a general awareness of Zionism. AFL provides a solid partnership of public support for the State of Israel, its citizens, and its democratically elected officials.
While American Friends of Likud maintains close links to Israel's Likud party, we remain an independent democratic movement. AFL takes an active role in the World Zionist Congress, joining our World Likud movement in representing the American voice of Likud in Israel. We are also partners with the Jewish Agency for Israel and members of the American Zionist Movement and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.
The Likud includes many factions and Mahigut Yehudit is one of them!
Who is Mahigut Yehudit?
Simply Jews - Manhigut Yehudit wants to turn the State of Jews in to the Jewish State!
With no added definitions. We do not call ourselves Orthodox, Conservative or Reform -- neither "right-wing" nor "left-wing."
Like the overwhelming majority of Jews, we believe in God, Who has brought us back to our Jewish home --the Holy Land of Israel. In Israel, the natural predisposition of the Jewish People to illuminate the world with God's light is brought to perfection, enabling us to perform our task in the most consummate way.
The natural predisposition of the Jewish People is to illuminate the world. Our aim is to create a genuinely Jewish consciousness in the Land of Israel, motivated by the awareness that our faith and our country are intrinsically woven together. An Israeli society predicated on Jewish faith -- the Torah -- is an ethical and loving society whose ultimate goal is to illuminate the entire world with God's benevolence.
The Modern State of Israel in Crisis
The Zionist movement, which founded the modern State of Israel, was a product of the millennia of longing for return to the Land of Israel. However, it was also a product of the times in which it was born. Basing itself on secular 19th century Western values, Zionism came to fill the need for a safe haven for the Jews of the world. Miraculously, the Zionist movement succeeded in building the complete infrastructure of a modern state -- replete with a strong army, high tech, immigration absorption etc. out of the wilderness.
In its essence, though, the secular Zionism on which Israel was built negates holiness. In doing so, it has stripped itself of the tools necessary to reflect the Jewishness of Israel and its ultimate holy purpose.
The very Zionist ideology that built the modern state of Israel has now turned against itself. We are now witnessing a complete unraveling of the fabric of Israeli society. The very Zionist ideology that built the modern state of Israel has now turned against itself as it seeks to counter its Biblical roots and Divine purpose. This self-destructive bent is the ultimate conclusion of the secular ideology upon which Zionism is based.
The Essential Question: Is Israel a State of Jews -- or a Jewish State?
Until now Israel has been a state of the Jews. It is vital to our future to transform Israel into a Jewish state. Israel's elected officials must lead the country with policies based exclusively on Jewish identity, values and ethics.
An Alternative
In 1994, Moshe Feiglin began the Zo Artzeinu ("This is Our Land") protest movement that opposed the self-destructive Oslo Accords with a massive civil disobedience campaign.
It became clear, though, that it was not enough to protest; we had to offer a fundamental alternative -- a new strategic objective -- in place of the process of collapse that gave rise to the Oslo Accords. Such an alternative would need to be based on both an alternative ideology that would inspire the nation and possess the means for implementation.
Belief-Based Leadership Only leadership motivated by an authentically Jewish vision will be capable of meeting all the challenges. There is only one way to truly imbue the State of Israel with the meaning it deserves and needs: to promote an alternative leadership for the State of Israel that is based on Jewish belief. Only leadership motivated by an authentically Jewish vision will be capable of meeting all the challenges currently facing the State of Israel and the Jewish People. Only leadership of this kind will be capable of reinvigorating the State of Israel and the Jewish People and leading it towards the realization of the vision of the prophets.
Leadership of the Likud
In 1998, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) was established as the successor to Zo Artzeinu.
Our aim is to enlist thousands of believing members in the Likud -- Israel's central ruling political party -- and to elect a party leader who will be motivated by Jewish ideals and values. As the Likud's candidate for Prime Minister, this candidate would be the natural leader of the national camp and would be elected as the Prime Minister of the State of Israel.
Our weapon is our ideology. What began as a dream has become a reality. Already today, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) has the largest bloc inside the Likud's Central Committee. In a very short time we became known as the group which "does not come with a price tag." Our weapon is our ideology and tens of thousands of supporters have already joined our ranks. Many Israelis throughout the political spectrum believe that we are the future of Israel's political life and the path we have chosen is correct and viable.
January 3, 2008
Muslim Populations - Eurabia
Muslim Populations in European Cities - Daniel Pipes
Which European cities have the highest percentages of Muslim residents.
The "Islam in Europe" blog compiled the following statistics, with sources marked by an asterisk and some edits by me.
http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2007/11/muslim-population-in-european-cities.html
Marseilles - 25 percent (200,000 of 800,000) (*)
Malmö - ~25 percent (67,000 of 270,000) (*)
Amsterdam - 24 percent (180,000 of 750,000) (*)
Stockholm - 20 percent (>155,000 of 771,038) (*)
Brussels - ~20 percent (some say 33 percent) (*)
Moscow - 16 percent-20 percent (2 million of 10-12 milllion) (*)
London - 17 percent (1.3 million of 7.5 million) (*)
Luton - 14.6 percent (26,963) (*)
Birmingham 14.3 percent (139,771) (*)
The Hague - 14.2 percent ( 67,896 of 475,580) (*)
Utrecht - 13.2 percent (38,300 of 289,000) (*)
Rotterdam - 13 percent (80,000 of 600,000) (*)
Copenhagen - 12.6 percent (63,000 of 500,000) (*)
Leicester - 11 percent (>30,000 of 280,000) (*)
Aarhus - ~10 percent (*)
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent (*)
Paris - 7.38 percent (155,000 of 2.1 million) (*)
Antwerp- 6.7 percent (>30,000 of >450,000) (*)
Hamburg - 6.4 percent (>110,000 of 1.73 million) (*)
Berlin - 5.9 percent (~200,000 of 3.40 million) (*)
Comments:
(1) It is striking to note that many of the continent's largest cities – London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow – also have its largest Muslim populations; also, the capital cities are disproportionately represented. Also noteworthy is how, other than Marseilles, they are all northerly.
(2) The above numbers do not indicate rates of growth; given the proportionately higher influx into Sweden than other countries, I'd put my money on Malmö or Stockholm being the first west European city with a Muslim majority, with Moscow as a wild card, given that Russian demographic dynamics are so different. (November 23, 2007)
Which European cities have the highest percentages of Muslim residents.
The "Islam in Europe" blog compiled the following statistics, with sources marked by an asterisk and some edits by me.
http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2007/11/muslim-population-in-european-cities.html
Marseilles - 25 percent (200,000 of 800,000) (*)
Malmö - ~25 percent (67,000 of 270,000) (*)
Amsterdam - 24 percent (180,000 of 750,000) (*)
Stockholm - 20 percent (>155,000 of 771,038) (*)
Brussels - ~20 percent (some say 33 percent) (*)
Moscow - 16 percent-20 percent (2 million of 10-12 milllion) (*)
London - 17 percent (1.3 million of 7.5 million) (*)
Luton - 14.6 percent (26,963) (*)
Birmingham 14.3 percent (139,771) (*)
The Hague - 14.2 percent ( 67,896 of 475,580) (*)
Utrecht - 13.2 percent (38,300 of 289,000) (*)
Rotterdam - 13 percent (80,000 of 600,000) (*)
Copenhagen - 12.6 percent (63,000 of 500,000) (*)
Leicester - 11 percent (>30,000 of 280,000) (*)
Aarhus - ~10 percent (*)
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent (*)
Paris - 7.38 percent (155,000 of 2.1 million) (*)
Antwerp- 6.7 percent (>30,000 of >450,000) (*)
Hamburg - 6.4 percent (>110,000 of 1.73 million) (*)
Berlin - 5.9 percent (~200,000 of 3.40 million) (*)
Comments:
(1) It is striking to note that many of the continent's largest cities – London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow – also have its largest Muslim populations; also, the capital cities are disproportionately represented. Also noteworthy is how, other than Marseilles, they are all northerly.
(2) The above numbers do not indicate rates of growth; given the proportionately higher influx into Sweden than other countries, I'd put my money on Malmö or Stockholm being the first west European city with a Muslim majority, with Moscow as a wild card, given that Russian demographic dynamics are so different. (November 23, 2007)
Bageling by Jessica Levine Kupferberg
It all started when my friend Doodie Miller-- who wears a kippah -- was back in college and suffering through a tedious lecture. As the professor droned on, a previously-unknown young woman leaned over and whispered in his ear:
"This class is as boring as my Zayde's seder."
You see, the woman knew that she did not "look" Jewish, nor did she wear any identifying signs like a Star of David. So foregoing the awkward declaration, "I'm Jewish," the girl devised a more nuanced -- and frankly, cuter -- way of heralding her heritage.
This incident launched a hypothesis which would henceforth be known as the Bagel Theory.
The Bagel Theory stands for the principle that we Jews, regardless of how observant or affiliated we are, have a powerful need to connect with one another.
The Bagel Theory stands for the principle that we Jews, regardless of how observant or affiliated we are, have a powerful need to connect with one another. To that end, we find ways to "bagel" each other -- basically, to "out" ourselves to fellow Jews.
There are two ways to bagel. The brave or simply unimaginative will tell you straight out that they are Jewish (a plain bagel). But the more creative will concoct subtler and even sublime ways to let you know that they, too, are in the know. (These bagels are often the best; like their doughy counterparts, cultural bagels are more flavorful when there is more to chew on.)
Bageled at Boggle
I suspect that Jews have been bageling even before real bagels were invented. And while my husband and I may not have invented bageling, we do seem to have a steady diet of bagel encounters.
An early bagel favorite occurred when my kippah-wearing husband and I were dating, and we spent a Saturday evening at a funky coffee house with friends. We engaged in a few boisterous rounds of Boggle, the game where you must quickly make words out of jumbled lettered cubes. Observing our fun, a couple of college students at a nearby table asked if they could play too. After we rattled the tray and furiously scribbled our words, it was time to read our lists aloud. One of the students, who sported a rasta hat and goatee, proudly listed the word "yad." Unsuspecting, we inquired, "What's a yad?" He said with a smirk, "You know, that pointer you read the Torah with." Yes, we were bageled at Boggle.
On our honeymoon in Rome, we were standing at the top of the Spanish steps next to a middle-aged couple holding a map. The husband piped up in an obvious voice, "I wonder where the synagogue is." My husband and I exchanged a knowing look at this classic Roman bagel and proceeded to strike up a conversation with this lovely couple from Chicago. After we took them to the synagogue, they asked to join us at the kosher pizza shop. As we savored the cheeseless arugula and shaved beef pizza -- to this day the best pizza I have ever had -- this non-religious couple marveled at traveling kosher and declared they would do so in the future. A satisfying bagel to be sure.
Holy Bagel
In the years since, our bagel encounters have become precious souvenirs, yiddishe knick-knacks from our family adventures in smaller Jewish communities. Like the time the little boy at the Coffee Bean in Pasadena, California, walked up to my husband, pulled out a mezuzah from around his neck, smiled and ran away. (A non-verbal bagel!) Or our day trip to the pier in San Clemente, California when an impish girl in cornrows and bikini scampered over to say "Good Shabbos."
We have been bageled waiting at airline ticket counters, in elevators, at the supermarket checkout. And I myself have been known to bagel when the situation calls for it, like the time I asked the chassid seated a few rows up on an airplane if I could borrow a siddur.
On a recent trip abroad, however, we did not get bageled even once. That was in Israel where, thankfully, there is just no need.
We bagel in a quest to feel whole.
Ultimately, why do we feel this need to bagel? Does it stem from our shared patriarchs, our pedigree of discrimination and isolation, a common love of latkes or just the human predisposition to be cliquey? I maintain it is something more. Our sages say that all Jews were originally one interconnected soul which stood in unison at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. Now scattered across the Earth, as we encounter each other's Jewish souls, we recognize and reconnect with a piece of our divine selves. The bagel may have a hole, but we bagel in a quest to feel whole.
So the next time a sweaty stranger at the gym says to you, "I haven't been this thirsty since Yom Kippur," smile. You've just been bageled -- adding another link in the Jewish circle of connection.
"This class is as boring as my Zayde's seder."
You see, the woman knew that she did not "look" Jewish, nor did she wear any identifying signs like a Star of David. So foregoing the awkward declaration, "I'm Jewish," the girl devised a more nuanced -- and frankly, cuter -- way of heralding her heritage.
This incident launched a hypothesis which would henceforth be known as the Bagel Theory.
The Bagel Theory stands for the principle that we Jews, regardless of how observant or affiliated we are, have a powerful need to connect with one another.
The Bagel Theory stands for the principle that we Jews, regardless of how observant or affiliated we are, have a powerful need to connect with one another. To that end, we find ways to "bagel" each other -- basically, to "out" ourselves to fellow Jews.
There are two ways to bagel. The brave or simply unimaginative will tell you straight out that they are Jewish (a plain bagel). But the more creative will concoct subtler and even sublime ways to let you know that they, too, are in the know. (These bagels are often the best; like their doughy counterparts, cultural bagels are more flavorful when there is more to chew on.)
Bageled at Boggle
I suspect that Jews have been bageling even before real bagels were invented. And while my husband and I may not have invented bageling, we do seem to have a steady diet of bagel encounters.
An early bagel favorite occurred when my kippah-wearing husband and I were dating, and we spent a Saturday evening at a funky coffee house with friends. We engaged in a few boisterous rounds of Boggle, the game where you must quickly make words out of jumbled lettered cubes. Observing our fun, a couple of college students at a nearby table asked if they could play too. After we rattled the tray and furiously scribbled our words, it was time to read our lists aloud. One of the students, who sported a rasta hat and goatee, proudly listed the word "yad." Unsuspecting, we inquired, "What's a yad?" He said with a smirk, "You know, that pointer you read the Torah with." Yes, we were bageled at Boggle.
On our honeymoon in Rome, we were standing at the top of the Spanish steps next to a middle-aged couple holding a map. The husband piped up in an obvious voice, "I wonder where the synagogue is." My husband and I exchanged a knowing look at this classic Roman bagel and proceeded to strike up a conversation with this lovely couple from Chicago. After we took them to the synagogue, they asked to join us at the kosher pizza shop. As we savored the cheeseless arugula and shaved beef pizza -- to this day the best pizza I have ever had -- this non-religious couple marveled at traveling kosher and declared they would do so in the future. A satisfying bagel to be sure.
Holy Bagel
In the years since, our bagel encounters have become precious souvenirs, yiddishe knick-knacks from our family adventures in smaller Jewish communities. Like the time the little boy at the Coffee Bean in Pasadena, California, walked up to my husband, pulled out a mezuzah from around his neck, smiled and ran away. (A non-verbal bagel!) Or our day trip to the pier in San Clemente, California when an impish girl in cornrows and bikini scampered over to say "Good Shabbos."
We have been bageled waiting at airline ticket counters, in elevators, at the supermarket checkout. And I myself have been known to bagel when the situation calls for it, like the time I asked the chassid seated a few rows up on an airplane if I could borrow a siddur.
On a recent trip abroad, however, we did not get bageled even once. That was in Israel where, thankfully, there is just no need.
We bagel in a quest to feel whole.
Ultimately, why do we feel this need to bagel? Does it stem from our shared patriarchs, our pedigree of discrimination and isolation, a common love of latkes or just the human predisposition to be cliquey? I maintain it is something more. Our sages say that all Jews were originally one interconnected soul which stood in unison at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. Now scattered across the Earth, as we encounter each other's Jewish souls, we recognize and reconnect with a piece of our divine selves. The bagel may have a hole, but we bagel in a quest to feel whole.
So the next time a sweaty stranger at the gym says to you, "I haven't been this thirsty since Yom Kippur," smile. You've just been bageled -- adding another link in the Jewish circle of connection.
January 2, 2008
Something terrible is happening to Israel.
Yarzheit 2007- speech by Meir Jolowitz
There is a war being fought, and the people of Israel don’t even know it.
And we ask the question:
Does anyone notice? Does anybody care?
**
It happened only a few years ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak invited Yasir Arafat, a mass murderer,
into his home in the exclusive community of Kochav Yair, on Erev Shabbat.
The mass murderer placed a kiss on the forehead of the Prime Minister’s daughter –
an act that Barak said melted her: “She was so deeply moved – she was so excited.”
Did Ehud Barak – today in charge of Israel’s defense –
ever invite to Kochav Yair, on Erev Shabbat,
one of the young Jewish soldiers that he once commanded – perhaps one who lost a limb
fighting against those mass murderers?
And this past Sukkot, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert invites as his guest,
to his sukkah, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen),
Arafat’s deputy for 40 years, financier of the Munich Massacre,
and a Holocaust denier who still praises Arab terrorists as martyrs of a holy war.
And make no mistake about it –
Israel’s next prime minister will invite into his home, Marwan Boughouti,
who is presently in an Israeli prison, serving 5 lifetime sentences for terrorism against the Jewish people.
You can count on it - The Israeli prime minister will prostate himself
before this mass murderer and petition for peace.
Something terrible is indeed happening to Israel.
**
Last month, President George Bush invited 90 Muslim leaders to a White House dinner to mark the end of the fast of Ramadan.
Bush opined that the United States has a proud history of standing with Muslims
and "mainstream citizens across the broader Middle East."
Those invited to the White House were Bush’s moderate Muslims.
Referring to the extremists who conduct the unyielding war against western civilization, Bush stated:
“You don't represent Muslims, you do not represent Islam – and you will not succeed."
*
Dear George. They do; they do; and they are.
**
There is something that all of us here today have to understand.
As long as we are right; as long as we are brave; and as long as we proclaim the truth –
we shall remain the minority within a minority.
Tragically – the truth is not self evident, and nor is there a guarantee that it shall prevail.
But, there is one thing we were all taught by Rabbi Meir Kahane – that we must fight the fight nonetheless. that God rewards us for trying, not for succeeding.
**
Truth be told, there are two wars being waged today.
Arab versus Jew, and Jew versus Jew. And, inevitably, these two conflicts intersect.
The issue is not only “Will there be peace?” but “Will Israel remain a Jewish state?”
The battleground that will determine the winner is not only the narrow nine-mile wide waistline that defines Israel’s vulnerability, but more importantly, the battleground of ideas where the Arabs, for a generation, have been joined by leftist Jewish and Israeli allies, with whom they together endeavor to negate the Jewish character of the state.
This second war front is directed at Israel by the “so-called” progressive forces of a liberal-leaning world, led by scholars, academicians, writers, and other cultural elitists, many of them Jews.
It is an effort to see Israel cease to be a “Jewish” state, to be replaced, they envision, with a universal, or democratic one.
Of course, this is nothing but a euphemism for the elimination of the Jewish State.
And nobody seems to care.
**
Two decades ago, Rabbi Kahane warned the people of Israel –
“You will either get Kahane, or you will get Arafat.”
Remarkably – in Israel today – the yellow shirt, bearing the Kach emblem, is banned. Not so, the colors of the PLO. Israeli police arrest, and Israeli courts summarily convict Jewish citizens who shout at a soccer match “Kahane tzadak (Kahane was right);
while they ignore Arab parliamentarians sitting in Israel’s Knesset who openly praise Israel’s declared enemies and call for the Arab intafada to burn Jewish towns.
And while the Jews fight the Jews, the Arabs, and the oil-thirsty world that aligns itself with them,
wait in the wings, while step by step, censure by censure, measure by measure, Israel becomes less Jewish, and frighteningly, less at ease with its own right to exist.
And the so-called leaders of Israel look everywhere – or anywhere – for partners to make peace. The Israeli government today convinces itself that it can make peace
with the very organization whose Charter still calls for Israel’s elimination.
**
If nothing else, let’s be blunt: In meeting and negotiating with these terrorists, Israel is cooperating in its own murder.
**
Rabbi Kahane once wrote, the words which perhaps more than any other, explain this march of madness... “Not all Jews are heroes, and there are those who grow weary of the long struggle,
and the longer wait. And weariness carries with it weakness.
Weakness of the body, and weakness of the spirit.
Weakness that persuades the Jew to believe,
that which just yesterday, he knew to be nonsense.
Weakness that prepares the ground for the Jew to believe in madness,
and in illusions.”
**
Is it simply an illusion, or worse, is it self-delusion?
1oo years ago, T.S. Eliot wrote:
“…humankind/ Cannot bear very much reality.”
The unbearable reality is that Israel’s yearning for peace is shared neither by the Arab world in general, nor by the Palestinians in particular.
It seems imperative that we understand this simple fact … that the Arab objection is not to “anything Israel has done, or failed to do”, but to the very fact that it exists at all.
For as long as Israel has existed as a sovereign state – for 60 years –
it has been the subject of attack in almost every international arena.
After more than half a century of independence, Israel is still considered an illegitimate state – by enough nations, George Will once remarked in quoting Abba Eban, that they could muster enough support in the United Nations to adopt a resolution confirming that the earth is flat.
**
In the fashion of 1984, we do indeed live in an Orwellian world.
Freedom is slavery. Justice is injustice. Jewish settlement is occupation.
Zionism is racism, And war is peace. Yes, in the language of George Orwell, Arab murderers are peacemakers, And Yasir Arafat is a Nobel Peace Laureate.
We would do well to remember the words of Isaiah:
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil”
Those who champion the rights of the Arabs – these self-appointed purveyors of a twisted moral code that preaches a “turn the other check” philosophy are no less the enemy.
Consider this quote, attributed to the Zionist leader Berl Katznelson, on May 1, 1936:
“Is there another people on earth whose sons are so emotionally and mentally twisted
that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful,
while every murder, rape and robbery committed by their enemies
fills their hearts with admiration and awe?”
Katznelson would turn in his grave to know that the sovereign state of Israel has mastered the art of self-hatred.
**
Today, in a world gone mad, We are no longer the good guys, and Arab murderers are no longer the enemy.
“We are both at fault” Yithak Rabin suggested, before he went on to meet his Maker (who, I am certain, told him otherwise).
Needless to say, such mindless exercises in “moral equivalence” are obscene, and mock the whole Zionist enterprise.
Understand something.
What the British Mandate, when it occupied Eretz Yisrael, could not do with its commissions, its sanctions, and its blockades; What the Arab nations in four major wars, and subsequent wars of attrition, could not accomplish – …The Jewish political, cultural, educational and intellectual voices seem to have succeeded in accomplishing – …To bring Zionism to its knees.
**
Yes, there are two wars being fought in the Middle East today:
One is characterized by the thousands of rockets that have fallen on Israeli towns,
by the suicide bombers that have invaded our streets,
and by the establishment of a nuclear capability within reach of the heart of Zion.
The other was launched at Oslo, officially in 1993, although planned long before, after Menachem Begin agreed to retreat from Jewish lands in exchange for the promise of peace.
This is a war called “peace”.
It is a war that Israel is losing. It is very much a war over Israel’s legitimacy. It is a battle being waged by Islam and aided by the post-Zionists… and so-called friends of Israel.
Only utopians or real fools fail to understand that Israel is in fact losing.
Every day. In the classroom. In the media.
In the courts. In the hearts and minds of its own citizens.
We are losing because of a policy that is bereft of ideology … in a nation without a statesman, and without a national leader.
FEW NOTICE, AND EVEN FEWER CARE.
**
During the past generation, we have been witnesses to the
intellectual/cultural/&educational collapse of Zionism.
It is a retreat that has been especially accelerated during the past decade.
The American journalist Charles Krauthammer has observed – correctly – that the most improbable story of the 20th Century is the return of the Jews to sovereignty in their original homeland.
After 2000 years of exile. After Two thousand years of powerlessness.
In 1948, the Jewish nation realized a dream that only one hundred years ago – at the founding of the modern Zionist movement – seemed at best delusional.
Krauthammer wrote:
“The only thing more improbable is this:
That after only 50 years of independence, the Jews of Israel would tire of it,
lose faith in the enterprise, and forfeit their redemption.” This is the peace of Oslo.
The Road Map. The Withdrawal from Gaza. And… the surrender of Jerusalem, which is being planned, even as I speak.
My friends, we have been living a lie. There is no peace process.
There is a pathetic and pathological retreat from everything that our nation once found noble and worth fighting for.
**
At the turn of the last century, those few Jews who championed the cause of a sovereign Jewish state, were labeled by both Jew and non-Jew alike, as being “lunatics.”
At the turn of this century, with a Jewish state that has been extant for nearly 60 years, we have Jews, both in Israel and elsewhere, labeling those who still believe in the Zionist enterprise, those who believe as the early Zionists did – in Jewish labor, and in settling the land – as “lunatics.”
It has been said –
We live in a world that would have us believe that every people is entitled to a homeland of their own, save the Jews, who are expected to coexist peacefully in the homelands of those who brought upon them inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, ghettos, forced baptisms, quota systems, and the final unspeakable horror – the Holocaust – and worse,
…the world’s terrifying disinterest in it.
Incidentally, at the turn of the last century, on January 1, 1900, the three leading newspapers in the world – the New York Times, The London Times, and Le Monde – uniformly predicted that economic prosperity, made possible by scientific technology and democracy, would produce an era of universal peace in the twentieth century.
Tell that to six million Jewish souls.
Today, those same newspapers, and millions of their readers, have joined world leaders calling for Israel
to make further concessions in search of another “peace in our time.”
**
A few words about the Arab/Israel conflict.
The Israelis are “ an exhausted people, confused and without direction.”
They are, some knowingly, and others almost blindly, actively engaged in the destruction of their own national spirit.
In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, having drawn from the experiences of the Yom Kippur War five years earlier, came to the conclusion that Israel could not be beaten militarily, in a single stroke – in a war of annihilation.
Sadat launched a “peace offensive” choosing instead to weaken Israel through a process of attrition – “salami tactics” –
until which time, with a weakened Israel, he could pursue the real objective: peace without Israel.
In the ensuing years, through Camp David, and a peace treaty signed on Jimmy Carter’s White House lawn, he achieved what the Arabs could never achieve through war.
A vanquished Israel.
Israel surrendered even as it celebrated. And loudest to celebrate were the post-Zionists.
In every sense, Sadat was an innovator.
You see, it took the other Arab leaders another fifteen years to understand what he did. That Israel can be coaxed to commit suicide.
Through a series of gradual and incremental surrenders, Israel’s retreat has been supported by the United Nations, the United States, and most disturbingly, the Jews themselves.
The peace process, founded upon a series of false assumptions and unreasonable expectations, has always been an Arab Trojan horse leading Israel towards certain disaster.
It’s as simple as it is foolish: Israel will give, the Arabs will take.
**
Adopting a tactic that Norman Podhoretz called “at once brilliant and evil” – the Arabs have exploited every casualty of a war that they themselves manufactured.
In analyzing Israel, in a piece that appeared in Commentary, titled “Death of an Illusion,” Podhoretz stated: “the virus of self-hatred has spread in recent years, sapping the national morale and the old-time national resolve.”
**
The Arabs, dangling a carrot called peace, while still seeking the eradication of Israel, are in full control.
It is a propaganda triumph, William Safire correctly claimed, that wears down Israel’s will. The results – an Israel broken in spirit, and broken in morale.
Remarkably, seemingly intelligent Jews display little common sense.
And, even less courage.
**
In 1924, the prolific Jewish writer, Maurice Samuels, wrote a book entitled You Gentiles.
Daring to call Jews a “separate & holy people” he concluded his book with the following admonition:
“I console myself with the thought that if this book offends by its assertiveness,
God knows that the infinite tactfulness of thousands of other Jews seems to have offended no less.
Whatever we do we are damned – and I would rather be damned standing up, than lying down.”
My mentor was a rabbi who was in fact damned – damned standing up, but never lying down.
Two generations after Maurice Samuels’ unabashed opinions,
Rabbi Kahane wrote:
“The real prisoners are the ones who walk the streets daily, knowing that they should do a certain thing, and are afraid to do it. They are serving life sentences. If a person believes in something, and does it – he is never in prison – he is always free.”
Never, then, was there a freer man than Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Rabbi Kahane, for two decades warned us, through word and through deed, of the impending catastrophes, if we chose to follow Washington, and if we place our trust in princes, who would, when the final showdown came, to use the language of Pierre Van Passan: “evaporate like snow on a summer day’s sun”
The Rabbi understood:
There was peace only through strength.
Not because they loved us, but because they could be made to respect us…
**
He would often remind us that the Jew needed to stand on 2 legs – the religious, and the nationalistic.
Those who stood on only one, he argued, were crippled.
And never had one man stood taller … on both legs..
Bold, brazen, and never bashful, Rabbi Kahane commanded the ability to engage in intellectual discourse that made even the most erudite opponent shrink before him;
And, he could shift gears effortlessly, and communicate, masterfully, with the young and disenfranchised.
Yes, the Jewish establishment had every reason to fear him.
But, the more they tried to silence him, the louder he seemed to get.And the louder he got... the more he rippled the pond.
**
Today… there is no one to ripple that pond.
The Jews are a people that behave, as Jabotinsky fore-warned over 70 years ago ago, as if they are chloroformed.
**
Consider the following:
On January 30, 1996 – several years after signing his peace treaty with Israel, and having been invited many times as an honored guest to the White House – Yasir Arafat, the Nobel Peace Laureate, addressed 40 Arab diplomats at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, and delivered a lecture that he entitled “The Impending Total Collapse of Israel.”
He said:
“We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem…
We, of the PLO will now concentrate all our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps.
Within five years we will have six to seven million Arabs living in the West Bank and in Jerusalem…
You understand that we plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State…
I have no use for Jews; they are, and remain Jews.”
**
And our response?
We invite these terrorists into our homes on Erev Shabbat –
And with Jewish blood still fresh on our soil,
they are invited to visit our Prime Minister’s sukkah.
We march on – an act of madness.
We offer them a state – at the expense of ours.
It is a policy guided by an illusion,
that is driven by an un-forgivable self-delusion.
**
Something terrible is happening to Israel. Is anyone listening? Does anyone really care?
**
Many years ago, my father, a survivor of thirteen concentration camps, sat me down on his knee and said:
“Do the right thing. Decent people will stand by you… the others…really don’t count.”
*
Rabbi Meir Kahane – more than any man of our generation – stood up and did the right thing.
Be proud that you stood beside him.
***
Dear friends –
Seventeen years ago, when the sun set before its scheduled time, we lost the most noble Jew of our generation.
Courageous & Committed.
Dedicated & Daring.
Audacious and intrepid.
Often brazen.
Always controversial.
Never apologetic.
Unencumbered by the need to appease unappeasable opponents, he was painfully truthful.
He was – a true Torah Jew.
**
Tragically, it seems that we really didn’t deserve him,
and must now fend for ourselves.
**
Today, at a pivotal moment of Jewish history, we are leaderless.
The Jewish people are wandering …without a guide and without direction,
… in a desert of our own creation.
**
The struggle continues. And it continues without the voice, or the hand, of the most noble and courageous Jew of our generation.
And, it seems so much harder today to say: “Od lo avda tikvateynu.”
Our hope, is not yet lost.
There is a war being fought, and the people of Israel don’t even know it.
And we ask the question:
Does anyone notice? Does anybody care?
**
It happened only a few years ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak invited Yasir Arafat, a mass murderer,
into his home in the exclusive community of Kochav Yair, on Erev Shabbat.
The mass murderer placed a kiss on the forehead of the Prime Minister’s daughter –
an act that Barak said melted her: “She was so deeply moved – she was so excited.”
Did Ehud Barak – today in charge of Israel’s defense –
ever invite to Kochav Yair, on Erev Shabbat,
one of the young Jewish soldiers that he once commanded – perhaps one who lost a limb
fighting against those mass murderers?
And this past Sukkot, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert invites as his guest,
to his sukkah, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen),
Arafat’s deputy for 40 years, financier of the Munich Massacre,
and a Holocaust denier who still praises Arab terrorists as martyrs of a holy war.
And make no mistake about it –
Israel’s next prime minister will invite into his home, Marwan Boughouti,
who is presently in an Israeli prison, serving 5 lifetime sentences for terrorism against the Jewish people.
You can count on it - The Israeli prime minister will prostate himself
before this mass murderer and petition for peace.
Something terrible is indeed happening to Israel.
**
Last month, President George Bush invited 90 Muslim leaders to a White House dinner to mark the end of the fast of Ramadan.
Bush opined that the United States has a proud history of standing with Muslims
and "mainstream citizens across the broader Middle East."
Those invited to the White House were Bush’s moderate Muslims.
Referring to the extremists who conduct the unyielding war against western civilization, Bush stated:
“You don't represent Muslims, you do not represent Islam – and you will not succeed."
*
Dear George. They do; they do; and they are.
**
There is something that all of us here today have to understand.
As long as we are right; as long as we are brave; and as long as we proclaim the truth –
we shall remain the minority within a minority.
Tragically – the truth is not self evident, and nor is there a guarantee that it shall prevail.
But, there is one thing we were all taught by Rabbi Meir Kahane – that we must fight the fight nonetheless. that God rewards us for trying, not for succeeding.
**
Truth be told, there are two wars being waged today.
Arab versus Jew, and Jew versus Jew. And, inevitably, these two conflicts intersect.
The issue is not only “Will there be peace?” but “Will Israel remain a Jewish state?”
The battleground that will determine the winner is not only the narrow nine-mile wide waistline that defines Israel’s vulnerability, but more importantly, the battleground of ideas where the Arabs, for a generation, have been joined by leftist Jewish and Israeli allies, with whom they together endeavor to negate the Jewish character of the state.
This second war front is directed at Israel by the “so-called” progressive forces of a liberal-leaning world, led by scholars, academicians, writers, and other cultural elitists, many of them Jews.
It is an effort to see Israel cease to be a “Jewish” state, to be replaced, they envision, with a universal, or democratic one.
Of course, this is nothing but a euphemism for the elimination of the Jewish State.
And nobody seems to care.
**
Two decades ago, Rabbi Kahane warned the people of Israel –
“You will either get Kahane, or you will get Arafat.”
Remarkably – in Israel today – the yellow shirt, bearing the Kach emblem, is banned. Not so, the colors of the PLO. Israeli police arrest, and Israeli courts summarily convict Jewish citizens who shout at a soccer match “Kahane tzadak (Kahane was right);
while they ignore Arab parliamentarians sitting in Israel’s Knesset who openly praise Israel’s declared enemies and call for the Arab intafada to burn Jewish towns.
And while the Jews fight the Jews, the Arabs, and the oil-thirsty world that aligns itself with them,
wait in the wings, while step by step, censure by censure, measure by measure, Israel becomes less Jewish, and frighteningly, less at ease with its own right to exist.
And the so-called leaders of Israel look everywhere – or anywhere – for partners to make peace. The Israeli government today convinces itself that it can make peace
with the very organization whose Charter still calls for Israel’s elimination.
**
If nothing else, let’s be blunt: In meeting and negotiating with these terrorists, Israel is cooperating in its own murder.
**
Rabbi Kahane once wrote, the words which perhaps more than any other, explain this march of madness... “Not all Jews are heroes, and there are those who grow weary of the long struggle,
and the longer wait. And weariness carries with it weakness.
Weakness of the body, and weakness of the spirit.
Weakness that persuades the Jew to believe,
that which just yesterday, he knew to be nonsense.
Weakness that prepares the ground for the Jew to believe in madness,
and in illusions.”
**
Is it simply an illusion, or worse, is it self-delusion?
1oo years ago, T.S. Eliot wrote:
“…humankind/ Cannot bear very much reality.”
The unbearable reality is that Israel’s yearning for peace is shared neither by the Arab world in general, nor by the Palestinians in particular.
It seems imperative that we understand this simple fact … that the Arab objection is not to “anything Israel has done, or failed to do”, but to the very fact that it exists at all.
For as long as Israel has existed as a sovereign state – for 60 years –
it has been the subject of attack in almost every international arena.
After more than half a century of independence, Israel is still considered an illegitimate state – by enough nations, George Will once remarked in quoting Abba Eban, that they could muster enough support in the United Nations to adopt a resolution confirming that the earth is flat.
**
In the fashion of 1984, we do indeed live in an Orwellian world.
Freedom is slavery. Justice is injustice. Jewish settlement is occupation.
Zionism is racism, And war is peace. Yes, in the language of George Orwell, Arab murderers are peacemakers, And Yasir Arafat is a Nobel Peace Laureate.
We would do well to remember the words of Isaiah:
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil”
Those who champion the rights of the Arabs – these self-appointed purveyors of a twisted moral code that preaches a “turn the other check” philosophy are no less the enemy.
Consider this quote, attributed to the Zionist leader Berl Katznelson, on May 1, 1936:
“Is there another people on earth whose sons are so emotionally and mentally twisted
that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful,
while every murder, rape and robbery committed by their enemies
fills their hearts with admiration and awe?”
Katznelson would turn in his grave to know that the sovereign state of Israel has mastered the art of self-hatred.
**
Today, in a world gone mad, We are no longer the good guys, and Arab murderers are no longer the enemy.
“We are both at fault” Yithak Rabin suggested, before he went on to meet his Maker (who, I am certain, told him otherwise).
Needless to say, such mindless exercises in “moral equivalence” are obscene, and mock the whole Zionist enterprise.
Understand something.
What the British Mandate, when it occupied Eretz Yisrael, could not do with its commissions, its sanctions, and its blockades; What the Arab nations in four major wars, and subsequent wars of attrition, could not accomplish – …The Jewish political, cultural, educational and intellectual voices seem to have succeeded in accomplishing – …To bring Zionism to its knees.
**
Yes, there are two wars being fought in the Middle East today:
One is characterized by the thousands of rockets that have fallen on Israeli towns,
by the suicide bombers that have invaded our streets,
and by the establishment of a nuclear capability within reach of the heart of Zion.
The other was launched at Oslo, officially in 1993, although planned long before, after Menachem Begin agreed to retreat from Jewish lands in exchange for the promise of peace.
This is a war called “peace”.
It is a war that Israel is losing. It is very much a war over Israel’s legitimacy. It is a battle being waged by Islam and aided by the post-Zionists… and so-called friends of Israel.
Only utopians or real fools fail to understand that Israel is in fact losing.
Every day. In the classroom. In the media.
In the courts. In the hearts and minds of its own citizens.
We are losing because of a policy that is bereft of ideology … in a nation without a statesman, and without a national leader.
FEW NOTICE, AND EVEN FEWER CARE.
**
During the past generation, we have been witnesses to the
intellectual/cultural/&educational collapse of Zionism.
It is a retreat that has been especially accelerated during the past decade.
The American journalist Charles Krauthammer has observed – correctly – that the most improbable story of the 20th Century is the return of the Jews to sovereignty in their original homeland.
After 2000 years of exile. After Two thousand years of powerlessness.
In 1948, the Jewish nation realized a dream that only one hundred years ago – at the founding of the modern Zionist movement – seemed at best delusional.
Krauthammer wrote:
“The only thing more improbable is this:
That after only 50 years of independence, the Jews of Israel would tire of it,
lose faith in the enterprise, and forfeit their redemption.” This is the peace of Oslo.
The Road Map. The Withdrawal from Gaza. And… the surrender of Jerusalem, which is being planned, even as I speak.
My friends, we have been living a lie. There is no peace process.
There is a pathetic and pathological retreat from everything that our nation once found noble and worth fighting for.
**
At the turn of the last century, those few Jews who championed the cause of a sovereign Jewish state, were labeled by both Jew and non-Jew alike, as being “lunatics.”
At the turn of this century, with a Jewish state that has been extant for nearly 60 years, we have Jews, both in Israel and elsewhere, labeling those who still believe in the Zionist enterprise, those who believe as the early Zionists did – in Jewish labor, and in settling the land – as “lunatics.”
It has been said –
We live in a world that would have us believe that every people is entitled to a homeland of their own, save the Jews, who are expected to coexist peacefully in the homelands of those who brought upon them inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, ghettos, forced baptisms, quota systems, and the final unspeakable horror – the Holocaust – and worse,
…the world’s terrifying disinterest in it.
Incidentally, at the turn of the last century, on January 1, 1900, the three leading newspapers in the world – the New York Times, The London Times, and Le Monde – uniformly predicted that economic prosperity, made possible by scientific technology and democracy, would produce an era of universal peace in the twentieth century.
Tell that to six million Jewish souls.
Today, those same newspapers, and millions of their readers, have joined world leaders calling for Israel
to make further concessions in search of another “peace in our time.”
**
A few words about the Arab/Israel conflict.
The Israelis are “ an exhausted people, confused and without direction.”
They are, some knowingly, and others almost blindly, actively engaged in the destruction of their own national spirit.
In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, having drawn from the experiences of the Yom Kippur War five years earlier, came to the conclusion that Israel could not be beaten militarily, in a single stroke – in a war of annihilation.
Sadat launched a “peace offensive” choosing instead to weaken Israel through a process of attrition – “salami tactics” –
until which time, with a weakened Israel, he could pursue the real objective: peace without Israel.
In the ensuing years, through Camp David, and a peace treaty signed on Jimmy Carter’s White House lawn, he achieved what the Arabs could never achieve through war.
A vanquished Israel.
Israel surrendered even as it celebrated. And loudest to celebrate were the post-Zionists.
In every sense, Sadat was an innovator.
You see, it took the other Arab leaders another fifteen years to understand what he did. That Israel can be coaxed to commit suicide.
Through a series of gradual and incremental surrenders, Israel’s retreat has been supported by the United Nations, the United States, and most disturbingly, the Jews themselves.
The peace process, founded upon a series of false assumptions and unreasonable expectations, has always been an Arab Trojan horse leading Israel towards certain disaster.
It’s as simple as it is foolish: Israel will give, the Arabs will take.
**
Adopting a tactic that Norman Podhoretz called “at once brilliant and evil” – the Arabs have exploited every casualty of a war that they themselves manufactured.
In analyzing Israel, in a piece that appeared in Commentary, titled “Death of an Illusion,” Podhoretz stated: “the virus of self-hatred has spread in recent years, sapping the national morale and the old-time national resolve.”
**
The Arabs, dangling a carrot called peace, while still seeking the eradication of Israel, are in full control.
It is a propaganda triumph, William Safire correctly claimed, that wears down Israel’s will. The results – an Israel broken in spirit, and broken in morale.
Remarkably, seemingly intelligent Jews display little common sense.
And, even less courage.
**
In 1924, the prolific Jewish writer, Maurice Samuels, wrote a book entitled You Gentiles.
Daring to call Jews a “separate & holy people” he concluded his book with the following admonition:
“I console myself with the thought that if this book offends by its assertiveness,
God knows that the infinite tactfulness of thousands of other Jews seems to have offended no less.
Whatever we do we are damned – and I would rather be damned standing up, than lying down.”
My mentor was a rabbi who was in fact damned – damned standing up, but never lying down.
Two generations after Maurice Samuels’ unabashed opinions,
Rabbi Kahane wrote:
“The real prisoners are the ones who walk the streets daily, knowing that they should do a certain thing, and are afraid to do it. They are serving life sentences. If a person believes in something, and does it – he is never in prison – he is always free.”
Never, then, was there a freer man than Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Rabbi Kahane, for two decades warned us, through word and through deed, of the impending catastrophes, if we chose to follow Washington, and if we place our trust in princes, who would, when the final showdown came, to use the language of Pierre Van Passan: “evaporate like snow on a summer day’s sun”
The Rabbi understood:
There was peace only through strength.
Not because they loved us, but because they could be made to respect us…
**
He would often remind us that the Jew needed to stand on 2 legs – the religious, and the nationalistic.
Those who stood on only one, he argued, were crippled.
And never had one man stood taller … on both legs..
Bold, brazen, and never bashful, Rabbi Kahane commanded the ability to engage in intellectual discourse that made even the most erudite opponent shrink before him;
And, he could shift gears effortlessly, and communicate, masterfully, with the young and disenfranchised.
Yes, the Jewish establishment had every reason to fear him.
But, the more they tried to silence him, the louder he seemed to get.And the louder he got... the more he rippled the pond.
**
Today… there is no one to ripple that pond.
The Jews are a people that behave, as Jabotinsky fore-warned over 70 years ago ago, as if they are chloroformed.
**
Consider the following:
On January 30, 1996 – several years after signing his peace treaty with Israel, and having been invited many times as an honored guest to the White House – Yasir Arafat, the Nobel Peace Laureate, addressed 40 Arab diplomats at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, and delivered a lecture that he entitled “The Impending Total Collapse of Israel.”
He said:
“We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem…
We, of the PLO will now concentrate all our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps.
Within five years we will have six to seven million Arabs living in the West Bank and in Jerusalem…
You understand that we plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State…
I have no use for Jews; they are, and remain Jews.”
**
And our response?
We invite these terrorists into our homes on Erev Shabbat –
And with Jewish blood still fresh on our soil,
they are invited to visit our Prime Minister’s sukkah.
We march on – an act of madness.
We offer them a state – at the expense of ours.
It is a policy guided by an illusion,
that is driven by an un-forgivable self-delusion.
**
Something terrible is happening to Israel. Is anyone listening? Does anyone really care?
**
Many years ago, my father, a survivor of thirteen concentration camps, sat me down on his knee and said:
“Do the right thing. Decent people will stand by you… the others…really don’t count.”
*
Rabbi Meir Kahane – more than any man of our generation – stood up and did the right thing.
Be proud that you stood beside him.
***
Dear friends –
Seventeen years ago, when the sun set before its scheduled time, we lost the most noble Jew of our generation.
Courageous & Committed.
Dedicated & Daring.
Audacious and intrepid.
Often brazen.
Always controversial.
Never apologetic.
Unencumbered by the need to appease unappeasable opponents, he was painfully truthful.
He was – a true Torah Jew.
**
Tragically, it seems that we really didn’t deserve him,
and must now fend for ourselves.
**
Today, at a pivotal moment of Jewish history, we are leaderless.
The Jewish people are wandering …without a guide and without direction,
… in a desert of our own creation.
**
The struggle continues. And it continues without the voice, or the hand, of the most noble and courageous Jew of our generation.
And, it seems so much harder today to say: “Od lo avda tikvateynu.”
Our hope, is not yet lost.
January 1, 2008
Myths of Peace, and the Reality of our Dead Boys
I want to tell you the story of two boys, twenty year olds, both
them in the elite of elite army units, both of them from
Rabbinical families, both of them living in Kiryat Arba, the
Jewish neighborhood of Hebron. Achikam Amichai and David Rubin
were out on leave from their IDF units, enjoying a well-earned
holiday. They decided this past Friday afternoon to take take a
little hike in their backyards. Their friend Naama Ohayon went
with them. It was a beautiful day, beautiful scenery, wild and
open, as it is in that part of the land of Israel. They passed
an Arab, who asked them for water. The boys gave it to him, then
waved goodbye and went on their way. A short while later,
alerted by the Palestinian they had shared water with, three
armed terrorists who had been lying in wait for an opportunity to
kill Israelis and steal their weapons, drove by and opened fire
on the three young people. Our boys, ambushed and badly
wounded, nevertheless, began firing, killing the terrorist driver
of the car. The other two terrorists then hopped out of the car,
put their guns at point blank range to the fatally injured boys
and fired. These "big heroes" then threw their dead comrade out
of car like so much garbage, and took off, back to Hebron where
they live. Hiding In the forest, Naama Ohayon, who had
miraculously escaped, used her cell phone to contact Israeli
security forces, who praised her unbelievable cool in the face of
the horror she had witnessed. Security forces rescued her, but
it was too late for the boys.
Meanwhile, Shimon Peres found time for a photo opportunity to
shake hands with a member of Abu Maazen's government who
expressed his "condolences." This, of course, before it became
known that the killers were Abu Maazen's paid employees.
According to Efrat Weiss, writing in YNET, sometime on Friday
evening, the Palestinian Authority started the rumor that it
wasn't a terrorist attack at all, but a "drug deal" gone bad.
This went all over the Israeli news, and you can just imagine how
the parents must have felt. Others said the boys had no right to
go hiking. (Right, let's all stay in our homes and quake.)
Meanwhile, the two murderers, fearing the IDF was closing in on
them, turned themselves over to Palestinian security forces, who
didn't say a word about this to the Israelis. However, when
Israeli security asked them pointedly to turn over the weapons
of the murderers and the victims, they did. But they didn't
turn over the killers, who they are still "interrogating."
Surprise surprise, these weren't Hamas operatives. They were
salary- earning members of the Palestinian Authority, paid for by
U.S. and European Union donations to Abu Maazen, the "good
Palestinian" as oppossed to the Hamas, who are terrorists and
"bad Palestinians," the ones we need to weaken by supporting Abu
Mazen and his gang of thugs.
The names of the murderers are: Omar Badar Ali-Halim Teha, a
resident of Hebron, 26, a "soldier" in the Palestinian National
Security Forces, and an active member of Fatah; Ali al Hamid
Regev Dindis, 24 a Hebron resident who is a clerk in the Sharia
court of the Palestinian authority, and also connected to the
Palestinian Secret service. The dead driver is 23 year olf Radil
Abdul Naim Natshe.
There are many conclusions to be drawn from this story. I will
leave you to draw them concerning the myths of making peace with
the Palestinian Authority.
Naomi Ragen
them in the elite of elite army units, both of them from
Rabbinical families, both of them living in Kiryat Arba, the
Jewish neighborhood of Hebron. Achikam Amichai and David Rubin
were out on leave from their IDF units, enjoying a well-earned
holiday. They decided this past Friday afternoon to take take a
little hike in their backyards. Their friend Naama Ohayon went
with them. It was a beautiful day, beautiful scenery, wild and
open, as it is in that part of the land of Israel. They passed
an Arab, who asked them for water. The boys gave it to him, then
waved goodbye and went on their way. A short while later,
alerted by the Palestinian they had shared water with, three
armed terrorists who had been lying in wait for an opportunity to
kill Israelis and steal their weapons, drove by and opened fire
on the three young people. Our boys, ambushed and badly
wounded, nevertheless, began firing, killing the terrorist driver
of the car. The other two terrorists then hopped out of the car,
put their guns at point blank range to the fatally injured boys
and fired. These "big heroes" then threw their dead comrade out
of car like so much garbage, and took off, back to Hebron where
they live. Hiding In the forest, Naama Ohayon, who had
miraculously escaped, used her cell phone to contact Israeli
security forces, who praised her unbelievable cool in the face of
the horror she had witnessed. Security forces rescued her, but
it was too late for the boys.
Meanwhile, Shimon Peres found time for a photo opportunity to
shake hands with a member of Abu Maazen's government who
expressed his "condolences." This, of course, before it became
known that the killers were Abu Maazen's paid employees.
According to Efrat Weiss, writing in YNET, sometime on Friday
evening, the Palestinian Authority started the rumor that it
wasn't a terrorist attack at all, but a "drug deal" gone bad.
This went all over the Israeli news, and you can just imagine how
the parents must have felt. Others said the boys had no right to
go hiking. (Right, let's all stay in our homes and quake.)
Meanwhile, the two murderers, fearing the IDF was closing in on
them, turned themselves over to Palestinian security forces, who
didn't say a word about this to the Israelis. However, when
Israeli security asked them pointedly to turn over the weapons
of the murderers and the victims, they did. But they didn't
turn over the killers, who they are still "interrogating."
Surprise surprise, these weren't Hamas operatives. They were
salary- earning members of the Palestinian Authority, paid for by
U.S. and European Union donations to Abu Maazen, the "good
Palestinian" as oppossed to the Hamas, who are terrorists and
"bad Palestinians," the ones we need to weaken by supporting Abu
Mazen and his gang of thugs.
The names of the murderers are: Omar Badar Ali-Halim Teha, a
resident of Hebron, 26, a "soldier" in the Palestinian National
Security Forces, and an active member of Fatah; Ali al Hamid
Regev Dindis, 24 a Hebron resident who is a clerk in the Sharia
court of the Palestinian authority, and also connected to the
Palestinian Secret service. The dead driver is 23 year olf Radil
Abdul Naim Natshe.
There are many conclusions to be drawn from this story. I will
leave you to draw them concerning the myths of making peace with
the Palestinian Authority.
Naomi Ragen
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