The world has gone nuts.
The Moshiach must be coming soon because everything is becoming upside down.
The US reports that High fructose Corn Sugar contains MERCURY. The FDA knew about it
2 years ago... The news came and went. MERCURY, that is serious poison and I hear nothing about General Mills or Kellogg's or Coke going back to sugar. Why?
When Jews don't fight back all is well, we are the scapegoats and the world uses us for all of their dirty deeds. Meir Kahane said ENOUGH. He fought back. Many people consider him in a negative way because he fought back. No matter what his methods...he fought back. Before Israel in 1946/47 did the Irgun and Palmach fight back against the British? Sure they wanted their country as promised. They were even willing to accept
a reduced version. But they fought to get it!
Israel now exists, are they willing to fight to keep it? Is the Galut ready to help?
How, I guess in the Galut fighting the propaganda war is the only way.
We need to defend Israel and fight for her every day!
Join the Eretz Yisrael Committee.
http://eycuny.blogspot.com/
Avi
February 28, 2009
February 27, 2009
The Fifth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week March 1 - 8, 2009
How does one fight groups such as this that collect the ignorant and misinformed.
These guys hold an annual "event". They want to brainwash people into believing that Israel has an apartheid system. They want to encourage boycott, divestment, and world sanctions against Israel.
Education about history and the current truth about Israel will combat this utter nonsense. These people must be Fatah, Hamas, Muslim sympathizers or worse.
Where does there funding come from? What is their real impetus?
I guess they are "people of the fence"
They are the enemy also!
http://apartheidweek.org/
These guys hold an annual "event". They want to brainwash people into believing that Israel has an apartheid system. They want to encourage boycott, divestment, and world sanctions against Israel.
Education about history and the current truth about Israel will combat this utter nonsense. These people must be Fatah, Hamas, Muslim sympathizers or worse.
Where does there funding come from? What is their real impetus?
I guess they are "people of the fence"
They are the enemy also!
http://apartheidweek.org/
February 25, 2009
Obama's Great Speech 02/24
Energy, Health Care and Education. Top issues that Obama seems to have a handle on.
The handle is that we all need to get together and figure out how to fix them. He claims to have cut over 2 Trillion dollars from the federal budget already.
He is ready to stabilize Iraq. He speaks beautifully.
The audacity of hope was on full display last night and is very convincing.
I wish him well and perhaps he won't turn out to be the Manchurian candidate after all.
The handle is that we all need to get together and figure out how to fix them. He claims to have cut over 2 Trillion dollars from the federal budget already.
He is ready to stabilize Iraq. He speaks beautifully.
The audacity of hope was on full display last night and is very convincing.
I wish him well and perhaps he won't turn out to be the Manchurian candidate after all.
The Deceits of Bridges TV
Killer and Victim..
The Deceits of Bridges TV
by Daniel Pipes - Jerusalem Post - February 25, 2009
On the occasion of its launch in 2004 from near Buffalo, New York, the Muslim television channel "Bridges TV" won the enthusiastic support of Secretary of State Colin Powell's media assistant, Stuart Holliday: "I laud your expression of interest in promoting understanding and tolerance." And so it went; Bridges TV also met with euphoric media coverage, uncritical academic reaction, and blessings from sports giants like Muhammad Ali and Hakeem Olajuwan.
Logo of Bridges TV.
From the start, however, Bridges TV amounted to a lie.
On the political level, its raison d'ĂȘtre was based on the canard that Muslims in the United States suffer from bias and are victimized. That idea took formal expression in 2000, when the Senate passed a resolution inveighing against the "discrimination" and "backlash" suffered by the American Muslim community, an insulting falsehood then and now.
On the ideological level, Bridges TV was a fraud, pretending to be moderate when it was just another member of the "Wahhabi lobby." Endorsed by some of the worst Islamist functionaries in the country (Nihad Awad, Ibrahim Hooper, Iqbal Yunus, Louay Safi), it was an extremist wolf disguised in moderate sheep's clothing.
On the financial level, Bridges TV marketed itself to investors on the basis of an imaginary population of 7 million-7.4 million U.S. Muslims, or 2-3 times the actual total, making the station commercially unviable from day one.
Finally, on the familial level, Bridges TV pretended to be based on what critic Zuhdi Jasser calls the "public marital partnership" of the station's first couple; Muzzammil ("Mo") Hassan proudly related how his wife Aasiya Z. Hassan spurred him to create Bridges TV. He was the hard-charging founder responsible for finances and marketing; she expressed her devotion to Islamic ideals and culture as the station's program director.
In fact, reports Aasiya's divorce attorney, the couple had "physical confrontations off and on" during their entire eight-year marriage and these recently escalated to Muzzammil issuing death threats. Salma Zubair, who says she is Aasiya's sister, writes that Aasiya "lived her 8 years of married life with fear."
Aasiya began divorce proceedings on the grounds of "cruel and inhuman treatment" and won an "Order of Protection" on Feb. 6 to force Muzzammil out of their shared house, enraging him; according to the local police chief, Muzzammil "came back to the residence and was pounding on doors and broke one window."
Muzzammil S. and Aasiya Z. Hassan in happier times.
On Feb. 12, the couple encountered each other at the television studio. At 6:20 p.m., Muzzammil went to the police and directed them where to find his wife's corpse. Officers found her body at the station in a hallway, decapitated and with multiple stab wounds. Detectives charged Muzzammil with murder and are looking for the knife used to kill her.
A reliable source informs me – and this is breaking news – that the police found Muzzammil repeatedly told his wife that she had no right, under Islamic law, to divorce him. They also quote him stating that Aasiya, because beheaded, cannot reach paradise.
Muzzammil's defense lawyer says his client will plead not guilty, presumably by reason of insanity.
A great battle looms ahead on how to interpret this crime, whether as domestic violence or honor killing. Supna Zaidi of Islamist Watch defines the latter as "the murder of a girl or woman who has allegedly committed an act that has shamed and embarrassed her family." Deeply alien to Westerners, this motive has paramount importance in traditional Muslim life.
In a Middle East Quarterly article, "Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?" feminist theorist Phyllis Chesler delineates eight differences between these two concepts, including the identities of perpetrator and victim, the circumstances of the murder, the degree of gratuitous violence, the killer's state of mind, and family responses.
Did Aasiya die in a crime of passion or to reinstate a family's reputation? Was the violence generic or specifically Muslim? The Islamic Society of North America opts for domestic violence while the National Organization for Women's New York State chapter sees an honor killing.
The crime at Bridges TV fits neither model exactly, suggesting we need more information to determine its exact nature. But as the forces of political correctness inevitably bear down to exclude an Islamic dimension to the murder, the motive of family reputation must be kept alive. Enough with the pleasant deceits – time has come to utter hard truths about Bridges TV.
Amnesty International is a London-based "Human Rights" group which operates in 150 countries. On Sunday night it issued a 38-page report after what one assumes was extensive research into the Gaza War. Thinking about what that research must have been like prompted me to do today's cartoon.
* * *
According to Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East director:
"As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights. The Obama administration should immediately suspend US military aid to Israel," -more
* * *
Your thoughts?
-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973
February 20, 2009
President Shimon Peres charges Binyamin Netanyahu with forming government
"The Basic Law: The Government obliges me to bestow the task of forming the government on one of the Knesset members within seven days of my receiving the official election results.
At the conclusion of the consultations, delegates representing 65 incoming Knesset members - a majority of the Knesset - recommended that I task MK Binyamin Netanyahu with forming the next government.
Therefore, in accordance with the authority vested in me by the Basic Law: the Government, I have decided to bestow the task of forming the next government on MK Binyamin Netanyahu, while noting that a majority of the delegatoins expressed their wish that the government formed will be a broad government, and requesting that this desire be taken into account in the forming of the government.
I hope that the process will be completed quickly. The people of Israel need governmental and political stability so that we will be able to cope with the challenges before us."
(Israel Ministr of Foreign Affairs)
Anti-Semitism is
Historians have classified six explanations as to why people hate the Jews:
1) Economic - "We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power."
2) Chosen People - "We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people."
3) Scapegoat - "Jews are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles."
4) Deicide - "We hate Jews because they killed Jesus."
5) Outsiders - "We hate Jews because they are different than us." (The dislike of the unlike.)
6) Racial Theory - "We hate Jews because they are an inferior race."
As we examine the explanations, we must ask - Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the "cause" is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let's look at some contradictions:
1) Economic - The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated.
2) Chosen People - a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied "Chosenness." And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the "Chosen people," yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.
3) Scapegoat - Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat. The Scapegoat Theory does not then cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient scapegoat target. Hitler's rantings and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said, "It's the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society."
4) Deicide - a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). Why are the accomplices persecuted and there isn't an anti-Roman movement throughout history? b) Jesus himself said, "Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do." The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism.
5) Outsiders - With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: "We hate you, not because you're different, but because you're trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes."
6) Racial Theory - The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew – and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.
Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. We Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race – but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. We are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness – and, when we do assimilate – for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. We are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that we just can't win.
1) Economic - "We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power."
2) Chosen People - "We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people."
3) Scapegoat - "Jews are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles."
4) Deicide - "We hate Jews because they killed Jesus."
5) Outsiders - "We hate Jews because they are different than us." (The dislike of the unlike.)
6) Racial Theory - "We hate Jews because they are an inferior race."
As we examine the explanations, we must ask - Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the "cause" is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let's look at some contradictions:
1) Economic - The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated.
2) Chosen People - a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied "Chosenness." And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the "Chosen people," yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.
3) Scapegoat - Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat. The Scapegoat Theory does not then cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient scapegoat target. Hitler's rantings and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said, "It's the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society."
4) Deicide - a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). Why are the accomplices persecuted and there isn't an anti-Roman movement throughout history? b) Jesus himself said, "Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do." The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism.
5) Outsiders - With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: "We hate you, not because you're different, but because you're trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes."
6) Racial Theory - The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew – and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.
Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. We Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race – but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. We are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness – and, when we do assimilate – for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. We are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that we just can't win.
February 19, 2009
Lieberman Breaks Suspense: Recommends Netanyahu
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Ending nine days of guessing around the country, Avigdor Lieberman, enjoying the kingmaker role as head of Israel’s third-largest party, recommends that Binyamin Netanyahu form the country’s next government.
In his meeting with President Shimon Peres Thursday morning , the head of Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) added that this recommendation applies only if Netanyahu tries to form a national unity government with Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu. This part of his recommendation, however, carries no official weight.
For the rest....
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130032
February 18, 2009
A Jewish Solution to the Conflict*
In December 2008, former IDF Chief of Staff L. Gen. Moshe Yaalon published a policy paper “Israel and the Palestinians: A New Strategy.” Yaalon’s plan requires a democratic metamorphosis of the Palestinian Authority. Needed first, he says, is economic prosperity among the Palestinians to produce a middle class society inclined to moderation, the rule of law, and peace—precondition of responsible self-government. Israelis and Palestinians will then arrive at a peaceful settlement of their conflict.
Caroline Glick agrees. In her Jerusalem Post article “The Israeli solution” (February 2, 2009), she says, “It is obvious today that for the Palestinians to develop into a society that may be capable of statehood in the long term, they require a period of a generation or two to rebuild their society in a peaceful way.”
Yaalon and Glick need to think again. To expect Israel to implement “The Israeli solution” when the average duration of its government is less than two years and when its cabinet consists of five or more rival political parties is hardly realistic. Any solution to the conflict must be preceded by basic reform of Israel’s governing institutions. Of course, institutions, however well-designed, do not guarantee wisdom and virtue. Nevertheless, if well-designed, they increase the probability of obtaining the quality of government needed to solve the conflict. Here is a summary of what I propose:
Parliament. The parliament will be bicameral. Its two functions, law-making and administrative overview, will be divided between two assemblies, a Senate and a House of Representatives. To anticipate objections to a second branch of parliament without law-making power, let’s compare it with the existing Knesset.
Roughly 25 percent of the Knesset’s 120 members are cabinet ministers and deputy ministers. Since they are party leaders, the Knesset is incapable of exercising the important function of administrative overview—which is why corruption in government is so widespread in Israel. In contrast, members of my proposed House of Representatives will be excluded from the cabinet. They will be free to determine whether the laws are being faithfully and efficiently administered—and they will have subpoena powers to grill the bureaucracy.
The Government. A presidential system will replace Israel’s inept and unstable system of multi-party cabinet government. The cabinet will consist of professionals, not rival party leaders.
The Supreme Court. Judges will be nominated by the President (advised by a council learned in Jewish and secular law). Nominations will be confirmed by the Senate in public hearings. Consistent with the Foundation of Law Act 1980, Jewish law will be first among equals vis-Ă -vis the foreign legal systems currently used by the Court.
If it would take one or two generations to democratize the Palestinian Authority, surely it would take less than a year or another election to change Israel’s system of governance, since more than 50 percent of the public is more or less disgusted with Israel’s corrupt as well as undemocratic political and judicial institutions.
Now, it must be emphasized that the Yaalon plan, or what Glick calls “The Israeli solution,” endorses an eventual Arab-Muslim state in Judea and Samaria. I categorically reject such a state both on Jewish and geo-strategic grounds. It is utterly unrealistic to expect Arab to forgo their religion and become bourgeois democrats. There is no evidence whatever to expect economic prosperity to trump Islam, especially while Islam is achieving global power. I therefore contend that Israel’s only realistic alternative is to destroy the PA and the entire terrorist network west of the Jordan River.
Genuine realism requires a theological understanding of the enemy. Genuine realists know that territorial compromise with Muslims only whets their appetite for further aggression. Genuine realists know there are no empirical grounds to expect Muslims to renounce Jihadism—the precondition of peace—unless they are so devastated as to expunge their desire to wage war for a hundred years—as the Allied powers did to Nazi Germany.
Israel, especially Jerusalem, is the focus of Islam’s war against the West. The West is steeped in denial. Israel must awaken the West by going on the offensive. It must destroy the terrorist network west of the River Jordan. But as I have indicated, this goal requires basic reform of Israel’s political system whose fragmented and transient nature precludes the execution of any coherent and long-term national strategy.
In the final analysis, the only way to solve Israel’s conflict with its Arab enemies—and this includes its own Arab citizens—is to make Israel more Jewish. The institutional reforms I have proposed will contribute very much to this objective because they will empower the people, most of whom are to the right of Israel’s ruling elites. The February 10 election witnessed the political power of Israel’s right-minded public, which would become even more united and effective under my proposed system of governance. Nor is this all.
We need leaders who understand that it is precisely the failure of Jews to insist on their God-given and exclusive ownership of the Land of Israel that encourages Arabs to persist in their war against our people. Since the goal of the Arabs—depicted in their maps—is to conquer all of Palestine, a rational government of Israel should adopt the following course of action:
1. Abrogate the Oslo Agreement and eliminate the entire terrorist leadership. This will demoralize the Arabs. No Arab leadership will speedily arise and command the loyalty of the artificial collection of rival clans called the “Palestinians.”
2. With the PA destroyed, Israel’s Government should declare Jewish sovereignty over Yesha. (The Arabs in these areas will retain the personal, religious, and economic rights they enjoyed under Israeli law, but they will not vote in Israeli elections.)
3. The Government should establish unequivocal jurisdiction over the Temple Mount.
4. It should move certain cabinet ministries to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. (This will convince Arabs that the Jews intend to remain in these areas permanently.)
5. The Government should pass a Homestead Act and sell small plots of land in Yesha at low prices to Jews in Israel and abroad with the proviso that they settle on the land, say for a period of six years. This would diminish the dangerous population density of Israel’s large cities and encourage Jewish immigration to Israel.
6. Develop model cities in Yesha by attracting foreign capital investment on terms favorable to the investors. Based on experience, and given Israel’s present Gross Domestic Product of $170 billion, at least 150,000 Jews could be settled in Judea and Samaria within a few years. Their presence will prompt many more Arabs to leave, as tens of thousands have done in the past, and in greater number if offered generous incentives.
As concerns Israel’s itself, I advocate the following measures:
1. The Law of Return should make explicit that Israel is a Jewish commonwealth, that its Jewish character is its paramount principle to which all other principles are subordinate.
2. Amend the “grandfather clause” of the Law of Return to diminish the number of gentile immigrants, and devote the vast sums saved to assimilate gentiles now residing in Israel.
3. Enforce Basic Law: The Knesset, which prohibits any party that negates the Jewish character of the State
4. Enforce the 1952 Citizenship Law, which empowers the Government to nullify the citizenship of any Israel national that commits “an act of disloyalty to the State.” (I would amend the term “act” to protect freedom of speech and press.)
5. Put an end to the notorious tax evasion of Arab citizens and their countless violations of building and zoning laws.
6. Terminate subsidies to, or expel, Arab university students who call for Israel’s destruction, and require Arab schools to include Jewish studies in their curriculum.
7. Phase out U.S. military aid to Israel (now less than 1.5% of the country’s GDP), as well as American participation in Israel-Arab affairs. Both undermine Israel’s strategic interests as well as Jewish national pride.
Of course, this is a grandiose project. But the Yaalon strategy is a strategy of retreat and Jewish self-effacement. It would yield much of Israel’s heartland to the Arabs. It would require the expulsion of more than 100,000 Jews from their homes. It would discourage aliya and prompt many Jews to leave Israel and thus lead to the termination of the one and only Jewish homeland.
Yes, my Jewish solution to the conflict is grandiose, and it’s not designed for “men without chests.” But the Jewish people, though few in number, revolutionized humanity. Inspired by the Torah, we can do it again.
_____________________
*Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, February 16, 2009.
Scapegoat time?
The stock markets are reeling. Unemployment is on the rise.
When is it time to ask:
Will the world turn to the Jews to blame ....once again?
As the economies grind to a halt and people lose homes and
life savings will the fascists, communists and anti-Semites
come out of the closet full bore?
As world governments scramble to keep power, will they turn to
favorite distraction?
This situation is post gold toilet. In the past the world had
to hate Jews on their own, now they have the fossil fuel slum
lords to finance their dirty work.
The real test of "diversity" is a recession leading to a depression.
The term recession describes the reduction of a country's gross domestic product for at least two quarters.
A depression is a recession that lasts longer and has a larger decline in business activity. The yardstick of a depression for many is an economic downturn where real GDP declines by more than 10 percent.
It can’t happen here? If the economy continues to dwindle, the haters will be out in force. They will use the Internet and every means possible to push their anti agenda. Every minority group need fear being blamed for :
bad economy, unemployment, bank failures, oil prices, food shortages, house foreclosures and so on. The USA has to now watch it's back as well as defend itself against international terrorism.
Once the USA loses the Democratic principle it was founded on and for, she will
become a very large banana republic. The bribes and graft are already happening.
The answer....
Aliyah: Live the dream. Next year we could be in Jerusalem!
These guys will help!!
The mission of Nefesh B’Nefesh is to revitalize Western Aliyah and expand it for generations to come, by removing the financial, professional and bureaucratic obstacles that are preventing many potential Olim from fulfilling their dreams. In the process, we hope to send an unmistakable signal of Jewish solidarity linking Israel and the Diaspora.
Nefesh B’Nefesh provides Aliyah services in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
http://www.nbn.org.il/nbn_corp/mission.htm
February 17, 2009
Egyptians use Stimulus Package to Build New Pyramids
by Shmuel Savage
Public Works Unseen Since 1070 BCE
With the Egyptian economy crumbling under the weight of the global financial crisis - the Egyptian Dinar has depreciated dramatically against the US dollar, the bottom has fallen out of the global goat meat trade and the mummy market has been dormant for centuries - the Egyptian government has announced that it is undertaking a "massive public works project unseen since Pharaoh Khufu." At a hastily called press conference in Cairo, Egyptian Finance Minister, Youssef Boutros-Ghali, announced that the government "could not stand idly by, as it has since the New Kingdom ended in 1070 BCE, waiting for the economy to cure itself".
Using flipcharts, Boutros-Ghali detailed his plan to spend $21 billion dollars, creating "four new pyramids and a sphinx," one pyramid outside of Cairo, one in Abu Sur and two in Saqqara (stating that Saqarra had been heavily "goat meat dependant), with the sphinx's location yet to be determined. Boutros-Ghali stated, "Egypt is legendary for its public works, but we have been really coasting on that reputation since we built Amenemhat III." The most stunning announcement is that the pyramid in Giza will be two times the size of the existing Great Pyramid of Giza and will be called, "An Even Greater Pyramid of Giza."
Jewlarious sister station, Al Jewlarious, interviewed several Egyptians, many of whom publicly praised the plan out of fear of retribution against themselves and their friends and families, but quietly showed concern. A Cairo based shopkeeper who asked to remain anonymous, felt that the money should have gone toward a bailout of the antiquated camel transportation industry; meanwhile, an Alexandria-based spice-merchant feared that the funds would ultimately be diverted from the pyramids and "just go to bonuses for irresponsible stone-cutters".
for the rest go to http://www.aish.com/jewlariousFunnyStuff/jewlariousFunnyStuffDefault/Egyptians_use_Stimulus_Package_to_.asp
February 16, 2009
BB or Livni?
Is there a difference?
Which will not divide the land or offer land for peace?
Which will not discontinue the "settlements"?
Which will not be a pawn of Obama's?
I am sorry to say that both will!
Avigdor
February 15, 2009
Learning Hebrew... Online Study Group?
So years ago I started with a Temple course Hebrew for praying. To understand what the prayers meant etc. Then I started Modern Hebrew with my Brother in Laws book from (Lewittes) 1966 and have done some , but the problem is the retention of the Vocabulary.. Every time I stop for a little while it seems I have to go back nearly to the start. I really wanted to find or start a club of self starters who could read Hebrew, to learn vocab and conversation...but so far no luck. I have the Pimsleur method as well as 3 or 4 others...
Any ideas? Know of any basic study groups?
February 13, 2009
Moral Blindness on Gaza
By Alan M. Dershowitz FrontPageMagazine.com February 04, 2009
Bill Moyers holds himself out to be a moral arbiteur, based in large part on
his commitment to Christian principles. Cardinal Renato Martino is a prince
of the Catholic church and President of the Council for Justice and Peace.
Former President Jimmy Carter preaches peace, based on the teachings of
Jesus. Yet when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, all three
are morally blind.
In a widely watched television assessment of the recent conflict in Gaza,
here is what Moyers said: "By killing indiscriminately the elderly, kids,
entire families, by destroying schools and hospitals, Israel did exactly
what terrorists do…" (emphasis added) Of course he also included the
obligatory hedge that: "Every nation has the right to defend its people."
Cardinal Martino went even further, making an obscene and historically
ignorant, comparison between Israel's self-defense actions against rockets
fired by Hamas at Israeli children, and the Nazi genocide against the Jews
during the Holocaust. He said that the conditions in Gaza "resembles a big
concentration camp." Concentration camps, of course, were places where Jews were held until they could be processed through the machinery of death, as part of a massive genocidal program that willfully murdered 6 million Jews. Any comparison
between Israel's action in Gaza and those of Nazis during the Holocaust is
not only obscene, it is blatantly anti-Semitic, which is supposed to be a
sin under Vatican law. (It is apparently not, however, a sin for a Catholic
bishop to deny that the Holocaust occurred at all, since Bishop Richard
Williamson of Great Britain was welcomed back into the Catholic church after
claiming that there were no gas chambers and that the Jews are lying when
they say that 6 million of them were killed, when according to that bigot in
robes, a mere 300,000 Jews died during the entire Holocaust. The batty
bishop—who, like the Taliban, opposes higher education for women—also
believes that no airplanes were involved in the 9/11 attack and that the
buildings were blown up by explosives and rockets, presumably set and fired
by the United States and Israel.)
An essential aspect of Christian teaching, and especially of Catholic
teaching, is the important principle that distinguishes between
intentionally killing an innocent person, and unintentionally killing an
innocent person in the process of legitimately trying to prevent harm to
one's self or others. This concept, known as the principle of double effect,
is central to Catholic theology. It traces its roots to Thomas Aquinas and
has had enormous influence on moral thinking not only within the Catholic
Church, but throughout Christianity and indeed in the secular world as well.
Understanding and complying with this principle may literally mean the
difference between eternal damnation and eternal salvation. That's how
important it is.
Except, apparently, when it comes to the Jewish state of Israel. Then
suddenly moral blindness makes it impossible for church authorities to see, understand or apply this principle. Cardinal Martino is not the first church leader to try to create moral equivalence between the actions of Hamas in willfully and proudly trying to kill as many Jewish children, women and other civilians as possible, and the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces
in trying to stop them from killing Jewish children, while inadvertently
killing some Palestinian civilians who are used as human shields by Hamas.
The Pope himself has been guilty of invoking such moral equivalence between
these very different actions. Indeed it is fair to say that the Vatican's
entire approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict has been to suggest a false
moral equivalence.
Church leaders know better. They understand precisely what they are doing.
They are making utilitarian, pragmatic and very anti-Catholic cynical
judgments calculated to bolster the influence of The Church in the Middle
East. It might be understandable for secular nations to act in so amoral, if
not immoral, a manner, but it is entirely unacceptable for the Catholic
church, which eschews utilitarianism and preaches moral consistency and
absolutism to act in so cynical a way.
This is especially troubling, because the church tends to forget its own
teachings primarily when it deals with the Jewish people and the Jewish
state. Its long history of discrimination and bigotry against Jews, slaughtering entire Jewish communities on the way to the Crusades, murdering entire Jewish communities during the inquisitions, fomenting pogroms, and signing a pact with Hitler during the Holocaust—should make it even more concerned about applying a double standard of morality to the Jewish state. But that's exactly what it does. And then it complains when critics point to this obvious double standard.
This abuse of great Christian teaching is not limited to the Catholic
church.
Bill Moyers and Jimmy Carter both hold themselves out as exemplary
Protestants, whose morality drives from the teachings of Jesus. Yet they too
create false moral equivalence between willful murder, and self-defense that
sometimes results in accidental killings because Hamas deliberately uses
human shields in order to make it impossible for Israel to defend its own
civilians without occasionally killing Palestinian civilians. How else could
one read Moyers statement that what Israel did "was exactly what terrorists do." Exactly? Well not exactly! Not even close. As different as anything could be based on principles that Moyers' espouses in other contexts. Listen to a leading military expert—retired British Colonel Richard Kemp, who concluded, based on his extensive experience, that there has been "no time
in the history of warfare when an Army has made more efforts to reduce
civilian casualties…than [the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza]." Is that
"exactly what terrorists do," Mr. Moyers?
Jimmy Carter is even worse. He doesn't even see moral equivalence. He blames everything on Israel. Jimmy Carter should look in the mirror more often and he will see that he himself bears much of the blame for the death and destruction that he deplores. In his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he says it would have been "suicidal" for Yasser Arafat to accept the
generous offer made by Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak at Camp David in Taba.
Remember that that offer included independent statehood for the Palestinian
people on all of the Gaza and 97% of the West Bank, an end to all Jewish
settlements, no checkpoints, a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and a
$35 billion refugee reparation package.
Think for a moment of what Carter is saying when he warns that any
Palestinian leader who might accept such an offer would be assassinated.
What is he saying about the Palestinian people? That they will never accept
peace without violence? That they will always kill their leaders who make
peace with Israel, as the Muslim brotherhood murdered Anwar Sadat of Egypt,
and as Muslim extremists killed the first King Abdullah of Jordan. Whether
he advised Yassir Arafat before the fact to reject the Camp David offer,
which the evidence strongly suggests, or whether he is merely making that
suggestions to future Palestinian leaders, he has clearly become a barrier
to peace. If he in fact told Arafat to reject the offer, then he is an
important contributing cause to the current crisis.
The sad reality is that religious doctrines are as easily manipulated by
cynical churchmen as anything Thomas Bentham ever proposed in the name of
utilitarianism.
Bill Moyers ended a letter to the New York Times in which he defended his
moral equivalency statement by saying that to be indifferent to suffering is
"to be as blind as Sampson in Gaza." No, Mr. Moyers, to be indifferent to
the crucial difference between what terrorists do, namely try to kill as
many civilians as possible from behind human shields, and what democracies
such as Israel and the United States do, namely try to stop terrorists from
killing with the minimum possible injury to civilians, is truly to be
"eyeless in Gaza."
________________________________________
Alan M. Dershowitz is a Professor of Law at Harvard. His most recent book
The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who
Stand In The Way of Peace is being published by Wiley at the end of this
month.
Bill Moyers holds himself out to be a moral arbiteur, based in large part on
his commitment to Christian principles. Cardinal Renato Martino is a prince
of the Catholic church and President of the Council for Justice and Peace.
Former President Jimmy Carter preaches peace, based on the teachings of
Jesus. Yet when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, all three
are morally blind.
In a widely watched television assessment of the recent conflict in Gaza,
here is what Moyers said: "By killing indiscriminately the elderly, kids,
entire families, by destroying schools and hospitals, Israel did exactly
what terrorists do…" (emphasis added) Of course he also included the
obligatory hedge that: "Every nation has the right to defend its people."
Cardinal Martino went even further, making an obscene and historically
ignorant, comparison between Israel's self-defense actions against rockets
fired by Hamas at Israeli children, and the Nazi genocide against the Jews
during the Holocaust. He said that the conditions in Gaza "resembles a big
concentration camp." Concentration camps, of course, were places where Jews were held until they could be processed through the machinery of death, as part of a massive genocidal program that willfully murdered 6 million Jews. Any comparison
between Israel's action in Gaza and those of Nazis during the Holocaust is
not only obscene, it is blatantly anti-Semitic, which is supposed to be a
sin under Vatican law. (It is apparently not, however, a sin for a Catholic
bishop to deny that the Holocaust occurred at all, since Bishop Richard
Williamson of Great Britain was welcomed back into the Catholic church after
claiming that there were no gas chambers and that the Jews are lying when
they say that 6 million of them were killed, when according to that bigot in
robes, a mere 300,000 Jews died during the entire Holocaust. The batty
bishop—who, like the Taliban, opposes higher education for women—also
believes that no airplanes were involved in the 9/11 attack and that the
buildings were blown up by explosives and rockets, presumably set and fired
by the United States and Israel.)
An essential aspect of Christian teaching, and especially of Catholic
teaching, is the important principle that distinguishes between
intentionally killing an innocent person, and unintentionally killing an
innocent person in the process of legitimately trying to prevent harm to
one's self or others. This concept, known as the principle of double effect,
is central to Catholic theology. It traces its roots to Thomas Aquinas and
has had enormous influence on moral thinking not only within the Catholic
Church, but throughout Christianity and indeed in the secular world as well.
Understanding and complying with this principle may literally mean the
difference between eternal damnation and eternal salvation. That's how
important it is.
Except, apparently, when it comes to the Jewish state of Israel. Then
suddenly moral blindness makes it impossible for church authorities to see, understand or apply this principle. Cardinal Martino is not the first church leader to try to create moral equivalence between the actions of Hamas in willfully and proudly trying to kill as many Jewish children, women and other civilians as possible, and the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces
in trying to stop them from killing Jewish children, while inadvertently
killing some Palestinian civilians who are used as human shields by Hamas.
The Pope himself has been guilty of invoking such moral equivalence between
these very different actions. Indeed it is fair to say that the Vatican's
entire approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict has been to suggest a false
moral equivalence.
Church leaders know better. They understand precisely what they are doing.
They are making utilitarian, pragmatic and very anti-Catholic cynical
judgments calculated to bolster the influence of The Church in the Middle
East. It might be understandable for secular nations to act in so amoral, if
not immoral, a manner, but it is entirely unacceptable for the Catholic
church, which eschews utilitarianism and preaches moral consistency and
absolutism to act in so cynical a way.
This is especially troubling, because the church tends to forget its own
teachings primarily when it deals with the Jewish people and the Jewish
state. Its long history of discrimination and bigotry against Jews, slaughtering entire Jewish communities on the way to the Crusades, murdering entire Jewish communities during the inquisitions, fomenting pogroms, and signing a pact with Hitler during the Holocaust—should make it even more concerned about applying a double standard of morality to the Jewish state. But that's exactly what it does. And then it complains when critics point to this obvious double standard.
This abuse of great Christian teaching is not limited to the Catholic
church.
Bill Moyers and Jimmy Carter both hold themselves out as exemplary
Protestants, whose morality drives from the teachings of Jesus. Yet they too
create false moral equivalence between willful murder, and self-defense that
sometimes results in accidental killings because Hamas deliberately uses
human shields in order to make it impossible for Israel to defend its own
civilians without occasionally killing Palestinian civilians. How else could
one read Moyers statement that what Israel did "was exactly what terrorists do." Exactly? Well not exactly! Not even close. As different as anything could be based on principles that Moyers' espouses in other contexts. Listen to a leading military expert—retired British Colonel Richard Kemp, who concluded, based on his extensive experience, that there has been "no time
in the history of warfare when an Army has made more efforts to reduce
civilian casualties…than [the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza]." Is that
"exactly what terrorists do," Mr. Moyers?
Jimmy Carter is even worse. He doesn't even see moral equivalence. He blames everything on Israel. Jimmy Carter should look in the mirror more often and he will see that he himself bears much of the blame for the death and destruction that he deplores. In his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he says it would have been "suicidal" for Yasser Arafat to accept the
generous offer made by Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak at Camp David in Taba.
Remember that that offer included independent statehood for the Palestinian
people on all of the Gaza and 97% of the West Bank, an end to all Jewish
settlements, no checkpoints, a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and a
$35 billion refugee reparation package.
Think for a moment of what Carter is saying when he warns that any
Palestinian leader who might accept such an offer would be assassinated.
What is he saying about the Palestinian people? That they will never accept
peace without violence? That they will always kill their leaders who make
peace with Israel, as the Muslim brotherhood murdered Anwar Sadat of Egypt,
and as Muslim extremists killed the first King Abdullah of Jordan. Whether
he advised Yassir Arafat before the fact to reject the Camp David offer,
which the evidence strongly suggests, or whether he is merely making that
suggestions to future Palestinian leaders, he has clearly become a barrier
to peace. If he in fact told Arafat to reject the offer, then he is an
important contributing cause to the current crisis.
The sad reality is that religious doctrines are as easily manipulated by
cynical churchmen as anything Thomas Bentham ever proposed in the name of
utilitarianism.
Bill Moyers ended a letter to the New York Times in which he defended his
moral equivalency statement by saying that to be indifferent to suffering is
"to be as blind as Sampson in Gaza." No, Mr. Moyers, to be indifferent to
the crucial difference between what terrorists do, namely try to kill as
many civilians as possible from behind human shields, and what democracies
such as Israel and the United States do, namely try to stop terrorists from
killing with the minimum possible injury to civilians, is truly to be
"eyeless in Gaza."
________________________________________
Alan M. Dershowitz is a Professor of Law at Harvard. His most recent book
The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who
Stand In The Way of Peace is being published by Wiley at the end of this
month.
February 12, 2009
During War there are Elections...
Israel just had elections and as usual there were as many opinions cast as
votes.
Kadima is one ahead of Likud, but the right has 10 more than the Left.
So who has the right to start to try to form a coalition government first?
Which has the right? what part does Shimon Peres play in that choice?
The mandate away from Kadima seems clear. If BB forms a Government does he have any more of a backbone than Zippy? Does it matter? Will the US influence Israel more or less through either candidate? Does Lieberman retain the leverage to decide?
Where is the candidate that wants to protect Eretz Yisrael alone?
Perhaps the longer this dispute lasts, the better Israel is for it.
What about the WAR? Gilad Shalit? The Rockets? The Arabs are still building.
We are still not able to go on the Temple Mount. We are still not able to visit Israel from the Galut without bodyguards and bullet proof vehicles.
Where in Israel are the #$%^ Arabs not safe?
When the student in Israel from DC left the walled city and got lost he was knived and lucky to survive...because he asked for directions in Hebrew ...while in Israel! This has to stop. The Arabs need to feel threatened, because the Jews will never feel safe until the Arabs are out!
No peace is possible, no land for peace!
The Israeli people need to follow a NGO to power. Leadership needs to come from the people!
Check out The Eretz Yisrael Committee
http://www.eycuny.blogspot.com/
Avi
votes.
Kadima is one ahead of Likud, but the right has 10 more than the Left.
So who has the right to start to try to form a coalition government first?
Which has the right? what part does Shimon Peres play in that choice?
The mandate away from Kadima seems clear. If BB forms a Government does he have any more of a backbone than Zippy? Does it matter? Will the US influence Israel more or less through either candidate? Does Lieberman retain the leverage to decide?
Where is the candidate that wants to protect Eretz Yisrael alone?
Perhaps the longer this dispute lasts, the better Israel is for it.
What about the WAR? Gilad Shalit? The Rockets? The Arabs are still building.
We are still not able to go on the Temple Mount. We are still not able to visit Israel from the Galut without bodyguards and bullet proof vehicles.
Where in Israel are the #$%^ Arabs not safe?
When the student in Israel from DC left the walled city and got lost he was knived and lucky to survive...because he asked for directions in Hebrew ...while in Israel! This has to stop. The Arabs need to feel threatened, because the Jews will never feel safe until the Arabs are out!
No peace is possible, no land for peace!
The Israeli people need to follow a NGO to power. Leadership needs to come from the people!
Check out The Eretz Yisrael Committee
http://www.eycuny.blogspot.com/
Avi
February 11, 2009
Who Won in Israel's Elections?
Tzipi Livni, the head of the Kadima party, can credibly claim victory in the elections on Tuesday because her party won the most seats. Binyamin Netanyahu of the Likud party can also claim victory as the head of the largest party in the larger of the two coalitions, the national camp.
But the real winner was the politically and personally unpredictable figure, Avigdor Lieberman, 50, of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. A Moldovan immigrant who started his career in Likud and as then served as director-general of Netanyahu's prime ministerial office, he founded Yisrael Beiteinu in 1999.
Lieberman has introduced a new issue into Israeli domestic politics – the place of the country's Arab citizens. Noting their increasingly public disloyalty to the state, he has argued that they should lose their citizenship and their right to live in Israel unless they declare their loyalty to the Jewish state.
This topic has clearly struck a nerve among the Israeli Jewish electorate and prompted responsible Arab voices to acknowledge that Israeli Arabs have "managed to make the Jewish public hate us." As I wrote in 2006, Israel's "final enemy" may finally, be joining the battle. The consequences of this for the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole could well be profound.
The Race is On: Kadima, Likud, Woo Lieberman for Coalition
by Hana Levi Julian
(IsraelNN.com) The heads of the two leading parties, Kadima and Likud, have begun efforts to court the heads of the next two largest parties, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) and Shas, as they race against time to form competing government coalitions.
Neither party emerged a clear winner in Tuesday's election, with Kadima winning only one mandate more than Likud – a slim majority that may well disappear after the votes are counted from soldiers, hospital shut-ins and members of the diplomatic corps abroad.
Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni met Wednesday with top party officials Chaim Ramon, Meir Sheetrit, Dalia Itzik, Tzachi HaNegbi and Avi Dichter to decide what to offer Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman as enticement to join forces. The five officials will comprise Kadima's coalition negotiating team.
Livni spoke with Lieberman early Wednesday afternoon at her office in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem after meeting first with Meretz party chairman Chaim Oron. The dovish Meretz faction dropped to three Knesset seats after the polls closed. Yisrael Beiteinu, meanwhile, became the third largest party after receiving 15 mandates at the polls.
At the same time, Likud chairman MK Binyamin Netanyahu was meeting with the head of the Shas Sephardic religious party, Eli Yishai, to negotiate support for his Likud-led coalition.
Netanyahu is not wasting any time and has moved up his meeting with Lieberman, scheduled for Thursday, to later in the day on Wednesday to discuss the Likud's proposal for Yisrael Beiteinu to join a Likud-led coalition. Professor Yaakov Ne'eman will head the Likud's negotiating team, said Netanyahu.
Final election results won't be posted until February 18, after all the votes from soldiers and Foreign Service personnel are counted. President Shimon Peres will not begin coalition talks with political party heads until all of the results are clear, said his spokeswoman, Ayelet Frish.
(IsraelNN.com) The heads of the two leading parties, Kadima and Likud, have begun efforts to court the heads of the next two largest parties, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) and Shas, as they race against time to form competing government coalitions.
Neither party emerged a clear winner in Tuesday's election, with Kadima winning only one mandate more than Likud – a slim majority that may well disappear after the votes are counted from soldiers, hospital shut-ins and members of the diplomatic corps abroad.
Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni met Wednesday with top party officials Chaim Ramon, Meir Sheetrit, Dalia Itzik, Tzachi HaNegbi and Avi Dichter to decide what to offer Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman as enticement to join forces. The five officials will comprise Kadima's coalition negotiating team.
Livni spoke with Lieberman early Wednesday afternoon at her office in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem after meeting first with Meretz party chairman Chaim Oron. The dovish Meretz faction dropped to three Knesset seats after the polls closed. Yisrael Beiteinu, meanwhile, became the third largest party after receiving 15 mandates at the polls.
At the same time, Likud chairman MK Binyamin Netanyahu was meeting with the head of the Shas Sephardic religious party, Eli Yishai, to negotiate support for his Likud-led coalition.
Netanyahu is not wasting any time and has moved up his meeting with Lieberman, scheduled for Thursday, to later in the day on Wednesday to discuss the Likud's proposal for Yisrael Beiteinu to join a Likud-led coalition. Professor Yaakov Ne'eman will head the Likud's negotiating team, said Netanyahu.
Final election results won't be posted until February 18, after all the votes from soldiers and Foreign Service personnel are counted. President Shimon Peres will not begin coalition talks with political party heads until all of the results are clear, said his spokeswoman, Ayelet Frish.
Victory for National Camp - Harsh blow to the left
From the Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) Email
Dear Friends,
So, let's make some order to those confusing election results:
Even before we have the results of the soldiers (who usually add mandates to the right) we can be pleased to see that the national camp has a clear victory:
NATIONAL CAMP
Likud 27
Lieberman 15
Shas 11
Yahadut haTora 5
Ichud Leumi 4
Bayit Yehudi 3
TOTAL 65
LEFTIST CAMP
Kadima 28
Labor 13
Meretz 3
TOTAL 44
ARABS 11
Clearly a victory for the National camp.
The questions are:
* Will Bibi be the national leader that will have the guts to fulfill the will of the majority of the Jewish People and create a national government of 65 mandates??
* Will Lieberman stay to the right or will the left do what they did to Ariel Sharon and threaten him by saying: "If you go with Bibi we will make sure to convince the State prosecution to prosecute you on all your criminal cases, but if you go with Livni and help her advance her platform, we will close all criminal files against you."
* If Lieberman caves in to the leftist pressures and threats and is willing to join with Livni, Livni would still need more mandates. That is when she would turn to Yahadut HaTora, Bayit Yehudi and Shas. Will those three parties stay firm and stick to the will of the majority (i.e. stay to the right) or will they betray their voters and agree to sit with Livni in return for monetary compensation?
In summary:
If, hopefully, Lieberman, Bayit Yehudi, Shas and Yahadut haTora stay loyal to the will of their voters and stay to the right, it will be Bibi who will be Prime Minister.
The next few days will tell. We live in interesting times....
One more addition:
To all those who were worried that Ichud leumi and Bayit Yehudi would take away from Likud, now you can stop worrying. The results show that exactly the opposite happened. Ichud Leumi-Mafdal used to be nine. Now we are a total of seven. Two mandates went to Likud or to Lieberman and that is a pity. Had Ichud Leumi won another two mandates, Bibi would have been even more dependent on us and there would be an even greater chance that Bibi would be PM.
But, we must admit that after the vitriolic defamation campaign against the Ichud Leumi, especially by Bayit Yehudi and Makor Rishon newspaper, the fact that Ichud Leumi got four mandates is in itself a great achievement.
We are now waiting to hear what the results are in the soldiers vote.
May we continue to hear good news.
Nadia Matar
Women in Green
------------------------------------------------------------
Hear it from the Left:
Meretz Chairman: Left suffered hard blow
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3669870,00.html
To read Arutz 7 in English describing the results
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129888
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
http://www.womeningreen.org
Dear Friends,
So, let's make some order to those confusing election results:
Even before we have the results of the soldiers (who usually add mandates to the right) we can be pleased to see that the national camp has a clear victory:
NATIONAL CAMP
Likud 27
Lieberman 15
Shas 11
Yahadut haTora 5
Ichud Leumi 4
Bayit Yehudi 3
TOTAL 65
LEFTIST CAMP
Kadima 28
Labor 13
Meretz 3
TOTAL 44
ARABS 11
Clearly a victory for the National camp.
The questions are:
* Will Bibi be the national leader that will have the guts to fulfill the will of the majority of the Jewish People and create a national government of 65 mandates??
* Will Lieberman stay to the right or will the left do what they did to Ariel Sharon and threaten him by saying: "If you go with Bibi we will make sure to convince the State prosecution to prosecute you on all your criminal cases, but if you go with Livni and help her advance her platform, we will close all criminal files against you."
* If Lieberman caves in to the leftist pressures and threats and is willing to join with Livni, Livni would still need more mandates. That is when she would turn to Yahadut HaTora, Bayit Yehudi and Shas. Will those three parties stay firm and stick to the will of the majority (i.e. stay to the right) or will they betray their voters and agree to sit with Livni in return for monetary compensation?
In summary:
If, hopefully, Lieberman, Bayit Yehudi, Shas and Yahadut haTora stay loyal to the will of their voters and stay to the right, it will be Bibi who will be Prime Minister.
The next few days will tell. We live in interesting times....
One more addition:
To all those who were worried that Ichud leumi and Bayit Yehudi would take away from Likud, now you can stop worrying. The results show that exactly the opposite happened. Ichud Leumi-Mafdal used to be nine. Now we are a total of seven. Two mandates went to Likud or to Lieberman and that is a pity. Had Ichud Leumi won another two mandates, Bibi would have been even more dependent on us and there would be an even greater chance that Bibi would be PM.
But, we must admit that after the vitriolic defamation campaign against the Ichud Leumi, especially by Bayit Yehudi and Makor Rishon newspaper, the fact that Ichud Leumi got four mandates is in itself a great achievement.
We are now waiting to hear what the results are in the soldiers vote.
May we continue to hear good news.
Nadia Matar
Women in Green
------------------------------------------------------------
Hear it from the Left:
Meretz Chairman: Left suffered hard blow
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3669870,00.html
To read Arutz 7 in English describing the results
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129888
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
http://www.womeningreen.org
February 10, 2009
Natural gas find could transform Israel's economy
By Karin Kloosterman January 21, 2009
Israel could be one step closed to energy independence after drilling companies announced the discovery of "extremely significant" natural gas reserves at an offshore drilling site in the Mediterranean about 60 miles off the coast of Haifa, Israel.
One massive pocket of natural gas is expected to contain more than three trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to feed Israel's energy needs for 15 years, lessening its dependence on foreign fuel.
This is the largest natural gas reserve discovered in Israel, with an estimated value of $15 billion. It is three times larger than an existing drill site on Israel's southern coast, which is expected to be depleted in five years. Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer called the discovery an "historic moment" for Israel.
The Tamar 1 site, named after the granddaughter of Israeli geologist Yossi Langotsky who helped locate the site, is a joint venture between four major stakeholders: the Houston-based Noble Energy, and three major Israeli partners Isramco Negev, Delek Drilling, and Avner Oil and Gas Exploration.
Independence from foreign fuel sources
Delek Drilling's PR representative Shaya Segal told ISRAEL21c that it will take some time to understand the impact of the find: "First of all we don't have the full information," he says. "We just know there are great quantities there. In about two and a half weeks, after more tests are concluded, we will know more exactly what is there."
In terms of Israel's future, the impact could be enormous. "It can contribute a lot to the Israeli economy," says Segal. "And give us independence with anything that has to do with natural gas."
In Israel, that would mean fuelling power plants with natural gas, as opposed to the more polluting coal or oil fuel sources. "It's much more environmentally friendly," agrees Segal.
Biggest in US company's history
In a press statement, the companies announced: "Subject to receipt of further data from the drill site, the estimated reserves of natural gas are likely even to increase." And Charles D. Davidson, the CEO and chairman of Noble Energy said: "This is one of the most significant prospects that we have ever tested and appears to be the largest discovery in the company's history."
While the drilling is difficult - the sea floor at the site is located more than a mile underwater, the wells are covered under more than a mile of salt, and some analysts say that actualization of the wells is speculative, since transporting natural gas is difficult -- Tel Aviv stocks for Isramco, The Delek Group and Avner rose more than 45 percent.
Some analysts estimate that it will cost about $1 billion dollars in infrastructure to extract the gas from the depths of the sea. Extraction of gas could begin in 2013.
The find also gives hope for environmentalists, who have been petitioning that the building of new coal-fire power plants in Israel be stopped. It will certainly be good news to Shai Agassi of Better Place, who plans to install an electric car system and grid in Israel, over the next years. One of the criticisms of his project, before this new gas pocket find, was that the electric cars would be fueled by power plants running on "dirty" fuel such as coal.
But before the champagne corks are popped, analysts caution that further investigations at the Tamar site be made. They are also insisting that while the natural gas find will boost the country's economy for some years, Israel's future remains in high tech, not energy.
Dan Halman, the CEO of Halman-Aldubi Group, a mutual funds firm in Israel told The Jerusalem Post: "If the Tamar site opposite the Haifa coast succeeds in producing the significant quantities of natural gas predicted, we are talking about a revolution which will have an impact on the Israeli economy for the coming generations."
© 2001-2008 ISRAEL21c.org. All rights reserved.
Israel could be one step closed to energy independence after drilling companies announced the discovery of "extremely significant" natural gas reserves at an offshore drilling site in the Mediterranean about 60 miles off the coast of Haifa, Israel.
One massive pocket of natural gas is expected to contain more than three trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to feed Israel's energy needs for 15 years, lessening its dependence on foreign fuel.
This is the largest natural gas reserve discovered in Israel, with an estimated value of $15 billion. It is three times larger than an existing drill site on Israel's southern coast, which is expected to be depleted in five years. Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer called the discovery an "historic moment" for Israel.
The Tamar 1 site, named after the granddaughter of Israeli geologist Yossi Langotsky who helped locate the site, is a joint venture between four major stakeholders: the Houston-based Noble Energy, and three major Israeli partners Isramco Negev, Delek Drilling, and Avner Oil and Gas Exploration.
Independence from foreign fuel sources
Delek Drilling's PR representative Shaya Segal told ISRAEL21c that it will take some time to understand the impact of the find: "First of all we don't have the full information," he says. "We just know there are great quantities there. In about two and a half weeks, after more tests are concluded, we will know more exactly what is there."
In terms of Israel's future, the impact could be enormous. "It can contribute a lot to the Israeli economy," says Segal. "And give us independence with anything that has to do with natural gas."
In Israel, that would mean fuelling power plants with natural gas, as opposed to the more polluting coal or oil fuel sources. "It's much more environmentally friendly," agrees Segal.
Biggest in US company's history
In a press statement, the companies announced: "Subject to receipt of further data from the drill site, the estimated reserves of natural gas are likely even to increase." And Charles D. Davidson, the CEO and chairman of Noble Energy said: "This is one of the most significant prospects that we have ever tested and appears to be the largest discovery in the company's history."
While the drilling is difficult - the sea floor at the site is located more than a mile underwater, the wells are covered under more than a mile of salt, and some analysts say that actualization of the wells is speculative, since transporting natural gas is difficult -- Tel Aviv stocks for Isramco, The Delek Group and Avner rose more than 45 percent.
Some analysts estimate that it will cost about $1 billion dollars in infrastructure to extract the gas from the depths of the sea. Extraction of gas could begin in 2013.
The find also gives hope for environmentalists, who have been petitioning that the building of new coal-fire power plants in Israel be stopped. It will certainly be good news to Shai Agassi of Better Place, who plans to install an electric car system and grid in Israel, over the next years. One of the criticisms of his project, before this new gas pocket find, was that the electric cars would be fueled by power plants running on "dirty" fuel such as coal.
But before the champagne corks are popped, analysts caution that further investigations at the Tamar site be made. They are also insisting that while the natural gas find will boost the country's economy for some years, Israel's future remains in high tech, not energy.
Dan Halman, the CEO of Halman-Aldubi Group, a mutual funds firm in Israel told The Jerusalem Post: "If the Tamar site opposite the Haifa coast succeeds in producing the significant quantities of natural gas predicted, we are talking about a revolution which will have an impact on the Israeli economy for the coming generations."
© 2001-2008 ISRAEL21c.org. All rights reserved.
February 8, 2009
Stop complaining about double standards
by Paul Eidelberg
It is futile complaining about the media or about various nations using double standards in their negative portrayal of Israel vis-a-vis Hamas terrorists. Such complaints will have no effect on the Jew-hatred evident in Israel 's detractors. Besides, such complaints are self-demeaning when uttered by Jews. Let me suggest another approach via Friedrich Nietzsche.
In The Dawn of Day, Nietzsche exalts like no other gentile, "The People of Israel." Here is a very small sample:
In Europe they have gone through a school of eighteen centuries, such as no other nation can boast of … In consequence whereof the resourcefulness in soul and intellect of our modern Jews is extraordinary… their heroism in the spernere se sperni [despising their despiser's surpass the virtues of all the saints.
The attitude Israel must develop when maligned by the media or by the spokesmen of any nation is to despise Israel 's despiser's, indeed, to regard them as beneath contempt. Do not seek the approval of the "goyim." Israel is at war. Just do: devastate, defeat, and disarm the enemy by swift, awesome, and uninterrupted attacks. This is the teaching of the classics on war.
Those who denigrate Israel vis-a-vis Hamas terrorist organization that uses women and children as human shields are primitive or uncivilized human beings who adorn their barbarism in the aura of a religion that rejects the idea of human rights.
If other people do not see this, they are not misinformed: they are sick, pathological human beings, and it's not your business to enlighten and heal them. You are soldiers, not academics or priests or social workers.
To Israel 's political echelon I say: The liberal-left thinks that the use of might in defense of right is morally suspect. The liberal-left is suffering from a mental disorder. Don't waste your time trying to win them over.
Normal people love a winner, and they are not overly concerned about how you win. So go ahead and win: win as big as you can, and forget about your public image. Stop all thus drivel about being humanitarians. Don't worry about UN condemnations or even about sanctions. As I have elsewhere shown, there are big corporations in the USA that sell tens of billions of dollars worth of military hardware to Arab states thanks to Israel .
Israel has enormous power. But if Israel's government thinks small and acts small, then Israel will be treated like a banana republic.
So stop complaining about double standards. Make winning your standard, and despise those who favor the losers.
It is futile complaining about the media or about various nations using double standards in their negative portrayal of Israel vis-a-vis Hamas terrorists. Such complaints will have no effect on the Jew-hatred evident in Israel 's detractors. Besides, such complaints are self-demeaning when uttered by Jews. Let me suggest another approach via Friedrich Nietzsche.
In The Dawn of Day, Nietzsche exalts like no other gentile, "The People of Israel." Here is a very small sample:
In Europe they have gone through a school of eighteen centuries, such as no other nation can boast of … In consequence whereof the resourcefulness in soul and intellect of our modern Jews is extraordinary… their heroism in the spernere se sperni [despising their despiser's surpass the virtues of all the saints.
The attitude Israel must develop when maligned by the media or by the spokesmen of any nation is to despise Israel 's despiser's, indeed, to regard them as beneath contempt. Do not seek the approval of the "goyim." Israel is at war. Just do: devastate, defeat, and disarm the enemy by swift, awesome, and uninterrupted attacks. This is the teaching of the classics on war.
Those who denigrate Israel vis-a-vis Hamas terrorist organization that uses women and children as human shields are primitive or uncivilized human beings who adorn their barbarism in the aura of a religion that rejects the idea of human rights.
If other people do not see this, they are not misinformed: they are sick, pathological human beings, and it's not your business to enlighten and heal them. You are soldiers, not academics or priests or social workers.
To Israel 's political echelon I say: The liberal-left thinks that the use of might in defense of right is morally suspect. The liberal-left is suffering from a mental disorder. Don't waste your time trying to win them over.
Normal people love a winner, and they are not overly concerned about how you win. So go ahead and win: win as big as you can, and forget about your public image. Stop all thus drivel about being humanitarians. Don't worry about UN condemnations or even about sanctions. As I have elsewhere shown, there are big corporations in the USA that sell tens of billions of dollars worth of military hardware to Arab states thanks to Israel .
Israel has enormous power. But if Israel's government thinks small and acts small, then Israel will be treated like a banana republic.
So stop complaining about double standards. Make winning your standard, and despise those who favor the losers.
My Tailor the Muslim
My Tailor the Muslim
20 years ago I took a suit in to be tailored. The the closest was a place with a funny foreign name.
While I was being fitted, I noticed the calender on the wall quoted Koranic verses and had something I could not read. The tailor said they were from Turkey and the writing was Koran quotes in Turkish.
It was my first contact with a Muslim, or exposure to the Koran.
Since then I have moved and last year I saw his sign near my new residence and I went in again for a another suit fitting. We chatted and he recognized me as an old customer. I asked how his daughters were and he told they had both gone through the local University. They both now worked in the Computer field in Turkey.
His Son had followed the same path. SO I asked him why they went home and then also why he was still here.
He told me his kids were happier in Turkey. In the US they felt like outcasts even though they were born here. The anti-Muslim sentiment made them very uncomfortable.
He said he was still here because he could not afford to go home. He left Turkey after working for someone else and then opening his own shop to raise the money to take his family to America...the land of opportunity.
Then he said what utter nonsense, he was much freer back home in a outwardly corrupt government than in the US where they take everything you make if you are successful.
He said he had been in the US over 30 years and was still not accepted anywhere. He only felt at home with his former Turkish friends who also longed to go home.
He complained about the same problems that were back home in Turkey. Freedom here he said is a joke. He began to ramble a bit here and I was not really sure of his point, but it sounded like he felt everyone hated him because of his religion
and for no other reason.
I told him he should go home and he said his business was not worth much and that there was a tailor on every corner at home and he would not get there with enough to start again. He was clearly unhappy, frustrated and disappointed.
We did not get into any real politics.
He just seems like the average guy, that happened to be a Muslim.
This of course puts a face on the Muslim terrorist threat for me. I have to ask myself, is my tailor a guy that feels like he wants world domination?
No, but he is angry. What does it take to get a frustrated, angry Muslim need to join on an Anti American agenda or movement?
Probably not much.
Just something to chew on.
In Suburbia
Avigdor Rudofsky
--
Refuah Shleimah, a total and speedy recovery for all the wounded, soldiers and civilians.
Numbers 33:55
But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, then those whom you leave over will be as spikes in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land in which you settle.
http://www.jewish1.blogspot.com/
--
Ś©ŚŚ
Turn the State of Jews to a Jewish State
Avi Rudofsky
"We call upon the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to unite with us in our homeland by making Aliyah, by building the land, and by taking part in the momentous undertaking of the redemption of the Jewish people, which has been the dream of generations."
20 years ago I took a suit in to be tailored. The the closest was a place with a funny foreign name.
While I was being fitted, I noticed the calender on the wall quoted Koranic verses and had something I could not read. The tailor said they were from Turkey and the writing was Koran quotes in Turkish.
It was my first contact with a Muslim, or exposure to the Koran.
Since then I have moved and last year I saw his sign near my new residence and I went in again for a another suit fitting. We chatted and he recognized me as an old customer. I asked how his daughters were and he told they had both gone through the local University. They both now worked in the Computer field in Turkey.
His Son had followed the same path. SO I asked him why they went home and then also why he was still here.
He told me his kids were happier in Turkey. In the US they felt like outcasts even though they were born here. The anti-Muslim sentiment made them very uncomfortable.
He said he was still here because he could not afford to go home. He left Turkey after working for someone else and then opening his own shop to raise the money to take his family to America...the land of opportunity.
Then he said what utter nonsense, he was much freer back home in a outwardly corrupt government than in the US where they take everything you make if you are successful.
He said he had been in the US over 30 years and was still not accepted anywhere. He only felt at home with his former Turkish friends who also longed to go home.
He complained about the same problems that were back home in Turkey. Freedom here he said is a joke. He began to ramble a bit here and I was not really sure of his point, but it sounded like he felt everyone hated him because of his religion
and for no other reason.
I told him he should go home and he said his business was not worth much and that there was a tailor on every corner at home and he would not get there with enough to start again. He was clearly unhappy, frustrated and disappointed.
We did not get into any real politics.
He just seems like the average guy, that happened to be a Muslim.
This of course puts a face on the Muslim terrorist threat for me. I have to ask myself, is my tailor a guy that feels like he wants world domination?
No, but he is angry. What does it take to get a frustrated, angry Muslim need to join on an Anti American agenda or movement?
Probably not much.
Just something to chew on.
In Suburbia
Avigdor Rudofsky
--
Refuah Shleimah, a total and speedy recovery for all the wounded, soldiers and civilians.
Numbers 33:55
But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, then those whom you leave over will be as spikes in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land in which you settle.
http://www.jewish1.blogspot.com/
--
Ś©ŚŚ
Turn the State of Jews to a Jewish State
Avi Rudofsky
"We call upon the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to unite with us in our homeland by making Aliyah, by building the land, and by taking part in the momentous undertaking of the redemption of the Jewish people, which has been the dream of generations."
February 7, 2009
Where do they not kill the Jews?
First of all is there a place in the world where they don't kill the Jews?
Eretz Yisrael, all Jews real homeland.
This is the place where they do not kill the Jews.
This is the place where they do not kill the Jews.
Get it? There no other place! This is the only truth!
The Galut is the Galut and is temporary. Watch as
history repeats itself again and again.
This war continues and is as old as history itself.
The war will end when either the Jews or Arabs win. Period.
No negotiated peace is possible in the place where they do not kill the Jews.
Please name an issue that is negotiable with the Arabs....
The only issue is that we exist.
No more:
1) Prisoner releases (exchanges)
2) Rocket attacks without reprisals, disproportionate
3) Cease Fires
4) Talk of giving up any land or dividing Jerusalem.
5) Power, Food or Water to the enemy in Gaza.
6) Arabs in the Knesset
7) Coalition Governments
8) Talk of a 2 State solution, final solutions have not been good to us.
9) Seeing a difference between Hamas or Fatah
10) Negotiations with the enemy
11) Israeli police controlling Jews so as to not upset the Arabs.
12) Letting the Muslims control our land - The Temple Mount.
13) Illegal Arab Settlements in Hashems Eretz Yisrael.
14) Hudna's
15) Waiting to develop more "settlements".
16) Jewish Children not being given a Jewish Education!
17) Peace envoys from anywhere.
18) Wall/Security Fence free Gaza...build a Wall Now
19) Patience
Eretz Yisrael, all Jews real homeland.
This is the place where they do not kill the Jews.
This is the place where they do not kill the Jews.
Get it? There no other place! This is the only truth!
The Galut is the Galut and is temporary. Watch as
history repeats itself again and again.
This war continues and is as old as history itself.
The war will end when either the Jews or Arabs win. Period.
No negotiated peace is possible in the place where they do not kill the Jews.
Please name an issue that is negotiable with the Arabs....
The only issue is that we exist.
No more:
1) Prisoner releases (exchanges)
2) Rocket attacks without reprisals, disproportionate
3) Cease Fires
4) Talk of giving up any land or dividing Jerusalem.
5) Power, Food or Water to the enemy in Gaza.
6) Arabs in the Knesset
7) Coalition Governments
8) Talk of a 2 State solution, final solutions have not been good to us.
9) Seeing a difference between Hamas or Fatah
10) Negotiations with the enemy
11) Israeli police controlling Jews so as to not upset the Arabs.
12) Letting the Muslims control our land - The Temple Mount.
13) Illegal Arab Settlements in Hashems Eretz Yisrael.
14) Hudna's
15) Waiting to develop more "settlements".
16) Jewish Children not being given a Jewish Education!
17) Peace envoys from anywhere.
18) Wall/Security Fence free Gaza...build a Wall Now
19) Patience
February 6, 2009
Professor Eidelberg - A Question from Upstate NY
Professors Responses in Bold Parentheticals ( )
This is an email exchange I had with Professor Paul Eidelberg,
Co-Founder and President of The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy.
He also teaches at Bar Illan University in Israel and has drafted a Constitution for the State of Israel, which has influenced various Knesset Members interested in constitutional reform
http://foundation1.org/wp-en/store
From: Avi Rudofsky
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 6:28 PM
To: Professor Eidelberg
Subject: Professor Eidelberg - A Question from Upstate NY
Professor,
I have listened to you on INR and seen your articles from Women in Green.
You are a bright and articulate man. Your motivation seems to be pure.
Your criticism of the Supreme court Justices and the lack of checks and balances in Israeli government.
are well stated.
Does the use of a coalition government have to go also?
(Coalition government in Israel must go: it's divisive, inept, and conducive to corruption. Needed, therefore, is exclusion of MKs from the cabinet, and this means that Israel must eliminate election of slates and institute direct, personal election of MKs).
Can any of these changes you advocate occur without a seat of power in the Knesset?
(No, but we first need to organize non-parliamentary nationalist groups to press for such reforms and support or initiate a party that will have institutional reform at the center of its program).
I have been a follower of MY and Feiglin so far here in Upstate NY.
The Likud takeover did not seem to work.
( I never saw any convincing argument that MY and Feiglin would take over the Likud, and warned against such an effort. )
I asked them why they don't join a coalition with the NU and the religious right and
the US chapter Representative Rob Munchick said they think everyone else will sell out. Perhaps MY is simply being too stubborn. I like their focus on the issues.
(They are very selective on which issue they focus on: the most popular being "Jewish identity." Now, for the record, the MY program is more or less based on essays I provided them more than ten years ago. But contrary to my emphasis, Feiglin did not stress, on public forums, the necessity constituency elections and a presidential system as a means of promoting Jewish identity. Moreover, by joining the Likud, he split the "nationalist camp").
I know you know what needs to happen...but how? Whats a Jew in the US to do to help?
(To begin with, recognize that MY is not going to take over the Likud—certainly not in the foreseeable future. Second, convey the truth that Israel is not a genuine democracy—for reasons indicated in my many articles. But in revealing this truth, point out that my Foundation for Constitutional Democracy (FCD) has developed a philosophy of Jewish democracy. This philosophy will make Israel more Jewish by means of democratic principles, and more democratic by means of Jewish principle. No other organization has done this. What we lack, however, is the financial support to get this message to all Israel's. The message is contained in my 70-page booklet The Myth of Israeli Democracy: Toward a Truly Jewish Israel. MY should endorse and even help disseminate this booklet).
I want to protect my future and have tried to follow Israeli politics from here.
It seems like it is deadlocked to failure. I could ask you what you would do if you were PM. But the real question is how would you organize to become PM.
(I am not interested in the job. But if I had the money, I would set up a "School for Jewish Statesmanship" and try to recruit the right person to head a constitutional party).
All the best
This is an email exchange I had with Professor Paul Eidelberg,
Co-Founder and President of The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy.
He also teaches at Bar Illan University in Israel and has drafted a Constitution for the State of Israel, which has influenced various Knesset Members interested in constitutional reform
http://foundation1.org/wp-en/store
From: Avi Rudofsky
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 6:28 PM
To: Professor Eidelberg
Subject: Professor Eidelberg - A Question from Upstate NY
Professor,
I have listened to you on INR and seen your articles from Women in Green.
You are a bright and articulate man. Your motivation seems to be pure.
Your criticism of the Supreme court Justices and the lack of checks and balances in Israeli government.
are well stated.
Does the use of a coalition government have to go also?
(Coalition government in Israel must go: it's divisive, inept, and conducive to corruption. Needed, therefore, is exclusion of MKs from the cabinet, and this means that Israel must eliminate election of slates and institute direct, personal election of MKs).
Can any of these changes you advocate occur without a seat of power in the Knesset?
(No, but we first need to organize non-parliamentary nationalist groups to press for such reforms and support or initiate a party that will have institutional reform at the center of its program).
I have been a follower of MY and Feiglin so far here in Upstate NY.
The Likud takeover did not seem to work.
( I never saw any convincing argument that MY and Feiglin would take over the Likud, and warned against such an effort. )
I asked them why they don't join a coalition with the NU and the religious right and
the US chapter Representative Rob Munchick said they think everyone else will sell out. Perhaps MY is simply being too stubborn. I like their focus on the issues.
(They are very selective on which issue they focus on: the most popular being "Jewish identity." Now, for the record, the MY program is more or less based on essays I provided them more than ten years ago. But contrary to my emphasis, Feiglin did not stress, on public forums, the necessity constituency elections and a presidential system as a means of promoting Jewish identity. Moreover, by joining the Likud, he split the "nationalist camp").
I know you know what needs to happen...but how? Whats a Jew in the US to do to help?
(To begin with, recognize that MY is not going to take over the Likud—certainly not in the foreseeable future. Second, convey the truth that Israel is not a genuine democracy—for reasons indicated in my many articles. But in revealing this truth, point out that my Foundation for Constitutional Democracy (FCD) has developed a philosophy of Jewish democracy. This philosophy will make Israel more Jewish by means of democratic principles, and more democratic by means of Jewish principle. No other organization has done this. What we lack, however, is the financial support to get this message to all Israel's. The message is contained in my 70-page booklet The Myth of Israeli Democracy: Toward a Truly Jewish Israel. MY should endorse and even help disseminate this booklet).
I want to protect my future and have tried to follow Israeli politics from here.
It seems like it is deadlocked to failure. I could ask you what you would do if you were PM. But the real question is how would you organize to become PM.
(I am not interested in the job. But if I had the money, I would set up a "School for Jewish Statesmanship" and try to recruit the right person to head a constitutional party).
All the best
February 5, 2009
Britain - Muslim population rising 10 times faster than rest of society
The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times.
The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals. In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million.
Experts said that the increase was attributable to immigration, a higher birthrate and conversions to Islam during the period of 2004-2008, when the data was gathered. They said that it also suggested a growing willingness among believers to describe themselves as Muslims because the western reaction to war and terrorism had strengthened their sense of identity.
Muslim leaders have welcomed the growing population of their communities as academics highlighted the implications for British society, integration and government resources.
David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, said: “The implications are very substantial. Some of the Muslim population, by no means all of them, are the least socially and economically integrated of any in the United Kingdom ... and the one most associated with political dissatisfaction. You can't assume that just because the numbers are increasing that all will increase, but it will be one of several reasonable suppositions that might arise.”
Professor Coleman said that Muslims would naturally reap collective benefits from the increase in population. “In the growth of any population ... [its] voice is regarded as being stronger in terms of formulating policy, not least because we live in a democracy where most people in most religious groups and most racial groups have votes. That necessarily means their opinions have to be taken and attention to be paid to them.”
There are more than 42.6 million Christians in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics, whose figures were obtained through the quarterly Labour Force Survey of around 53,000 homes. But while the biggest Christian population is among over-70s bracket, for Muslims it is the under-4s.
Ceri Peach, Professor of Social Geography at Manchester University, said that the rapid growth of the Muslim population posed challenges for society. “The groups with the strongest belief in the family and cohesion are those such as the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. They have got extremely strong family values but it goes together with the sort of honour society and other kinds of attributes which people object to,” he said. “So you are dealing with a pretty complex situation.”
Professor Peach said that the high number of Muslims under the age of 4 — 301,000 as of September last year — would benefit Britain's future labour market through taxes that would subsequently contribute to sustaining the country's ageing population. He added, though, that it would also put pressure on housing and create a growing demand for schools. “I think housing has traditionally been a difficulty because the country is simultaneously short of labour and short of housing. So if you get people to fill vacancies in your labour force you also need to find places for them to live,” he said.
Muhammad Abdul Bari, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, predicted that the number of mosques in Britain would multiply from the present 1,600 in line with the rising Islamic population. He said the greater platform that Muslims would command in the future should not be perceived as a threat to the rest of society.
“We each have our own set of beliefs. This should really be a source of celebration rather than fear as long as we all clearly understand that we must abide by the laws of this country regardless of the faith we belong to,” he said.
The Cohesion Minister, Sadiq Khan, told The Times: “We in central Government and local authorities need to continue our work to ensure that our communities are as integrated and cohesive as possible.”
Growing numbers
The total number of Muslims in Great Britain:
2004: 1,870,000
2005: 2,017,000
2006: 2,142,000
2007: 2,327,000
2008: 2,422,000
Source: Labour Force Survey
The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals. In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million.
Experts said that the increase was attributable to immigration, a higher birthrate and conversions to Islam during the period of 2004-2008, when the data was gathered. They said that it also suggested a growing willingness among believers to describe themselves as Muslims because the western reaction to war and terrorism had strengthened their sense of identity.
Muslim leaders have welcomed the growing population of their communities as academics highlighted the implications for British society, integration and government resources.
David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, said: “The implications are very substantial. Some of the Muslim population, by no means all of them, are the least socially and economically integrated of any in the United Kingdom ... and the one most associated with political dissatisfaction. You can't assume that just because the numbers are increasing that all will increase, but it will be one of several reasonable suppositions that might arise.”
Professor Coleman said that Muslims would naturally reap collective benefits from the increase in population. “In the growth of any population ... [its] voice is regarded as being stronger in terms of formulating policy, not least because we live in a democracy where most people in most religious groups and most racial groups have votes. That necessarily means their opinions have to be taken and attention to be paid to them.”
There are more than 42.6 million Christians in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics, whose figures were obtained through the quarterly Labour Force Survey of around 53,000 homes. But while the biggest Christian population is among over-70s bracket, for Muslims it is the under-4s.
Ceri Peach, Professor of Social Geography at Manchester University, said that the rapid growth of the Muslim population posed challenges for society. “The groups with the strongest belief in the family and cohesion are those such as the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. They have got extremely strong family values but it goes together with the sort of honour society and other kinds of attributes which people object to,” he said. “So you are dealing with a pretty complex situation.”
Professor Peach said that the high number of Muslims under the age of 4 — 301,000 as of September last year — would benefit Britain's future labour market through taxes that would subsequently contribute to sustaining the country's ageing population. He added, though, that it would also put pressure on housing and create a growing demand for schools. “I think housing has traditionally been a difficulty because the country is simultaneously short of labour and short of housing. So if you get people to fill vacancies in your labour force you also need to find places for them to live,” he said.
Muhammad Abdul Bari, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, predicted that the number of mosques in Britain would multiply from the present 1,600 in line with the rising Islamic population. He said the greater platform that Muslims would command in the future should not be perceived as a threat to the rest of society.
“We each have our own set of beliefs. This should really be a source of celebration rather than fear as long as we all clearly understand that we must abide by the laws of this country regardless of the faith we belong to,” he said.
The Cohesion Minister, Sadiq Khan, told The Times: “We in central Government and local authorities need to continue our work to ensure that our communities are as integrated and cohesive as possible.”
Growing numbers
The total number of Muslims in Great Britain:
2004: 1,870,000
2005: 2,017,000
2006: 2,142,000
2007: 2,327,000
2008: 2,422,000
Source: Labour Force Survey
February 4, 2009
Elections
Israel is eight days away from Knesset elections. Our Main Stream Media, trying to ape their American counterparts, is covering it like a Presidential campaign, i.e. as a race for Prime Minister.
We, the Israeli electorate, however, will not be voting for Prime Minister ...We will vote for the political party of our choosing ...and there are many parties from which to choose.
...but the Media, especially our Television News shows insist on seeing it as a race between individuals: Tzipi Livni (Kadima Party), Ehud Barak (Labor Party), and Bibi Netanyahu (Likud Party). The sudden rise in popularity of Avigdor Lieberman (Israel Beiteinu Party) has thrown our media mavens into a tizzy ...up until now they've been demonizing Netanyahu as the right wing threat and here comes Lieberman, to the right of Bibi! Yikes!!
-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973
February 3, 2009
Obama and a Settlements Freeze
by Steven J. Rosen - MEF Policy Forum - January 28, 2009
Nothing has more potential to undermine the relationship between the United States and Israel than the issue of settlements. Mideast Peace Envoy George Mitchell said in 2003, "Opposition to the government of Israel's policies and practices regarding settlements…has been consistent through the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations; just as consistent has been the continued settlement activity by the Israeli government."If the Obama team is not able to come to a workable set of understandings with the Government of Israel on this issue, both the peace process and the United States-Israel relationship will suffer. During the George H. W. Bush administration, particularly from 1990-92, tensions over settlements so severely strained ties between Israel and its American ally, that direct communication between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel ground to a halt. If not managed very carefully by both sides, the settlement issue could again become a point of friction leading to diplomatic paralysis.
It is safe to predict that the Obama administration will call for a settlement "freeze." George Mitchell has been associated with the freeze concept since the Commission he headed in 2001 concluded that "Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements." The Bush Administration signed on to the idea in 2003, when it joined with the E.U., Russia, and the Secretary General of the U.N. to promulgate the "Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." The Roadmap requires, in Phase I, that, "Consistent with the Mitchell Report, the Government of Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)."The Obama Administration's commitment to the Roadmap was reaffirmed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her confirmation hearing, and no doubt she means to include in this the call for a settlement freeze.
The idea of a freeze on settlements, including natural growth, seems eminently sensible to many Americans. A majority in this country think that settlements are an obstacle to peace, and that their continued expansion undermines the confidence of the Palestinians by creating an impression of "creeping annexation" of the West Bank by Israel. If their complete removal must be postponed until there is a final status agreement, a freeze on growth of settlements should be an interim step, a "confidence-building measure" to help negotiations succeed. And the prevailing American view of a settlement freeze is simple: no new settlements, no geographic expansion of existing settlements, and no more construction in settlements. Basically, no anything beyond what already exists.
A majority of the public in Israel, and the leaders of all three of the largest political parties (Kadima, Labor, and Likud), have at times expressed a willingness to agree to a settlement "freeze" as part of a package of confidence building measures undertaken by both sides, depending on what is meant by the term "freeze". All the major parties have indicated that they can accept a freeze on the establishment of new settlements, on further expropriation of land for existing settlements, and on the appropriation of government funds for expansion of settlements beyond agreed limits.
Nothing has more potential to undermine the relationship between the United States and Israel than the issue of settlements. Mideast Peace Envoy George Mitchell said in 2003, "Opposition to the government of Israel's policies and practices regarding settlements…has been consistent through the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations; just as consistent has been the continued settlement activity by the Israeli government."If the Obama team is not able to come to a workable set of understandings with the Government of Israel on this issue, both the peace process and the United States-Israel relationship will suffer. During the George H. W. Bush administration, particularly from 1990-92, tensions over settlements so severely strained ties between Israel and its American ally, that direct communication between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel ground to a halt. If not managed very carefully by both sides, the settlement issue could again become a point of friction leading to diplomatic paralysis.
It is safe to predict that the Obama administration will call for a settlement "freeze." George Mitchell has been associated with the freeze concept since the Commission he headed in 2001 concluded that "Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements." The Bush Administration signed on to the idea in 2003, when it joined with the E.U., Russia, and the Secretary General of the U.N. to promulgate the "Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." The Roadmap requires, in Phase I, that, "Consistent with the Mitchell Report, the Government of Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)."The Obama Administration's commitment to the Roadmap was reaffirmed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her confirmation hearing, and no doubt she means to include in this the call for a settlement freeze.
The idea of a freeze on settlements, including natural growth, seems eminently sensible to many Americans. A majority in this country think that settlements are an obstacle to peace, and that their continued expansion undermines the confidence of the Palestinians by creating an impression of "creeping annexation" of the West Bank by Israel. If their complete removal must be postponed until there is a final status agreement, a freeze on growth of settlements should be an interim step, a "confidence-building measure" to help negotiations succeed. And the prevailing American view of a settlement freeze is simple: no new settlements, no geographic expansion of existing settlements, and no more construction in settlements. Basically, no anything beyond what already exists.
A majority of the public in Israel, and the leaders of all three of the largest political parties (Kadima, Labor, and Likud), have at times expressed a willingness to agree to a settlement "freeze" as part of a package of confidence building measures undertaken by both sides, depending on what is meant by the term "freeze". All the major parties have indicated that they can accept a freeze on the establishment of new settlements, on further expropriation of land for existing settlements, and on the appropriation of government funds for expansion of settlements beyond agreed limits.
Can you be Jewish and not believe in Hashem?
Are Jews that do not believe in Hashem the major cause of Assimilation. They would have the least ties to Judaism. Why would it matter if the Male non-believer wanted to marry a Gentile Woman if he did not believe in Hashem. He would then not believe in or follow Torah law. So what would stop Moishe from marrying Mary? Why would Moishe care about the chain of generations and what his ancestors maintained for him and themselves?
Does he want to fit in? Does he put Gentile events ahead of Temple Events?
Does he Destroy the Temple as the central part of life and make it a social obligation to be fulfilled.
Is Assimilation all its cracked up to be? Is it as dangerous as it sounds?
Are there only supposed to be a small percentage of believers for Moshiach anyway?
How many societies have tried to destroy Judaism by created voluntary and forced Assimilation?
Meir Kahane said :
Thou shalt melt, thou shalt integrate, thou shalt amalgamate, thou shalt be an American as all others. They beat the drums for interfaith, exchanging pulpits with ministers enthusiastically, in a frantic effort to prove to Christian and Jew alike that there is essentially no difference between them. They were partially successful - the Christians were not convinced but the Jews were.
They want to be accepted above all else. If this Israel's cry also?
For one to trust in Hashem, you must first believe in the existence of Hashem.
To a believer, no evidence is needed and to a disbeliever, no evidence is sufficient. If one is inclined to believe and wants evidence, the evidence exists.
The nature of Hashem is one of the few areas of abstract Jewish belief where there are a number of clear-cut ideas about which there is little dispute or disagreement.
Hashem Exists
The fact of Hashem's existence is accepted almost without question. Proof is not needed, and is rarely offered. The Torah begins by stating "In the beginning, Hashem created..." It does not tell who Hashem is or how He was created.
We Jews view the existence of Hashem as a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the universe. The existence of the universe is sufficient proof of the existence of Hashem.
Rambam's thirteen principles of faith, which he thought were the minimum requirements of Jewish belief, are:
1. Hashem exists
2. Hashem is one and unique
3. Hashem is incorporeal
4. Hashem is eternal
5. Prayer is to be directed to Hashem alone and to no other
6. The words of the prophets are true
7. Moses' prophecies are true, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets
8. The Written Torah and Oral Torah were given to Moses
9. There will be no other Torah
10. Hashem knows the thoughts and deeds of men
11. Hashem will reward the good and punish the wicked
12. The Meshiach will come
13. The dead will be resurrected
The Rambam lived a long time ago and Reform had not occured...had it?
Who decides how literally to accept the Torah?
If it is the Sages...are they Reform, Conservative Sages?
One of the primary expressions of Jewish faith, recited twice daily in prayer, is the Shema:
1. There is only one Hashem. No other being participated in the work of creation.
2. Hashem is a unity. He is a single, whole, complete indivisible entity. He cannot be divided into parts or described by attributes. Any attempt to ascribe attributes to Hashem is merely man's imperfect attempt to understand the infinite.
3. Hashem is the only being to whom we should offer praise.
Everything in the universe was created by Hashem and only by Hashem.
Judaism completely rejects the dualistic notion that evil was created by Satan or some other deity. All comes from Hashem. As Isaiah said, "I am the L-rd, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I am the L-rd, that does all these things." (Isaiah 45:6-7).
Mandatory Jewish Education needs to be provided for every Jewish Child.
Each child needs to be educated in Torah.
Avi
Does he want to fit in? Does he put Gentile events ahead of Temple Events?
Does he Destroy the Temple as the central part of life and make it a social obligation to be fulfilled.
Is Assimilation all its cracked up to be? Is it as dangerous as it sounds?
Are there only supposed to be a small percentage of believers for Moshiach anyway?
How many societies have tried to destroy Judaism by created voluntary and forced Assimilation?
Meir Kahane said :
Thou shalt melt, thou shalt integrate, thou shalt amalgamate, thou shalt be an American as all others. They beat the drums for interfaith, exchanging pulpits with ministers enthusiastically, in a frantic effort to prove to Christian and Jew alike that there is essentially no difference between them. They were partially successful - the Christians were not convinced but the Jews were.
They want to be accepted above all else. If this Israel's cry also?
For one to trust in Hashem, you must first believe in the existence of Hashem.
To a believer, no evidence is needed and to a disbeliever, no evidence is sufficient. If one is inclined to believe and wants evidence, the evidence exists.
The nature of Hashem is one of the few areas of abstract Jewish belief where there are a number of clear-cut ideas about which there is little dispute or disagreement.
Hashem Exists
The fact of Hashem's existence is accepted almost without question. Proof is not needed, and is rarely offered. The Torah begins by stating "In the beginning, Hashem created..." It does not tell who Hashem is or how He was created.
We Jews view the existence of Hashem as a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the universe. The existence of the universe is sufficient proof of the existence of Hashem.
Rambam's thirteen principles of faith, which he thought were the minimum requirements of Jewish belief, are:
1. Hashem exists
2. Hashem is one and unique
3. Hashem is incorporeal
4. Hashem is eternal
5. Prayer is to be directed to Hashem alone and to no other
6. The words of the prophets are true
7. Moses' prophecies are true, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets
8. The Written Torah and Oral Torah were given to Moses
9. There will be no other Torah
10. Hashem knows the thoughts and deeds of men
11. Hashem will reward the good and punish the wicked
12. The Meshiach will come
13. The dead will be resurrected
The Rambam lived a long time ago and Reform had not occured...had it?
Who decides how literally to accept the Torah?
If it is the Sages...are they Reform, Conservative Sages?
One of the primary expressions of Jewish faith, recited twice daily in prayer, is the Shema:
1. There is only one Hashem. No other being participated in the work of creation.
2. Hashem is a unity. He is a single, whole, complete indivisible entity. He cannot be divided into parts or described by attributes. Any attempt to ascribe attributes to Hashem is merely man's imperfect attempt to understand the infinite.
3. Hashem is the only being to whom we should offer praise.
Everything in the universe was created by Hashem and only by Hashem.
Judaism completely rejects the dualistic notion that evil was created by Satan or some other deity. All comes from Hashem. As Isaiah said, "I am the L-rd, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I am the L-rd, that does all these things." (Isaiah 45:6-7).
Mandatory Jewish Education needs to be provided for every Jewish Child.
Each child needs to be educated in Torah.
Avi
February 2, 2009
(David , to Hell with your Star)
A campaign of Anti-Semitism threatening Venezuela’s Jewish community has prompted an immediate protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the Organization of American States.
“Since the events in Gaza … the government has adopted an aggressive and dangerous tone never previously heard clearly inciting against the Jewish Community …. government's supporters picked up on the government's lead with clearly anti-Semitic expressions – with no effort whatsoever by government to stop them. The expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador followed, and subsequently, a final breaking off of diplomatic relations,” alerted the Jewish Macabi Latin America Confederation.
“There is a well-orchestrated campaign on TV, radio, print and Internet media owned by the government, openly questioning Israelis right to exist, even including publication of such anti-Semitic materials as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A group of pro-government journalists is urging the population to boycott of businesses owned by Jews in Venezuela,” they added.
Most frightening was a 'plan of action' published in a pro-government digital newspaper, Aporrea.org, giving direction against Venezuela’s Jewish community which included:
- publicly denouncing by name, the members of powerful Jewish groups in Venezuela, names of their companies and businesses in order to boycott them
- avoiding products, stores, supermarkets, restaurants, and where Kosher food is sold which either belongs or has links with 'Zionist Jews'
- questioning the existence of Jewish educational institutions
- shouting pro-Palestine and anti-Israel slogans at Jews on the street
- inviting anti-Zionist Jews living in Venezuela to publicly express their disassociation from 'Zionist war crimes' and the imposition of artificial State of Israel on Palestine
- nationalization of companies, confiscation of properties of those Jews who support the Zionist atrocities of the Nazi-State of Israel, and donate this property to the Palestinian victims of today’s Holocaust
- sending all type of aid to Palestinians including weapons
- hacking pro-Zionist websites including governments or institutions that have relations with Israel
- organizing an international conference about the creation of the theocratic - Nazi state of Israel as a genocidal European colony, and about the myths and facts of the alleged Jewish Holocaust or Holohoax (a blackmailing industry)
- support the dissolution of the artificial State of Israel
A letter from Wiesenthal Center dean and founder Rabbi Marvin Hier to the Organization of American States (OAS) read in part, “Under the presidency of Hugo
Chavez, the Jewish community of Venezuela has suffered repeated attacks, which were, at least tolerated, if not incited or promoted by State officials …. We believe it is time for the OAS to take action on this outrageous situation which makes a mockery of democratic and civil liberties and guarantees. We urge you to establish an OAS special field mission … to immediately investigate the situation … and recommend punitive action against all those who are responsible for this campaign of hatred against the Jewish people.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center holds official consultative status with the OAS.
Is Anti-Israel ...Anti-Semitic?
Well....Duh!!
There were Ant-Israel rallies all over the world.
There were Anti-Israel in the USA.
Part of me think there could not be another Holocaust in the US.
The other part of me works with Gentiles everyday.
I hear enough Anti-Semitic remarks to understand they hate us.
But what is scary is the absolute tolerance for hate.
That tolerance is the mentality that they are coming for the Jews....what do I care!
------------------------------------------
This came from Naomi Ragen:
Friends,
I sent you The Third Jihad. Now I'm sending you this, photos of a Muslim
march in San Francisco. When did this kind of hate speech stop being
against the law? And look at how the police behaved and who, among all
these despicable racists, was stopped by the cops. If I lived in America,
I'd be worried.
http://zombietime.com/gaza_war_protest/
Naomi
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)