'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.

'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."

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.

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)

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."

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).

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 alive
"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." 

The 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!
* * * Ten years after Clinton's broken promise, Jonathan Pollard remains in Prison ... On November 21, 2009, Jonathan Pollard will enter his 25th year of a life sentence for his activities on behalf of Israel. The median sentence for the offense Pollard committed - one count of passing classified information to an ally - is 2 to 4 years. Pollard received his life sentence without a trial, as a result of a plea bargain which he honored and the U.S. government violated.

-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

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

The State of Israel is a Jewish State. It is the state of all the Jews. Every Jew in the world should see Israel as his country - even if he does not yet physically live in Israel.

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.

It is time for America and the Obama administration to open their eyes

It is time for America and the Obama administration to open their eyes and face up to the significance of the successful Fort Hood Islamist suicide attack. Here's an interesting analysis of the current situation by Robert Spencer:

"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."

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."