There are sections of Israel’s academia, that openly delegitimize the country, by supporting one or another boycott of Israel, forgetting that their salaries are paid from the taxes collected from fellow citizens. These educators, though on the face of it meant to be objective and factual, exercise an enormous influence on their charges, many of whom consider them beyond reproach.
When we tolerate senior academics referring to our country as an ‘apartheid State’ - then, as newspaper columnist Isi Leibler writes: ”it is an abomination in the name of freedom of expression”, taking an ideal to a lunatic extreme. Tenure at State sponsored institutions should be denied to all who engage in such activities.
Free speech is a privilege to be jealously guarded, but when large circulation national newspapers openly promote critiques of Zionist doctrine, the raison d’etre of our presence in this land, some kind of rebuke, if not censorship, is called for. It was the recent campaign from certain quarters inside Israel, against the IDF, that gave rise to the Goldstone report.
In the Diaspora too, there are individuals and groups which, though calling themselves Zionist, are working against the interests of a viable Jewish State.
The upstart organisation J-Street in the US is a case in point. In the publicity for their student wing, they recently dropped ‘Pro Israel’ from their slogan “Pro Israel - Pro peace”, so as not to offend certain sections of the student body. They allow individual chapters to ad “Pro Palestine”.
The Jewish ‘enemies from within us’ hide in the crevices provided by their benefactors whose only aim is assimilation and success, at the cost Israel’s security. These renegades, who present themselves as a legitimate post- Zionist alternative need to be exposed as the unrepresentative fringe that they are.
Leibler reminds us that “Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion took ruthless measures against Israeli renegades, insisting that Israeli embassies keep close ties with local Jewish leaders and persuade them to refrain from publicly criticising policies…… that could have life and death implications for Israel’s citizens.” This is more relevant today than it ever was.
November 30, 2009
November 29, 2009
Soldiers Made from Steel‚ Leaders Made from Putty - MK Dr. Michael Ben Ari – Eretz Yisroel Shelanu
It had become routine. U.S. government treats the government of Israel and its branches as if they were clerks. When it comes to routine, there is no discomfort level.
In recent weeks, we have witnessed several such rude and coarse interventions. One was the incident in which Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin disqualified my speech in the Knesset after the American envoy Mitchell demanded an answer from Rivlin "until the afternoon" as if he was the last of Mitchell's subjects. This entire give and take was carried out amidst full media exposure. And that is only one of the events where they have demonstrated their intervention, even in matters that seem worthless.
Apparently Obama's envoy to the Middle East refers to the internal conduct of the Knesset's as if he was appointed to this as part of his job. That's why the referendum law to the Golan Heights, which was supposed to be put up for vote, was suddenly removed from the agenda without any logical explanation. The U.S. government occasionally sprinkles admonitions about building homes for Jews at Pisgat Zeev, and about the master plans of Giloh. Our pitiable response is reminiscent of a child caught doing mischief and tries to explain: "I did not understand", "I did not know", "I will not do it any more."
Crossing this line would not occur was it not that we ourselves broke all the boundaries. It began coordinating positions with the big American brother, and moved forward to total subjugation to American lordship and absolute flaccidity of our leadership.
We could have let desperation set in, if we were not exposed in recent weeks to the steadfastness of the brave soldiers. Brave young teenagers, for once, do not suffer from diseases of subordination or existential complexes.
Soldiers who had enlisted in the military service this week, were asked by a Channel 10 reporter if they would refuse an order to expel Jews. The question was asked a few minutes after the Chief of Staff talked with them about the refusal, including explanations and threats. The young soldiers who had just enlisted answered the reporter without hesitation, in this fashion:
A soldier from Migdal Haemek: "I will refuse an order, because I'm going with everyone, that's why. With friends, we're brothers, so I would refuse an order. If he refuses I will also refuse a command". A soldier from Kfar Vradim explained: "We are all Jews, there is nothing to do. You can not do this to Jews. I probably will not obey command because those are my values."
A soldier from Rechovot, enlisted today to the infantry brigade: "There are minimum values. We came to protect, not to expel. I protect my brothers, do not turn them out. I am now enlisting to protect and not to drive out."
Those who have seen the pictures of young soldiers see that they are not yeshiva students, none of them wore a skullcap, and none had a religious appearance. To the sorrow of those seeking to go against us, there isn't any Rosh Yeshiva you can point a finger at. The threats, intimidation and explanations that their refusal to expel Jews will allegedly dismantle the army - all these did not work for them. Their words were sharp and clear: We came to protect! We came to fight! Not to fight our brothers! They also renewed something our leadership lost long ago; they claimed that will not expel because "we have values."
Netanyahu and Barak's leadership may unfortunately be made of putty in the hands of haters of Israel. But the youth are made of natural steel, honesty and love of Israel. So who said there was no hope?
Who is Manhigut Yehudit - The Jewish Leadership Movement?
We are simply Jews, with no added definitions. We do not call ourselves Orthodox, Conservative or Reform - neither "right-wing" nor "left-wing." Like the overwhelming majority of Jews, we believe in G-d, Who has brought us back to our Jewish home; the Holy Land of Israel. In Israel, the natural predisposition of the Jewish People to illuminate the world with God's light is brought to perfection, enabling us to perform our task in the most consummate way.
Our aim is to create a genuinely Jewish consciousness in the Land of Israel, motivated by the awareness that our faith and our country are intrinsically woven together. An Israeli society predicated on Jewish faith - the Torah - is an ethical and loving society whose ultimate goal is to illuminate the entire world with God's benevolence.
The Modern State of Israel in Crisis
The Zionist movement, which founded the modern State of Israel, was a product of the millennia of longing for return to the Land of Israel. However, it was also a product of the times in which it was born. Basing itself on secular 19th century Western values, Zionism came to fill the need for a safe haven for the Jews of the world. Miraculously, the Zionist movement succeeded in building the complete infrastructure of a modern state - replete with a strong army, high tech, immigration absorption etc. out of the wilderness.
In its essence, though, the secular Zionism on which Israel was built negates holiness. In doing so, it has stripped itself of the tools necessary to reflect the Jewish nature of Israel and its ultimate holy purpose.
We are now witnessing a complete unraveling of the fabric of Israeli society. The very Zionist ideology that built the modern state of Israel has now turned against itself as it seeks to counter its Biblical roots and Divine purpose. This self-destructive bent is the ultimate conclusion of the secular ideology upon which Zionism is based.
The Essential Question: Is Israel a State of Jews - or a Jewish State?
Until now Israel has been a state of the Jews. It is vital to our future to transform Israel into a Jewish state. Israel's elected officials must lead the country with policies based exclusively on Jewish identity, values and ethics.
An Alternative
In 1994, Moshe Feiglin began the Zo Artzeinu ("This is Our Land") protest movement that opposed the self-destructive Oslo Accords with a massive civil disobedience campaign.
It became clear, though, that it was not enough to protest; we had to offer a fundamental alternative - a new strategic objective - in place of the process of collapse that gave rise to the Oslo Accords. Such an alternative would need to be based on both an alternative ideology that would inspire the nation and possess the means for implementation.
Faith-Based Leadership
There is only one way to truly imbue the State of Israel with the meaning it deserves and needs: to promote an alternative leadership for the State of Israel that is based on Jewish belief. Only leadership motivated by an authentically Jewish vision will be capable of meeting all the challenges currently facing the State of Israel and the Jewish People. Only leadership of this kind will be capable of reinvigorating the State of Israel and the Jewish People and leading it towards the realization of the vision of the prophets.
Leadership of the Likud
In 1998, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) was established as the successor to Zo Artzeinu. Our aim is to register thousands of believing members in the Likud - the ruling party of the National Camp - and to elect a party leader who will be motivated by Jewish ideals and values. As the Likud's candidate for Prime Minister, this candidate would be the natural leader of the national camp and would be elected as the Prime Minister of the State of Israel.
What began as a dream has become a reality. Already today, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) has the largest bloc inside the Likud's Central Committee. In a very short time we became known as the group that "does not come with a price tag." Our weapon is our ideology and tens of thousands of supporters have already joined our ranks. Many Israelis throughout the political spectrum believe that we are the future of Israel's political life and the path we have chosen is correct and viable.
Our Future
With firm faith in the God of Israel, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) is confident that our future is bright. Indeed the totality of our strategic goals could be summed up in a single phrase from the traditional Aleynu prayer recited daily:
To perfect the world in the kingdom of the Almighty
Our aim is to create a genuinely Jewish consciousness in the Land of Israel, motivated by the awareness that our faith and our country are intrinsically woven together. An Israeli society predicated on Jewish faith - the Torah - is an ethical and loving society whose ultimate goal is to illuminate the entire world with God's benevolence.
The Modern State of Israel in Crisis
The Zionist movement, which founded the modern State of Israel, was a product of the millennia of longing for return to the Land of Israel. However, it was also a product of the times in which it was born. Basing itself on secular 19th century Western values, Zionism came to fill the need for a safe haven for the Jews of the world. Miraculously, the Zionist movement succeeded in building the complete infrastructure of a modern state - replete with a strong army, high tech, immigration absorption etc. out of the wilderness.
In its essence, though, the secular Zionism on which Israel was built negates holiness. In doing so, it has stripped itself of the tools necessary to reflect the Jewish nature of Israel and its ultimate holy purpose.
We are now witnessing a complete unraveling of the fabric of Israeli society. The very Zionist ideology that built the modern state of Israel has now turned against itself as it seeks to counter its Biblical roots and Divine purpose. This self-destructive bent is the ultimate conclusion of the secular ideology upon which Zionism is based.
The Essential Question: Is Israel a State of Jews - or a Jewish State?
Until now Israel has been a state of the Jews. It is vital to our future to transform Israel into a Jewish state. Israel's elected officials must lead the country with policies based exclusively on Jewish identity, values and ethics.
An Alternative
In 1994, Moshe Feiglin began the Zo Artzeinu ("This is Our Land") protest movement that opposed the self-destructive Oslo Accords with a massive civil disobedience campaign.
It became clear, though, that it was not enough to protest; we had to offer a fundamental alternative - a new strategic objective - in place of the process of collapse that gave rise to the Oslo Accords. Such an alternative would need to be based on both an alternative ideology that would inspire the nation and possess the means for implementation.
Faith-Based Leadership
There is only one way to truly imbue the State of Israel with the meaning it deserves and needs: to promote an alternative leadership for the State of Israel that is based on Jewish belief. Only leadership motivated by an authentically Jewish vision will be capable of meeting all the challenges currently facing the State of Israel and the Jewish People. Only leadership of this kind will be capable of reinvigorating the State of Israel and the Jewish People and leading it towards the realization of the vision of the prophets.
Leadership of the Likud
In 1998, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) was established as the successor to Zo Artzeinu. Our aim is to register thousands of believing members in the Likud - the ruling party of the National Camp - and to elect a party leader who will be motivated by Jewish ideals and values. As the Likud's candidate for Prime Minister, this candidate would be the natural leader of the national camp and would be elected as the Prime Minister of the State of Israel.
What began as a dream has become a reality. Already today, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) has the largest bloc inside the Likud's Central Committee. In a very short time we became known as the group that "does not come with a price tag." Our weapon is our ideology and tens of thousands of supporters have already joined our ranks. Many Israelis throughout the political spectrum believe that we are the future of Israel's political life and the path we have chosen is correct and viable.
Our Future
With firm faith in the God of Israel, Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) is confident that our future is bright. Indeed the totality of our strategic goals could be summed up in a single phrase from the traditional Aleynu prayer recited daily:
To perfect the world in the kingdom of the Almighty
2009 Elections Prove Israel Ripe for Belief-Based Leadership
Playing on the theory that Israel is not yet ready for a belief-based leader, Moshe Feiglin's opponents claimed that his election in the 2009 Likud primaries would mean that the Likud would lose 6 mandates; ostensibly of those people who would not identify with belief-based leadership. But when Feiglin was elected to the 20th place on the Likud roster, just the opposite occurred. The Likud immediately began to gain in the polls, reaching 36 projected mandates. After Moshe Feiglin was forced down to 36th place on the Likud roster, the Likud's standing in the polls began to decline.
The following graph clearly shows the patterns that led to the Likud's slow but steady decline over the election campaign.
Conclusions:
A. There is complete symmetry between the decline of the Likud and the rise of Lieberman's party, and later of the National Union.
B. The Likud's decline begins when it loses its rightist/nationalist hue as a result of Netanyahu's battle against Feiglin.
C. From the beginning of December and until the elections, Lieberman and the National Union gained 11 mandates at the Likud's expense. The Likud with Moshe Feiglin could have won at least 38 mandates in these elections.
D. Israel voted Right because it is thirsting for leadership based on Jewish values and ethics.
The following graph clearly shows the patterns that led to the Likud's slow but steady decline over the election campaign.
Conclusions:
A. There is complete symmetry between the decline of the Likud and the rise of Lieberman's party, and later of the National Union.
B. The Likud's decline begins when it loses its rightist/nationalist hue as a result of Netanyahu's battle against Feiglin.
C. From the beginning of December and until the elections, Lieberman and the National Union gained 11 mandates at the Likud's expense. The Likud with Moshe Feiglin could have won at least 38 mandates in these elections.
D. Israel voted Right because it is thirsting for leadership based on Jewish values and ethics.
Insubordination Can Save Israel
By Moshe Feiglin
5 Kislev, 5770 (Nov. 22, '09)
5 Kislev, 5770 (Nov. 22, '09)
As a result of my attempts to halt the Oslo collapse, I was put on trial for "sedition." I asked the judges to allow me to read a short piece from a book that I had brought with me. The judges agreed, and to their surprise, I removed "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupיry from my briefcase:
"Sire--over what do you rule?"
"Over everything," said the king, with magnificent simplicity.
"Over everything?"
The king made a gesture, which took in his planet, the other planets, and all the stars.
"Over all that?" asked the little prince.
"Over all that," the king answered.
For his rule was not only absolute: it was also universal.
"And the stars obey you?"
"Certainly they do," the king said. "They obey instantly. I do not permit insubordination."
"I should like to see a sunset . . . Do me that kindness . . . Order the sun to set . . ."
"If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?" the king demanded. "The general, or myself?"
"You," said the little prince firmly.
"Exactly. One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform," the king went on. "Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable." (The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupיry, Chapter 10).
It is a mistake to think that the state works within the boundaries of laws. The public does not obey laws. It obeys rules within the boundaries of a triangle, the first side of which is the law. But the triangle has two other sides: common sense and ethicality.
What if the Knesset would pass a law requiring drivers to drive in reverse all winter? That would counter the logic side of the triangle. The public's subsequent refusal would be the fault of the government, not of the public. In other words, the fact that we obey the law is not because of the law itself, but because it is logical enough to warrant our adherence.
The third side of the triangle is ethicality. If the government would order us to drive our elderly and infirm out onto the frozen tundra, as per Eskimo custom, we may agree that it would logically enhance the economy. But nobody would obey, because it would be patently immoral. The party at fault for the insubordination would be the government that enacted the law and not the citizens who refused to obey.
How are the boundaries of this triangle determined?
The law is obviously determined by the government. A government has unlimited power to enact and enforce laws. The government, with its Knesset majority, can enact a law that would postpone elections for fifty years. Why doesn't it do so? For only one reason. Because it knows that the public would not accept it and the government would subsequently lose its credibility. In other words, just like Exupיry's king, the government enacts laws within the boundaries that it assumes the public will accept, both logically and ethically.
Power always strives for more power and the government will always attempt to test the boundaries of common sense and ethicality. But fortunately, it is not the government that determines these boundaries, but the public. How does the public accomplish this? By using its right and sometimes, its duty – to refuse to obey the law. That is how the logical and ethical platform for the healthy functioning of society is created.
In order to increase its power, the government tries to convince us that insubordination will cause the state to collapse. But that is completely false. The greatest crimes in human history were perpetrated when citizens ignored their duty to delineate logical and ethical boundaries for the rule of law. The societies in which this took place by and large collapsed.
"Good men must not obey the laws too well" (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
Emerson understood what the disengaging Israeli tyranny no longer wants to hear.
Those soldiers who obeyed the Expulsion law in Gush Katif despite the fact that they knew that it was illogical and unethical, brought the Hamas missiles to Be'er Sheva, the resulting Cast Lead Operation, Goldstone and the international anti-Israel demonization campaign that is gaining momentum by the day. In short, our eager-to-obey soldier has endangered Israel's very existence.
The writing on the wall of Netanyahu's office is clear: Destruction of the Golan Heights, of the settlements in Judea and Samaria and the division of Jerusalem. Public delineation of clear, logical and ethical boundaries for the law can prevent Netanyahu from carrying out his plan.
In the past few weeks, soldiers from two separate units in the IDF expressed their civic responsibility by refusing to obey orders to expel Jews from their homes. These brave young men are positioned to save Israel from collapse.
Feiglin on Netanyahu: Writing is on the Wall
8 Kislev,5770 (Nov. 25, '09)
Following the cabinet decision to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria, Jewish Leadership Head, Moshe Feiglin, said that "the writing on the wall is clear, Netanyahu is working to surrender the Golan, destroy the towns of Judea and Samaria and divide Jerusalem."
"Anyone who supports this move proves he has not learned anything from the crime of the expulsion from Gush Katif. I urge everyone to whom Israel and the future of the state are important to them, to join the Likud in order to replace Netanyahu with a leader that has a God".
"Anyone who supports this move proves he has not learned anything from the crime of the expulsion from Gush Katif. I urge everyone to whom Israel and the future of the state are important to them, to join the Likud in order to replace Netanyahu with a leader that has a God".
November 26, 2009
"Thanksgiving Break"
As Americans begin to celebrate their victory (genocide) over the Native americans with Turkey and family gatherings....Jewish americans need to reflect on their lives here and their futures that will be where?
Is Aliyah on your "Thanksgiving" table???
Avi
Is Aliyah on your "Thanksgiving" table???
Avi
November 25, 2009
US Presidential Election 2012 ?
The Democrats will throw the incumbent Obama out to run in 2012, almost without exception...unless there is a major disaster during his 1st term. Even then he would be likely to run.
The Republicans seem to have a wide open field....
Will it be Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rudi, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, ERIC CANTOR or even another Bush...Jeb Bush.....Sean Hannity or RUSH..(HaHa)
So who will it be?
The Republicans seem to have a wide open field....
Will it be Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rudi, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, ERIC CANTOR or even another Bush...Jeb Bush.....Sean Hannity or RUSH..(HaHa)
So who will it be?
Palin’s Rapture - Seth Lipsky
When I read her reply, I thought that it was wonderful. In the two generations in which I’ve been covering the Middle East debate, it was one of the few times a public figure gave in response to a question about the settlements an answer that I would call ideal. It seemed to me courageous, in that Palin was going against not only the administration but many in her own party and the gods of political correctness. There was no shilly-shallying about the Oslo process and the Quartet and the United Nations. Palin didn’t seem particularly worried one way or another about how she might be perceived. She is just on Israel’s side.
But it turns out that one of the shrewdest reporters on the Middle East beat, Jeffrey Goldberg, finds the governor’s language alarming. He put up a post on his Atlantic blog under the headline, “With Friends Like Sarah Palin…”—a phrase that one expects to be finished with the question, “…who needs enemies?” Goldberg wants to know who, exactly, she reckons is going to be flocking to Israel and whether her view grows from her analysis of Jewish demography. Or whether she anticipates a sudden upsurge in Zionist sentiment among American Jews, who are, he points out, the only sizable Jewish community outside Israel.
“Or,” Goldberg asks, “is this an indication that Palin buys into creepy End Times thinking, in which the ingathering of the Jews, and their mass death, presage the return of Christ?”
That is a vision in which Christians are to be gathered up in something called the Rapture. Goldberg was so determined to get to the bottom of the question that he called the executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center at Liberty University, Thomas Rice, who heads what Goldberg calls “one of the pre-eminent evangelical institutions in this country arguing for the literal Bible prophecy.” Goldberg asked him whether he thought Palin’s statement on Jewish settlements was informed by the belief about a Jewish ingathering to Israel in advance of Armageddon.
Rice, Goldberg reports, said that he’d heard the governor “has been part of an apparently unique movement” whose pastor “believed based on some personal revelation he claims to have gotten from God” that during the Tribulation “the Jews would move to Alaska.” But Rice also expressed his “understanding” that Palin actually holds what he called “fairly typical Protestant Zionist beliefs, and one of those beliefs is the regathering of the Jews in Israel.” He suggested that Palin “may just have a general geopolitical belief that the world is going to be increasingly anti-Semitic.”
I’ve been reading Goldberg long enough to have developed an abiding regard for his reportorial instincts. It turns out that he’s not the only writer worrying about Palin and the Rapture. Frank Rich echoed Goldberg’s worries over the weekend. And last year Alexander Cockburn’s Counterpunch, which specializes in attacking Israel from the left, ran its own warning about the possibility that Palin believes in the Rapture. Its writer, Raymond J. Lawrence, expressed the fear that a “believer in the Rapture with his or her fingers on the nuclear trigger might even be tempted”—apparently in the hope of advancing the Second Coming—“to bring on the Rapture.”
Lawrence reckoned that while Americans were prepared to accept reassurances from John Kennedy that he wouldn’t be taking orders from Rome, it’s not so easy to get around what he sees as the danger of a president who believes in the Rapture. “The problem is both more simple and more worrisome. The public must presume that Palin believes in the Rapture, since it is one of the central doctrines of her church. Furthermore, the American people should assume that Palin’s personal religious beliefs will have consequences in her decision-making as a President.”
Continues Lawrence: “The press and much of the public seem reluctant to engage Palin on her religious views, considering them to be a personal matter. In certain respects that is admirable restraint. We do not want candidates for office grilled on their private religious views as long as those views do not impinge upon the public welfare…. However, a belief in the Rapture as an historic event toward which history is rapidly moving, is a belief with potentially catastrophic political implications. Do the American people want a believer in such a fantasy to hold in her hands the nuclear power to destroy civilization?”
In other words, what Lawrence has done is set up, even while suggesting he is loath to do so, a classic religious test.
Now I don’t believe for a moment that it is distaste for the Rapture that animates Counterpunch; rather, it’s distaste for Israel and the prospect that Jews might settle in Judea and Samaria. That Palin is prepared to leave to the judgment of Israel and its democratic government is what seems to animate the Counterpunch camp. The thing to remember is that if we start allowing religious tests in politics, such tests will eventually be used, as they so often have, against the Jews.
Goldberg’s blog post sent me to the bookstore, and I spent the weekend reading Going Rogue. It turns out to be a marvelous memoir by a very smart, high-spirited woman, who is handling the messiness of family life and the challenges of a public life in a way that is inspiring millions. She may not be a veteran of, say, the anti-communist battles of the free-trade union movement that made Ronald Reagan a sage on the biggest issue of his time, Soviet communism. But she has the kind of clarity of commitment on key themes that he had and the same kind of wholesome optimism—and she’s still young. I couldn’t find anything in the book that made me worry about the fact that even on the difficult issues she supports Israel.
The Jewish Country....
Is the first step to being the Jewish Country, telling Mitchell and Obama to go home?
Of course it is. If Bibi is not skilled enough as a politician to yell Yankee go home nicely....then we need Feiglin or Dr Ben Ari to do so!
Then we must educate our children about their heritage!
No more apoligizing to Gentiles or asking for their approval. Enough!
Do I have a right to tell Israeli politicians what to do with my Country? Of course I do! I was at Sinai! I have my portion also!
I am still in the Galut, it is true. But I will extricate my family and come home soon. Perhaps those righteous Jews in Israel can unite and give us all a united cause to support and enlist our hearts!
Torah based Government will remove the graft and corruption.
Who will lead?
Who can lead?
Who wants/needs to lead?
Who can we trust to lead for the right reason?
As a Jew in America, do I want the right to vote in Israel?
Do I want to be able to join National Union or Manhigut Yehudit etc?
Yes. Yes I do!
All Jewish voices need to be heard!
Of course it is. If Bibi is not skilled enough as a politician to yell Yankee go home nicely....then we need Feiglin or Dr Ben Ari to do so!
Then we must educate our children about their heritage!
No more apoligizing to Gentiles or asking for their approval. Enough!
Do I have a right to tell Israeli politicians what to do with my Country? Of course I do! I was at Sinai! I have my portion also!
I am still in the Galut, it is true. But I will extricate my family and come home soon. Perhaps those righteous Jews in Israel can unite and give us all a united cause to support and enlist our hearts!
Torah based Government will remove the graft and corruption.
Who will lead?
Who can lead?
Who wants/needs to lead?
Who can we trust to lead for the right reason?
As a Jew in America, do I want the right to vote in Israel?
Do I want to be able to join National Union or Manhigut Yehudit etc?
Yes. Yes I do!
All Jewish voices need to be heard!
MK Ben-Ari to High Court: Punish Barghouti for Interviews
(IsraelNN.com) Knesset Member Dr. Michael Ben-Ari and several other petitioners filed a motion to the High Court Wednesday against the Prisons Authority Commissioner, the Prisons Authority, the Minister for Interior Security and convicted terror prisoner Marwan Barghouti. They are demanding that the defendants be required to say “why they have not replied to the plaintiffs' inquiry why Barghouti was not put on trial for interviews he granted to different media without any permission.”
Barghouti's name has been mentioned as one of the terrorists who might be released in return for Shalit, the petitioners noted, and he has “made use of these rumors and the special status accorded him by some journalists – especially haters of Israel – and chose to give interviews to Arab media as well as to the Reuters news agency to get his messages across.”
Barghouti's name has been mentioned as one of the terrorists who might be released in return for Shalit, the petitioners noted, and he has “made use of these rumors and the special status accorded him by some journalists – especially haters of Israel – and chose to give interviews to Arab media as well as to the Reuters news agency to get his messages across.”
November 24, 2009
Lion's Den: Islamism 2.0 - an even greater threat
Nov. 24, 2009
Daniel Pipes , THE JERUSALEM POST
To borrow a computer term, if Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Nidal Hasan represent Islamism 1.0, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (the prime minister of Turkey), Tariq Ramadan (a Swiss intellectual), and Keith Ellison (a US congressman) represent Islamism 2.0. The former kill more people but the latter pose a greater threat to Western civilization. Daniel Pipes , THE JERUSALEM POST
The 1.0 version attacks those perceived as obstructing its goal of a society ruled by a global caliphate and totally regulated by Shari'a (Islamic law). Islamism's original tactics, from totalitarian rule to mega-terrorism, encompass unlimited brutality. Three thousand dead in one attack? Bin Laden's search for atomic weaponry suggests the murderous toll could be a hundred or even a thousand times larger.
However, a review of the past three decades, since Islamism became a significant political force, finds that violence alone rarely works. Survivors of terrorism rarely capitulate to radical Islam - not after the assassination of Anwar Sadat in Egypt in 1981, nor the 9/11 attacks, the Bali bombings of 2002, the Madrid bombing of 2004, the Amman bombing of 2005, or the terrorist campaigns in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Terrorism does physical damage and kills and intimidates but it rarely overturns the existing order. Imagine Islamists had caused the devastation of Hurricane Katrina or the 2004 tsunami - what could these have lastingly achieved?
NON-TERRORIST violence aimed at applying Shari'a does hardly better. Revolution (meaning, a wide-scale social revolt) took Islamists to power in just one place at one time - Iran in 1978-79. Likewise, a coup d'état (a military overthrow) carried them to power just once - Sudan in 1989. Same for civil war - Afghanistan in 1996.
If the violence of Islamism 1.0 rarely succeeds in forwarding the Shari'a, the Islamism 2.0 strategy of working through the system does better. Islamists, adept at winning public opinion, represent the main opposition force in Muslim-majority countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and Kuwait. Islamists have enjoyed electoral success in Algeria in 1992, Bangladesh in 2001, Turkey in 2002, and Iraq in 2005.
Once in power, they can move the country toward Shari'a. As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces the wrath of Iranian street demonstrators and bin Laden cowers in a cave, Erdogan basks in public approval, remakes the Republic of Turkey, and offers an enticing model for Islamists worldwide.
Recognizing this pattern, al-Qaida's once-leading theorist has publicly repudiated terrorism and adopted political means. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (b. 1950, also known by the nom de guerre Dr. Fadl) was accused of helping assassinate Sadat. In 1988, he published a book that argued for perpetual, violent jihad against the West. With time, however, Sharif observed the inutility of violent attacks and instead advocated a strategy of infiltrating the state and influencing society.
In a recent book, he condemned the use of force against Muslims ("Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers") and even against non-Muslims (9/11 was counterproductive, for "what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?").
Sharif's evolution from theorist of terrorism to advocate of lawful transformation echoes a much broader shift; accordingly, as author Lawrence Wright notes, his defection poses a "terrible threat" to al-Qaida. Other once-violent Islamist organizations in Algeria, Egypt, and Syria have recognized the potential of lawful Islamism and largely renounced violence. One also sees a parallel shift in Western countries; Ramadan and Ellison represent a burgeoning trend.
(What one might call Islamism 1.5 - a combination of hard and soft means, of external and internal approaches - also works. It involves lawful Islamists softening up the enemy, then violent elements seizing power. The Hamas takeover of Gaza proved that such a combination can work: win elections in 2006, then stage a violent insurrection in 2007. Similar processes are possibly underway in Pakistan. The United Kingdom might be undergoing the opposite process, whereby violence creates a political opening.)
In conclusion, only Islamists, not fascists or communists, have gone well beyond crude force to win public support and develop a 2.0 version. Because this aspect of Islamism undermines traditional values and destroys freedoms, it may threaten civilized life even more than does 1.0's brutality.
The writer (DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
November 20, 2009
If I was a Jew in Britain, I’d start planning Aliyah
Friends,
If I was a Jew in Britain, I’d start planning Aliyah after I read this.
The Brits have how many Muslims living in Britain, and they feel threatened
by....Jews?
Naomi (Ragen)
Another Vast Jewish Conspiracy British media and society are gripped by lies about a "secret" Israel lobby controlling foreign policy. By ROBIN SHEPHERD
• Here is a small selection of events that have taken place in Britain
since the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza earlier this year.
The government has imposed a partial arms embargo on Israel and failed to vote against the Goldstone report in the U.N .
The charities War on Want and Amnesty International U.K. have both promoted a book by the anti-Israeli firebrand Ben White, tellingly called "Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide.
" The Trades Union Congress at its annual conference has called for boycotts of Israeli products as well as a total arms embargo.
In the media, the Guardian newspaper has stepped up its already obsessive campaign against the Jewish state to the extent that the paper's flagship Comment is Free Web site frequently features two anti-Israeli polemics on one and the same day.
The BBC continues to use its enormous influence over British public opinion to whitewash anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the Middle East. Its Web site, for example, features
a profile of Hamas that makes no mention of the group's virulent hatred of Jews or its adherence to a "Protocols of Zion"-style belief in world-wide Jewish conspiracies. Readers may be surprised to learn, therefore, that the British media and political establishment is apparently cowering under the sway of a secretive cabal of Zionist lobbyists who have all but extinguished
critical opinions of Israel from the public domain. Such charges have been aired to mass critical acclaim this week in a landmark documentary, "Inside Britain's Israel Lobby," on Channel 4"the same outlet that offered Iran's Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an uninterrupted, seven-minute propaganda slot on Christmas Day last year. The makers of
the documentary"top Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne and TV journalist James Jones"have also written about their program in the Guardian. Both furiously deny that they are peddling conspiracy theories.
But the mindset we are dealing with was neatly exposed by the authors' own explanation on
how their suspicions were aroused that something sinister is at work in the corridors of British power. It all transpired, they told readers ominously, during an address earlier this year by Conservative Party leader David Cameron at a dinner hosted by the Conservative Friends of Israel. "The dominant event of the previous 12 months had been the Israeli invasion of Gaza," they wrote. "We were shocked Cameron made no reference in his speech to the massive
destruction it caused, or the 1,370 deaths that resulted, or for that matter the invasion itself. Indeed, our likely future prime minister went out of his way to praise Israel because it 'strives to protect innocent life.' This remark was not intended satirically." Since it is inconceivable, the authors obviously believe, that anyone could honestly credit Israel with anything other than the most damnable motives it must therefore follow that those who do in fact praise the Jewish state must be being paid or bullied into doing so. If you think this all sounds familiar, you'd be right. Messrs. Oborne and Jones produced an extensive pamphlet accompanying the documentary,
which openly claimed inspiration from none other than John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"another conspiracy theory alleging malign Zionist influence in the United States. But if Messrs. Mearsheimer and Walt at least felt the need to dress up their polemic in pseudo-academic wrapping paper, the sheer amateurishness of the
British documentary they inspired is breathtaking.
There was the endless superimposition of the Israeli Star of David on to the British flag, which,
along with some absurdly melancholic background music, was presumably designed to prepare viewers for an astonishing series of revelations. But of course such revelations actually never materialized. It turns out from the documentary itself that the allegedly secretive Jewish donors have been quite open in declaring their interests in accordance with the law. One
of them, Poju Zabludowicz, the billionaire funder of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) is good friends with Madonna"not
exactly the kind of company you'd choose if you were trying to hide behind
a veil of obscurity. Much is also made of the influence of Friends of Israel
groupings in the British Parliament. Such allegations are, of course, rendered
ridiculous with a moment's reflection on the countervailing influence of
vast amounts of Arab oil money, not to mention the fact that membership in
such groups for many parliamentarians is either purely formal or outright
meaningless. Michael Ancram, for example, a former Northern Ireland minister
and a member of Conservative Friends of Israel for more than 30 years, is
famous for calling for talks with Hamas. Given the paucity of the arguments,
it would be tempting to dismiss the whole thing as unimportant. Would that we
could. The documentary has already provoked a torrent of abuse against British
Jews, not least on Channel 4's widely read Web site, whose moderators have
seen fit to approve dozens of postings about the Zionist lobby's "seditious
behavior," its "disgusting attack on British democracy," "the hand of global
Zionism at work," and several along the lines of the following, which said
flatly: "We want our country back. The agents of a foreign power embedded at
all levels of our government and politics need flushing out." If this sort of
language takes hold, a bad situation in Britain may be about to get a whole
lot worse. Jewish leadership organizations have long feared accusations
of divided loyalty between Britain and Israel and, ironically given the
charges now being made against them, are frequently criticized in their own
communities for failing to be sufficiently robust in Israel's defense. The
risk is that some may now be panicked into silence. Non-Jews who call for a
more reasoned discussion of Israel"already a small and diminishing group
in Britain"will likely face additional slanders against their integrity:
Since there is supposedly no reasonable case to be made in favor of the
Jewish state, we must have sold out to the "Lobby." Such calumnies cannot be
allowed to stand. Now more than ever, the forces of reason and decency must
continue the fight to be heard.
If I was a Jew in Britain, I’d start planning Aliyah after I read this.
The Brits have how many Muslims living in Britain, and they feel threatened
by....Jews?
Naomi (Ragen)
Another Vast Jewish Conspiracy British media and society are gripped by lies about a "secret" Israel lobby controlling foreign policy. By ROBIN SHEPHERD
• Here is a small selection of events that have taken place in Britain
since the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza earlier this year.
The government has imposed a partial arms embargo on Israel and failed to vote against the Goldstone report in the U.N .
The charities War on Want and Amnesty International U.K. have both promoted a book by the anti-Israeli firebrand Ben White, tellingly called "Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide.
" The Trades Union Congress at its annual conference has called for boycotts of Israeli products as well as a total arms embargo.
In the media, the Guardian newspaper has stepped up its already obsessive campaign against the Jewish state to the extent that the paper's flagship Comment is Free Web site frequently features two anti-Israeli polemics on one and the same day.
The BBC continues to use its enormous influence over British public opinion to whitewash anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the Middle East. Its Web site, for example, features
a profile of Hamas that makes no mention of the group's virulent hatred of Jews or its adherence to a "Protocols of Zion"-style belief in world-wide Jewish conspiracies. Readers may be surprised to learn, therefore, that the British media and political establishment is apparently cowering under the sway of a secretive cabal of Zionist lobbyists who have all but extinguished
critical opinions of Israel from the public domain. Such charges have been aired to mass critical acclaim this week in a landmark documentary, "Inside Britain's Israel Lobby," on Channel 4"the same outlet that offered Iran's Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an uninterrupted, seven-minute propaganda slot on Christmas Day last year. The makers of
the documentary"top Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne and TV journalist James Jones"have also written about their program in the Guardian. Both furiously deny that they are peddling conspiracy theories.
But the mindset we are dealing with was neatly exposed by the authors' own explanation on
how their suspicions were aroused that something sinister is at work in the corridors of British power. It all transpired, they told readers ominously, during an address earlier this year by Conservative Party leader David Cameron at a dinner hosted by the Conservative Friends of Israel. "The dominant event of the previous 12 months had been the Israeli invasion of Gaza," they wrote. "We were shocked Cameron made no reference in his speech to the massive
destruction it caused, or the 1,370 deaths that resulted, or for that matter the invasion itself. Indeed, our likely future prime minister went out of his way to praise Israel because it 'strives to protect innocent life.' This remark was not intended satirically." Since it is inconceivable, the authors obviously believe, that anyone could honestly credit Israel with anything other than the most damnable motives it must therefore follow that those who do in fact praise the Jewish state must be being paid or bullied into doing so. If you think this all sounds familiar, you'd be right. Messrs. Oborne and Jones produced an extensive pamphlet accompanying the documentary,
which openly claimed inspiration from none other than John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"another conspiracy theory alleging malign Zionist influence in the United States. But if Messrs. Mearsheimer and Walt at least felt the need to dress up their polemic in pseudo-academic wrapping paper, the sheer amateurishness of the
British documentary they inspired is breathtaking.
There was the endless superimposition of the Israeli Star of David on to the British flag, which,
along with some absurdly melancholic background music, was presumably designed to prepare viewers for an astonishing series of revelations. But of course such revelations actually never materialized. It turns out from the documentary itself that the allegedly secretive Jewish donors have been quite open in declaring their interests in accordance with the law. One
of them, Poju Zabludowicz, the billionaire funder of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) is good friends with Madonna"not
exactly the kind of company you'd choose if you were trying to hide behind
a veil of obscurity. Much is also made of the influence of Friends of Israel
groupings in the British Parliament. Such allegations are, of course, rendered
ridiculous with a moment's reflection on the countervailing influence of
vast amounts of Arab oil money, not to mention the fact that membership in
such groups for many parliamentarians is either purely formal or outright
meaningless. Michael Ancram, for example, a former Northern Ireland minister
and a member of Conservative Friends of Israel for more than 30 years, is
famous for calling for talks with Hamas. Given the paucity of the arguments,
it would be tempting to dismiss the whole thing as unimportant. Would that we
could. The documentary has already provoked a torrent of abuse against British
Jews, not least on Channel 4's widely read Web site, whose moderators have
seen fit to approve dozens of postings about the Zionist lobby's "seditious
behavior," its "disgusting attack on British democracy," "the hand of global
Zionism at work," and several along the lines of the following, which said
flatly: "We want our country back. The agents of a foreign power embedded at
all levels of our government and politics need flushing out." If this sort of
language takes hold, a bad situation in Britain may be about to get a whole
lot worse. Jewish leadership organizations have long feared accusations
of divided loyalty between Britain and Israel and, ironically given the
charges now being made against them, are frequently criticized in their own
communities for failing to be sufficiently robust in Israel's defense. The
risk is that some may now be panicked into silence. Non-Jews who call for a
more reasoned discussion of Israel"already a small and diminishing group
in Britain"will likely face additional slanders against their integrity:
Since there is supposedly no reasonable case to be made in favor of the
Jewish state, we must have sold out to the "Lobby." Such calumnies cannot be
allowed to stand. Now more than ever, the forces of reason and decency must
continue the fight to be heard.
November 19, 2009
Dr. Ben Ari - MK
I have been a fairly strong supporter of Manhigut Yehudit and Moshe Feiglin, but there is a new voice that seems to be loud from the Knesset, Dr. Ben Ari.
This has made me look back at National Union and say hmmm. seems pretty good and perhaps their route is correct.
My interest is finding a way to form an alliance between MY & NU for the good of Israel....
Any ideas?
Avi
This has made me look back at National Union and say hmmm. seems pretty good and perhaps their route is correct.
My interest is finding a way to form an alliance between MY & NU for the good of Israel....
Any ideas?
Avi
'Kfir doesn't expel Jews'
Third display of insubordination involving Kfir Brigade troops: Commander discovers sign bearing anti-evacuation slogan 'Kfir doesn't expel Jews' at training base Thursday afternoon
Hanan Greenberg
Another display of insubordination: A third sign bearing a slogan objecting to settlement evacuation was discovered Thursday in an IDF base.
The sign was found at the training base of the Kfir Brigade, where two other previous cases of insubordination took place recently.
The latest sign, bearing the caption "Kfir doesn't expel Jews" was found by a commander as it was drying up, apparently a short time after it was prepared. Only a few soldiers were at the base when the sign was found, but authorities do not know yet who is responsible for the act.
Military officials said they are looking into the identity of the soldiers involved in making the sign, and also into the venue it was intended for. The army said it views the act as a grave matter.
"The time has come to realize that these are not only members of hesder yeshivas or a few individuals," he said. "We are dealing with a phenomenon and those responsible for it are Bibi and Barak, who present IDF soldiers with a difficult dilemma. IDF soldiers must not be engaged in the expulsion of Jews."
The issue of insubordination has been making headlines recently in the wake of two incidents involving Kfir soldiers. In one case, troops belonging to the Samson Battalion held up an anti-evacuation sign during their pledge-of-allegiance ceremony at the Western Wall.
Later, six soldiers held up a sign objecting to the removal of an illegal outpost.
Hanan Greenberg
Another display of insubordination: A third sign bearing a slogan objecting to settlement evacuation was discovered Thursday in an IDF base.
The sign was found at the training base of the Kfir Brigade, where two other previous cases of insubordination took place recently.
The latest sign, bearing the caption "Kfir doesn't expel Jews" was found by a commander as it was drying up, apparently a short time after it was prepared. Only a few soldiers were at the base when the sign was found, but authorities do not know yet who is responsible for the act.
Military officials said they are looking into the identity of the soldiers involved in making the sign, and also into the venue it was intended for. The army said it views the act as a grave matter.
'Bibi, Barak at fault'
Meanwhile, Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) again reiterated his view that political leaders are forcing insubordinate soldiers to act that way."The time has come to realize that these are not only members of hesder yeshivas or a few individuals," he said. "We are dealing with a phenomenon and those responsible for it are Bibi and Barak, who present IDF soldiers with a difficult dilemma. IDF soldiers must not be engaged in the expulsion of Jews."
Later, six soldiers held up a sign objecting to the removal of an illegal outpost.
November 18, 2009
Letter to Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell
JUSTICE NOW!
Office for Israeli Constitutional Law
October 30, 2009
The Honorable George Mitchell, Special Middle East Envoy
Embassy of the United States
Hayarkon Street 71
Tel Aviv 63903
Dear Mr. Mitchell:
Since taking office in January, the Obama Administration has placed great focus on achieving a just solution to the Arab-Israel conflict. Our organization, the Office for Israeli Constitutional Law and the people we represent, Jewish Americans in Israel, would like to express our appreciation for your sincere efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israel and all her neighbors and inhabitants.
At the same time, we would like to express our concern that in pursuing these objectives, the United States is violating its signed agreements and treaties, and thus the oath of office, when you, as a senator, and President Obama swore to uphold the Constitution.
The current U.S. policy is leading the State of Israel farther and farther from the Jewish National Home as set forth under international law. Furthermore, it appears that you are in violation of the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924.
The British Government made a promise to the Jewish People in 1917, known as the Balfour Declaration. Thereafter, the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers of World War I agreed to "entrust the Mandate for Palestine to "His Britannic Majesty (Great Britain), as Mandatory, under the Mandates System authorized in Article 22 of the Covenant of the "League of Nations. The Jewish People were the sole beneficial recipients of both the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine.
Thereafter, the United States of America ratified a treaty a with the British Government known as the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924, which included by reference the aforementioned Balfour Declaration and includes, verbatim, the full text of the Mandate for Palestine.
"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on the 2nd of November 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…"
By doing so, the United States of America is legally bound to the principles contained in the "Balfour Declaration, and the "Mandate for Palestine."
More specifically:
Article 5 states: "The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign power."
Suggesting a two state solution within the Mandated borders of Palestine is "ceding land and is a violation of the Treaty.
Article 6 states, in part: "The Administration of Palestine … shall facilitate Jewish immigration … close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."
Suggesting that settlements or Jewish housing anywhere within Mandated Palestine is illegal or must be stopped is a violation of the treaty.
In law we call these "rights, and there is a fundamental principle in law that "where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy. (Sir William Blackstone).
Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution says, in part: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby..."
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris was the end of the American Revolutionary War, and the rights you enjoy as Americans today stand on this document. What keeps the English from canceling this treaty and giving the land to someone else is the principle of Estoppel. Once the rights are given, they simply can’t be taken back, and so it is with the Mandate for Palestine and the rights that the United States accepted, and committed itself to uphold, in this 1924 treaty, ratified by the Senate and proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge on December 5th, 1925.
Article 7 (page 426) of the instant treaty states: "Nothing contained in the present convention shall be affected by any modification which may be made in the terms of the Mandate, as recited above, unless such modification shall have been assented to by the United States."
Notwithstanding the fact that there were no provisions for "modification within the Mandate for Palestine, thereafter, Britain violated this provision repeatedly. Not only did they make changes when none were permitted, but they failed to ask for the approval of the United States when making unauthorized changes. All of this was repeatedly called to the attention of the State Department and the full listing of these failures has been documented in the deliberations of the House of Representatives, Seventy-Eighth Congress, Second Session on House Resolutions 418 & 419, as printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Wherein we read:
"We desire to point out to the members of the House and to call to the attention of the State Department that Americans have invested over 100-million dollars in Palestine, relying upon the treaty between Great Britain and our Government, and upon which treaty they had a right to rely. It is the duty of the American Government to protect these rights by proper protest and to see to it that the treaty is carried out in good faith.
It appears that in eighty years, the situation has not changed.
The previous duplicity of the Executive and/or the United States State Department in failing to move Great Britain to adhere to the Mandate, or the failure of the United States itself to honor the commitments it made, does not release the current United States Administration from its obligations to the Jewish National Home or the Jewish People.
It is not too late to do the right thing. The time has come to honor the signed agreements and the commitments made by the United States and other countries to the Jewish People. The record of deliberations in the Joint Sessions of Congress, along with President Coolidge’s Proclamation, leave no doubt that all the problems were well known, discussed, deliberated upon, and solutions found.
What has been sorely lacking in the United States is simply the political will to do the right thing. The situation is much like the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Bill, which has become a global joke, with Israel the only State without the embassy in its capital city. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any nation other than Biblical Israel.
The Supreme Allied Powers of World War I, in the shadow of President Wilson’s Fourteen Point Plan, did something entirely new: Rather than dividing the spoils of war between the victorious Allies, they created, from the ashes of the Central Powers, what are today, in the Middle East and North Africa, thirty-one Arab/Islamic/Muslim nation states, one Christian state (Lebanon), and one Jewish state (Palestine). Then, as the United States and the world looked on, Britain, in violation of Article 5, ripped away 78% of the Jewish National Home and called it Jordan. And now you want to make yet another Arab State from the 22% we have remaining? We say "No, and if necessary, the courts will confirm this and more.
How much longer will the poor Arab refugees be left in squalor before someone does the right thing and finds them new homes? How long must Jews be told they are unwanted or have no rights on the very lands they were promised and given rights to ninety years ago?
New plans, or new negotiations, are not necessary, because every problem has already been addressed and answered, discussed, and resolved, and is available, within the signed documents in our possession. We are here to assist you in understanding this treaty and the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine. We are available to answer your questions on every issue at any time that you need answers-by phone, fax, or e-mail.
The Office for Israeli Constitutional Law (Justice Now!) is an Israeli non-profit legal action organization. We are requesting that you move immediately to cease activities that are in violation of your treaty obligations under the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924 (Exhibit "A"). We are requesting your immediate assistance in moving forward with the provisions of the treaty using the primary documents and where support is needed, the records of the Joint Sessions of Congress, etc.
What we want-and what we deserve-is justice, nothing more, nothing less. We will also be sending this letter to President Barack Obama in the next couple weeks. If there is no progress on this issue within 30 days, we will file a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court.
Thank you for your kind attention to the content of this letter.
Respectively submitted,
Michael T. Snidecor, Ph.D.
Attached Exhibits
Exhibit A: The Anglo American Treaty of 1924
Exhibit B: Map of Mandate for Palestine
Exhibit C: Lodge-Fish Resolution (Joint Congressional Resolution 360)
Exhibit D: Deliberations of the House of Representatives, June 30, 1922 House Resolution 360 (Rept. NO. 1172)
Office for Israeli Constitutional Law
October 30, 2009
The Honorable George Mitchell, Special Middle East Envoy
Embassy of the United States
Hayarkon Street 71
Tel Aviv 63903
Dear Mr. Mitchell:
Since taking office in January, the Obama Administration has placed great focus on achieving a just solution to the Arab-Israel conflict. Our organization, the Office for Israeli Constitutional Law and the people we represent, Jewish Americans in Israel, would like to express our appreciation for your sincere efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israel and all her neighbors and inhabitants.
At the same time, we would like to express our concern that in pursuing these objectives, the United States is violating its signed agreements and treaties, and thus the oath of office, when you, as a senator, and President Obama swore to uphold the Constitution.
The current U.S. policy is leading the State of Israel farther and farther from the Jewish National Home as set forth under international law. Furthermore, it appears that you are in violation of the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924.
The British Government made a promise to the Jewish People in 1917, known as the Balfour Declaration. Thereafter, the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers of World War I agreed to "entrust the Mandate for Palestine to "His Britannic Majesty (Great Britain), as Mandatory, under the Mandates System authorized in Article 22 of the Covenant of the "League of Nations. The Jewish People were the sole beneficial recipients of both the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine.
Thereafter, the United States of America ratified a treaty a with the British Government known as the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924, which included by reference the aforementioned Balfour Declaration and includes, verbatim, the full text of the Mandate for Palestine.
"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on the 2nd of November 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…"
By doing so, the United States of America is legally bound to the principles contained in the "Balfour Declaration, and the "Mandate for Palestine."
More specifically:
Article 5 states: "The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign power."
Suggesting a two state solution within the Mandated borders of Palestine is "ceding land and is a violation of the Treaty.
Article 6 states, in part: "The Administration of Palestine … shall facilitate Jewish immigration … close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."
Suggesting that settlements or Jewish housing anywhere within Mandated Palestine is illegal or must be stopped is a violation of the treaty.
In law we call these "rights, and there is a fundamental principle in law that "where there is a legal right, there is also a legal remedy. (Sir William Blackstone).
Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution says, in part: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby..."
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris was the end of the American Revolutionary War, and the rights you enjoy as Americans today stand on this document. What keeps the English from canceling this treaty and giving the land to someone else is the principle of Estoppel. Once the rights are given, they simply can’t be taken back, and so it is with the Mandate for Palestine and the rights that the United States accepted, and committed itself to uphold, in this 1924 treaty, ratified by the Senate and proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge on December 5th, 1925.
Article 7 (page 426) of the instant treaty states: "Nothing contained in the present convention shall be affected by any modification which may be made in the terms of the Mandate, as recited above, unless such modification shall have been assented to by the United States."
Notwithstanding the fact that there were no provisions for "modification within the Mandate for Palestine, thereafter, Britain violated this provision repeatedly. Not only did they make changes when none were permitted, but they failed to ask for the approval of the United States when making unauthorized changes. All of this was repeatedly called to the attention of the State Department and the full listing of these failures has been documented in the deliberations of the House of Representatives, Seventy-Eighth Congress, Second Session on House Resolutions 418 & 419, as printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Wherein we read:
"We desire to point out to the members of the House and to call to the attention of the State Department that Americans have invested over 100-million dollars in Palestine, relying upon the treaty between Great Britain and our Government, and upon which treaty they had a right to rely. It is the duty of the American Government to protect these rights by proper protest and to see to it that the treaty is carried out in good faith.
It appears that in eighty years, the situation has not changed.
The previous duplicity of the Executive and/or the United States State Department in failing to move Great Britain to adhere to the Mandate, or the failure of the United States itself to honor the commitments it made, does not release the current United States Administration from its obligations to the Jewish National Home or the Jewish People.
It is not too late to do the right thing. The time has come to honor the signed agreements and the commitments made by the United States and other countries to the Jewish People. The record of deliberations in the Joint Sessions of Congress, along with President Coolidge’s Proclamation, leave no doubt that all the problems were well known, discussed, deliberated upon, and solutions found.
What has been sorely lacking in the United States is simply the political will to do the right thing. The situation is much like the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Bill, which has become a global joke, with Israel the only State without the embassy in its capital city. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any nation other than Biblical Israel.
The Supreme Allied Powers of World War I, in the shadow of President Wilson’s Fourteen Point Plan, did something entirely new: Rather than dividing the spoils of war between the victorious Allies, they created, from the ashes of the Central Powers, what are today, in the Middle East and North Africa, thirty-one Arab/Islamic/Muslim nation states, one Christian state (Lebanon), and one Jewish state (Palestine). Then, as the United States and the world looked on, Britain, in violation of Article 5, ripped away 78% of the Jewish National Home and called it Jordan. And now you want to make yet another Arab State from the 22% we have remaining? We say "No, and if necessary, the courts will confirm this and more.
How much longer will the poor Arab refugees be left in squalor before someone does the right thing and finds them new homes? How long must Jews be told they are unwanted or have no rights on the very lands they were promised and given rights to ninety years ago?
New plans, or new negotiations, are not necessary, because every problem has already been addressed and answered, discussed, and resolved, and is available, within the signed documents in our possession. We are here to assist you in understanding this treaty and the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine. We are available to answer your questions on every issue at any time that you need answers-by phone, fax, or e-mail.
The Office for Israeli Constitutional Law (Justice Now!) is an Israeli non-profit legal action organization. We are requesting that you move immediately to cease activities that are in violation of your treaty obligations under the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924 (Exhibit "A"). We are requesting your immediate assistance in moving forward with the provisions of the treaty using the primary documents and where support is needed, the records of the Joint Sessions of Congress, etc.
What we want-and what we deserve-is justice, nothing more, nothing less. We will also be sending this letter to President Barack Obama in the next couple weeks. If there is no progress on this issue within 30 days, we will file a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court.
Thank you for your kind attention to the content of this letter.
Respectively submitted,
Michael T. Snidecor, Ph.D.
Attached Exhibits
Exhibit A: The Anglo American Treaty of 1924
Exhibit B: Map of Mandate for Palestine
Exhibit C: Lodge-Fish Resolution (Joint Congressional Resolution 360)
Exhibit D: Deliberations of the House of Representatives, June 30, 1922 House Resolution 360 (Rept. NO. 1172)
November 17, 2009
Proof that Fort Hood Shooting was Muslim Terrorism
Maj. Hasan, who is now facing charges of having murdered 13 and wounded 29 in the Fort Hood shooting attack of Nov. 5, delivered a lecture in June 2007. His topic was: Islam, the complete subservience demanded by Allah and Muhammed, and threats that the American military might encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting wars in Muslim countries.
Hassan had been writing e-mails to a radical cleric in Yemen who advocated killing soldiers and who called the American war on terror a "war against Muslims.” In addition, he yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he began shooting the unarmed soldiers.
Despite this, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has stated, "We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this ... This was an individual who does not, obviously, represent the Muslim faith." In addition, Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. said, "I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers ... Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse."
Hassan had been writing e-mails to a radical cleric in Yemen who advocated killing soldiers and who called the American war on terror a "war against Muslims.” In addition, he yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he began shooting the unarmed soldiers.
Despite this, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has stated, "We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this ... This was an individual who does not, obviously, represent the Muslim faith." In addition, Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. said, "I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers ... Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse."
Aliyah, What's Your Favorite Excuse?
by from "The Eye of the Storm" - Batya Medad
With good Hebrew, you can get a good job, not one limited to those for "English speakers." With good Hebrew, you can become part of Israeli society and not restricted to being friends with fellow anglo (English speaking) olim, immigrants.
There is no intellectual linguistic reason to think that learning Hebrew, or any other language, is impossible. Immigrants from all different countries to all different countries manage to learn the new language and function.
And for those Jews who have graduated from a life time of Jewish schooling, it's criminal that they're not totally fluent in Hebrew. Jews were once, until the mid-twentieth century, known as multilingual experts. That's why there were Jews on the ships which sailed to the new land, America. The same students whose parents would tell me that their family is incapable of learning English would later admit that their grandparents were fluent in three or four languages.
What changed was expectations. It used to be that immigrants expected, demanded from themselves a few months to immerse themselves in the new language and culture and then be as fluent as anyone else. Today this is harder. Immigrants come with their old language DVD's, ipods filled with their old music and quickly set up cable or a dish to receive television from the old country.
As I've already written, "...most people fear change." And to make aliyah successfully, you have to change more than your address.
(Batya Medad made aliyah from New York to Israel in 1970 and has been living in Shiloh since 1981. Recently she began organizing women's visits to Tel Shiloh for Psalms and prayers. Batya is a veteran jblogger and recently stopped EFL teaching. She's also a wife, mother, grandmother, photographer and HolyLand hitchhiker, always seeing things from her own very unique perspective).
With good Hebrew, you can get a good job, not one limited to those for "English speakers." With good Hebrew, you can become part of Israeli society and not restricted to being friends with fellow anglo (English speaking) olim, immigrants.
There is no intellectual linguistic reason to think that learning Hebrew, or any other language, is impossible. Immigrants from all different countries to all different countries manage to learn the new language and function.
And for those Jews who have graduated from a life time of Jewish schooling, it's criminal that they're not totally fluent in Hebrew. Jews were once, until the mid-twentieth century, known as multilingual experts. That's why there were Jews on the ships which sailed to the new land, America. The same students whose parents would tell me that their family is incapable of learning English would later admit that their grandparents were fluent in three or four languages.
What changed was expectations. It used to be that immigrants expected, demanded from themselves a few months to immerse themselves in the new language and culture and then be as fluent as anyone else. Today this is harder. Immigrants come with their old language DVD's, ipods filled with their old music and quickly set up cable or a dish to receive television from the old country.
As I've already written, "...most people fear change." And to make aliyah successfully, you have to change more than your address.
(Batya Medad made aliyah from New York to Israel in 1970 and has been living in Shiloh since 1981. Recently she began organizing women's visits to Tel Shiloh for Psalms and prayers. Batya is a veteran jblogger and recently stopped EFL teaching. She's also a wife, mother, grandmother, photographer and HolyLand hitchhiker, always seeing things from her own very unique perspective).
Bill Clinton in Israel: There would be peace if Rabin were still alive
Today's Golden Oldie is a Dry Bones cartoon from December 1999. Ten years ago next month.
I've posted this Golden Oldie because the ex-President is here in Israel to share his "wisdom" with us. According to the Associated Press (as quoted by Haaretz)
Bill Clinton in Israel: There would be peace if Rabin were still aliveThe impeached President, who broke his promise to free Pollard ten years ago, is now telling us that the ongoing, continuous, and relentless genocidal quest to destroy the Jewish State is because of Israel's political leadership!!?!The man pushes the limits of hutzpah!
"Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Saturday that if former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin were still alive, a peace accord would have been reached between Israel and all of its neighbors."
-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973
November 16, 2009
Non-Believers!
The focus of today's cartoon is the Western "Non Believer".
These folks are committed to not believing what is happening before their eyes. Their ability to maintain their non-belief in the Islamist war that is being waged against them is astounding!
Voting Rights for Israeli Expatriates and Diaspora Jews: By Moshe Feiglin
In most democracies, the right to vote is not contingent on actually living in the country in question, but rather on citizenship alone. Many Israelis who are also US citizens - even if they were not born in the US - vote in US elections. Israel's law that makes a citizen's right to vote contingent on his living in Israel deviates from the norm.
On the surface, this would seem like a positive way to strengthen the connection between Israeli citizens and their country. But just the opposite is true. The original Zionist platform called for the establishment of a new nation in Israel - the Israeli nation - to replace the Jewish nation. Azmi Bashara is an Israeli, while a Jew in London who would like to be an Israeli citizen while remaining in the Diaspora in the meantime - is not.
To grant Israeli citizenship to every Jew who requests it turns Judaism into the Israeli nationality. The founding fathers of Zionism wanted to cut the connection between the two. They preferred to leave the Jewish nation to die, either physically or spiritually, in the exile - to relegate Judaism to the status of religion and nothing more - and to establish a new nation here in the Land of Israel.
In the words of pioneer author and Zionist thinker, Chaim Hazaz:
Zionism and Judaism are not one thing, but two things, different from each other, two things that contradict each other. When a person cannot be a Jew, he becomes a Zionist.
Zionism begins at the place where Judaism is destroyed, from the place that the strength of the nation is sapped. Zionism is not a continuation, not a panacea for the blow. That is ridiculous! It is uprooting and destruction, the opposite of what was, the end. I believe that the Land of Israel is no longer Judaism. (The pioneer in Hazaz's book, "Hadrasha")
The generation of Hazaz attempted to turn the gates of the Land of Israel into the gates of the new Israeli nation. That is why today, a Jew cannot be Israeli unless he lives in Israel.
And what about the Israeli expatriates who have "descended" and live in the Diaspora?
While giving voting rights to Jews in the Diaspora is complex and would require intricate legislation and minimal criteria of connection with the Jewish nation and the State of Israel, there is no excuse for not allowing expatriates to vote. The reason why they are excommunicated from Israel is because Israeli citizens who leave Israel are proof that the New Nation Project of Zionism's "founding fathers" was a dismal failure.
Why should a Jew who doesn't live in Israel have voting rights here?
Because Israel is the Jewish State. As such, it is the state of the Jews outside of Israel just as much as it is the state of the commander of the most elite IDF unit.
True, the Jews in the Diaspora have forgotten that Israel is their real home. But when we established a state for Israelis instead of for Jews, we showed the world that we have also forgotten. It is our duty to change this situation. With G-d's help, we will propose legislation that will allow expatriates - and eventually Diaspora Jews - to vote in Israeli embassies throughout the world.
As a Jewish state that is secure in its eternal existence on the basis of G-d's promise to Abraham, we must give the Diaspora Jews the opportunity to connect to Israel, to care about what is transpiring here, to feel that they belong and to vote. It will be an excellent reminder that their homeland is Israel and encourage aliyah. Not only that, but it will be much more effective than all the excommunication methods that we have used until now to try to stop expatriates from leaving our Land.
November 12, 2009
It is time for America and the Obama administration to open their eyes
"Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, murdered twelve people and wounded twenty-one inside Fort Hood in Texas yesterday, while, according to eyewitnesses, “shouting something in Arabic while he was shooting.” Investigators are scratching their heads and expressing puzzlement about why he did it. According to NPR, “the motive behind the shootings was not immediately clear, officials said.” The Washington Post agreed: “The motive remains unclear, although some sources reported the suspect is opposed to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and upset about an imminent deployment.” The Huffington Post spun faster, asserting that “there is no concrete reporting as to whether Nidal Malik Hasan was in fact a Muslim or an Arab.”Yet there was, and what’s more, Major Hasan’s motive was perfectly clear — but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure. So it is that now that another major jihad terror attack has taken place on American soil, authorities and the mainstream media are at a loss to explain why it happened – and the abundant evidence that it was a jihad attack is ignored."
Knesset Takes Tiny Step Toward Jewish Law
(IsraelNN.com) The Knesset will soon be hiring a researcher of Jewish Law, as part of the legislative body's Center for Research and Information. The researcher will be part of the the legal team which carries out comparative legal research. These researchers assist Knesset Members in gathering legal and other information in the preparation and debate of legislation.
The person behind the idea is the chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK David Rotem (Israel Our Home). A while ago, Rotem wrote a letter to the Knesset Director with the idea for the position, explaining that “Hebrew law is the basis for Israeli law and incorporates within it a wisdom that is thousands of years old. It is meaningful that Knesset Members should receive the position of Hebrew Law and not base their opinions on unsubstantiated claims.”
Rotem's initiative is in agreement with the Foundations of Justice Law (1980) which states that the basis of Israeli law – previously defined as English Common Law – is the "principles of freedom, justice, equity, and peace of the heritage of Israel."
The person behind the idea is the chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK David Rotem (Israel Our Home). A while ago, Rotem wrote a letter to the Knesset Director with the idea for the position, explaining that “Hebrew law is the basis for Israeli law and incorporates within it a wisdom that is thousands of years old. It is meaningful that Knesset Members should receive the position of Hebrew Law and not base their opinions on unsubstantiated claims.”
Rotem's initiative is in agreement with the Foundations of Justice Law (1980) which states that the basis of Israeli law – previously defined as English Common Law – is the "principles of freedom, justice, equity, and peace of the heritage of Israel."
Knesset Speech on Kahane: Rivlin and Ben-Ari Seek Compromise
(IsraelNN.com) The Knesset House Committee resolved that the dispute between Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin and MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) regarding the latter's banned speech on Rabbi Meir Kahane will go to arbitration. The arbitrator will be Likud MK Yariv Levine.
The dispute broke out when Ben-Ari announced his plans to deliver a Knesset speech in memory of the late Rabbi Kahane, on the occasion of the 18th anniversary of Kahane's assassination by a Muslim Arab in New York City.
Speaker Rivlin announced that he would not allow Ben-Ari to give the speech. Ben-Ari claimed that this was an undemocratic attempt to violate his freedom of speech - "a right utilized by Arab MKs every day to attack the IDF and the State of Israel."
Kahane's Kach [This Way!] organization was outlawed four years after his death (as was the spin-off "Kahane Chai" organization). Earlier, the party had been prevented from running for election to the Knesset, precisely as polls predicted that it would win at least five seats in the next elections. Kahane had won only one seat in the previous election.
MK Shlomo Mola (Kadima) expressed approval for Rivlin's decision, stating that Kahane had been outlawed by the Knesset - a mistake that Ben-Ari attempted to correct, saying it was merely his party that had been outlawed, four years after his death. Other MKs, however, were opposed to the blanket ban on Ben-Ari's speech. MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) said, "I knew Rabbi Kahane before Ben-Ari began to be his student, and I know that he was murdered by Al-Qaeda! So when someone wants to speak in his memory - not about his political ideology - but about his good deeds, etc., all of a sudden we have to be so sensitive?! Why do we allow ourselves to be attacked day in and day out haters of Israel without this same 'sensitivity'?! Whenever there is incitement and hatred of Israel, there are Arab MKs who are regulars in joining in."
The dispute broke out when Ben-Ari announced his plans to deliver a Knesset speech in memory of the late Rabbi Kahane, on the occasion of the 18th anniversary of Kahane's assassination by a Muslim Arab in New York City.
Speaker Rivlin announced that he would not allow Ben-Ari to give the speech. Ben-Ari claimed that this was an undemocratic attempt to violate his freedom of speech - "a right utilized by Arab MKs every day to attack the IDF and the State of Israel."
Kahane's Kach [This Way!] organization was outlawed four years after his death (as was the spin-off "Kahane Chai" organization). Earlier, the party had been prevented from running for election to the Knesset, precisely as polls predicted that it would win at least five seats in the next elections. Kahane had won only one seat in the previous election.
MK Shlomo Mola (Kadima) expressed approval for Rivlin's decision, stating that Kahane had been outlawed by the Knesset - a mistake that Ben-Ari attempted to correct, saying it was merely his party that had been outlawed, four years after his death. Other MKs, however, were opposed to the blanket ban on Ben-Ari's speech. MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) said, "I knew Rabbi Kahane before Ben-Ari began to be his student, and I know that he was murdered by Al-Qaeda! So when someone wants to speak in his memory - not about his political ideology - but about his good deeds, etc., all of a sudden we have to be so sensitive?! Why do we allow ourselves to be attacked day in and day out haters of Israel without this same 'sensitivity'?! Whenever there is incitement and hatred of Israel, there are Arab MKs who are regulars in joining in."
Zionist Student Group: 'No Academic Freedom in Israel'
(IsraelNN.com) Earlier this week, it was revealed that many students at Tel Aviv University are afraid to speak out in class for fear that they will be punished for holding Zionist or right-wing views. Erez Tadmor, director of the Zionist student group Im Tirzu, believes that all Israeli universities are suffering from a similar problem, leading to a situation in which Israel lacks true academic freedom.
Tadmor spoke to Arutz Sheva's Hebrew news service, and began by praising Professor Nira Hativa, who revealed the issue at TAU. “She is a very courageous woman,” he said.
Hativa based her findings on feedback forms provided by students upon completing courses, Tadmor said. The forms revealed that students who found that their own political views were to the right of those of their instructors were intimidated into keeping their opinions to themselves.
Tadmor spoke to Arutz Sheva's Hebrew news service, and began by praising Professor Nira Hativa, who revealed the issue at TAU. “She is a very courageous woman,” he said.
Hativa based her findings on feedback forms provided by students upon completing courses, Tadmor said. The forms revealed that students who found that their own political views were to the right of those of their instructors were intimidated into keeping their opinions to themselves.
November 11, 2009
Is US Envoy Mitchell Interfering in Knesset Policy?
(Israelnationalnews.com) MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) has been engaged in a battle to honor former MK Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was murdered in New York City in 1990, by giving a memorial speech from the Knesset podium. On Wednesday, it was revealed that Ben-Ari's struggle has drawn opposition from well beyond the Knesset, and that U.S. envoy George Mitchell has taken an interest in the matter.
Arutz Sheva quotes unnamed sources that said that Mitchell reportedly sent a message via the American embassy asking Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin if he planned to approve Ben-Ari's request to speak about Kahane in the Knesset. Rivlin, who recently canceled the planned speech after it received initial approval, replied in the negative.
Upon hearing the report, Ben-Ari accused Mitchell of “crossing a red line” by interfering in internal Israeli politics. “I was elected by citizens of the independent state of Israel... It's amazing how members of the American government are attempting to intervene in the daily affairs of the Knesset, which is supposed to be a sovereign body.”
Rivlin is “sending a message of weakness,” Ben-Ari accused.
MK Aryeh Eldad (Ichud Leumi) backed his colleague, saying, “If the American embassy did this... this is beyond audacious, it is a humiliation and a degradation of Israeli democracy.” The veteran MK encouraged his fellow lawmakers to fight for Ben-Ari's right to speak in Kahane's memory. "Even those who opposed Kahane must enlist in the struggle for Israeli sovereignty and freedom of expression,” he explained.
Arutz Sheva quotes unnamed sources that said that Mitchell reportedly sent a message via the American embassy asking Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin if he planned to approve Ben-Ari's request to speak about Kahane in the Knesset. Rivlin, who recently canceled the planned speech after it received initial approval, replied in the negative.
Upon hearing the report, Ben-Ari accused Mitchell of “crossing a red line” by interfering in internal Israeli politics. “I was elected by citizens of the independent state of Israel... It's amazing how members of the American government are attempting to intervene in the daily affairs of the Knesset, which is supposed to be a sovereign body.”
Rivlin is “sending a message of weakness,” Ben-Ari accused.
MK Aryeh Eldad (Ichud Leumi) backed his colleague, saying, “If the American embassy did this... this is beyond audacious, it is a humiliation and a degradation of Israeli democracy.” The veteran MK encouraged his fellow lawmakers to fight for Ben-Ari's right to speak in Kahane's memory. "Even those who opposed Kahane must enlist in the struggle for Israeli sovereignty and freedom of expression,” he explained.
Next, Locusts? The abject failure of the Obama administration's Middle East policy. by Elliott Abrams
Can anything else possibly go wrong for the Obama administration's Middle
East policy? In the past ten days, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
has twice reversed herself publicly on her attitude toward the Israeli
settlements. Palestinians have refused her direct request to rejoin peace
talks with Israel, and Palestinian Authority president Abbas has said he
will not run for reelection. U.S.-Israel relations are in a state of frozen
mistrust. The New York Times and Washington Post, among others, are calling
Obama's policy a complete failure--in news stories as well as editorials. The
only thing missing is a plague of locusts.
The policy is indeed a complete failure. In ten months the administration
has managed to offend and demoralize Israelis and Palestinians, lose the
support of Arab governments, and reduce previously excellent relations
with the government of Israel to levels unmatched since the James Baker
days. Meanwhile, George Mitchell's trips to the region are increasingly
reminiscent of the Colin Powell visits in 2002 and 2003--producing little
but embarrassment. The Israeli "100 percent settlement freeze" and the Arab
outreach to Israel, early goals of the Obama team, are now forgotten, as is
an early resumption of serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
These disasters are mostly the product of an ignorant and belligerent attitude
toward Israel and especially its prime minister. The ignorance was most evident
in the administration's view that a total construction freeze could be imposed
not only in every settlement but in Jerusalem itself. But the U.S. policy
was worse: We demanded a freeze that would apply to construction by Jews,
but not by Arabs; could any Israeli leader be expected to support such a
position? One does not need to be a member of the Knesset to understand that
such a freeze was impossible for Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition as it
would have been for any Israeli prime minister--but apparently this fact
was beyond the understanding of Mitchell, Rahm Emanuel, and all the other
"experts" on the Obama team.
The belligerence toward Netanyahu has been evident all along, but is best shown
by the refusal to tell Israel's prime minister whether or not the president
will see him this coming week when Netanyahu (like the president) addresses
the United Jewish Communities annual general assembly in Washington. The
Israelis gave the White House weeks of notice that Netanyahu had agreed to
speak, would be in town, and hoped to see Obama. The White House reaction has
been to keep him twisting in the wind, with news stories several days before
his arrival saying the president had not decided yet whether to see Netanyahu.
Think of it: Our closest ally in the region, critical issues at stake (from
Iran's nuclear program and the recent Israeli seizure of an Iranian arms
shipment meant for Hezbollah to Abbas's announcement), yet the Israelis get
no answer. Obama and his "experts" may think they are reminding Netanyahu
who is boss, but they are in fact reminding all of us why Israelis no longer
trust Obama--and making closer cooperation between the two governments that
much harder.
The problems Netanyahu has with Obama pale in comparison with those of the
Palestinians, and Abbas's announcement reflects their frustrations. The best
example: Obama and Clinton lured Abbas out on the settlements-freeze limb
and then sawed it off. When they said a total freeze including Jerusalem
was necessary, he of course happily agreed. But when they abandoned that
doomed policy and instead began talking of "restraint," he could not climb
down. Abbas has threatened to leave many times before, and it's worth -noting
that he did not resign. He said he would not seek reelection next year,
in elections scheduled for January 24 but highly unlikely to take place
then--if ever. So he will be around for months more, in fact indefinitely if
elections keep getting postponed. His statement must be regarded, then, not
as a Shermanesque personal denial but as a protest against an American policy
that has weakened him and left him high and dry. Israelis and Palestinians
when I visited in October had two main questions: Who is making this Middle
East policy, and do they not realize by now that it is a disaster? At least
in this, one can say the administration has produced Israeli-Palestinian
unity. They are also united in watching warily as the president seems unable
to make a decision about Afghanistan. For the Palestinians, this suggests
he'll never really take on the Israelis for them, as they thought he might
back in January. For the Israelis, it means he'll never take on Iran, and
that they may in the end face the Iranian nuclear threat on their own. They
all wonder whether to blame Mitchell or Clinton or Dennis Ross or National
Security Adviser Jim Jones or the State Department's Near East bureau,
and each individual Israeli and Palestinian has a favorite target. But the
answers to their questions seem obvious: It is the president's policy, and no,
he does not seem to be aware that it has already failed. While he has backed
off from the early targets, he has not changed his attitude toward -Israel's
government, nor altered his basic approach: to push for negotiations over
"core issues" as soon as possible. And this is the fundamental problem
with Obama's policy: Like too many of his predecessors he believes that a
solution is at hand if only he can force the parties to the table. There,
presumably under American tutelage, they will reach American-style compromises
(pragmatic, sensible, realistic) and resolve the dispute, with Nobel Peace
Prizes for all. The only question is where the table is: Camp David, Taba,
Annapolis, Oslo, perhaps this time Chicago. This approach undermines the one
real hope in the region, which is the practical advances being made in the
West Bank. There, the economy is improving, law and order are maintained,
the Palestinian Authority is fighting Hamas, Israeli-Palestinian security
cooperation is growing, and mobility for the population is increasing. In
recent months Israel removed more checkpoints and expanded the hours of the
Allenby Bridge to Jordan. It isn't paradise, but it isn't Gaza either, and
life is better each year. It could be far better if the Obama administration
would abandon its doomed efforts to force an Israeli construction freeze in
Jerusalem and an Arab embrace of Israel, and instead ask them all to think
of real-world ways to keep improving life in the West Bank. There are many
ways this could be done, from further steps to remove Israeli barriers to
movement, to reliable and generous Arab financial support. The way forward
does not lie through fancy international conferences, and one idea still
mentioned as an Obama option--proposing a final status plan--would be
disastrous and unsuccessful. The way for the Palestinians to get a state
is to go ahead and build it. If and when the institutions are there and
functioning, from police and courts to a parliament, negotiations will
reflect that fact. But the argument that settling the borders and removing
the Israeli troops must come first is a path to failure. For one thing,
Israel will not and should not leave until it is clear that the West Bank
can be policed by Palestinians and that the region will not be a source
of terrorism against Israel, as Gaza and South Lebanon became when Israel
left there. No conference and no treaty can provide such a guarantee; only
functioning Palestinian police forces that are already fighting and defeating
terror can do so. Such a practical approach would bring other benefits. It
would enhance the status and power of Palestinian moderates who are working
to improve life in the West Bank, rather than enhancing the status and power
of old PLO officials who thrive on endless, useless negotiating sessions. It
would put a premium on practical Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, rather than
elevating precisely the final status questions (like Jerusalem or Palestinian
refugees) that most bitterly divide them. It would increase the gap between
the West Bank and Gaza, thereby showing Palestinians that Hamas rule brings
only despair and poverty. It would press the Arab states to help real live
Palestinians in the West Bank, rather than the imaginary Palestinians--all
either bold jihadists or desperate widows and orphans--whom they see on Al
Jazeera. In fact, except for occasional visits by Jordanians and Egyptians
(who have peace treaties with Israel already), top Arab officials haven't a
clue what's going on in the West Bank, for they've never been there. Not one
head of state or government or foreign minister, not once. If George Mitchell
wants to do something useful, he could organize a tour; take a few princes
and foreign ministers to Ramallah and Jericho and Jenin, where they would
find that they are neither in Somalia nor some heroic battle scene against
Zionist oppressors. But thus far, the anniversary of Obama's election appears
to have passed with no rethinking of policy. Instead the administration
slogs forward, judging itself by its elevated intentions rather than its
performance. Clinton's pronouncements--demand a total construction freeze one
day, accept Netanyahu's more modest offer the next, then back to the wider
demands two days later in Morocco--are increasingly reminiscent of World War
I trench warfare: gain a few yards, lose a few more, while the casualties
pile up. There will be no progress this way, and the practical efforts that
should be at the heart of U.S. policy will instead be undermined as we poison
Israeli-Palestinian relations and degrade the trust both parties have in us.
Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
11/16/2009, Volume 015, Issue 09
The Weekly Standard
East policy? In the past ten days, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
has twice reversed herself publicly on her attitude toward the Israeli
settlements. Palestinians have refused her direct request to rejoin peace
talks with Israel, and Palestinian Authority president Abbas has said he
will not run for reelection. U.S.-Israel relations are in a state of frozen
mistrust. The New York Times and Washington Post, among others, are calling
Obama's policy a complete failure--in news stories as well as editorials. The
only thing missing is a plague of locusts.
The policy is indeed a complete failure. In ten months the administration
has managed to offend and demoralize Israelis and Palestinians, lose the
support of Arab governments, and reduce previously excellent relations
with the government of Israel to levels unmatched since the James Baker
days. Meanwhile, George Mitchell's trips to the region are increasingly
reminiscent of the Colin Powell visits in 2002 and 2003--producing little
but embarrassment. The Israeli "100 percent settlement freeze" and the Arab
outreach to Israel, early goals of the Obama team, are now forgotten, as is
an early resumption of serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
These disasters are mostly the product of an ignorant and belligerent attitude
toward Israel and especially its prime minister. The ignorance was most evident
in the administration's view that a total construction freeze could be imposed
not only in every settlement but in Jerusalem itself. But the U.S. policy
was worse: We demanded a freeze that would apply to construction by Jews,
but not by Arabs; could any Israeli leader be expected to support such a
position? One does not need to be a member of the Knesset to understand that
such a freeze was impossible for Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition as it
would have been for any Israeli prime minister--but apparently this fact
was beyond the understanding of Mitchell, Rahm Emanuel, and all the other
"experts" on the Obama team.
The belligerence toward Netanyahu has been evident all along, but is best shown
by the refusal to tell Israel's prime minister whether or not the president
will see him this coming week when Netanyahu (like the president) addresses
the United Jewish Communities annual general assembly in Washington. The
Israelis gave the White House weeks of notice that Netanyahu had agreed to
speak, would be in town, and hoped to see Obama. The White House reaction has
been to keep him twisting in the wind, with news stories several days before
his arrival saying the president had not decided yet whether to see Netanyahu.
Think of it: Our closest ally in the region, critical issues at stake (from
Iran's nuclear program and the recent Israeli seizure of an Iranian arms
shipment meant for Hezbollah to Abbas's announcement), yet the Israelis get
no answer. Obama and his "experts" may think they are reminding Netanyahu
who is boss, but they are in fact reminding all of us why Israelis no longer
trust Obama--and making closer cooperation between the two governments that
much harder.
The problems Netanyahu has with Obama pale in comparison with those of the
Palestinians, and Abbas's announcement reflects their frustrations. The best
example: Obama and Clinton lured Abbas out on the settlements-freeze limb
and then sawed it off. When they said a total freeze including Jerusalem
was necessary, he of course happily agreed. But when they abandoned that
doomed policy and instead began talking of "restraint," he could not climb
down. Abbas has threatened to leave many times before, and it's worth -noting
that he did not resign. He said he would not seek reelection next year,
in elections scheduled for January 24 but highly unlikely to take place
then--if ever. So he will be around for months more, in fact indefinitely if
elections keep getting postponed. His statement must be regarded, then, not
as a Shermanesque personal denial but as a protest against an American policy
that has weakened him and left him high and dry. Israelis and Palestinians
when I visited in October had two main questions: Who is making this Middle
East policy, and do they not realize by now that it is a disaster? At least
in this, one can say the administration has produced Israeli-Palestinian
unity. They are also united in watching warily as the president seems unable
to make a decision about Afghanistan. For the Palestinians, this suggests
he'll never really take on the Israelis for them, as they thought he might
back in January. For the Israelis, it means he'll never take on Iran, and
that they may in the end face the Iranian nuclear threat on their own. They
all wonder whether to blame Mitchell or Clinton or Dennis Ross or National
Security Adviser Jim Jones or the State Department's Near East bureau,
and each individual Israeli and Palestinian has a favorite target. But the
answers to their questions seem obvious: It is the president's policy, and no,
he does not seem to be aware that it has already failed. While he has backed
off from the early targets, he has not changed his attitude toward -Israel's
government, nor altered his basic approach: to push for negotiations over
"core issues" as soon as possible. And this is the fundamental problem
with Obama's policy: Like too many of his predecessors he believes that a
solution is at hand if only he can force the parties to the table. There,
presumably under American tutelage, they will reach American-style compromises
(pragmatic, sensible, realistic) and resolve the dispute, with Nobel Peace
Prizes for all. The only question is where the table is: Camp David, Taba,
Annapolis, Oslo, perhaps this time Chicago. This approach undermines the one
real hope in the region, which is the practical advances being made in the
West Bank. There, the economy is improving, law and order are maintained,
the Palestinian Authority is fighting Hamas, Israeli-Palestinian security
cooperation is growing, and mobility for the population is increasing. In
recent months Israel removed more checkpoints and expanded the hours of the
Allenby Bridge to Jordan. It isn't paradise, but it isn't Gaza either, and
life is better each year. It could be far better if the Obama administration
would abandon its doomed efforts to force an Israeli construction freeze in
Jerusalem and an Arab embrace of Israel, and instead ask them all to think
of real-world ways to keep improving life in the West Bank. There are many
ways this could be done, from further steps to remove Israeli barriers to
movement, to reliable and generous Arab financial support. The way forward
does not lie through fancy international conferences, and one idea still
mentioned as an Obama option--proposing a final status plan--would be
disastrous and unsuccessful. The way for the Palestinians to get a state
is to go ahead and build it. If and when the institutions are there and
functioning, from police and courts to a parliament, negotiations will
reflect that fact. But the argument that settling the borders and removing
the Israeli troops must come first is a path to failure. For one thing,
Israel will not and should not leave until it is clear that the West Bank
can be policed by Palestinians and that the region will not be a source
of terrorism against Israel, as Gaza and South Lebanon became when Israel
left there. No conference and no treaty can provide such a guarantee; only
functioning Palestinian police forces that are already fighting and defeating
terror can do so. Such a practical approach would bring other benefits. It
would enhance the status and power of Palestinian moderates who are working
to improve life in the West Bank, rather than enhancing the status and power
of old PLO officials who thrive on endless, useless negotiating sessions. It
would put a premium on practical Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, rather than
elevating precisely the final status questions (like Jerusalem or Palestinian
refugees) that most bitterly divide them. It would increase the gap between
the West Bank and Gaza, thereby showing Palestinians that Hamas rule brings
only despair and poverty. It would press the Arab states to help real live
Palestinians in the West Bank, rather than the imaginary Palestinians--all
either bold jihadists or desperate widows and orphans--whom they see on Al
Jazeera. In fact, except for occasional visits by Jordanians and Egyptians
(who have peace treaties with Israel already), top Arab officials haven't a
clue what's going on in the West Bank, for they've never been there. Not one
head of state or government or foreign minister, not once. If George Mitchell
wants to do something useful, he could organize a tour; take a few princes
and foreign ministers to Ramallah and Jericho and Jenin, where they would
find that they are neither in Somalia nor some heroic battle scene against
Zionist oppressors. But thus far, the anniversary of Obama's election appears
to have passed with no rethinking of policy. Instead the administration
slogs forward, judging itself by its elevated intentions rather than its
performance. Clinton's pronouncements--demand a total construction freeze one
day, accept Netanyahu's more modest offer the next, then back to the wider
demands two days later in Morocco--are increasingly reminiscent of World War
I trench warfare: gain a few yards, lose a few more, while the casualties
pile up. There will be no progress this way, and the practical efforts that
should be at the heart of U.S. policy will instead be undermined as we poison
Israeli-Palestinian relations and degrade the trust both parties have in us.
Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
11/16/2009, Volume 015, Issue 09
The Weekly Standard
November 10, 2009
Z (Zionist) Street -- Lori Lowenthal Marcus
Z STREET is based on these ironclad positions:
The right of the Jewish people to a state, and the right of Jews to live freely anywhere, including inhaling oxygen in areas the world insists are reserved for Arab Palestinians;
Relishing the terms "Jewish State" and "Zionism" - ones currently derided as shameful instead of sources of pride;
Circulation of facts -- not deceptive "Palestinian" narratives -- about the Middle East, Israel and terrorism;
Condemnation of those who revile Israel for actions they ignore when taken by Israel's enemies and virtually all states throughout history;
Categorical rejection of agreements with, or concessions to, terrorists (or their supporters) who are dedicated to Israel's destruction.
Unlike other organizations that claim to be pro-Israel, Z STREET will not pander to politicians who invite us to their offices and pay attention to our pocketbooks but ignore our positions. For those who do not embrace our principles, there are plenty of other organizations to join. This catalyzing organization seeks to change the way discussions about Israel are crafted and viewed.
A fuel source previously untapped has been released: within days of the launch thousands clamored to our site, asking how to join and how they can help. Z STREET already includes members from five continents and more than twenty states. News articles are being written about Z STREET from the far right and the center, and we have been viciously denigrated and cartooned from the far left - all of which is gratifying.
The rising groundswell is in part a response to organizations whispering into the ear of this US administration that pervert the meaning of "pro-Israel." Their ultimate loyalty is to left-wing principles including a secular Israel and tolerance of terrorism only when directed at Jews. They are ashamed of an avowedly Jewish State, yet completely comfortable with 22 Muslim ones, and are actively seeking the creation of a 23rd, based in Jerusalem, whose governing documents call for the destruction of Israel.
The idea that weakening Israel, either because of ideological conviction, animosity towards a strong Jewish State, cowardice, or the grossly misguided belief that compromise or dialoging with committed terrorists will lead to Middle East or global peace, is obscene.
A very few World War II Jews acted as catalysts for those who refused to be cowed. They adamantly, sometimes theatrically, demanded action to prevent the incineration of millions of Europeans Jews, along with millions of members of other minority and political groups.
This band of warriors, led by Peter Bergson and Ben Hecht, staged marches, rallies and theater events. They refused to mimic the Jewish leaders who shrank from their moral duty to demand the US government face the irrefutable facts of the plans, and then the execution of those plans, to murder millions. It would be an honor for Z STREET to be compared to the Bergson Group. Others should join so that the present horrors, and worse, are prevented. The policy implications are profound and the time is now.
I sleep better knowing that when my grandchildren ask me what I did to help prevent the destruction of Israel, I can tell them about Z STREET with a clear conscience and a sense of pride. What will you say?
Lori Lowenthal Marcus is a Z Street co-founder.
The right of the Jewish people to a state, and the right of Jews to live freely anywhere, including inhaling oxygen in areas the world insists are reserved for Arab Palestinians;
Relishing the terms "Jewish State" and "Zionism" - ones currently derided as shameful instead of sources of pride;
Circulation of facts -- not deceptive "Palestinian" narratives -- about the Middle East, Israel and terrorism;
Condemnation of those who revile Israel for actions they ignore when taken by Israel's enemies and virtually all states throughout history;
Categorical rejection of agreements with, or concessions to, terrorists (or their supporters) who are dedicated to Israel's destruction.
Unlike other organizations that claim to be pro-Israel, Z STREET will not pander to politicians who invite us to their offices and pay attention to our pocketbooks but ignore our positions. For those who do not embrace our principles, there are plenty of other organizations to join. This catalyzing organization seeks to change the way discussions about Israel are crafted and viewed.
A fuel source previously untapped has been released: within days of the launch thousands clamored to our site, asking how to join and how they can help. Z STREET already includes members from five continents and more than twenty states. News articles are being written about Z STREET from the far right and the center, and we have been viciously denigrated and cartooned from the far left - all of which is gratifying.
The rising groundswell is in part a response to organizations whispering into the ear of this US administration that pervert the meaning of "pro-Israel." Their ultimate loyalty is to left-wing principles including a secular Israel and tolerance of terrorism only when directed at Jews. They are ashamed of an avowedly Jewish State, yet completely comfortable with 22 Muslim ones, and are actively seeking the creation of a 23rd, based in Jerusalem, whose governing documents call for the destruction of Israel.
The idea that weakening Israel, either because of ideological conviction, animosity towards a strong Jewish State, cowardice, or the grossly misguided belief that compromise or dialoging with committed terrorists will lead to Middle East or global peace, is obscene.
A very few World War II Jews acted as catalysts for those who refused to be cowed. They adamantly, sometimes theatrically, demanded action to prevent the incineration of millions of Europeans Jews, along with millions of members of other minority and political groups.
This band of warriors, led by Peter Bergson and Ben Hecht, staged marches, rallies and theater events. They refused to mimic the Jewish leaders who shrank from their moral duty to demand the US government face the irrefutable facts of the plans, and then the execution of those plans, to murder millions. It would be an honor for Z STREET to be compared to the Bergson Group. Others should join so that the present horrors, and worse, are prevented. The policy implications are profound and the time is now.
I sleep better knowing that when my grandchildren ask me what I did to help prevent the destruction of Israel, I can tell them about Z STREET with a clear conscience and a sense of pride. What will you say?
Lori Lowenthal Marcus is a Z Street co-founder.
November 9, 2009
Saudis launches offensive against Yemen rebels - By AHMED AL-HAJ and SALAH NASRAWI
SAN'A, Yemen – Saudi Arabia sent fighter jets and artillery bombardments across the border into northern Yemen Thursday in a military incursion apparently aimed at helping its troubled southern neighbor control an escalating Shiite rebellion, Arab diplomats and the rebels said.
The Saudis — owners of a sophisticated air force they rarely use — have been increasingly worried that extremism and instability in Yemen could spill over to their country, the world's largest oil exporter. The offensive came two days after the killing of a Saudi soldier, blamed on the rebels.
Yemen denied any military action by Saudi Arabia inside its borders. But Yemen's president is a key ally of the Saudis, making it highly unlikely the kingdom would have launched the offensive without tacit Yemeni agreement.
A U.S. government official said the Yemenis were not involved militarily in the fighting. The official spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The offensive immediately raised concerns of another proxy war in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally. Shiite Iran is believed to favor the rebels in Yemen while Saudi Arabia, which is Sunni, is Iran's fiercest regional rival.
The same dynamic has played out in various forms in Lebanon, where Iran supports the Shiite militant Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia favors a U.S.-backed faction, and in Iraq, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have thrown support to conflicting sides in the Sunni-Shiite struggle.
A top Saudi government adviser confirmed "a large scale" military operation underway on the Saudi-Yemeni border with further reinforcements sent to the rugged, mountainous area.
"It is a sustained operation which aims to finish this problem on our border," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. He said Saudi troops were coordinating with Yemen's army, but Yemen's defense ministry denied the Saudis were inside the country.
The northern rebels, known as Hawthis, have been battling Yemeni government forces the past few months in the latest flare-up of a sporadic five-year conflict. They claim their needs are ignored by a Yemeni government that is increasingly allied with hard-line Sunni fundamentalists, who consider Shiites heretics.
The rebels said the Saudi airstrikes hit five areas in their northern stronghold Thursday but it was not possible to independently verify the reports. They said there were dead and wounded, and that homes were destroyed. The rebels' spokesman said people were afraid to get near the areas being bombed, making it difficult to count the casualties.
"Saudi jets dropped bombs on a crowded areas including a local market in the northern province of Saada," Hawthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam told The Associated Press. "They claim they are targeting al-Hawthis, but regrettably they are killing civilians like the government does." He said the attacks were followed by hundreds of artillery shells from the border.
"So far, three killed have been pulled out of the rubble, including a woman and a child who perished when their houses were bombed and burned down," said Abdel-Salam.
The fighting is more than 600 miles from Saudi Arabia's oil fields on the kingdom's eastern Persian Gulf coast. But northern Yemen overlooks the Red Sea, the world's busiest route for oil tankers.
Two Arab diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saudi Tornado and F-15 warplanes had been bombarding targets inside Yemen since Wednesday afternoon, inflicting significant casualties on rebels. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to the media.
They said army units and special forces also had been sent to northern Yemen, and that several Saudi towns on the border had been evacuated as a precaution. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters he had no information about whether the conflict had spread across the border but expressed Washington's concern over the situation.
"It's our view that there can be no long-term military solution to the conflict between the Yemeni government and the Hawthi rebels," Kelly said. "We call on all parties to the conflict to make every effort to protect civilian populations and limit damage to civilian infrastructure."
The weak central government of Yemen, which has little control outside the capital San'a, is fighting on multiple fronts including the northern rebels and a separatist movement in the south. But the most worrisome is a lingering threat from al-Qaida militants.
The U.S. also fears any Yemeni fighting could spill over into Saudi Arabia and is concerned that Yemen could become a haven for al-Qaida militants hiding out in the nation, at the tip of the Arabian peninsula.
The Yemeni government openly accuses Iran of arming the Hawthis rebels, but there has been no public evidence to back those claims, said Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director of the Middle East program for the International Crisis Group think tank in London.
"I think Iran is probably pleased with what is happening, but that is not the same as saying they are supporting the Hawthis," Hiltermann said.
Simon Henderson, director of Gulf and energy policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, agreed that there is no clear evidence that Iran funds the rebels. But he said there is a wide assumption that Iran favors the Hawthis and the Saudis are backing Yemen's Sunni president.
The Saudis — owners of a sophisticated air force they rarely use — have been increasingly worried that extremism and instability in Yemen could spill over to their country, the world's largest oil exporter. The offensive came two days after the killing of a Saudi soldier, blamed on the rebels.
Yemen denied any military action by Saudi Arabia inside its borders. But Yemen's president is a key ally of the Saudis, making it highly unlikely the kingdom would have launched the offensive without tacit Yemeni agreement.
A U.S. government official said the Yemenis were not involved militarily in the fighting. The official spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The offensive immediately raised concerns of another proxy war in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally. Shiite Iran is believed to favor the rebels in Yemen while Saudi Arabia, which is Sunni, is Iran's fiercest regional rival.
The same dynamic has played out in various forms in Lebanon, where Iran supports the Shiite militant Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia favors a U.S.-backed faction, and in Iraq, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have thrown support to conflicting sides in the Sunni-Shiite struggle.
A top Saudi government adviser confirmed "a large scale" military operation underway on the Saudi-Yemeni border with further reinforcements sent to the rugged, mountainous area.
"It is a sustained operation which aims to finish this problem on our border," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. He said Saudi troops were coordinating with Yemen's army, but Yemen's defense ministry denied the Saudis were inside the country.
The northern rebels, known as Hawthis, have been battling Yemeni government forces the past few months in the latest flare-up of a sporadic five-year conflict. They claim their needs are ignored by a Yemeni government that is increasingly allied with hard-line Sunni fundamentalists, who consider Shiites heretics.
The rebels said the Saudi airstrikes hit five areas in their northern stronghold Thursday but it was not possible to independently verify the reports. They said there were dead and wounded, and that homes were destroyed. The rebels' spokesman said people were afraid to get near the areas being bombed, making it difficult to count the casualties.
"Saudi jets dropped bombs on a crowded areas including a local market in the northern province of Saada," Hawthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam told The Associated Press. "They claim they are targeting al-Hawthis, but regrettably they are killing civilians like the government does." He said the attacks were followed by hundreds of artillery shells from the border.
"So far, three killed have been pulled out of the rubble, including a woman and a child who perished when their houses were bombed and burned down," said Abdel-Salam.
The fighting is more than 600 miles from Saudi Arabia's oil fields on the kingdom's eastern Persian Gulf coast. But northern Yemen overlooks the Red Sea, the world's busiest route for oil tankers.
Two Arab diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saudi Tornado and F-15 warplanes had been bombarding targets inside Yemen since Wednesday afternoon, inflicting significant casualties on rebels. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to the media.
They said army units and special forces also had been sent to northern Yemen, and that several Saudi towns on the border had been evacuated as a precaution. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters he had no information about whether the conflict had spread across the border but expressed Washington's concern over the situation.
"It's our view that there can be no long-term military solution to the conflict between the Yemeni government and the Hawthi rebels," Kelly said. "We call on all parties to the conflict to make every effort to protect civilian populations and limit damage to civilian infrastructure."
The weak central government of Yemen, which has little control outside the capital San'a, is fighting on multiple fronts including the northern rebels and a separatist movement in the south. But the most worrisome is a lingering threat from al-Qaida militants.
The U.S. also fears any Yemeni fighting could spill over into Saudi Arabia and is concerned that Yemen could become a haven for al-Qaida militants hiding out in the nation, at the tip of the Arabian peninsula.
The Yemeni government openly accuses Iran of arming the Hawthis rebels, but there has been no public evidence to back those claims, said Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director of the Middle East program for the International Crisis Group think tank in London.
"I think Iran is probably pleased with what is happening, but that is not the same as saying they are supporting the Hawthis," Hiltermann said.
Simon Henderson, director of Gulf and energy policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, agreed that there is no clear evidence that Iran funds the rebels. But he said there is a wide assumption that Iran favors the Hawthis and the Saudis are backing Yemen's Sunni president.
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