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"Unilateral" -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Statement

2009-01-18T04:36:00.001+02:00

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Statement
at the Press Conference on January 17, 2009

Citizens of Israel,

Exactly three weeks ago as the Sabbath ended, we sat here before you – my friend Ehud Barak, the Vice Prime Minister Tzipi Livni and myself – and detailed the considerations and goals which guided us in launching a military operation in the Gaza Strip. Today, we face you again and can say that the conditions have been created so that our targets, as defined when we launched the operation, have been fully achieved, and more so:

· Hamas was badly stricken, both in terms of its military capabilities and in the infrastructure of its regime. Its leaders are in hiding. Many of its members have been killed. The factories in which its missiles were manufactured have been destroyed. The smuggling routes, through dozens of tunnels, have been bombed. The Hamas’s capabilities for conveying weapons within the Gaza Strip have been damaged. The scope of missile fire directed at the State of Israel has been reduced. The areas from which most of the missiles were launched are under the control of IDF forces. The estimate of all the security services is that the Hamas’s capabilities have been struck a heavy blow which will harm its ability to rule and its military capabilities for some time.

· The IDF and the General Security Services have succeeded in conducting an outstanding operation, utilizing all the elements of Israel’s force – on land, at sea and in the air. The military operation was characterized by determination, sophistication, courage and an impressive ability in intelligence and operations, which led to significant and numerous achievements. The current campaign proved again Israel’s force and strengthened its deterrence capability vis-à-vis those who threaten us.

· The reserves soldiers, who are the foundation for the IDF’s strength, proved that the spirit of volunteerism and a willingness to sacrifice still very much exist. These forces were made ready in a thorough manner, equipped with all they needed and thus could demonstrate their professionalism and fierceness of spirit.

· During all the days of fighting, the Israeli home front demonstrated its strength, despite hundreds of rockets and mortar shells indiscriminately fired at a population which numbers one million residents; it was the home front that created an unshakable foundation which strengthened us and gave us the ability to continue fighting. Two years of preparation on the home front proved that we learned our lessons and were properly organized. The Government and the heads of the regional local authorities under attack demonstrated the patience, endurance and that same strong spirit which allowed the political echelon to make the right decisions, knowing that the home front could withstand the consequences of those decisions.

· As a decision-making body, the Government of Israel demonstrated unity with regard to goals, and acted professionally and in coordination to achieve those goals. The decisions were all made in a responsible and educated manner, following clarification and in-depth discussions. As an executive branch, the Government met the demands and needs of the population and the fighting forces.

· Alongside the successes, we must also remember the fallen and those who sacrificed their lives to achieve a better reality in the South. The campaign claimed the lives of three residents of the South and ten of our soldiers. Tonight our hearts are with their families. We send our wishes for a speedy recovery to the residents of the South and to the IDF soldiers injured during the operation.

· Today, and in large part due to the success of the military operation, the entire international community is ready to mobilize in order to achieve maximum stability, and knows that, for this to occur, the process of Hamas’s strengthening must stop. To this end, we reached a number of understandings – the importance of which cannot be underestimated – which will ensure that the strengthening of Hamas will decrease. We formulated understandings with the Egyptian government with regard to a number of central issues, the realization of which will bring about a significant reduction in weapons smuggling from Iran and Syria to the Gaza Strip.

· On Friday we signed a memorandum of understanding with the American government, in the framework of which the United States will mobilize to take the necessary steps, together with the other members of the international community, to prevent weapons smuggling by terrorists in Gaza. I wish to thank and express my great appreciation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice Prime Minister for her efforts to reach this agreement, for her contribution to the diplomatic steps and for the widespread diplomatic effort she made over the past several weeks, which were an important contribution to the international backing given to the Israeli effort against the terrorist organizations headed by Hamas.

· Today I received a letter from the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel and the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, in which all four expressed their profound commitment to assisting in any way in order to ensure that weapons will not succeed in reaching the murderous terrorist organizations in Gaza.

I have no doubt that were it not for the determined and successful military action, we would not have reached diplomatic understandings, which together create a full picture of impressive accomplishment.

Citizens of Israel,

The Government decided to launch the operation in Gaza only after long thought and great consideration, and only after all attempts through other means to stop the firing and other acts of terror by Hamas failed. Israel, which withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the last millimeter at the end of 2005 – with no intention of returning – found itself under a barrage of missiles. Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip and began attacking the communities in the South more intensely. Hamas’s methods are incomprehensible. It placed its military system in crowded residential neighborhoods, operated among a civilian population which served as a human shield and operated under the aegis of mosques, schools and hospitals, while making the Palestinian population a hostage to its terrorist activities, with the understanding that Israel – as a country with supreme values – would not act. The external Hamas leadership, which lives in comfort and quiet, continued to set extremist policies while ignoring the population’s ongoing suffering and out of a conspicuous unwillingness to ease its situation.

Hamas in Gaza was built by Iran as a foundation for power, and is backed through funding, through training and through the provision of advanced weapons. Iran, which strives for regional hegemony, tried to replicate the methods used by Hizbullah in Lebanon in the Gaza Strip as well. Iran and Hamas mistook the restraint Israel exercised as weakness. They were mistaken. They were surprised.

The State of Israel has proven to them that restraint is an expression of strength which was exercised in a determined and sophisticated manner when that which we had avoided became unavoidable.

During the operation, the State of Israel demonstrated great sensitivity in exercising its force in order to avoid, as much as possible, harming the civilian population not involved in terror. In cases where there was any doubt that striking at terrorists would lead to harming an innocent civilian population – we abstained from acting. There are not many countries which would act thusly.

We have no disagreement with the residents of Gaza. We consider the Gaza Strip a part of the future Palestinian state with which we hope to live a life of good neighborliness, and we wish for the day when the vision of two states is realized.

During the operation, we made widespread and concerted efforts to see to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. We allowed for the transfer of equipment, food and medicine to prevent a humanitarian crisis. In addition, I appointed Minister Isaac Herzog, the Minister of Social Welfare and Social Affairs, to head up this effort, and tonight the Cabinet instructed him to invest all his efforts in preparing a comprehensive plan so that in the next few days, we will be able to provide an appropriate and comprehensive answer to the civilian population’s needs in the Gaza Strip. I wish to express my great appreciation to the international organizations which acted and continue to act tirelessly to assist us in providing the Palestinian population with appropriate living conditions. Israel will continue to cooperate with them, especially in the coming days and weeks on behalf of the Gazan population.

Citizens of Israel,

Today, before the Government meeting, I spoke with the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who presented Egypt’s initiative to me, along with his request for a ceasefire. I thanked the President for Egypt’s commitment to finding a solution to this crisis and for the important role it plays in the Middle East. I presented the President’s statement to the Cabinet, along with the totality of our achievements in the operation, as well as the completion of the goals. The Cabinet decided to accept my proposal to declare a ceasefire.

Beginning at 2:00 a.m., Israel will cease its actions against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and will remain deployed in the Gaza Strip and its environs.

It must be remembered that Hamas is not part of the arrangements we came to. These are agreements involving many countries, and a terrorist organization like Hamas is not and need not be a part of them. If our enemies decide that the blows they have already suffered are not enough and they wish to continue fighting, Israel will be ready for that scenario and will feel free to continue responding with force.

Hamas was surprised a number of times during the past several weeks. It did not predict the State of Israel’s determination or the seriousness of its intentions to bring about a change in the reality in the region. Hamas’s leaders did not believe that the State of Israel would launch a military operation on such a scale on the eve of elections; it did not predict the force of the military attack and moreover – it did not predict the outcome.

Hamas still does not fully appreciate the difficult blow it received. If Hamas decides to continue its wild terrorist attacks, it may find itself surprised again by the State of Israel’s determination. I do not suggest that it or any other terrorist organization test us.

This statement tonight would be incomplete if I did not mention the kidnapped soldier, Gilad Schalit. One hundred meters from here, there is a demonstration for his release, and I respect each and every one of the participants. The intensive efforts to secure Gilad’s release began long before the operation, continued during it and will continue after as well. The Government of Israel is working on many levels to bring him home, and during the operation we carried out various actions to bring us closer to this goal. Due to the sensitivity of the matter, I will not go into detail. I will only say that Gilad is at the top of our agenda, and we do not need any prodding or reminding in this matter. I am hopeful tonight as well that we will soon see him in his family’s embrace.

On a personal note:

For weeks I have been watching the people of Israel day and night as we make the unprecedented effort to fight for and realize our right of self-defense. I saw the brave soldiers, our dear and beloved sons; I saw their commanders and the spirit which buoyed them; I saw the residents of the South, their fierce sprit; and the leadership of the mayors who took care to provide for the needs of their residents; I also saw the actions of the Home Front Command, which quietly and efficiently coordinated the assistance campaign for the southern region; and I heard the bereaved families.

Dear families, the things you said, the pain you expressed, the fierce spirit you demonstrated – these are the foundation for the people of Israel’s strength. On behalf of the entire nation, on behalf of the Government of Israel, I share your profound pain and thank you for the encouragement, the strength and the inspiration your strong stance has granted the entire nation.

I also wish to say something to the people of Gaza: even before the military operation began, and during it, I appealed to you. We do not hate you; we did not want and do not want to harm you. We wanted to defend our children, their parents, their families. We feel the pain of every Palestinian child and family member who fell victim to the cruel reality created by Hamas which transformed you into victims.

Your suffering is terrible. Your cries of pain touch each of our hearts. On behalf of the Government of Israel, I wish to convey my regret for the harming of uninvolved civilians, for the pain we caused them, for the suffering they and their families suffered as a result of the intolerable situation created by Hamas.

The understandings we reached with Egypt, the international backing of the United States and the European countries – all these do not ensure that the firing by Hamas will stop. If it completely stops – the IDF will consider withdrawing from Gaza at a time which it deems right. If not, the IDF will continue to act in defense of our residents.

This is the time to convey our appreciation and gratitude, first and foremost to you, Mr. Minister of Defense, for your work, for the tremendous effort you made, for your skill, professionalism and the understanding you demonstrated throughout he operation – thank you very much. I wish to thank the soldiers of the IDF, their commanders, the Head of the Southern Command Yoav Galant, and the Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi; to the General Security Services, its fighters and its head, Yuval Diskin; to the Mossad and its hidden fighters, headed by Meir Dagan; to the Israel Police and the emergency services, Magan David Adom and the Fire Department.

Blessed is the nation with such an army and such security and rescue services.

I wish to express my hope that tonight the first step towards a different reality, one of security and quiet for the residents of Israel, will be taken. From the bottom of my heart, I thank the people of Israel, its fighters and their commanders for the fierceness of spirit and the social solidarity they demonstrated over these past weeks.

This is the secret of our strength – it is the foundation for our power and it is the hope of our future.

Thank you.

for more up-to-date posts...

2007-03-23T09:01:00.000+02:00

click Shiloh Musings !

I'm no longer posting here

sorry

Ehud -Teflon- Olmert

2006-10-25T21:42:00.000+02:00

When, oh, when will the dirt stick? I wish I had pots that slippery!
More Investigations Against Olmert

23:15 Oct 24, '06 / 2 Cheshvan 5767
by Hillel Fendel

AG Menachem Mazuz is investigating new criminal allegations against PM Ehud Olmert. The PM is is suspected of accepting bribes in the state's sale of Bank Leumi and illegal political appointments.

The Bank Leumi deal is the fifth in a series of criminal investigations against Olmert which NFC, the website of investigative journalist Yoav Yitzchak, has led in researching and reporting.

The latest case involves suspicions that in 2005, when Olmert served as Acting Finance Minister, he advanced the interests of two wealthy men who wished to purchase controlling interest in Bank Leumi. One of them had contributed large sums to Olmert's campaign for Mayor of Jerusalem, and the other one is a client of Olmert's father-in-law's law firm.

NFC reports that the investigation is being waged secretly, "despite Olmert's status, and despite the importance of publicizing this information at this time when Olmert is seeking the Knesset's support in expanding his government."

At this stage of the Bank Leumi investigation, a comprehensive review is underway by two senior State Prosecution attorneys, under the auspices of Deputy State Prosecutor Shuki Lemberger. They are investigating evidence of bribery, and the next stage, NFC reports, is the "near-certain public announcement of a full criminal investigation."

The financial department of the police detective department will run the investigation. Headed by Yoav Segelovitz, the top detective in the President Katzav case, the department will designate its top men to investigate the Olmert-Leumi case within the coming days, when the Katzav investigation is completed.

NFC quotes a "senior Justice Ministry source" as saying that activities are underway that cannot be revealed, both because of their great sensitivity and because of the danger that certain aspects of the investigation would be put at risk.

In response to a query from Arutz-7, the Justice Ministry's spokesman responded:
"A number of weeks ago, the State Comptroller's Office submitted to the Attorney General materials regarding the tender for the sale of the controlling interest in Bank Leumi. The Attorney General submitted these materials, as is customary, to the State Prosecutor for Prosecution review and the preparation of an opinion as to how to proceed with them. At this stage, no decisions have yet been made, no criminal proceeding is underway on the issue, and the police are not involved in the matter."

Political Appointments, Too
In a separate development, an official in the State Comptroller's Office told the Knesset Control Committee Tuesday about material linking Olmert with political appointments in the Small Business Authority. Former police official Yaakov Borovsky, who oversees a campaign against government corruption, says the findings raise suspicions of criminal acts.

Knesset Control Committee Chairperson MK Esterina Tartman (Yisrael Beiteinu) strongly censured Prime Minister Olmert for not showing up to the session. She said that the timing of the session was specifically coordinated in advance with Olmert's office, and that a few days ago he said he could not appear because of an important security meeting. She said that such security meetings are usually held on Sundays, and that Olmert's behavior was "disgraceful" and a "mockery of the Knesset, the Committee, and the nation."

After it was reported that evidence against Olmert regarding his political appointments had been submitted to the Attorney General, MK Avshalom Vilan (Meretz) said to Tartman, "Now you understand why he didn't show up today."

Yoav Yitzchak has reported in the past on investigations by the State Comptroller and/or Attorney General against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Among them are the German Colony building sale, currently under investigation by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss; the Kaf-Tet B'November Street house sale; and the "expensive pens" gifts. NFC notes that other Israeli media have been ignoring most of the allegations against the Prime Minister, "thus not fulfilling their public mission."

Free JJ Pollard!

2006-10-11T00:37:00.000+02:00

another article follows

Justice for Jonathan Pollard

Comparative Sentences
The following tables indicate how grossly disproportionate Pollard's life sentence is when compared to the sentences of others who spied for allied nations.
Pollard's life sentence is also disproportionate even when compared to the sentences of those who committed far more serious offences by spying for enemy nations!

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Table I: American Allies
Jonathan Pollard is the only person in the history of the United States to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally.
On November 21, 2005, Pollard entered the 21th year of his life sentence, with no end in sight.
The maximum sentence today for such an offence is 10 years.
The median sentence for this offence is 2 to 4 years.
Name Country Spied For Sentence/Punishment Time Served
Before Release*
Jonathan Pollard Israel Life imprisonment
Michael Schwartz Saudi Arabia Discharged from Navy No time served.
Peter Lee China 1 year in halfway house No jail time.
Samuel Morison Great Britain 2 years 3 months
Phillip Selden El Salvador 2 years
Steven Baba South Africa 8 years; reduced to 2 years 5 months
Sharon Scranage Ghana 5 years; reduced to 2 years 8 months
Jean Baynes Phillipines 41 months 15 months
Abdul Kader Helmy Egypt 4 years 2 years
Geneva Jones Liberia 37 months
Frederick Hamilton Ecuador 37 months
Joseph Brown Phillipines 6 years
Michael Allen Phillipines 8 years
Robert Kim South Korea 9 years 7 years
Thomas Dolce South Africa 10 years 5.2 years
Steven Lalas Greece 14 years

* Time served before release is shown where known. Other cases of early release exist.

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Table II: American Enemies
Jonathan Pollard spied for an American ally. This chart shows that Pollard's life sentence is far harsher than most of the sentences received by those who spied for enemies, and thereby committed much more serious offences and treason.
Name Country Spied For Sentence Time Served
Before Release*
James Wood Soviet Union 2 years
Sahag Dedyan Soviet Union 3 years
Randy Jeffries Soviet Union 3-9 years
Amarylis Santos Cuba 3½ years
Joseph Santos Cuba 4 years
Mariano Faget Cuba 5 years
Brian Horton Soviet Union 6 years
Alejandro Alonso Cuba 7 years
William Bell Poland 8 years
Alfred Zoho East Germany 8 years
Nikolay Ogarodnikova Soviet Union 8 years
Francis X. Pizzo Soviet Union 10 years
Daniel Richardson Soviet Union 10 years
Ernst Forbich East Germany 15 years
William Whalen Soviet Union 15 years
Edwin Moore Soviet Union 15 years
Troung Dinh Ung North Vietnam 15 years
Ronald Humphrey North Vietnam 15 years
Kurt Alan Stand East Germany 17½ years
Robert Lipka Soviet Union 18 years
David Barnett Soviet Union 18 years
Svetlana Ogarodnikova Soviet Union 18 years
Albert Sombolay Iraq & Jordan 19 years
Richard Miller Soviet Union 20 years 6 years
Theresa Maria Squillacote East Germany 21.8 years
Sarkis Paskallan Soviet Union 22 years
Harold Nicholson Soviet Union 23 years
David Boone Soviet Union 24 years
Ana Belen Montes Cuba 25 years
Clayton Lonetree Soviet Union 25 years 9 years
Michael Walker Soviet Union 25 years 15 years
Bruce Ott Soviet Union 25 years
Kelly Warren Hungary &
Czechoslovakia 25 years
Earl Pitts Soviet Union 27 years
H.W. Boachanhaupi Soviet Union 30 years
Roderick Ramsay Hungary &
Czechoslovakia 36 years
James Hall Soviet Union
& East Germany 40 years
Christopher Boyce Soviet Union 40 years
William Kampiles Soviet Union 40 years 19 years
Veldik Enger Soviet Union 50 years
R.P. Charnyayev Soviet Union 50 years
Marian Zacharski Poland Life 4 years
Aldrich Ames Soviet Union Life
Robert Hanssen Soviet Union Life

* Time served before release is shown where known. Other cases of early release exist.

Aldrich Ames: A Case In Point
Aldrich Ames who spied for an enemy nation (the Soviet Union), committed treason, and was responsible for the deaths of at least 11 American agents, received the same sentence as Jonathan Pollard. Pollard's only indictment was one count of passing classified information to an ally. Pollard spent 7 years in solitary confinement, in the harshest unit of the harshest prison in the Federal system - FCI Marion.
Aldrich Ames' treatment was far more benign, and (except for a relatively short period of time during debriefing) did not include the rigours of long years of solitary; nor was he ever subjected to the harsh conditions of "K" Unit at Marion - even though his offence was far more serious.

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See Also:
The Unequal Justice Page

The Attorneys' Comparative Sentence Chart

Return to home page

Oct. 9, 2006 23:57 Updated Oct. 10, 2006 5:15
Right of Reply: Why I oppose 'house arrest' for my husband
By ESTHER POLLARD

House arrest for Jonathan Pollard - as advocated by attorney Eric Sherby in his October 6 Post op-ed - in light of the profound injustice of this case is an absurd proposal.

It is an open secret in Washington that Jonathan is serving a life sentence not because of what he did, but because of what he represents - the State of Israel.

Conventional wisdom holds that Jonathan has had his day in court. In point of fact, every legal appeal to uphold Jonathan's constitutional right to a fair hearing has been summarily rejected on one technicality or another. In layman's terms, the case has never been heard.

Even in spite of the endorsements of such august organizations as the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, and a host of top legal experts, the merits of the case for the release of Jonathan Pollard have never been heard in an American court of law.

According to top US officials, Jonathan Pollard is a political hostage.

Dennis Ross, former US special envoy to the Middle East, explicitly acknowledged that Jonathan deserved to be freed unconditionally, but was being held by the US because of his value as a bargaining chip. In his book The Missing Peace, Ross wrote that he advised president Bill Clinton at Wye to save Jonathan as a bargaining chip in the final status negotiations with the Palestinians.

Jonathan's use as a political tool was also confirmed in a 2002 interview with the late secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger, who is "credited" with driving Jonathan's life sentence. Weinberger admitted that "the Pollard matter was comparatively minor. It was made far bigger than its actual importance" to serve another political agenda.

It is inescapably apparent that there is a correlation between the US's handling of spy cases and American foreign policy. The recent sentencing of former Pentagon analyst Ronald Montaperto to a three-month sentence for years of passing highly classified information to the Chinese illustrates how the American justice system bent over backward so as not to antagonize the Chinese.

On the other hand, the unduly harsh treatment of Jonathan Pollard and the perpetuation of his grossly disproportionate life sentence leave no doubt about successive administrations' unrelenting covert hostility towards the Jewish state.

Montaperto's spying for more than a decade reportedly damaged America's ability to monitor China's covert sales of arms to nation-sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Syria. Nevertheless, in deference to China, prosecutors downgraded the charges against Montaperto to "mishandling of classified information," which carries no more than a four-year sentence. Letters to the judge from Montaperto's colleagues pared his punishment down to a mere three months!

IN JONATHAN'S case, prosecutors railroaded him into a accepting a plea-bargain agreement, which he honored and the US violated, sentencing him to life in prison. The median sentence for the offense Jonathan committed - one count of passing classified information to an ally with no intent to harm the US - is two to four years, not life!

Senior American legislators who have reportedly seen the classified portions of the Pollard file - Sen. Charles Schumer, Rep. Anthony Weiner and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani - are on record that there is no evidence to justify a life sentence. Appellate Court Judge Stephen Williams, in a dissenting minority opinion, called this case "a fundamental miscarriage of justice."

Although the Justice Department allows access to the classified portions of Jonathan's file to officials who are interested in maintaining Jonathan's incarceration (24 such instances of access are part of the court record), it refuses to allow Jonathan's security-cleared attorneys access. The courts, in lock-step fashion, have upheld the government's assertion that Jonathan's attorneys "have no need to know" what is in their client's file.

However, and notwithstanding all of the foregoing, the single most cogent factor in the ongoing persecution of Jonathan Pollard is the failure of the government of Israel to step up to the plate and demand his release. Israel officially recognized Jonathan as its agent in 1998, but has never acted to secure his release.

In point of fact, Israel has already "paid" for Jonathan's release several times over (including freeing 750 murderers and terrorists with blood on their hands as part of the Wye Accords), but has never collected its due.

Instead, since Wye successive Israeli governments have cravenly wiped Jonathan from the agenda for fear of antagonizing the US. The more Israel tries to duck responsibility for its agent, the more this gives aid and comfort to elements in the Justice, intelligence and Defense departments who continue to exploit the Pollard case to the detriment of Israel and the Jews.

House arrest would be a boon to these elements. It would not end the injustice nor grant Jonathan the freedom to which he is entitled. Additionally, it would bode ill for the rest of Israel's captives.

Israel now has three new captives, Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Their very lives may depend on Israel's willingness finally to stand up for its rights. If Israel is incapable of dealing forthrightly with her American ally for the release of an agent in captivity, what hope is there for the captives in the hands of Israel's enemies?

Next month, two weeks before Jonathan enters his 22nd year of a life sentence, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet with President George W. Bush. It is up to Olmert, to demand an end to this travesty of justice and bring Jonathan home.

It is precisely for cases such as this, in which the justice system has failed, that the US Constitution grants the president unlimited powers of clemency.

There is no other solution.

Let the Customer Decide!

2006-10-11T00:22:00.000+02:00

Aren't there regulations obligating taxi drivers?
Why should Moslems be exempt?

But the good side is, that one will be able to avoid the Moslem drivers if they want. What's fair is fair.

Don't Bring That Booze into My Taxi
by Daniel Pipes

New York Sun
October 10, 2006

A minor issue at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) has potentially major implications for the future of Islam in the United States.

Starting about a decade ago, some Muslim taxi drivers serving the airport declared, that they would not transport passengers visibly carrying alcohol, in transparent duty-free shopping bags, for example. This stance stemmed from their understanding of the Koran's ban on alcohol. A driver named Fuad Omar explained: "This is our religion. We could be punished in the afterlife if we agree to [transport alcohol]. This is a Koran issue. This came from heaven." Another driver, Muhamed Mursal, echoed his words: "It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol."

The issue emerged publicly in 2000. On one occasion, 16 drivers in a row refused a passenger with bottles of alcohol. This left the passenger - who had done nothing legally wrong - feeling like a criminal. For their part, the 16 cabbies lost income. As Josh L. Dickey of the Associated Press put it, when drivers at MSP refuse a fare for any reason, "they go to the back of the line. Waaaay back. Past the terminal, down a long service road, and into a sprawling parking lot jammed with cabs in Bloomington, where drivers sit idle for hours, waiting to be called again."

To avoid this predicament, Muslim taxi drivers asked the Metropolitan Airports Commission for permission to refuse passengers carrying liquor - or even suspected of carrying liquor - without being banished to the end of the line. MAC rejected this appeal, worried that drivers might offer religion as an excuse to refuse short-distance passengers.

The number of Muslim drivers has by now increased, to the point that they reportedly make up three-quarters of MSP's 900 cabdrivers. By September 2006, Muslims turned down an estimated three fares a day based on their religious objection to alcohol, an airport spokesman, Patrick Hogan, told the Associated Press, adding that this issue has "slowly grown over the years to the point that it's become a significant customer service issue."

"Travelers often feel surprised and insulted," Mr. Hogan told USA Today.

With this in mind, MAC proposed a pragmatic solution: drivers unwilling to carry alcohol could get a special color light on their car roofs, signaling their views on alcohol to taxi starters and customers alike. From the airport's point of view, this scheme offers a sensible and efficient mechanism to resolve a minor irritant, leaving no passenger insulted and no driver losing business. "Airport authorities are not in the business of interpreting sacred texts or dictating anyone's religious choices," Hogan points out. "Our goal is simply to ensure travelers at [the airport] are well served." Awaiting approval only from the airport's taxi advisory committee, the two-light proposal will likely be in operation by the end of 2006.

But on a societal level, the proposed solution has massive and worrisome implications. Namely, the two-light plan intrudes the Shari‘a, or Islamic law, with state sanction, into a mundane commercial transaction in Minnesota. A government authority thus sanctions a signal as to who does or does not follow Islamic law.

What of taxi drivers beyond those at MSP? Other Muslims in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the country could well demand the same privilege. Bus conductors might follow suit. The whole transport system could be divided between those Islamically observant and those not so.

Why stop with alcohol? Muslim taxi drivers in several countries already balk at allowing seeing-eye dogs in their cars. Future demands could include not transporting women with exposed arms or hair, homosexuals, and unmarried couples. For that matter, they could ban men wearing kippas, as well as Hindus, atheists, bartenders, croupiers, astrologers, bankers, and quarterbacks.

MAC has consulted on the taxi issue with the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society, an organization the Chicago Tribune has established is devoted to turning the United States into a country run be Islamic law. The wife of a former head of the organization, for example, has explained that its goal is "to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state."

It is precisely the innocuous nature of the two-light taxi solution that makes it so insidious - and why the Metropolitan Airports Commission should reconsider its wrong-headed decision. Readers who wish to make their views known to the MAC can write it at publicaffairs@mspmac.org.

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Oct. 10, 2006 update: I provide additional information on this topic at More on Those Minnesota Taxi Drivers

Detailed review of Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman's proposal to change government structure

2006-10-08T20:54:00.000+02:00

I read through it a few times, and I don't like what I've read. It's an unbalanced executive, dictator-like form of government. One of the worst things about the Israeli political system is that there is no balance of powers.

Remember that my background is the United States, and Avigdor Lieberman is from the USSR. What's normal for me isn't normal for him, and what he considers normal, I consider totalitarian.

It's funny that I've had a "gut," yes, my kishkes again, feeling that he wouldn't be the type of leader I'd want, and I feel that his plan has proven my kishkes right. Remember, I was correct about Uzi Landau not being a true leader, and recently I said that Moshe Ya'alon is not the reliably right-wing leader we're yearning for. And again, after friends tried to convince me that I was wrong, they apologized saying that I read it correctly. In an interview he freely admitted that he does not treasure the Land for the Land's sake. Everything can be negotiated. Also, Sharansky has said that for the right promises, he'll give away our Land. Lieberman has said the same thing.

We're in a very dangerous situation, where in almost total desperation many will support just about anybody in the hope that they'll do a good job when in power.

אנא ד-
הושיעה נא
Ona Hashem Hoshiya Na
Please G-d, Redeem us now!

Detailed review of Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman's proposal to change government structure

Aaron Lerner

Date: 8 October, 2006

A spokesperson for Israel Beiteinu has provided IMRA with the complete text
of the legislation that Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman plans to
propose at the start of the upcoming winter Knesset session.

The main feature of the law is that under no circumstances can early
elections take place for the prime minister unless the serving prime
minister wants the elections to take place. If he dies or is removed from
office he is replaced by his deputy who serves the rest of the term. Under
previous direct election law this would lead to new elections. Those
familiar with American political history might term the provision that
removing the prime minister leaves the control of the government in the
hands of the deputy a "Spiro T. Agnew" provision. During the Nixon
administration's first term posters featuring a photo of vice president
Agnew were popular with the line "Keep Nixon Alive". Agnew resigned in 1973
following evidence of tax evasion.

The prime minister appoints ministers who then cannot serve in the Knesset.
The Knesset does not approve the appointments.

The other key feature is that any party that gets less than 10% of the valid
votes (the equivalent of 12 Knesset seats) would not be represented in the
Knesset. While the religious parties could possibly unite to insure that
they pass this minimum threshold the Arab parties combined might not make
this cut nor would smaller parties such as Meretz. It is noteworthy that
other countries with high minimums have experienced unexpected results (for
example Turkey) when major moderate parties competing for the same votes
found themselves below the threshold.

The following is a review of details of changes from the current law:

The prime minister is elected in direct elections [3. (B)]

The prime minister appoints the ministers - Knesset approval of the
appointments is not required (currently it is required) ministers [3. (C)]

Prime minister has to be at least 35 years old [last direct elections was
30] [8. (A)(1)

70,000 voters can nominate a candidate for PM (who is running at the head of
a list running for the Knesset) - up from 50,000 [9. (A)(1)]

If a nominated candidate for PM dies or is unable to be a candidate for
health reasons after nominations are closed this does not delay elections
(under previous direct election law it would postpone elections 4 weeks from
this incident) [12.(A)]

Ministers do not serve in the Knesset [16. (E)]

If the prime minister resigns he is replaced by his deputy who serves the
rest of the term (under previous direct election law this would lead to new
elections) [21. (C)]

The new law does not set what crimes would justify removal of the prime
minister, only saying that "it will be set in the law". Previous laws
referred to offenses involving "moral turpitude" and "moral turpitude" still
appears in the proposed law for ministers. A prime minister removed for
criminal activity is replaced by his deputy who serves the rest of the term
(under previous direct election law this would lead to new elections) [24.]

The prime minister can be removed by a vote of 80 MKs and is then replaced
by his deputy who serves the rest of the term (under previous direct
election law this would lead to new elections) [25 (E)]

If the prime minister dies or is permanently unable to serve he is replaced
by his deputy who serves the rest of the term (under previous direct
election law this would lead to new elections) [26.]

The new law leaves open how the prime minister can remove a minister
("details will be set in the law") while the current law addresses this is
detail [30. (A)]

Only parties that get at least 10% of the valid votes in the Knesset
elections get seats in the Knesset (minimum of 12 MKs) [41. (A)]

No president [43.]

Authority of the president transferred to the prime minister [44. (C)]
This includes pardoning criminals.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA

Independent Media Review & Analysis
Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il

The antechamber to genocide by Francisco Gil-White

2006-10-08T20:44:00.000+02:00

The antechamber to genocide

Historical and Investigative Research
- 9 October 2006
by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/us_russia.htm

Russia is energetically giving support to Israel's genocidal enemies. So is the United States. Worldwide antisemitism is growing dramatically and fast. A rational human being should be able to put two and two together. Will the Jews reason before it is too late again?

On October 6 Caroline Glick, who often writes for the Jerusalem Post, penned an article entitled “As the Storm of War Approaches,” where she defends the view that soon there will be war in Israel because the Russians are getting ever more involved militarily on the side of the Iranians, the Syrians, and the Lebanese.[1] Russian “engineers” and troops have landed in Beirut, which is of “disturbing significance” because “according to Jane’s Defense Weekly the Russian listening post on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights provided Hizbullah with a continuous supply of intelligence throughout the conflict,” and because “the majority of IDF casualties in the fighting were caused by Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles that made their way to Hizbullah fighters through Syria.” Russia has also been making a series of diplomatic attacks against Israel, and “then there is Russia’s unstinting support for Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

In all this, Caroline Glick never mentions the United States.

Now, during the Cold War, when the Russians took one side, the United States could be expected to take the opposite one. Given that recently the US and Russia have been increasingly at public loggerheads in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and given that the US government loudly states in public that it is Israel’s best friend (a claim the media repeats constantly as if it were obviously true), the mind of Caroline Glick’s reader will naturally assume that, against the Russian threat, the United States will take a countervailing position of support for Israel.

This is why it pays to study history.

In 1977, Jimmy Carter began pushing the idea of a PLO state even before the PLO did, and then Carter tried to saddle Israel with a PLO terrorist state next door. At this time the PLO was based in Lebanon, and was directing terrorist attacks from its bases there against Israeli civilians in the Galilee (like Hezbollah now does). The very next year, in 1978, the PLO terrorism got so bad that Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon to stop it, but Jimmy Carter forced the Israelis out of Lebanon.[1a] This context should be kept in mind when evaluating Carter’s 1977 diplomatic efforts on behalf of a PLO state: he was trying to empower people who right there and then were killing Israeli civilians. But the most important piece of information, here, is that in 1977 the Carter administration explicitly teamed up with the Soviet Russians behind Israel's back in an attempt to force a PLO state on Israel’s flank. You may read the documentation on that here:
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm#1977

What does this mean? That, although the United States and the Soviet Union obviously disagreed about many things, they could agree on one thing: attacking Israel.

It is silly to make predictions about the political future without studying the political past. HIR has examined the entire history of US foreign policy towards the Jewish state and found that, contrary to the fiction propounded by US officials and the media, the United States has almost invariably been allied with Israel’s Arab enemies (the same Arab enemies the Russians have also supported) to the detriment of Israeli security.[2] With this context in mind, the safe prediction is not that Washington will now take a position against Moscow’s attack on Israel, but that the United States government will once again team up with the Russian government in a joint attempt to destroy the Jewish state.

What is the latest data?

Two days ago, 5 October 2006, Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook from Palestinian Media Watch, which specializes in translating Arab media into English (so that those of us who do not speak Arabic can find out what Arab leaders are saying to their followers), wrote an article with the title: “Abbas Dupes U.S.” It begins with the following paragraph:

“Abbas: Hamas must recognize Israel,” announced the headline on the lead story in today’s Jerusalem Post. The article went on to report that ‘PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas vowed to fire the Hamas-led government before the end of the month unless... they accepted Israel’s right to exist. Abbas made his pledge in a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who expressed Washington’s full support for the PA chairman and his Fatah party in their confrontation with Hamas.’”[3]

This corresponds nicely to the prediction HIR made during Israel’s war with Hezbollah (which war was in part provoked by a Hamas attack[4]). We predicted that after the US had successfully sabotaged Israeli self-defense (as it now has[5]), the following would happen:

“Hamas and Hezbollah will be thoroughly demonized, but neither organization will be destroyed and if there is a NATO intervention it will protect Hezbollah, and the Hezbollification of Lebanon. The PLO will burnish its image as the ‘partner for peace’ by being on its ‘best’ behavior during this crisis, and if the Oslo process can be revived it will be, with the PLO but without Hamas (at least formally).

Get ready...for the rebirth of the PLO.”[6]

What Marcus and Crook now tell us is that PLO leader “Mahmoud Abbas has just vowed to fire the Hamas-led government...unless they accepted Israel’s right to exist,” and the US Secretary of State has rushed to express “Washington’s full support for the PA chairman and his Fatah party in their confrontation with Hamas.” Abbas is indeed on his ‘best behavior,’ and the US government appears quite keen on reviving Fatah, the controlling core of the PLO.

But what is Abbas saying to the Arabs, in Arabic, in the Arab media? Marcus and Crook explain:

“Only the day before, however, Abbas said on PA [Palestinian Authority] TV that Hamas does not have to recognize Israel -- nor does his own Fatah faction: ‘Hamas is not required to recognize Israel… It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel.’”

This may appear confusing. If Abbas said to the Western press that “Hamas must recognize Israel,” why was he saying on Palestinian Authority TV that “Hamas is not required to recognize Israel”? Did he lose his mind? No. To his Arab audience Mahmoud Abbas made a careful distinction. He said:

“I do not demand of Hamas nor any other to recognize Israel. But from the government that works with Israelis in day to day life, yes.” (emphasis mine)

In other words, there is a Palestinian Authority government with Mahmoud Abbas (alias Abu Mazen) as president but otherwise controlled by Hamas. Now, just as the Republican Party is bigger than the current US administration, the Hamas organization is bigger than the set of Hamas officials currently running the Palestinian Authority government. So what Abbas said is that, although neither Hamas “nor any other” need recognize Israel -- certainly not Abbas’s own Fatah (PLO) or the Popular Front -- that part of Hamas which currently controls the Palestinian Authority and is therefore in a position to have official contacts with the Israelis, they certainly should recognize Israel.

What is the translation?

Translation: No genocidal antisemites should abandon their goal to kill every last living Jew, but the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must say in public that it recognizes Israel so that the political theater called “the Oslo Peace Process” can be revived and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) can finally be wrested from the Israelis, cleansed of its Jews by Ariel Sharon’s protégé Ehud Olmert, and by Dan Halutz, the man who failed to defend Israel from Hezbollah and who, under Ariel Sharon, used the IDF to cleanse the Jews living in the Gaza Strip, giving full control of this strategic territory to antisemitic terrorists pledged to the destruction, via genocide, of the Jewish state. (He also gave control of the Gaza-Egypt border to Egypt).

Now, how should we interpret the behavior of the United States government? The interpretation that Marcus and Crook give is spilled all over the title to their piece: “Abbas Dupes U.S.” And they restate it in the body of the article: “It appears that Rice has been duped into believing that this is a sincere recognition of Israel.” Is this possible? Is it possible that Condoleeza Rice, the foreign minister of the most powerful state in history, with global reach and a vast intelligence service at her disposal chock-full of Arab specialists, has been duped? Is it possible that she knows less than Marcus and Crook? Is it possible that she doesn’t know what Abbas is saying in public on Palestinian Authority TV?

I think this is unlikely.

Moreover, I should point out that Condoleeza Rice did not merely express support for Mahmoud Abbas, she blew him kisses. As Marcus and Crook report, Rice said to Abbas: “We have great admiration for you and [your] leadership.” This is an extreme diplomatic behavior. Great admiration? In other words, Washington has “great admiration” for a terrorist organization responsible for the murders of multitudes of innocent people?

As HIR has documented, Al Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas’s organization (the outfit that controls the PLO), was created by a leader of Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution: Hajj Amin al Husseini, who, according to one of Adolf Eichmann’s lieutenants was more important as an architect of the WWII extermination of the European Jews than Eichmann himself.[7] Is it possible that the United States government does not know this?

I think this is impossible.

I was fired from the University of Pennsylvania (one of the best known universities in the world, and an ‘Ivy League’ school) for making public the documentation that establishes precisely this: that Al Fatah was created by the top leader of Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution.[8] My firing created such a scandal that it was reported in the mainstream media, and one thing Condoleeza Rice’s subordinates certainly do is keep track of the mainstream media. It is hard to believe, for example, that my interview in the top-rated political interview show on TV -- Hannity & Colmes on FOX-NEWS -- can have escaped their attention.[9] But if that were not enough, it turns out that the man responsible for getting me fired, political science professor Ian Lustick (a defender of the PLO), puts it on his CV that he works for US Intelligence.[10] So Condoleeza Rice expressed “great admiration” for an organization that she simply has to know is a continuation of the Final Solution, even as Fatah’s leader was denying in the Arabic media that there was any need to recognize Israel, and was therefore saying that the project to exterminate the Israeli Jews is still on.

I should also point out that, according to the London Sunday Times:

“America is going to have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran, US intelligence analysts have concluded at a secret meeting near Washington.

Senior operatives and outside experts from the intelligence community were almost unanimous in their view that little could be done to stop Iran acquiring the components for a nuclear bomb, The Sunday Times has learnt.”[11]

This also agrees with HIR predictions, for we said (back in February 2006) that the United States was not really opposed to Iranian nuclear ambitions, and if there was any real diplomatic push to prevent Iran from getting them it would be only in the context of also stripping Israel of its nukes. In any case, we predicted that the United States would not attack Iran.[12]

It appears, therefore, that United States policy is allied with Russia’s policy: they both support the enemies of the Israelis, the same enemies who have explained with great clarity that they mean to kill all the Jews.

The last time the great powers were agreed to attack the Jews in the context of a worldwide surge of antisemitism (such as we are experiencing right now) over five million Jews were slaughtered, and this was only the latest installment in a slaughter series that repeats itself almost every century for over two millennia.[13] Can anything be done? Yes: the Jewish people can defend themselves. They can inform their allies among ordinary Americans, who will defend them if they know the truth -- like they did, for example, in 1948, when they came out in large numbers to protest in the streets their own government’s antisemitic policies and forced this government to back down.[14] And the Israeli Jews can take their destiny in their own hands and defend themselves from the Israeli ruling elite, which is leading them down the path to another genocide.[15]

But unless the Jews choose to defend themselves, HIR is predicting another great mass killing of Jews. And very soon. Our readers should take this seriously because the track record of our predictions shows that our model is not a bad one for anticipating future geopolitical events. So spread the word: we can still stop this.

Immoderate Fatah by Arlene Kushner

2006-10-08T09:15:00.000+02:00

Immoderate Fatah
A responsible Palestinian representative would be helpful, but there just isn’t one.

By Arlene Kushner

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is currently in the Middle East. As has been the case in the past, one of her goals is to “strengthen” the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas. Her desire to do so is all part of a complex scenario;

The State Department has let it be known on more than one occasion that putting together a coalition of moderate Arab states that will stand against Iran requires signs of progress with regard to “peace negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinians. Why this should be the case is not altogether clear, for it is in best the interest of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al., to participate in such a coalition whether Israel negotiates peace with the Palestinians or not: the radicalism of Iran threatens them. Yet this condition has been asserted in certain quarters.

If Israel is going to negotiate with the Palestinians, it must be with Abbas of Fatah. Clearly, Hamas will not do. And so, Abbas must be transformed into a “moderate,” in spite of his willingness to sign on to the Prisoners’ Document with Hamas: a document that doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist and seeks “right of return.” He must be seen as an acceptable “partner for peace.”

As it happens, recent news concerning the “moderation” of Fatah makes the stipulations of the Prisoners’ Document suddenly appear modest.

Back in 2000, the wily Yasser Arafat, who founded Fatah along with deputy Mahmoud Abbas, had a need, as head of the Palestinian Authority, to appear anti-terrorist, if not exactly pacific. He thus fostered a spin-off from Fatah: The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. This enabled him to play the good cop-bad cop routine he so excelled at: “Who me? I’m against terrorism; it’s that other independent group that commits those terrorist acts.”

Over time, however, fairly irrefutable proof emerged that Al Aqsa was linked to Fatah:

In 2002, Brigades leader Maslama Thabet declared. “The truth is, we are Fatah itself, but we don’t operate under the name Fatah. We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah.”

In 2003, a payment of $50,000 from Fatah to Al Aqsa was uncovered. Just a little over two years ago, the anchorman of the official PA station “Voice of Palestine,” Nizar al-Ghul, referred to “the Brigades of the Martyrs of Al Aksa that is part of the Fatah movement” (translation by Michael Widlanski).

Then, shortly after that, Ahmed Qurei, as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, stated in an interview with London’s Asharq al-Awsat: “We have clearly declared that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades are part of Fatah. We are committed to them and Fatah bears full responsibility for the group.”

Now Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily has released an interview he held with a leader of Al Aqsa Brigades, Abu Ahmed, who told him, “We are turning Gaza into south Lebanon. We learned from Hezbollah’s victory that Israel can be defeated if we know how to hit them and if we are well prepared. We are importing rockets and the knowledge to launch them and we are also making many plans for battle.”

And that’s not all Abu Ahmed said. He explained, as well, “We have warm relations with Hezbollah, which helps with some of the training programs…The Sinai (where he explained that Hezbollah has cells) is an excellent ground for training, the exchange of information and weapons and for meetings on how to turn every piece of land into usable territory for a confrontation with Israel.” Hezbollah assistance, it seems, includes development of bunkers inside of Gaza similar to those used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So the questions must be asked:

Is the Secretary of State aware that an arm of the Fatah party, which she seeks to promote as moderate, is being assisted by the proxy for Iran?

Might it be that she is genuinely unaware of what Al Aqsa Brigades is doing these days?

And, as she proceeds in building that anti-Iran coalition (oh irony of ironies), would it truly matter to her if she did know? Would she find the courage and integrity to call a halt to the refashioning of Abbas as a “moderate”?

That would require putting it straight to the projected members of the coalition: The threat of Iran and its proxy is even greater than we had imagined. Forget that illusionary “peace process” and let us proceed with what is most important to all of us before it is too late.

Arlene Kushner, who was born in America, lives now in Jerusalem, where she works as an investigative journalist and author. She has written Disclosed: Inside the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, as well as several reports on UNRWA for the Center for Near East Policy Research.

More from Brigitte Gabriel

2006-10-08T09:09:00.000+02:00

More from Brigitte Gabriel

Message from the President and Founder of American Congress for Truth, Brigitte Gabriel

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America
by Brigitte Gabriel

Welcome and thank you for taking the time to visit our website, American Congress for Truth. Evil prevails when good people do nothing. With the spread of radical Islamic fundamentalism throughout the world, it is important for the people of the western world to know and understand what
to expect and what to do about it.

We are faced with a war that has been declared on Christians and Jews in America and the world. Citizens of the most powerful country on earth watched in horror on 9/11, 2001 as a handful of men brought the United States of America to its knees. Wall Street froze, the stock market tumbled, and national air traffic ground to a halt. The West faces a threat more menacing today than the past goals of communist world domination.

We are facing an enemy that uses children as human bombs, mothers as suicide bombers, and men driven by the glory of death and the promise of eternal sexual bliss in heaven. We are fighting an enemy that loves death more than we love life. I am a victim of the Lebanese civil war, which was the first front in the worldwide Jihad of militant Islam against the only Christian country in the Middle East. My family’s home was shelled and destroyed leaving me wounded. I lived underground in a bomb shelter from age 10 to 17 without electricity and very little food. I had to crawl under sniper bullets to a spring to fetch water for my elderly parents. I was betrayed by my country, rescued by my enemy Israel, the Jewish State that is under attack for its existence today.

911 changed most American lives forever, but it struck an especially sensitive chord with me. It reminded me that the entire world is threatened by the same radical Islamic theology that succeeded in annihilating the “infidels” in Lebanon. That’s why I created American Congress for Truth. ACT was formed in June 2002 to inform, inspire and motivate Jews and Christians throughout society in ways to act and fight for our western ways of life and the values we cherish. Our members include Jews, Arabs and Christians from all background both secular and religious, liberals and conservatives. People who have put their differences aside to combat both anti American and anti Israel propaganda masquerading as anti Imperialism and anti Zionism wherever it exists; in the western media, among the intellectual elite, and on American college Campuses.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. I urge you to become an ACT activist and join a growing network of Americans concerned about securing their nation from acts of terrorism. Through American Congress for Truth you can be a voice effecting the future of your community and your nation.

Thank you for your support. You are the heroes who make all our work possible. And I especially thank you for helping me protect the country that has blessed me so much, America, the dream that became my address.

Brigitte Gabriel

RECENT ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES

2006-10-08T09:00:00.000+02:00

thanks, max

Received from Voice of the Martyrs (VOM)

7th of October, 2006

RECENT ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES

NIGERIA : Muslim Rioters Destroy 18 Churches

Nearly 5,000 Christians were displaced and six were injured on September 20th, when Muslim rioters destroyed at least 18 churches, 20 Christian homes, and 40 Christian shops in Dutse, Jigawa state. After a young Muslim man made several unsuccessful advances on a Christian woman, he angrily reacted by calling her a "fake Christian" who follows a "useless Jesus." She responded by telling the boy he followed "a useless prophet." Furious, the boy raised the alarm throughout the town, proclaiming that a Christian lady blasphemed Mohammed. She was taken to the local police station and kept in custody to diffuse the potentially volatile situation.

INDONESIA : Muslim Mob Reduces Church to Ashes

Infuriated by reports that Christians were scheduling revival meetings at the Indonesia Evangelical Mission Church in Aceh province, a militant Islamic mob set the worship center ablaze on September 1st. Local Muslims from the town of Siompi, which was the first in Indonesia to implement Shariah law, reduced the building to ashes in an attempt to wipe out those in their province not bowing down to Allah. Church members have moved their worship services to a local house, as they refuse to buckle under Muslim attacks.

PAKISTAN : Teenage Christian Jailed on False Charges

A young Pakistani Christian, Shahid Masih age 17, was jailed last week on suspicion of ripping book pages containing Quranic verses. He appealed to Punjabi police because the sole evidence against him was the testimony of a Muslim man already accused of the same crime. If convicted, Masih will serve a life sentence.

SAUDI ARABIA (from compassdirect .org)

Saudi Arabia deported four East African Christians last month after they were detained while leading a prayer service in Jeddah. Arrested on June 9th, the church leaders were beaten and imprisoned for more than a month in torturous conditions.

AND IN A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY

PARIS : A French teacher hiding from Islamist death threats
(by Tom Heneghan, Reuters News Agency, abridged)

Robert Redeker went underground after publishing an attack on Islam on Sept. 19 in which he called the Quran "a book of incredible violence" and Islam's prophet Muhammad "a merciless warlord, a looter, a butcher of Jews and a polytheist. [...] Islam”, Mr. Redeker said, "exalts violence and hate."

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the threats against Mr. Redeker, who teaches philosophy in a suburban Toulouse highschool, were intolerable and showed that "we live in a dangerous world that is often marked by intolerance."

The threats came amid widespread criticism of Pope Benedict XVI by Muslims who accused him of implying in a speech that Islam was violent. And they coincided with the cancellation of a Mozart opera in Berlin out of fear of Muslim protests.

Speaking from an undisclosed location last week, Mr.Redeker, 52, told Europe 1 Radio he had no regrets and that asking critical questions was his job as a philosophy teacher.

French Muslim Council head Dalil Boubakeur denounced the threats and said, "Nobody can take the law into his own hands." Two large teachers unions issued statements supporting Mr. Redeker and free speech. One stressed it did so "even though we do not share his convictions."

The press-watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders, said Mr. Redeker's article may have been shocking, but added, "If Le Figaro (a major French newspaper) had chosen not to publish this text [...] it would have been a defeat for the freedom of thought."

According to judicial sources, Paris police have undertaken an investigation into a possible terrorist link behind the threats.

Mr. Redeker said his wife was in hiding with him under protection by police and the DST domestic intelligence agency. "My security is assured, but the logistics are not," he said. "I have to find myself a place to sleep at night and live for a day or two [at a time]."

In a separate interview, Mr. Redeker told Le Figaro the threats included "a map showing how to get to my home, with pictures of me and where I work and my telephone numbers."

He said he could not imagine coming out of hiding and resuming his teaching job any time soon. "I will have to move homes and live somewhere else, where I will be forced to remain anonymous in my own country. The Islamists have succeeded in punishing me on French territory as if I were [found] guilty of a crime of opinion."

COMMENT : Radical fundamentalist Muslims, among the millions of Muslims who immigrated to Europe, present an imminent danger to European Democracy. Their number may be small, but their influence is disproportional. Witness the Danish Cartoon riots, the murder in the Netherlands of an anti-terrorist movie producer, and the recent demonstrations against Pope Benedict XVI for exercising his right to Freedom of Speech. There is no evidence of any Imams who, in their weekly Friday sermons, broadcast hatred against “infidels” having been forced to live in hiding.

Bad News--Olmert & Lieberman unite

2006-10-08T06:50:00.000+02:00

Olmert, Lieberman to promote presidential form for gov't

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: It is important to see what the details of the
plan actually are. The current law does not require that ministers today be
members of Knesset (Shaul Mofaz, for example, served as DM when he was not
an MK). Instead of encouraging future prime ministers to nominate
appropriate candidates by expanding the role of the Knesset's oversight
function and subjecting the candidates to hearings before a Knesset
committee it sounds as if under the proposal there would be no Knesset
oversight whatsoever.
Basic question: Has Israel's problem been that it has had fantastic prime
ministers with tremendous plans who were held back from executing them by
the limitations of the political system or, alternatively, has Israeli
suffered from a series of prime ministers who have pursued half-baked ideas
shot from the hip who at best were only slightly slowed down from
implementing their destructive programs by the few checks and balances the
Israeli political system now has?

It will be particularly important to read the fine print. Avigdor
Lieberman's claim to fame is a plan to redraw the borders for a "we are here
they are there" solution. He wrote a book describing his plan but, in the
Israeli tradition of not reading anything, both journalists and politicians
relate only to what he offers in thumbnail sketches rather than going to the
trouble of actually going through the text. If they did they would find the
gaping holes in his presentation.
==========

Olmert, Lieberman to promote presidential form for gov't
Gil Hoffman and jpost staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 7, 2006
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193389743&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman
agreed on Friday to uphold changes in the structure of the next government.

The meeting may also signal that Yisrael Beiteinu is on its way to joining
the government.

From the start of the upcoming winter Knesset session, the two parties,
Israel Beiteinu and Kadima, would promote legislation to change the system
of government in Israel and to create a constitution for the state.

Olmert and Lieberman discussed the creation of a presidential system.
According to the proposed model, the prime minister will have the power to
nominate ministers based on their qualifications, without having to receive
permission from the Knesset.

These ministers will not have to act as Knesset members.

Science and Sport Minister Ophir Pines-Paz rejected the proposed change,
saying that "direct elections were a big failure and its results were the
opposite of its goals. The problem isn't the governmental system but the
political culture in Israel. A presidential system without a constitution
can be dangerous."

Jewish Trivia!

2006-10-08T06:30:00.000+02:00

Thanks Boris!

I can't promise you that everything listed is really 100% true, but most are for sure. It's Chag Succot, the Succot Holiday and time to be happy. I hope that this adds to your enjoyment of the week!

1. The Roosevelt 's were Jewish Dutch, arriving in NYC in 1682 (originally named Claes Rosenvelt before name change to Nicholas Roosevelt) Sarah Delano, FDR's mother, was descended from Sephardic Jews.

2. Joseph Stalin was originally named Joseph David Djugashvili (translating into "son of a Jew".) As well, all 3 of the women he married were Jewish.

3. Dwight Eisenhower's father was a Swedish Jew and was so identified in the West Point Yearbook of 1915.

INTERESTING JEWISH FACTS

1. Lillian Friedman married Cruz Rivera. They named their baby Geraldo Miguel Rivera.(Funny, it doesn't sound Jewish.) Since, according to Jewish law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, Geraldo Rivera is Jewish. As were, among others: Fiorella Laguardia, Winston Churchill and Cary Grant, as explained below.

2. Fiorella Laguardia's mother's name was Jacobson. His father was not Jewish. Laguardia spoke seven languages - including Hebrew and Yiddish - fluently.

3. Winston Churchill's mother's name was Jenny Jerome.

4. Cary Grant's mother, Elsie, was Jewish. His father, Elias Leach, was not. Grant's original name was Archibald Alexander Leach. (Robin Leach is his first cousin).

5. Peter Sellers' mother, Margaret Marks, was Jewish. His father, Bill Sellers, was Protestant. Peter's real name is Richard Henry Sellers. 6

6. David Bowie's mother is Jewish, his father is not. One of Bowie 's album covers discusses his Jewish ancestry. His real name: David Stenton Haywood Jones. 7. Robert DeNiro's mother is Jewish; his father is not.

8. Shari Belafonte's mother is Jewish. Her father, Harry, has a Jewish grandfather.

9. Olivia Newton John's Jewish grandfather was a Nobel Prize winning physicist.

10. Harrison Ford's mother is Russian Jewish, his father is Irish Catholic.

ALWAYS GOOD TO KNOW AND REMEMBER!

1. Fact: The first theatre to be used solely for the showing of motion pictures was built by a Jew (Adolf Zukor).

2. Fact: The first full-length sound picture, The Jazz Singer was produced by the Jewish Samuel L. Goldwyn &Louis B. Mayer (MGM).

3. Fact: A Jew (Dr. Abraham Waksman) coined the term antibiotics.

4. Fact: A Polish Jew (Casimir Funk) who pioneered a new field of medical research gave us a word now common in our language - vitamins.

5. Fact: The first successful operation for appendicitis was performed by a Jewish surgeon (Dr. Simon Baruch)

6. Fact: The doctor (Dr. Abraham Jacobi) hailed as America 's father of pediatrics was a Jew.

7. Fact: Until a Jewish doctor (Dr. Siccary) showed differently, Americans believed the tomato was poisonous.

8. Fact: Jewish Levi "Levi's" Strauss (inventor of jeans) is the largest clothing retailer in the world.

9. Fact: In 1909, four Jews were among the 60 multi cultural signers of the call to the National Action, which resulted in the creation of the NAACP.

10. Fact: A Jew (Emile Berliner) is the man who developed the modern day phonograph. While Thomas Edison was working out a type of phonograph thatused a cylinder as a record, Berliner invented a machine that would play a disc. The machine he patented was called the gramophone, and the famous RCA trademark is a picture of a dog listening to "his master's voice" on it.

11. Berliner's device. The gramaphone was superior to Edison 's machine. In short, Emile Berliner made possible the modern record industry. His company was eventually absorbed by the Victor Talking Machine Company, now known as RCA.

12. Fact: Jewish Louis B. Mayer (MGM) created the idea for the Oscar.

13. Fact: European Jews are the founding fathers of all the Hollywood Studios.

14. Fact: Jews comprise a mere 1/4 of 1% (13 million) of the population (6 billion).

15. Fact: 99% of the world is non Jewish. 16. Fact: Three of greatest &most influential thinkers dominating the 20th century were Jewish - Einstein, Freud, and Marx.

17. Fact: The most popular selling Christmas song ("White Christmas") was written by a Jew. (Irving Berlin)

18. Fact: Of the 660 Nobel prizes from 1901 - 1990, 160 have been won by Jews. In the end, Jews win more Nobel prizes than any other ethnicity. They win 40x more than should be expected of them, based upon their small population numbers.

19. Fact: A Jew (Dr. Jonas Salk) is the creator of the first Polio Vaccine.

20. Fact: Jews (Hayam Solomon & Isaac Moses) are responsible for creating the first modern banking institutions.

21. Fact: Jews also created the first department stores of the 19th century: The Altmans, Gimbels, Kaufmanns, Lazaruses, Magnins, Mays, Strausses became leaders of major department stores. Julius Rosenwald revolutionized the way Americans purchased goods by improving Sears Roebuck's mail order merchandising. Hart, Schaffner, Marx, Kuppenheimer and Levi Strauss became household names in mens' clothing. (Let's not forget EJ Korvets -Eight Jewish Korean (war) Veterans.)

22. Fact: Jewish Marc Chagall (born Segal , Russia ) is one of the great 20th century painters.

23. Fact: English Jewish financiers such as Isaac Goldsmid, Nathan Rothschild, David Salomons, and Moses Montefiore, whose fortunes helped England become an empire.

24. Fact: In 1918, Detroit , a Jew (Max Goldberg) opened the "first" commercial parking lot.

25. Fact: In 1910, a Jew (Louis Blaustein) and his son opened the "first" gas station, eventually founding AMOCO OIL. One of the richest oil families in the world.

26. Fact: A Jew (Dr. Albert Sabin) developed the first "oral polio vaccine."

27. Fact: A Jew (Steven Spielberg) is the most successful filmmaker since the advent of film.

28. Fact: A Jewish poet's (Emma Lazarus) famous poem, ."give me your tired .. your poor .. your huddled masses," appears as the inscription on the Statue Of Liberty.

29. Fact: Jewish Harry Houdini (Weiss) is the father of Magic/Illusion.

30. Fact: Dr. Sigmund Freud (Jew) is the father of psychiatry.

31. Fact: Jewish Abraham is the father of the world's 3 major religions: Judaism, Christianity & Islam (ancestors of the Hebrew & Arabic peoples). Jesus (formerly known as "sweet Jewish Jesus") is still worshipped by billions.

32. Fact: Jews are the oldest of any people on earth still around with their national identity and cultural heritage intact.

33. Fact: George & Ira Gershwin & Irving Berlin (Jews) are three of the most prolific composers of the 20th century.

34. Fact: Isadore & Nathan Straus (Jews) - "Abraham & Straus," eventually became sole owners of Macy's (world's largest department store) in 1896.

35. Fact: Dr. Paul "magic bullet" Ehrlich (Jew) - physician, Nobel Prize in 1908 for curing syphilis.

36. Fact: Armand Hammer (Jew) - "Arm & Hammer," physician &businessman who originated the largest trade between U. S. and Russia .

37. Fact: Louis Santanel (Jew) was the financier who provided the funds for Columbus ' voyage to America .

38. Fact: Sherry Lansing (Jew) of Paramount Pictures, became the first woman president of a major Hollywood studio.

39. Fact: Flo Zigfield (Jew) of "Zigfield Follies," is the creator of American burlesque.

40. Fact: Jews were the brains behind the Confederacy:

41. Maj. Adolph Proskauer led the unit at Gettysburg .

42. Judah P. Benjamin held 4 cabinet positions: Attorney General, February 25 to September 17, 1861; Secretary of War, September 17, 1861, to March 18, 1862; acting Secretary of War, March 18 to 23, 1862; Secretary of State, March 18, 1862, until the end of the war) and was referred to as "the brains of the confederacy."

43. Rabbi Max Michelbacher was a confidant and spiritual advisor to General Robert E. Lee.

44. A great many Jews fought for the Confederacy, and the overwhelming were recent immigrants from Germany & East Europe who felt they were fighting for Democracy. They fought far out of proportion to their numbers.

rather ironic

2006-10-06T08:11:00.000+02:00

One must never forget how easily the authorities moved the fresh Jewish graves from Gush Katif!

Court Orders Renegotiation of Museum of Tolerance Dispute

18:38 Oct 05, '06 / 13 Tishrei 5767
by Gil Zohar

Supreme Court Justices David Heshin, Ayala Procaccia and Edna Arbel Tuesday ordered the parties in the disputed Museum of Tolerance to sit together for 21 more days to try to reach an agreement.

At issue is whether or not build a $200-million facility promoting tolerance on the site of the historic but deconsecrated Ma'man Allah cemetery. The three-acre site adjoins Independence Park on Hillel Street in downtown Jerusalem and is part of an area known as Mamilla.

The judges said two principles are at issue: that bones should be treated with the utmost dignity; and that too many years have gone by since the cemetery was decommissioned, whence the Court cannot turn back the clock.

Islam permits moving graves which are declared mundras (abandoned), said Benny Cohen, spokesman for the museum. There are various "technical solutions" to the relocation of the disturbed graves, he said.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, director of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center (pictured above) which is behind the controversial project designed by architect superstar Frank Gehry, was pleased that there was "no suggestion by any of the judges to relocate the site."

A 30-day cease work order was issued in February after lawyers for two Muslim organizations petitioned Israel's High Court of Justice, asserting that thousands of mujahadin (holy warriors) who died during the Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries were buried at the site where the center is being built – which continued in use as Jerusalem's main Muslim cemetery until the 1930s. Mediation by former Chief Justice Meir Shamgar failed to achieve a compromise. In recent decades the site had served as a parking lot.

The delay has cost "way into seven figures," Rabbi Hier said, adding that $114-million has been raised to date from 17 donors without even beginning the fundraising campaign.

The Al Aqsa Foundation issued a statement Tuesday saying, "American Jews, clergymen and representatives of the American companies that support building the Museum of Tolerance arrived from America especially to attend sessions of the Israeli Supreme Court regarding the cemetery in an attempt to influence the decision and give the museum heightened significance. Building this museum is absolutely racist."

At Tuesday's hearing Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement inside the Green Line, outlined Israel's usage of Islamic holy sites and gave a brief history of the Mamilla area dispute. In letters to the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Mousa, he called upon the international organizations to help save the Ma'man Allah cemetery.

Jerusalem conservationist and architect David Kroyanker views Muslim opposition to building of the Museum of Tolerance as a matter of great hypocrisy and political opportunism.

"The whole matter is political. They're using the graves to show how Israel treats the Palestinians. It's an issue of political and financial haggling."
Kroyanker noted that in 1923 the Supreme Muslim Council, then headed by Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, drew up ambitious plans to build the al-Aqsa University on the cemetery site to counter-balance the newly-established Hebrew University of Jerusalem on remote Mount Scopus.

The project was finally halted by a failure to raise the funds.

Where's the money going to?

2006-10-05T06:12:00.000+02:00

Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI;
1623 Third Ave., Suite 205,
NewYork, N.Y. 10128;
212-828-2424; 212-828-1717;
afsi@rcn.com
www.afsi.org
October, 2006

AMERICANS SHOCKED TO LEARN THAT ONE-THIRD OF UJC EMERGENCY DOLLARS DESIGNATED FOR ARABS

By: Helen Freedman

So you thought your money was going to the Jewish children and their parents who spent the past summer in bomb shelters. Or you believed that your donation was going to rebuild homes in the north of Israel that had been destroyed by Hezbollah rockets. Or perhaps you were thinking of the elderly, or school and camp programs. Whatever your thoughts might have been, did you think that a huge part of your donation would be given to the very Arabs who supported Hezbollah and danced on their rooftops in celebration whenever word came of Jewish soldiers or civilians killed? Probably not. Therefore, the following information should be of interest to you.

I contacted United Jewish Communities through email and requested a breakdown of the millions of dollars raised in the Emergency Campaign. I received a copy, with three pages of detailed programs, activities, beneficiaries, allocations and monies paid so far. The very first item is: Activities for non-Jew sector in confrontation area. The organization designated for this concern is JAFI – the Jewish Agency for Israel. The "activity" is: Support to non-Jewish children in community centers. The allocation is $3,300,000.

Community Center – Emergency Outreach Programs is the next item – The organization in charge is the Joint Distribution Committee/JDC. The money allocated is $3,000,000 and 25,299 Arab children are the beneficiaries.

The School Readiness Day Camp Program, solely for non-Jewish children, received $2,640,000 and the Summer camp for kids, including 10,000 non-Jews, received $17,300,000. The list goes on and on, but it is clear that Arabs are benefiting substantially from the generosity of Jews.

What's to be done about this? There are those who will take the high road, declaring that Israel is a "democracy" and must treat all its citizens the same; therefore funds for restoring the north should be handed out in a "democratic" fashion. That is undoubtedly the argument you would get from the UJC. Indeed, on their website:
www.ujc.org, they write the following:

Is there a fundraising goal?
A half billion dollars or more may be required and we are currently assessing the needs.

Do donations go only to Jews?
No: we are helping all vulnerable populations, including Israeli Arabs, Druze and Jews.

So there you are folks. One question and a one-line answer, where Jews, Druze and Arabs are all in the same category of "vulnerable populations."

When examining errors of commission, there are also errors of omission. NO WHERE, in the projected expenditures of the UJC is there any recognition of the 10,000 Jewish refugees from Gush Katif/Gaza, who were forcibly expelled from their homes by the Israeli government in August, 2005. More than one year later, NONE of them have received their full compensation for their destroyed homes and businesses, ALL of them are still in temporary homes, FEW of them have found employment, ALL of the youngsters have been shifted from one school to another, often expected to adjust to six or seven different schools in this one year period, ALL of them are desperately in need of money to try to do for themselves what the government has failed to do. If the United Jewish Communities doesn't respond from their projected half-billion dollar fund-raising campaign, who will?

AND – to rub further salt into the wounds- a Y-net report tells us that the Israeli government is now promising a third of their aid to the north to the Arabs. The Y-Net report by Sharon Roffe-Ofir tells us that an additional $343.3 million will be added by donations raised by the JDC and the Jewish Agency. That's your money, folks –
and please note that the government money takes no note of the needs of the Gush Katif refugees who don't even have homes and businesses to be rebuilt. Their communities were totally destroyed and must be re-created, in new locations, from scratch. That includes schools, synagogues, shops, farms, hothouses, and homes.

How can the Israeli government, and the Joint, and the Jewish Agency, and the Federations that make up the United Jewish Communities turn their backs on needy Jews while they placate Arabs who are part of the plot to destroy Israel? It makes no sense. PLEASE make your voice heard in loud protest to such actions.

Write to Howard Rieger, President and Chief Executive Officer of UJC: info@ujc.org, or call him at: 212-284-6500. Insist that money donated by Jews to help the Jews of Israel be used for that purpose. At the very least, there must be full disclosure, up front, that donations to the Emergency Campaign go to Arabs and Druze as well as Jews. At least then, Jews can determine whether to continue donating their money to UJC, or to give it more specifically to individual Jewish causes where the money goes directly to help Jewish needs. Information about direct giving to needy Jews can be secured by contacting Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI, 212-828-2424; afsi@rcn.com; www.afsi.org.

So why did we agree to UIFIL if...

2006-10-04T14:08:00.000+02:00

....it's not going to disarm the terrorists or confiscate weapons?

Wednesday, October 4, 2006
IMRA Interview: UNIFIL Spokesman Alexander Ivanko: Our role is not to disarm

IMRA Interview: UNIFIL Spokesman Alexander Ivanko: Our role is not to disarm
Dr. Aaron Lerner - 4 October, 2006

IMRA interviewed UNIFIL Spokesman Alexander Ivanko, in English, on 4
October.

IMRA: I had some questions about the UNIFIL press statement (see full text
below).

". in situations where the LAF are not in a position to do so, UNIFIL will
do everything necessary to fulfill its mandate"

Now this whole story about "taking action" - does this relate only during
the movement of unauthorized weapons?

Ivanko: I am not going to second judge the commanders on the ground. They
are the ones that have to make a decision with the concrete situation that
they are dealing with.

IMRA: But let's put it a different way. This talks about having
"information" about the "movement of unauthorized weapons".

Ivanko: yes.

IMRA: The weapons have moved. Now you knew that there was a movement of
"unauthorized weapons". Can you act after the movement has been completed?

Ivanko: As our statement makes it very clear. It is our first priority to
inform the Lebanese Army about it. About whatever we think is the movement
of unauthorized materials.

IMRA: Well, it says ", in situations where the LAF are not in a position to
do so."

Ivanko: Well then as I said then we have all the necessary means to take
action.

IMRA: Now the "LAD are not in a position" in some circumstances because the
Lebanese Government hasn't given it instructions to disarm the Hezbollah.

Ivanko: We are not talking about disarmament. We are talking about movement
of unauthorized weapon and material.

IMRA: That's what I am confused about. There are weapons - they are
moving. Now they have completed the movement. Once they have completed the
movement they are no longer relevant?

Ivanko: No. They are as long as there is a cache of weapons that we come
across - it doesn't matter if it is moving or it is static.

IMRA: So if there is a cache of weapons that you come across and the LAF
isn't in a position to act because they don't have instruction to act
against them - then UNIFIL would pick up the weapons?

Ivanko: UNIFIL has the rules that allow it to act but in every case it is a
decision of the commander in the concrete situation.

IMRA: By the way, the area of UNIFIL operations includes the refugee camps?

Ivanko: The area includes the south of the Litani River up to the Blue
Line.

IMRA: There isn't an exception then for the refugee camps?

Ivanko: I am not aware of an exception of the rules of operation to the
south of the Litani.

IMRA: I am just trying to make sure I understand. Resolution 1701 does
include UNIFIL having a role in disarming.

Ivanko: When you go to 1701 it pretty clearly says that this is a priority
for the Lebanese. The Secretary-General has said on several occasions that
this is something that is expected of the Lebanese Army and in his view this
should be done through a political process.

IMRA: So, if you are aware that there is a cache of weapons someplace then
at what stage would UNIFIL act on that?

Ivanko: Well I am not going to answer that question because it is a
hypothetical question. And we are not going to be pinned down at to what in
an exact situation what action we would take because then everyone would
know exactly what our steps are. I am not going to get pinned down on
this. Is there any military commander who is going to tell you exactly what
he is going to do?

IMRA: Well a military commander could say that if he is aware of a cache of
weapons.

Ivanko: We may take action - we may use "all necessary means". That's a
long list - it includes negotiations.

IMRA: I will just end with this. The concept of the "LAF are not in a
position to do so" - is this only in terms of technical capability or can it
extend to that they don't have orders to do something.

Ivanko: It depends, again, on the commander on the ground. His assessment
of the situation.

IMRA: So if the LAF is not in a position to do so because of instructions
above them it is conceivable that UNIFIL would act?

Ivanko: Again - you are giving me a hypothetical situation. In every
concrete situation the commander on the ground assesses what is the reason
etc. etc. If he wishes to consult he then consults with the force
commander and then the decision is made on the ground how UNIFIL will act.

IMRA: Under the terms of the ceasefire the Israelis are prohibited from
carrying out over flights of drones and other observation equipment?

Ivanko: Any over flights we monitor and report to the headquarters in New
York.

IMRA: Is there some problem for UNIFIL to use information that was provided
by Israel that was derived from this activity that you would consider a
violation?

Ivanko: Anything involving the use of intelligence information is not
something we will discuss. Period.

IMRA: I understand. Thank you sir.

Ivanko: No problem. Take care/

UNITED NATIONS INTERIM FORCE IN LEBANON (UNIFIL) Naqoura, 3 October 2006
UNIFIL Press Statement www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/PS3oct.pdf

UNIFIL is steadily enhancing its operational capabilities in order to
fulfill its responsibilities under Security Council resolution 1701 (2006).
More than 3,000 additional troops, for a current total of around 5,200, plus
an Interim Maritime Task Force, have been deployed so far. UNIFIL personnel
are patrolling the area of operations, monitoring the cessation of the
hostilities, and assisting the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which have
already deployed five brigades in the south. Yesterday, UNIFIL confirmed the
withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to south of the Blue Line,
except in the area around Ghajar, and ensured a seamless and smooth takeover
by the LAF.

Should the situation present any risk of resumption of hostile activities,
UNIFIL rules of engagement allow UN forces to respond as required. UNIFIL
commanders have sufficient authority to act forcefully when confronted with
hostile activity of any kind. UNIFIL has set up temporary checkpoints at key
locations within its area of operations. Permanent checkpoints are being
established by the LAF to stop and search passing vehicles. In case specific
information is available regarding movement of unauthorized weapons or
equipment, the LAF will take required action. However, in situations where
the LAF are not in a position to do so, UNIFIL will do everything necessary
to fulfill its mandate in accordance with Security Council resolution 1701.

In implementing their mandate, all UNIFIL personnel may exercise the
inherent right of self-defense. In addition, the use of force beyond
self-defense may be applied to ensure that UNIFIL's area of operations is
not utilized for hostile activities; to resist attempts by forceful means to
prevent UNIFIL from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security
Council; to protect UN personnel, facilities, installations and equipment;
to ensure the security and freedom of movement of UN personnel and
humanitarian workers; and to protect civilians under imminent threat of
physical violence in its areas of deployment, within its capabilities.

For further information, Please contact Alexander Ivanko, UNIFIL Spokesman,
at (+961) 70 910064.

Caroline vs Tzippi

2006-10-04T08:54:00.000+02:00

Note Caroline Glick's new look! It's about time.
Oct. 3, 2006 0:41 Updated Oct. 3, 2006 10:58
Our World: Tzipi Livni and us
By CAROLINE GLICK

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is an interesting case study in how a public image can trump professional competence in Israeli politics.

Livni was brought into politics by then prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 1999. The back-bencher became prominent in 2003 after undergoing two major transformations. First, she exchanged her frizzy light brown curls and dowdy dresses for straight blond hair and couture. Next she followed former premier Ariel Sharon from the nationalist camp to the post-Zionist camp.

In the aftermath of these stunning changes, the leftist media crowned this woman with pidgin English and no understanding of international diplomacy the queen of Israeli politics. While bereft of actual accomplishments, with the media's bottomless indulgence, Livni enjoys a reputation as a savvy, competent, and scrupulously clean politician.

All this no doubt explains a poll published Sunday by Ma'ariv which claims that if Livni were to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as head of Kadima, she could lead the embattled candidates' list to victory in the next general elections.

One of Livni's chief advantages over Olmert is that she is less identified than her boss with Israel's defeat in Lebanon. There are two main reasons that this is the case. First, unlike Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Livni maintained a low profile throughout the war. Second, Livni was kept out of the loop of the war's military management.

More than anything else, Ma'ariv's poll exposes the public's ignorance of Livni's positions on issues of national concern. This is so because in repeated polls since the war came to its sudden cessation, the public has expressed views diametrically opposed to those that Livni seeks to advance.

On Friday, Livni clarified her positions in an interview with Yediot Aharonot. Her views were also given expression in an article in Haaretz on Sunday regarding the government's diplomatic handling of the war. During the war, the principal difference between Livni and Olmert was that Livni gave up on the idea of Israel winning the war on July 12 - that is, on the day that Hizbullah attacked an IDF patrol along the northern border, kidnapped IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser and began pummeling northern Israel with rockets and missiles. It took Olmert another 10 days to be convinced that Israel ought to lose the war.

Both in her interview with Yediot and in her statements to Haaretz, Livni makes clear that unlike the public, she doesn't see why the war in Lebanon proves that the policy of surrendering land to terrorists is misguided. Ignoring the fact that Israel's withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza enabled the empowerment of jihadist terror groups and paved the way for the war that ensued, Livni sees the terror wars as an opportunity to bring foreign troops into Lebanon. Indeed, on the first day of the war, Livni instructed her advisers to begin drawing up plans for foreign forces to come to Lebanon to protect Israel. Although UNIFIL commanders have made clear that they will not disarm Hizbullah, enforce an arms embargo, or remove Hizbullah forces from the border, Livni views the UNIFIL deployment in Lebanon as a model for both Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

Livni's aversion - already on the first day of the war - to any attempt on Israel's part to secure a military victory in Lebanon on the one hand, and her enthusiastic advocacy of the international force model in Lebanon and in Gaza and Judea and Samaria on the other stems from her basic misconception of both Israel's regional security environment and its international position. This conception makes her behave more as the EU and UN's ambassador to Israel rather than as Israel's chief diplomat.

As she put it to Yediot, Israel has to stop seeing the US as its only ally, and reach out to the UN, the Europeans, the Sunni Arab states in the region - Jordan, Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian Authority, the Persian Gulf emirates and Saudi Arabia - and to the Saniora government in Lebanon. Livni believes that all these players will cooperate with Israel because they share some of Israel's interests.

While it is true that these international players share interests with Israel, Livni ignores the fact that they have other interests diametrically opposed to Israel's national interests. Those divergent interests have always trumped the shared interests and nothing that Israel has done in the past or could do in the future will change this basic calculus.

Livni began her interview with Yediot by attacking the religious Zionist public. "In the Israeli political system there are no real gaps concerning the [vision of a] comprehensive settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians," she said. "The dispute is between the religious public and the rest of the Israelis."

She argues her case by asserting that aside from the religious Zionists, all Israelis agree that we have to expel the Israelis who live in communities in Judea and Samaria and transfer their land and communities to the Palestinians. Livni's assertion is extraordinary given that in a recent Maagar Mohot poll, 73 percent of Israeli Jews stated that they object to territorial withdrawals from Judea and Samaria.

Livni continued her analysis arguing that Israel must immediately move to destroy the so-called outpost communities in Judea and Samaria. She justified this view by claiming that these communities were built without government permission and that anyway, Israel intends to give the Palestinians the lands the communities are located on. There are three basic flaws in her reasoning.

First, her claim that the communities must be destroyed because they were built without government approval is ridiculous on its face.

The government decided in 2005 that it wanted to destroy them. Tomorrow it could just as easily decide that it wants to expand them. What Livni is effectively saying is, "I don't like them and therefore I want to destroy them."

Second, assuming that she is right that Israel would want to give the lands on which those communities have been built to the Palestinians in the framework of a peace agreement, it is far from clear what Israeli interest would be served by conceding them today, when the Palestinians are governed by their popularly elected jihadist government. Why would Israel want to give up its bargaining chips before it has a Palestinian government willing to accept its existence?

Finally, while Livni mindlessly insists that "everyone knows" the contours of the peace settlement, Israel's experience since the onset of the peace process with the PLO in 1993 has proven incontrovertibly that those contours are wrong.

The Palestinians have repeatedly rejected the vision of two states west of the Jordan River and have repeatedly made clear through their actions and words that they are not interested in having a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and portions of Jerusalem. As they have clarified repeatedly, they want to destroy the Jewish state. So claiming that the solution is known is to simply deny reality.

Livni forcefully argued that Israel cannot rest on its laurels but must move forward immediately to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. In this vein she supports a massive release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails. In her words, "The world doesn't suffer a vacuum in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When we don't initiate solutions, the world comes with its own solutions."

What she fails to recognize is that the world did not rest on its laurels after Israel made massive concessions on its own initiative to the Palestinians in the past. Rather each Israeli concession was seen as but a starting point for further concessions. Indeed the statement makes one wonder where she has been for the past 13 years.

Livni's argumentation stems from her central misconception that Israel's national security is secured not by the IDF but by opinion polls in Paris and Brussels. She fails to understand not only that this is false, but that Israel's popularity ratings in Europe have little to nothing to do with Israel's actual policies or actions.

Finally, Livni told Yediot that her great plan now is to get the Arab states to work with Israel on solving the Palestinian refugee problem. Now that Israel supports Palestinian statehood, she said, the Arabs will want to help solve the problem by settling the refugees in the Palestinian state and by normalizing the status of the Palestinians who have been living in refugee camps in the Arab world since 1948.

Here too, Livni fails to understand reality. The Palestinian refugee problem is not a problem that the Arab world wishes to solve. The Arab world invented the problem because the Arab League wishes to destroy Israel. The refugee problem does not stand on its own. It is a consequence of the Arab world's continued refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Were this not the case, the refugees would have been resettled 50 years ago.

There is a question of how long the leftist media will be able to maintain Livni's image as a responsible, competent leader. They managed to prolong a similar fiction of Olmert as a national leader until he led us to disaster in Lebanon this summer. We must hope that Livni is exposed as an incompetent, opportunistic phony before she can do us similar, if not greater damage in the future.

Israel's legal system, from the Jerusalem Post

2006-10-04T08:42:00.000+02:00

Sep. 27, 2006 20:30 Updated Sep. 28, 2006 10:58

The collapse of Israel's legal system

by DANIEL DORON

The recent transition at Israel's Supreme Court has generated kudos for its outgoing president Justice Aharon Barak, a legal genius, it is said. But even among those praising him one could hear voices warning of a crisis that threatens the viability of the legal system he led.

As in all our public systems, too ambitious an agenda, too many tasks (many conflicting) and the consequent dependence on huge inefficient, wasteful and sometimes corrupt bureaucracies lead to disarray. Unfortunately, our legal mandarins took ages to recognize the crisis, either because they are so preoccupied with mending the world or are blinded by hubris. They are now moving so slowly to address the crisis that it is becoming acute.

If you sue someone for breaking a contract or inflicting harm, you should prepare for years of litigation at a huge cost. If you win, the judgment is often unenforceable. Excessive legislation, judgments that encourage further litigation and gross inefficiency block the legal system with millions of cases. Delay in delivering justice increases contempt for the law and encourages lawlessness. Lawyers make a mint from this and have no incentive to reform. The economy, however, is paying heavily in damages and risk premiums.

It is not only justice Barak's insistence that everything is judicable and that practically everyone is entitled to standing on any matter that swamped the courts with cases submitted by a people that is already too litigious. The root of the problem is in our legal elite's Greco-Christian legal philosophy (reinvigorated during the Enlightenment and given populist sanction by The French Revolution) that conceives of human rights in vague Platonic abstractions. It then tries to concretize and enforce these abstractions through the coercive instruments of the state.

But "The State's" power rests on politics. It therefore represents not a mythical "common interest" (mythical because communities are marked by their different interests - hence politics - rather than by "communality") but mostly particular, vested interests. These tend to encroach on individual rights. Therefore courts are asked to intervene so often to protect them.

DESPITE THEIR protestations our jurists seem to confuse the enforcement of law with doing justice. Barak allowed judges to interpret the meaning of contracts rather than stick to their language, presumably because such interpretation would be more "just." But this only increased uncertainty and confusion at great economic cost.

Moreover, under the guise of interpreting the basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty judges often promote a private conception of justice. Since all Jews, and especially our Knesset members, are equally eager to pursue justice, small wonder that our legislators and our Justice Ministry enact laws in quantities that no sane society or its legal system can absorb or enforce.

Our jurists also tend to believe that laws can cure all of society's ills. Little thought is given to their suitability to their purpose, to their unintended consequences and to whether they can be enforced economically and evenly. Cost and practicality are generally considered vulgar when it comes to the pursuit of justice.

The abstract human rights that our jurists adore are a chimera really. Governments have habitually interpreted and perverted such rights as those embodied in the Law on Human Dignity and Liberty. Only property rights can give real substance to human rights by granting individuals and their voluntary associations economic power to resist the law's delay and the insolence of office.

UNFORTUNATELY, our legal system either neglects or is contemptuous of concrete property rights, while adulating an ill defined abstract notion of "equality." The remarkable framers of the US constitution (inspired in part by the Jewish tradition that was embodied in the institution of the Jubilee, and by our sages insistence that "a poor man is like a dead man" because he lacked the real rights granted by property) wisely considered property rights as the most fundamental, concrete right on which all other rights must rest. For only in economic prosperity can a civil society fashion and maintain the voluntary associations that counterbalance the coercive power of The State, so readily abused.

This is why the American framers, especially James Madison insisted that a society that wants to protect freedom of choice must oppose a mechanical conception of equality (a Sodom's Bed really) and nurture a creative inequality and its outcome: property rights.

Such protection, Madison insisted, is "the first object of government."

Justice Barak and his esteemed colleagues do of course acknowledge the importance of property rights. But Barak considers them as deriving from "the central" abstract right of "Human Dignity and Liberty." Our basic law does not, Barak affirms, "define such a right" as property rights. Therefore the protection of such rights is dependent on judges who are mostly hostile to them and to competition. Many judges also lack the economic understanding to realize that without firm property rights and competition there can be no market exchange or a useful mechanism of pricing, the two essential attributes of a modern economy. Worse, most are infected with the socialist Zionist ethos that considered profit exploitation and property iniquitous. They are therefore not eager to protect such rights.

It will take a great educational effort to change these basic attitudes that made Israel economically lame. Meanwhile there are several managerial and procedural reforms that can be pursued to make our legal system a bit more efficient.

But first we must acknowledge that the crisis is severe and costly.

More MK's with corruption investigations

2006-10-02T23:01:00.000+02:00

MK Ruhama Avraham investigated for bribery

By Guy Leshem

MK Ruhama Avraham of Kadima will be questioned by the police in the near future on suspicions of receiving bribes and breach of trust, TheMarker. has learned.

Avraham is leading the the fight against President Moshe Katsav in an attempt to forbid him from appearing in the Knesset until his investigation has ended.

A few weeks ago Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered the police to open an investigation of Avraham and the agricultural export company Agrexco and its CEO, Shlomo Tirosh. Mazuz also ordered the police Investigations Division to investigate Tirosh for offering bribes to Avraham and MK Eli Aflalo, also of Kadima. The National Fraud Squad was placed in charge of the investigation.

Last November TheMarker exposed that Avraham and Aflalo, then MK's representing the Likud, traveled overseas at Agrexco's expense. The two flew to Belgium and the U.S. in the summer of 2004, even though the year before the Knesset Ethics Committee forbade them to travel overseas at Agrexco's expense.

The cost of the trip was $6,800, and additional expenses for the two added up to $4,388. Avraham said at the time: "It is possible that an innocent mistake was made." Since then the two MK's have paid back the cost of the trips.

Agrexco is 50 percent owned by the state, with the other half owned by the various agricultural p roduction and marketing boards.

The state comptroller examined the affair after it was exposed. He determined that Tirosh expected some form of quid pro quo in return for the trip. Tirosh asked for their assistance in advancing Agrexco's interests in the Knesset at the time: saving the company large expenses on security checks for the agricultural cargo it was exporting.

Avraham worked to call a special meeting of the Knesset Interior Committee, which dealt with the matter, even though she was not a member of that committee. She even chaired part of the meeting. All this came a short time after the free trip.

Avraham's activities, and the fact that she did not inform the members of the committee of the trip, all point to the suspicion of accepting a bribe.

The Justice Ministry said: "After examing the state comptroller's report on the matter, it was decided by the attorney general and state prosecutor to open a criminal investigation on the suspicion of accepting bribes and breach of trust; and against Agrexco and its CEO on suspicion of offering bribes."

Is this Tshuva, Repentance?

2006-10-01T05:45:00.000+02:00

hat tip to Fred

"My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish."

These were the next-to-last words of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist brutally murdered by Pakistani terrorists. What did he mean by those eleven words?

He wasn't a religious Jew. His wife wasn't Jewish. He probably knew as he said these words that they would only enrage his captors. Danny's next sentence, the very last he spoke was: "Back in the town of B'nai Brak, there is a street named after my great-grandfather, Chayim Pearl, who was one of the founders of the town. Why tell his captors, of all things, that his great-grandfather founded a town in Israel?

His parents believe he chose to tell this story to convey three messages. "First, to his family: I am volunteering information nobody outside the family knows. Understand from this that I am speaking freely and I am not defeated. Second, to his captors: I come from a place where people are judged by the towns they build, the trees they plant, not by the death and destruction they bring. My great-grandfather was angry, too; he had plenty of grievances in the Poland of 1924, just as you have in Pakistan. He didnt blow up their churches. Instead he sold everything he had, moved to British Palestine, and created a better life for himself and his family. And third, to the world: Despite all the protests and criticism that we hear around us, we are still the town builders in this world. We, America, Israel... have not been perfect, but we are still the largest exporters of hope, pluralism, tolerance, equality, and basic freedoms, and our heritage is still the most reliable source of values in the world."

I am Jewish. Would you have said that? And if you would have, what would it mean to you? As we gather together tonight, at the beginning of this New Year, we are saying with our presence: "I am Jewish. It is important to me." My question to each of us, then, is simple: Why? What difference does being Jewish really make in your life?

Over the next ten days, I want to explore that question with you by studying different texts from Torah, the rabbinic tradition, and contemporary thinkers. And then on Yom Kippur afternoon, we will have the privilege of hearing Daniel Pearl's parents, Judea and Ruth Pearl, talk with us about transforming tragedy into hope.

Tonight, as we begin the New Year, I want to explore Danny's message about being a Jew and an American.

This month marks the 350th anniversary of Jewish life in America. In 1654, twenty-three Jewish refugees from Recife, Brazil, landed in New Amsterdam (now Manhattan.) These men, women and children left their homes after the Portuguese recaptured Brazil from the Dutch and reinstituted the Inquisition, kicking out the Jews. The governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, didn't want these Jews. He wrote to his superiors in Amsterdam: "If we give the Jews liberty, we cant refuse the Lutherans and the Catholics who are sure to follow." But the Dutch authorities, encouraged by the many Jews in Amsterdam who were shareholders in the Dutch West India Company, instructed Stuyvesant to let them stay, "providing that the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or the community, but be supported by their own nation."

And so in 1654 the American tradition of religious freedom and pluralism, as well as of communal responsibility, began. It began through us.

In 1790 in his famous letter to the Jews of Newport, President George Washington articulated these principles for the very first time, writing that the US government "gives to bigotry no sanction; to persecution no assistance." He described religious liberty as an inherent natural right, which was very different from Europe, where Jews were tolerated but not accepted on equal footing. Remember, this was 1790. France was just about to emancipate its Jews, but Jews would have to wait 70 more years for England and 100 more years for Germany to do the same. No wonder that President Washington even suggested America might in fact prove to be a promised land for the Jews.

And it has.

America, thanks to the separation of church and state, and the establishment of individual, civil and minority rights, has given us freedom to be both Jewish and American. It has enabled us to become the richest, most successful community of Jews in history. Ours is an amazing success story: you know this from your own family stories. Anti-Semitism in America, of the state-supported variety that so threatened our ancestors, doesnt exist here. Jews can be admitted to any university become the university president; Jews can work in any profession and marry anyone they love. We are not "tolerated" in America; we are America. We are among those who have created what America is ---the culture makers, the intellectuals, the policy makers, the voters, the consumers, the soccer moms; we are Americans.

We are Americans. And we are also Jews. What a unique privilege to be living in a time and a place where we are the inheritors of two great cultures. This is so different from all the pre-modern generations when we could only be Jews... or, as the modern era dawned, when we had to split our identities to be what Moses Mendelssohns described as Jews in our homes and citizens on the street. Now we can be "Jews in our homes and in the streets." We can be Jews in our private lives and in our offices. We can be Jews in our synagogues and in the public square. We can be are we? Or have we forgotten the values that allowed us to make a difference throughout our 4000 years of history.

Yes, our children go to Harvard and Brown and UCLA and USC, but they, and we, are illiterate when it comes to the Jewish "higher education" of Bible, Talmud, Maimonides and modern Jewish thought. Yes we are privileged enough to take our families on wonderful vacations, but members of our congregation are more likely to visit the cathedrals of Italy than the living culture of Israel. Yes, we get a kick out of hearing that Madonna studies kabbalah, but few of us know enough about Kaballah to realize that what she is studying bears little resemblance to the real depth of the Jewish mystical tradition. Yes, we are successful beyond our great-grandparents wildest dreams, and yet... something is missing. We've given up half our inheritance... Voluntarily.

We are losing our back-story,... our story of coming out of the narrow place of Egypt... our story that constantly reminds us that because we were once slaves... we must fight against oppression; our story about being town-builders and exporters of hope, our story about one God one power in the universe that demands of us that we be Gods partner in repairing the broken world. It is a counter cultural tradition, this story of ours; it was countercultural in Abraham's time, countercultural in Moses' time, countercultural in our great-grandparents time, and countercultural in our time as well. It is a story that has always held us to our highest aspirations... and its a story that can also challenge America to live up to its best vision of itself.

Because sometimes, America loses its way. In spite of its great ideals, American society culture often seems to be moving in the wrong direction...

Let me give you a few examples. All of us have some idea of the pressures that our kids face as the struggle to become adults pressure, social pressure, the constant bombardment from popular culture about sex and materialism and looking a certain way and being popular. No wonder that many of our kids are involved in self destructive behaviors cutting, drugs, sex. And it starts very early... as early as Thirteen, a point made painfully clear in a movie that came out last year called Thirteen. It is based on the true story of a 13 year old girl who fell in with the wrong crowd. We want to believe that this couldn't happen in our families, but it could and it does. We just don't talk about it.

But our tradition gives us some help in re-framing for our thirteen year olds what it means to be a young adult. Through the ritual of a bar or bat mitzvah, we try to teach our young people that to be an adult means to be part of something bigger than yourself, a tradition that calls on us to make a difference in the world, where we are responsible for the consequences of our actions, where what we do in the world really matters. What is important, says the bar mitzvah ritual, is not what you wear or what you look like, but how you treat other people. The Bar Mitzvah teaches that being an adult is not measured by freedom to act out, but by the freedom to give back some of the blessings we have been fortunate enough to receive. And the Bar mitzvah links us to our grandparents and great-grandparents, town builders and exporters of hope.

Not all b'nei mitzvah convey these values. In fact, some of the opulent celebrations connected to b'nei mitzvah suggest the opposite message. So I am not saying that a bar or bat mitzvah will keep a teenager safe. But an ongoing connection to a caring community rooted in spiritual values can. Maybe thats why non-Jews on Long Island are having 'bar mitzvah' parties. Did you see that article in the Wall Street Journal last year? Funny... and sad too. True they are imitating the most excessive aspects of b'nei mitzvah celebrations, but perhaps it is motivated by a longing to discover for themselves what we already have: a meaningful rite of passage into adolescence.

Here's another example of our counter cultural tradition: many of us have bigger homes and more money than our great-grandparents could have imagined, but we have less time to be with our families. All of us, whether we feel affluent or not, live under a great deal of stress to earn enough money to support the life styles we see portrayed all around us. This is true...we are lawyers whose law firms expect us to bill 60 or 70 hours a week or social workers trying desperately to keep up with a growing case load by working twelve-hours days or single mothers making minimum wage we are all overworked. And even on vacation, we are never really away. Our cell phones, e-mail, and palm pilots keep us connected to a life without any down time, with no time to take a breath. Our Jewish back-story, our countercultural tradition, challenges all this. Because our story centers on Shabbat. You can do all your work in six days, it teaches us and you have one day to take a break, to disconnect from the world of doing and achieving and acquiring and mastering... and to re-connect to your soul.

That's a gift.

It's a gift that can transform us as individuals and families, and can also transform America. It already is, manifested by a new campaign called Free Time/Free People. It began with Jews and has spread into other religious communities with a call to American political, economic, and cultural leaders to reduce the hours of work imposed on individuals without reducing their income; to strongly encourage the use of more free time in the service of family, community, and spiritual growth; and to make work itself sacred by securing full employment in jobs with decent income, healthcare, dignity, and self-direction. Yes, it is utopian, and yes, it is countercultural... and yes, it is our inheritance as Jews. It is one of the most important gifts we have contributed, not only to America, but to the entire Western world. And we should work to make it the inheritance of all Americans.

I am Jewish. When I claim the Jewish story as mine, when I celebrate it, when I allow it to challenge me, and me to challenge it, it is a story that enriches my life.

I learned this again this year as I mourned for my father who died almost a year ago. Though not an observant Jew, my father taught me more about being Jewish than all my other teachers. He genuinely believed that he had been placed on this earth to make the world better for other people and he did it though small acts of kindness. He won't be remembered in history as a great man, yet he was a profoundly good man, who taught me that the way to honor God is by honoring other people. The last few years of his life were difficult as his Alzheimers became more pronounced. Mercifully, he died just before my mother would have had to make some really difficult decisions about his care. She was able to take care of him at home, showing him all the love that they shared through their almost 60 years of marriage. His death was a blessing... so I was surprised to discover how sad I was.

I said Yizkor for my father for the first time on Passover. I have of course led Yizkor many times as a rabbi. But saying Yizkor for my father was different.

I was there, not because I am a rabbi, but because I am his daughter. And being there brought my father back to me, before he got sick. Being there brought him back, like a photograph from long ago, my father, handsome in his Navy uniform... my father, laughing with the little girl who grew up to be me. I realized that Yizkor is a gift a way to remember those people whose lives made our lives possible and of reminding ourselves that wherever we go, we take them with us. Yizkor keeps us from losing them, by giving us a way of remembering at those very moments when their absence is most powerful, the times when our families gather for holidays.

What a gift being Jewish is. What an inheritance!

One of the blessings of being a rabbi is accompanying a Jew by choice along a spiritual journey. A high point along the way is participating in the bet din, the Jewish Court that sits with the convert to explore his or her reasons for choosing Judaism. To hear some one who has chosen Judaism, say I am Jewish because is often breathtaking. It is sometimes accompanied by tears.

"I am Jewish" one woman recently explained, "because I fell in love with sukkot. I grew up on a farm in Minnesota and I have always felt close to the land. There I was, sitting in a friends sukkah, understanding that sukkot challenges us to recognize that the harvest of our lives isn't measured by material things, but rather by what we take with us into the sukkah family, friends and memory. Nothing else really matters. Sitting under the sukkah, looking through the palm fronds into the night sky, I felt connected to nature in a way that I don't usually feel here in Los Angeles, connected and responsible for the environment, and also for reaching out to hungry people whose harvest is less bountiful than my own. Sitting under the sukkah it was kind of an epiphany. That's when I chose Judaism. And I feel so privileged to become part of this tradition and the people who brought this consciousness into the world."

Ironic, isn't it, that sometimes Jews by choice have an easier time saying I am Jewish than those of us born as Jews. They see as precious something that we may take for granted.

But the truth is...350 years after the first Jewish community was created in America, we are all Jews by choice. In America no one can force us to choose our Jewish inheritance and no one can force us to give it up. The ultimate blessing of being a Jew in America is that we don't have to choose between being a Jew and an American. We don't have to choose between one and the other but we still have to choose to give our Jewish inheritance meaning.

The New Year has begun, 5765 years since the creation of the world 350 years since the arrival of Jews in America. What do you choose? Does that choice bring meaning to your life? Could you say, would you say, as Daniel Pearl did, I am Jewish? And if you did, what difference what would it make in your life and in the world?

"My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish. I pray my grandchildren will be Jewish as well and continue to be town-builders and exporters of hope."

Amen.

AFSI--CHIZUK TRIP TO ISRAEL in NOVEMBER

2006-09-28T21:41:00.000+03:00

JOIN THE AFSI MISSION TO ISRAEL
NOV. 12-20, 2006

BE IN HEBRON FOR SHABBAT CHAYE SARAH

Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is celebrating its 20th Anniversary of leading Chizuk missions to the threatened communities of Israel. AFSI follows the biblical “road map” which charts a whole Israel, and an indivisible Jerusalem. We urge everyone who believes as we do to join this trip.

We’ll arrive in Israel on Nov. 13 and tour the threatened hilltop communities in the Shomron. We’ll continue these visits on Nov. 14 and then head north to Tsfat for a two night stay. Tsfat, Kiryat Shemonah, on the Lebanese border, along with other northern communities that were shelled during the Lebanon war, will be our focus.

We will be in Jerusalem on Nov. 16, exploring the eastern half of the city that is being reclaimed by Jews.

Friday afternoon, Nov. 17- through Sunday morning, Nov. 19, we will be in Hebron for the incomparable experience of Shabbat Chaye Sarah, the celebration of the Torah portion that documents Abraham’s purchase of Sarah’s grave.

Sunday, Nov. 19, we will visit the refugees from the Gush Katif expulsion of August 2005. That night we will head for the airport and our return to New York on Nov. 20.

Throughout the trip there will be ongoing meetings with grass roots heroes, Members of Knesset, and Israeli dignitaries.

The cost is kept at a modest $2200 (not including airport taxes, gratuities, and any additional charges for personal changes in the flight arrangements), which covers round-trip airfare, expert tour guides, tour bus and driver, all hotels (double occupancy – additional cost for single supplement), all breakfasts and dinners and some lunches.

Reservations, requiring a non-refundable deposit of $200, are now recommended. Please call AFSI, 212-828-2424; 1-800-235-3658; or email: afsi@rcn.com. VISA or Mastercard charges will be accepted for members only. Land only arrangements are also organized.

The Shabbes Goy by Joe Velarde

2006-09-27T15:48:00.000+03:00

hat tip Y

The Shabbes Goy by Joe Velarde

Joe Velarde became the fencing coach of Columbia University in the
1940's-50s and was an early advocate of civil rights in sports, eventually
retiring to California.

Snow came early in the winter of 1933 when our extended Cuban family moved
into the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. I was ten years old. We were the
first Spanish speakers to arrive, yet we fit more or less easily into that
crowded, multicultural neighborhood. Soon we began learning a little
Italian, a few Greek and Polish words, lots of Yiddish and some heavily
accented English.

I first heard the __expression Shabbes is falling when Mr. Rosenthal refused
to open the door of his dry goods store on Bedford Avenue. My mother had
sent me with a dime to buy a pair of black socks for my father. In those
days, men wore mostly black and Navy blue. Brown and gray were somehow
special and cost more. Mr. Rosenthal stood inside the locked door, arms
folded, glaring at me through the thick glass while a heavy snow and
darkness began to fall on a Friday evening. "We're closed, already", Mr.
Rosenthal had said, shaking his head, "can't you see that Shabbes is
falling? Don't be a nudnik! Go home." I could feel the cold wetness covering
my head and thought that Shabbes was the Jewish word for snow.

My misperception of Shabbes didn't last long, however, as the area's
dominant culture soon became apparent; Gentiles were the minority. From then
on, as Shabbes fell with its immutable regularity and Jewish lore took over
the life of the neighborhood, I came to realize that so many human
activities, ordinarily mundane at any other time, ceased, and a palpable
silence, a pleasant tranquillity, fell over all of us. It was then that a
family with an urgent need would dispatch a youngster to "get the Spanish
boy, and hurry."

That was me. In time, I stopped being nameless and became Yussel, sometimes
Yuss or Yusseleh. And so began my life as a Shabbes Goy, voluntarily doing
chores for my neighbors on Friday nights and Saturdays: lighting stoves,
running errands, getting a prescription for an old tante, stoking coal
furnaces, putting lights on or out, clearing snow and ice from slippery
sidewalks and stoops. Doing just about anything that was forbidden to the
devout by their religious code.

Friday afternoons were special. I'd walk home from school assailed by the
rich aroma emanating from Jewish kitchens preparing that evening's special
menu. By now, I had developed a list of steady "clients," Jewish families
who depended on me. Furnaces, in particular, demanded frequent tending
during Brooklyn's many freezing winters. I shudder remembering brutally cold
winds blowing off the East River. Anticipation ran high as I thought of the
warm home-baked treats I'd bring home that night after my Shabbes rounds
were over. Thanks to me, my entire family had become Jewish pastry junkies.
Moi? I'm still addicted to checkerboard cake, halvah and Egg Creams (made
only with Fox's Ubet chocolate syrup).

I remember as if it were yesterday how I discovered that Jews were the
smartest people in the world. You see, in our Cuban household we all loved
the ends of bread loaves and, to keep peace, my father always decided who
would get them. One harsh winter night I was rewarded for my Shabbes
ministrations with a loaf of warm challah (we pronounced it "holly") and I
knew I was witnessing genius! Who else could have invented a bread that had
wonderfully crusted ends all over it -- enough for everyone in a large
family?

There was an "International" aspect to my teen years in Williamsburg. The
Sternberg family had two sons who had fought with the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade in Spain. Whenever we kids could get their attention, they'd
spellbind us with tales of hazardous adventures in the Spanish Civil War.
These twenty-something war veterans also introduced us to a novel way of
thinking, one that embraced such humane ideas as 'From each according to his
means and to each according to his needs'. In retrospect, this innocent
exposure to a different philosophy was the starting point of a journey that
would also incorporate the concept of Tzedakah in my personal guide to the
world.

In what historians would later call The Great Depression, a nickel was a lot
of mazuma and its economic power could buy a brand new Spaldeen, our local
name for the pink-colored rubber ball then produced by the Spalding Company.
The famous Spaldeen was central to our endless street games: stickball and
punchball or the simpler stoopball. One balmy summer evenings our youthful
fantasies converted South Tenth Street into Ebbets Field with the Dodgers'
Dolph Camilli swinging a broom handle at a viciously curving Spaldeen thrown
by the Giants' great lefty, Carl Hubbell. We really thought it curved, I
swear.

Our neighbors, magically transformed into spectators kibitzing from their
brownstone stoops and windows, were treated to a unique version of major
league baseball. My tenure as the resident Shabbes Goy came to an abrupt end
after Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941. I withdrew from Brooklyn College
the following day and joined the U.S. Army. In June of 1944, the Army Air
Corps shipped me home after flying sixty combat missions over Italy and the
Balkans. I was overwhelmed to find that several of my Jewish friends and
neighbors had set a place for me at their supper tables every Shabbes
throughout my absence, including me in their prayers. What mitzvoth! My
homecoming was highlighted by wonderful invitations to dinner. Can you
imagine the effect after twenty-two months of Army field rations?

As my post-World War II life developed, the nature of the association I'd
had with Jewish families during my formative years became clearer. I had
learned the meaning of friendship, of loyalty, and of honor and respect. I
discovered obedience without subservience. And caring about all living
things had become as natural as breathing. The worth of a strong work ethic
and of purposeful dedication was manifest. Love of learning blossomed and I
began to set higher standards for my developing skills, and loftier goals
for future activities and dreams. Mind, none of this was the result of any
sort of formal instruction; my yeshiva had been the neighborhood. I learned
these things, absorbed them actually says it better, by association and role
modeling, by pursuing curious inquiry, and by what educators called
"incidental learning" in the crucible that was pre-World War II
Williamsburg. It seems many of life's most elemental lessons are learned
this way.

While my parents' Cuban home sheltered me with warm, intimate affection and
provided for my well-being and self esteem, the group of Jewish families I
came to know and help in the Williamsburg of the 1930s was a surrogate tribe
that abetted my teenage rite of passage to adulthood. One might even say we
had experienced a special kind of Bar Mitzvah. I couldn't explain then the
concept of tikkun olam, but I realized as I matured how well I had been
oriented by the Jewish experience to live it and to apply it. What a truly
uplifting outlook on life it is to be genuinely motivated "to repair the
world."

In these twilight years when my good wife is occasionally told, "Your
husband is a funny man," I'm aware that my humor has its roots in the
shticks of Second Avenue Yiddish Theater, entertainers at Catskill summer
resorts, and their many imitators. And, when I argue issues of human or
civil rights and am cautioned about showing too much zeal, I recall how
chutzpah first flourished on Williamsburg sidewalks, competing for filberts
(hazelnuts) with tough kids wearing payess and yarmulkes. Along the way I
played chess and one-wall handball, learned to fence, listened to
Rimsky-Korsakov, ate roasted chestnuts, read Maimonides and studied Saul
Alinsky.

I am ever grateful for having had the opportunity to be a Shabbes Goy.

The real reason that the IDF was unprepared By SHMUEL KATZ

2006-09-27T05:55:00.000+03:00

The real reason that the IDF was unprepared
By SHMUEL KATZ

There were two defining moments in the war with Hizbullah. One was the fact that Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz was surprised to learn that there was a war to be fought. Indeed a day or two earlier he was booking hotel accommodations for a family summer vacation.
The other defining point was Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's observation that the war would facilitate his plan to withdraw from most of Judea and Samaria and expel the Jews living there. Many of those inhabitants were at that moment on the front line of the war.

The current criticisms of the government are unprecedented, but so are the blunders and misconceptions that precipitated them.

The government failed utterly in its oversight of the strategy of the IDF command. With its experience of Israel's continued inability to overcome the short-range Kassam rockets in the South, it nevertheless acquiesced, with evident equanimity, in Halutz's decision to send the air force alone to crush Hizbullah's similar Katyushas from Lebanon.

It is amazing that the IDF command acted as if it were unaware that the Katyusha launcher is a comparatively light weapon, easily concealed - in a house, under a bundle of hay, in a farmyard or in a hole dug for it. Detecting Katyushas from the air is just about impossible, and they are, moreover, easily mobile. They can only be extricated on the ground - until defensive measures are developed that can shoot down short-range missiles in flight.

IT WAS ONLY when this truth was absorbed that the government mobilized the infantry reserves. But then, when they were at last called up, they were left twiddling their thumbs for days while the prime minister waited for a decision at the United Nations!

Though the army fought hard, the objectives set - at least to reach the Litani River - could not be achieved before that UN decision for a cease-fire, and so the war ended in a "draw"; far from a defeat, but not nearly near enough for a victory.

Meanwhile, a miracle had taken place on the civilian front.

The government had done nothing to cope with the tremendous evacuation of about a million souls from the towns in the North, despite Olmert's warning to ministers that Hizbullah would not take our initial counterattack lying down. Subjected to merciless pounding which reached southward as far as Haifa and Afula and eastward as far as Safed and Tiberias, the people that evacuated needed immediate shelter, food, medicines and to provide for all the special needs of their children, not excluding toys.

Then the miracle happened. A tremendous spontaneous wave of volunteerism throughout the country burst out. Local councils, hundreds of private businesses, thousands of homeowners threw themselves, as though by a single command, into the task. Within two days even a "tent city" was built, conceived and paid for by a great-hearted Israeli millionaire. Without such civic resourcefulness, there would have been chaos and a national disaster.

ALL THIS manifestly adds up to the reality that the people's crisis of confidence in its leaders lies in the government's total unpreparedness for war.

But that sounds impossible. How could we be unprepared? Israel, the one country under constant threat since the moment of its creation. Are not Arab children taught from an early age of the glory of martyrdom in the name of Israel's destruction?

It is not true that the threat to destroy Israel comes only from Iran. What even so many Jews, in Israel and outside, pretend to forget is that the motivation for all the campaigns of the Arabs has been their unabashed intention to destroy Israel.

Ever since 1947, by war, by persistent terror, by bloodletting and by a worldwide propaganda campaign the Arabs have succeeded in mobilizing the Muslim world - with Iran now its most prominent and most dangerous exponent - to achieve this end. In recent years they have even succeeded in gaining substantial support among Europeans - who feel no unease in discussing it at their dinner tables.

But perhaps the worst blow to Israel's security was the notion that giving the Arabs chunks of territory - and that unilaterally - would be a large step forward on the way to peace. That notion was exemplified by the abandonment of the Gaza Strip. This prospect was at once embraced by our media, which preached the defeatists' slogan of "Land for Peace."

As if to prove the provenance of peace, Ariel Sharon invited Egypt - in a careless breach of its peace treaty with Israel - to send troops into Sinai and thence to the border with Gaza, the so-called Philadelphi corridor.

The reliance on Egypt to look after us has resulted in the swift transfer of large quantities of arms into Gaza. Tunnels into the Negev will also soon be available. How Israeli leaders could have perpetrated such a monstrous life-and-death blunder needs a psychological enquiry.

YET ISRAELIS are not the only people who could be manipulated into believing in some cranky fantasy. A weird similarity exists today between Israel's state of mind, to that of Britain after Munich.

Though the British knew enough about the monster named Hitler, a large segment of the population was overjoyed when prime minister Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich with a paper in which that promised "peace in our time." (I arrived in London, as it happens, the day Chamberlain came back and experienced the noisy acclamations in the streets.)

Just 15 months ago, Olmert gave his own "peace in our time" speech to a left-wing audience in New York. After telling them of the wonderful future in store as a result of abandoning Gaza etc., he went on: "We all desperately need it. We are tired of fighting. We are tired of being courageous. We are tired of winning. We are tired of defeating our enemies… We want [the Palestinians] to be our friends, our partners, our good neighbors." It was in that spirit that Olmert thought the war would facilitate his withdrawal plan and sent our soldiers into battle.

WHATEVER committee is appointed to investigate the war, it will not have fulfilled the vital obligation to examine the pre-war laxity and self-satisfaction in the behavior of its public servants - and the dangerous delusions the leaders, egged on by the media, disseminated among the people.

That, however, is as far an inquiry committee can go. For taking the obviously tough decisions about the nation's future, the people must gird its political loins.

The writer, who co-founded the Herut Party with Menachem Begin and was a member of the first Knesset, is a biographer and essayist.

Deja vu

2006-09-26T06:28:00.000+03:00

When we first made aliyah (moved to Israel) in 1970, we lived in Jerusalem's Old City in the Maon Betar. Our only Jewish neighbors were Rav Moshe Tzvi Segel and his wife, Rachel. Rav Segel's life was legendary for us. One of his most famous acts was blowing shofar, after Yom Kippur, at the kotel against the ruling of the British Mandate.

It's mentioned in this story:

Man Arrested for Blowing Shofar at Western Wall
13:09 Sep 25, '06 / 3 Tishrei 5767
by Hillel Fendel

Shades of the 1920's: A Jewish man was hauled off to the Old City police station in the middle of prayer for sounding the shofar during Rosh HaShanah services at the area known as the Kotel HaKatan.

The incident occurred around 7:30 in the morning, at the northern-most section of the accessible Western Wall - a little-known area called the Kotel HaKatan, the Small Wall. It is considered to have extra sanctity, as it stands opposite the presumed spot of the Holy of Holies of the Beit HaMikdash.

Yesterday morning (Sunday), a group of some 10 men and two women gathered at the site, as they have done for several years on Rosh HaShanah, for early-morning prayers. The holiday prayers feature the blowing of the shofar (ram's horn) at several different times. Towards the end of the first shofar sounding, a Border Guard policeman came in, made an unclear motion with his hand as if to ask what was going on, and then left. He said nothing.

Shortly afterwards, Eliyahu K., the 20-year-old prayer leader, blew the shofar a second time, in the midst of his silent prayer (in accordance with Sephardic custom). Policemen came in once again and began trying to pull him away. However, Eliyahu was in the midst of reciting the Amidah - a long passage during which one must stand in one place without moving - and he therefore did not move.

The policemen informed their supervisors by radio that he was praying and refused to move, and reinforcements were soon sent - no fewer than 20 policemen, according to several witnesses.

They then started dragging him out, and when they stopped for a moment, he got up and resumed his prayers. They then began to drag him away again, and shortly afterwards again stopped for a moment - and again he resumed his prayers. At this point, the policemen allowed him to complete his prayers.

In the meanwhile, the other members of the prayer group came out and tried to prevent the policemen from taking Eliyahu away. At this point, the policemen started swinging their clubs violently; no one was hospitalized, but "it was a big brawl," in the words of one witness, with many people being dragged around and beaten while wearing their prayer-shawls and Sabbath suits.

Meanwhile, Eliyahu was taken to the small police station at the Western Wall plaza, and several of his friends followed him there. They wanted to go up the steps into the police station, and demanded that at least the shofar be returned, but the police again came down with their clubs.

They finally took Eliyahu by foot, accompanied by his fiancיe, all the way around the Old City, past Mt. Zion and through Jaffa Gate, to the Kishle police station inside Jaffa Gate. At this point, there was no longer any violence, and Eliyahu was released around 11:30 - after being charged with attacking a policeman, disturbing a policeman in the line of duty, and disturbing the public order.

One witness related, "It's not only that they stopped him from blowing the shofar, but rather the fact that the police beat us up very harshly. I was on my way to the Wall for prayers when I saw 5-7 policemen going with Eliyahu and protecting him very closely. I walked after them, and then a few of his friends came, and then the violence started. We asked the policemen to return the shofar, and they started kicking us and punching us."

The worshipers said that the police had apparently been called by an Arab woman who said the sound of the ram's horn disturbed her children.

A Jewish resident of the Old City told Arutz-7, "How ironic. The loud Arab weddings and nightly prayers by the muazzin [over a powerful loudspeaker] at 4:30 AM disturb our sleep every night." Similar complaints are heard from Jews living near Arab villages in Judea and Samaria.

A member of the Jerusalem Police spokesman's office, contacted by Arutz-7 for a statement on the matter and asked whether this signified a new policy towards shofar-blowing at the Wall, said, "When we have an answer for you, I will get back to you."

The head of the local council of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Shmuel Yitzchaki, could not be reached for comment by the time of this report.

The rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, told Arutz-7, "This is a very grave incident, and I have asked the local police commander, Yossi Priente, to check into it - both the violence and the prevention of the shofar blowing. It reminds us of the days of the British Mandate when Jews [had to make] super-human efforts to blow the shofar at the Western Wall."

He was referring to the 1ate 1920's, when the British, in an attempt to appease the Arabs, and following violence at the Wall, forbade shofar-blowing at the Wall. In one famous incident in 1929, a man named Moshe Segal blew the shofar at the conclusion of Yom Kippur - and was immediately arrested by the British. Though he had fasted for the previous 25 hours, the British detained him without food until midnight, when he was released. It was later reported that the release came about when then-Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook informed the commander that he himself would not eat until Segal was released.

Nearly 40 years later, following the first Yom Kippur service at the Wall under Israeli sovereignty, shortly after the Six Day War, the shofar was again sounded - by Moshe Segal.

The Jerusalem police department can be faxed at (972-2) 539-1190.

by David Bedein

2006-09-25T14:48:00.000+03:00

Olmert: "They Have Never, Never, Never Used Missiles...."

by David Bedein
Sep 25, '06 / 3 Tishrei 5767

Retired Judge Eliyahu Winograd has been mandated by the government of Israel to "operate autonomously and independently", and to make recommendations that will resonate in the public domain in Israel. To give it some teeth, the "Winograd panel" has been invested by the Israeli government with judicial power to subpoena witnesses, with the power to recommend prosecution of any Israeli public official whom it finds was involved with willful or negligent criminal behavior.

One area that the investigation panel will examine will be the "management of the political echelon as it related to the... preparedness and readiness for the threat from Lebanon, including intelligence preparedness and the force building and its readiness...." (Clause C) In that context, American citizens who witnessed security briefings from Israeli officials over the past few years may be called upon to testify at the Winograd panel.

A case in point:

On February 18, 2005, during a public presentation for the annual Jerusalem meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Israel's then-Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced a question from Morton Klein of Philadelphia, who is the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Klein asked Olmert how he could trust the intentions of Palestinian Authority leader Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), since Abu Mazen had been allowing terrorists under his jurisdiction to arm themselves to the teeth.

Olmert pounded on the podium and exhorted his questioner to examine "Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon as a model which Israel would apply to Gaza and Samaria." Although Hizbullah terrorists had stationed 15,000 missiles and mortars in Lebanon, Olmert proclaimed that "they have never, never, never used missiles against Israel on the northern border since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000."

Olmert's response was incredible. This reporter's oldest son served on the northern border in an IDF combat unit for three years, 2001-2004, and was under fire the entire time. This was not some kind of summer camp.

A few days later, this reporter dispatched a colleague to a press reception on February 23, to ask Olmert if he stood behind his statement that the Hizbullah had not fired any missiles into Israel since Israel's withdrawal in May 2000. The reporter showed Olmert the declassified IDF situation report from June 8, 2004, the day that this reporter's son completed his IDF service in the north. The IDF document contradicted what Olmert had reported to 57 American organizations:

In the four years since the IDF unilaterally redeployed its troops from Lebanon, the following attacks on Israel took place from the north: 34 attacks with mortar shells and anti-tank missiles into northern Israel; seven shooting attacks with light arms fire into northern Israel; eight roadside bombs that were planted in northern Israel; 127 times when anti-aircraft missiles were fired into northern Israel; Five Katyusha rocket attacks into northern Israel; 10 infiltrations into northern Israel; 11 soldiers killed in northern Israel, while three IDF troops were kidnapped and murdered; 50 soldiers were wounded in northern Israel; 14 civilians were killed in northern Israel.

Olmert glanced at the IDF report and, surprisingly, stood his ground, reiterating, "I meant to say that they have not fired into Israel in the last five years."

When the reporter showed Olmert that the IDF report demonstrated that the Arab terrorists had continued firing missiles into Israel, killing 28 people, Olmert walked away, saying that he did not want to discuss it.

In other words, representatives of 57 American organizations heard Ehud Olmert, in his capacity as the "heir apparent" to the Israeli prime minister, present a false picture of what was occurring on the northern border; a picture that contradicted official Israeli security reports at the time - of continuing attacks from the north.

Since Olmert assured American supporters of Israel that there were no attacks from the north, that is the message that they conveyed to the US Congress and to the White House.

Representatives of those 57 American organizations who heard Deputy Prime Minister Olmert in February 2005 can now provide evidence to the Winograd Panel regarding the Israeli political echelon's misrepresentation of attacks that were then emanating from Lebanon. It will be instructive to see if representatives of these American groups will come forth to testify.

The question remains: Do those American citizens not owe it to the people of Israel to reveal the distortions that their leaders presented less than two years ago? If they do testify, the Winograd Panel will then be obligated to cross-examine Olmert and ask him why he chose to misrepresent Israel's security situation in the north, as it was reported by the IDF at the time.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! By Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder

2006-09-24T20:04:00.000+03:00

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

By Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

Why did the pope accept the idea that he owes the Muslims an apology? He interpreted certain basic Muslim teachings as encouraging violence in the name of G-d and, as a man of peace, spoke out against such activities. His interpretation is his interpretation and he certainly owes no apology — especially since he read the words as they were clearly written. Having got past the irrefutable logic of the forgoing, one must ask, how many times have the Muslims apologized for the pain and suffering that their terrorist organizations have committed? While we hate the terrorists, we constantly reaffirm our respect for their religion and the people of their faith.

We believe that common decency dictates that we should protect blameless Muslims from the crimes of the guilty. It's ironic that while we are protective of innocent Muslims, despite so many acts of terrorism, the Imams of the world could announce a sentence of death upon any people because of perceived or imaginary insults. How did the Muslims decide that they have the exclusive right to freedom of speech? How did they achieve the right to say and do whatever they please, while the rest of the world only has the right to listen, cower, suffer and sweat? While the leaders of the non-Arab world plead with their populations to protect Muslims from any act of discrimination, the Arabic leaders, both religious and political, encourage vengeance and violence against people of other religions. Logically, if a mere insult deserves a sentence of death, acts that cause the destruction of human life deserve the same fate.

How many countless times have Muslims insulted people of every faith? The fact is, in there mosques and public speeches and in every kind of media, their insults and abuse of other faiths is limitless. If in any Arab city, on the pages of every newspaper and the walls of virtually every building you'll see articles, pictures and paintings insulting, degrading and dehumanizing people of every other faith. While they are practicing acts of humiliation against every other faith, isn't it strange that no leader of any other religion has ever considered any act of retribution or even discrimination against the Muslims? Nobody has ever refused to marry a girl because she has a Muslim brother. Nobody has ever refused to kiss a girl because she has a Muslim father. Nobody has ever left a table in a restaurant because he had an Arab waiter. Nobody has ever refused a toasted bagel because it was made by a Muslim baker. Nobody has ever refused to buy a Slurpee in a 7-Eleven because of an Arab storekeeper.

Isn't it amazing that while we cower in fear of any act of violence they might commit against innocent people, the people of other faiths have never even consider committing any kind of act that could harm a life of an innocent Muslim? Who decides that they have the right to convert the world into a courtroom, with the rest of the world's other religions on trial, with the fate of our lives in their hands, with themselves the self-appointed judge, jury and executioner?

How long will it take for humanity to put an end to this kind of helplessness and cowardice in the face of this inhumane behavior? Instead of cowering in fear of losing our lives from the hands of Muslims, we should immediately and firmly advise them that any act of violence against innocent people will be met with a level of aggressive response that will make them realize that acts of terror against innocent people will cause them to pay an unbearable price.

2006-09-21T13:10:00.000+03:00

1623 Third Avenue, Suite 205, New York, NY 10128
Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717;
E-mail afsi@rcn.com Website; http://www.afsi.org/
Contact: Barry Freedman, Executive Director

September 20, 2006

PRESIDENT BUSH AT THE UNITED NATIONS

Americans For a Safe Israel is deeply disappointed that President Bush, a strong supporter of Israel, once again endorsed a “two state solution” during his speech at the United Nations.

Herbert Zweibon, Chairman of the organization, stated: “By reviving the ‘road map,’ in spite of the unequivocal evidence that Israel has no ‘partner for peace,’ the President undercuts his own war against terror. The President ignores the fact that Hamas, now the elected government of the Palestinian Authority, is a terror organization openly dedicated to Israel’s destruction. And while the President rightly denounces the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad, why does he persist in praising and trying to shore up the Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Abbas?”

Zweibon notes that, “The road map is a map for Israeli territorial retreat. How can the President ignore what has followed Israeli retreats since the ‘road map’ was first proposed? Israel’s unilateral retreat from Gaza has produced only endless missile and rocket attacks upon her southern towns. Her unilateral retreat from Lebanon produced the onslaughts by Hezbollah. In simply repeating the slogans of a failed policy, the President is showing a lack of firm leadership, when leadership is sorely needed. It is especially distressing that the President should be making these statements at the deeply corrupt UN, that he should use this forum to gratify Israel’s enemies and encourage the jihadists.”

Americans For a Safe Israel is concerned at the failure of understanding and imagination that still permeates U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israel conflict. The State Department still seems to control policy and to advance the same tired formula, unchanged since the 1970 Rogers Plan calling for Israel’s retreat to the 1949 ceasefire lines.

“It is past time,” says Zweibon, “for the U.S. to abandon its ‘three-state’ solution, its effort to carve up historic Palestine into a Jewish state and two Arab states, Jordan, and a terror enclave in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, to be given the name of Palestine. It is time for the administration to recognize that the effect of adding the ‘third state’ it promotes would merely be to threaten the existence of the other two: both Jewish Palestine and Jordanian Arab Palestine.”

Egyptian Activists Turn Against Israel

2006-09-17T06:50:00.000+03:00

Egyptian Activists Turn Against Israel

By HAMZA HENDAWI
The Associated Press
Thursday, September 14, 2006; 4:49 PM

CAIRO, Egypt -- Egypt's best-known democracy movement has switched causes and is now focused on demanding an end to the country's peace treaty with Israel.

The campaign by the Kifaya group is a sign of how the war in Lebanon knocked momentum from democracy efforts and left many reform activists deeply resentful of the United States.

Over the past two years, Washington has made promoting democracy a key part of its Middle East policy. But now reformists accuse Washington of supporting Israel in its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas, which wreaked widespread destruction in Lebanon.

Edward S. Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel, believes Kifaya's new campaign showcases Washington's dilemma as it strives to sell the values of democracy and freedom in a region galvanized for decades by the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"One of the costs of pressing for democracy in the Middle East is the fact that most democratically based Arab parties ... will be hostile to Israel," said Walker, now with the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

The Kifaya movement has launched a campaign to collect 1 million signatures on a petition calling for the annulment of Egypt's U.S.-sponsored 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

The move is mainly symbolic, but it highlights the extent of resentment felt by Egyptians toward Israel _ and by association, the United States, its main backer.

"The Lebanon war is responsible," said George Ishaq, Kifaya spokesman and founding member. "The petition is a reaction in part to the (Egyptian) regime's feeble diplomatic handling of the war." He said 100,000 signatures have been collected so far.

The Egyptian-Israeli treaty ended hostilities between the two neighbors, after four wars between 1948 and 1973, and is cited by successive U.S. administrations as a model for peaceful coexistence in the region. But it failed to dent the animosity most Egyptians feel for Israel.

The anti-Israel campaign is a major shift for Kifaya, whose name is Arabic for "Enough" _ as in enough of the 25-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak.

The movement, made up of politicians, intellectuals and rights activists, burst onto Egypt's political scene two years ago, holding noisy demonstrations aimed at stopping Mubarak from seeking a fifth 6-year term in office or allowing his son, Gamal, to succeed him.

At least for a time, Kifaya's actions captured Washington's attention as a movement with the potential to peacefully bring reform. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Kifaya and other reform activists during a visit to Cairo last year.

The movement succeeded in breaking down deeply ingrained political taboos, particularly by calling openly for Mubarak to step down. Its colorful street protests stirred up Egypt's stagnant politics and made democratic reform a top issue.

Still, Kifaya failed in its immediate political goals _ the 78-year-old Mubarak was re-elected a year ago. Many believe his son is still on course to succeed him.
Many Egyptians strongly oppose an accession to power by Gamal Mubarak, seeing it as a mere continuation of his father's rule.

Now Kifaya is more concerned with Israel. On its Web site, dozens of postings expound on the pros and cons of abolishing Egypt's peace treaty.

Some wrote that peace with Israel was "an illusion" and a "danger to Egyptian national security." Another said it was time for Egyptians to "struggle" against Israel.

"The most prominent casualty of Washington's policy during the Lebanon war was its program for democracy in the Middle East," said Amr Hamzawi, a Middle East expert at Carnegie Endowments, a Washington think tank. "When an elected government in Lebanon faced a challenge, the American administration blatantly took the side of Israel."

Tens of thousands across the Arab world protested Israel's Lebanon offensive, focusing their anger on Washington because it rejected calls for a quick cease-fire. The United States argued a quick truce would not last without new political realities on the ground, but many Arabs saw that as just a green light for Israel to press on with its campaign.

"The Americans' handling of the Lebanon war has undermined an already diminishing U.S. credibility in the Arab world," said Rosemary Hollis, a London-based Middle East expert.

Wave of Muslim Attacks on Palestinian Authority Churches

2006-09-17T06:32:00.000+03:00

Wave of Muslim Attacks on Palestinian Authority Churches

02:08 Sep 17, '06 / 24 Elul 5766
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

At least five churches in the Palestinian Authority have been targeted in a series of attacks since Friday. One Islamic terrorist group threatened to blow up all the churches in Gaza.

The attacks and threats represent the response of Islamic fundamentalists in the PA to statements made last Tuesday, at Regensburg University in Germany, by the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI. By reference to a reported discussion from the 14th century between a Christian Byzantine Emperor and a Persian Islamic scholar, the pontiff implied denigration of the Islamic notion of Jihad for the sake of imposing Muslim rule.

Muslims in several PA-controlled cities in Judea and Samaria have taken to the streets in recent days in protest against the Pope's comments, with increasing instances of violence directed at Christian institutions of all denominations.

In Shechem (Nablus), grenades and four firebombs were thrown at two churches, causing significant damage. A formerly unknown group called Lions of Monotheism claimed it was behind the attacks and that they were carried out in response to the Pope's statements regarding Islam.

George Awad, priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the city, told the PA news agency Maan that the local Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches were targeted in attacks overnight on Friday and early Saturday morning. Awad emphasized to the news agency that he condemned both the attacks on the Shechem churches and the statements of the Pope. Saying that comments such as those of the Pope "sow seeds of conflict," Awad added, "The Pope does not represent all of the world's Christians."

The Shechem-based clergyman continued, "The Christians in the Palestinian territories stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their Muslim brothers against the Israeli occupation. Many Christians have been killed, wounded and jailed in our common struggle."

On Saturday, a group calling itself Swords of Islamic Justice claimed to have opened fire on a church in Gaza's A-Zeitoun neighborhood. The group also threatened to blow up all the Christian houses of worship in the Gaza Strip.

During the annual conference of the Islamic Movement, held in the Israeli Arab city of Umm El-Fahm on Friday, the head of the northern branch of the organization, Sheikh Raed Salah, said of Pope Benedict's statements, "I hope it was a slip of the tongue, because if it is not, his words are a direct call to the nations of Europe to stand behind President Bush and Israel in their war against Islam."

On Friday, the head of the Palestinian Authority, Ismail Haniyeh, also had words of warning for the Pope: "We call on the holy pope to reconsider his statement and to stop offending the Islamic religion that has a billion and a half followers." Another official of the Hamas terrorist organization, Ismail Radwan, told 2,000 protestors in Ramallah on Friday night, outside the PA legislature, "This [statement by the Pope] is a new crusade against the Arab Islamic world. It comes in different forms, in cartoons or lectures.... They hate our religion."

In light of the worldwide Muslim reaction and threats of violence over the Pope's condemnation of violence in the name of Islam, security around the Catholic Church leader has been tightened and thickened. In a statement issued on Saturday, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said that the Pope "sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful...."

Islamic History Expert: Moslem Peace with Israel? Never!

2006-09-17T06:26:00.000+03:00

Islamic History Expert: Moslem Peace with Israel? Never!

13:06 Sep 15, '06 / 22 Elul 5766
by Ezra HaLevi

Islam History Professor Moshe Sharon of Hebrew University told a counter-terrorism conference Thursday, "There is no possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians whatsoever - ever.”

Sharon, speaking at the annual conference of Herzliya’s Counter Terrorism Institute, said that Iran is dead serious about obtaining and using nuclear weapons in order to bring about its vision of an Islamic End of Days.

The veteran expert on Islam says that Western officials fail to grasp that the Arab and Islamic world truly see Israel’s establishment as a “reversal of history” and are therefore unable to ever accept peaceful relations with it. From Moslems’ perspective, “Islamic territory was taken away from Islam by Jews. You know by now that this can never be accepted, not even one meter. So everyone who thinks Tel Aviv is safe is making a grave mistake. Territory which at one time was dominated by Islamic rule, now has become non-Moslem. Non-Moslems are independent of Islamic rule and Jews have created their own independent state. It is anathema. Worse, Israel, a non-Moslem state, is ruling over Moslems. It is unthinkable that non-Moslems should rule over Moslems.”

Sharon dismissed various peace treaties signed by Moslem and Arab officials over the years as "pieces of paper, parts of tactics and strategies… with no meaning."

Sharon’s assessment focused on the danger posed by Iran. From studying Iranian culture, literature, newspapers, broadcasts and interviews with major players in the Islamic regime, Sharon concludes that a deep belief in a Shiite messiah is at the root of Iran’s nuclear project. “They truly believe that the Shiite messiah, the 12th Imam (also known as the Mahdi), is here, and that he will reveal himself… What moves the Iranian government and leadership today is first and foremost the wish to bring about the 12th Imam."

Addressing the theological doctrine of how exactly the this Messiah will be revealed, Sharon explained: "How will they bring him? Through an apocalypse. He (the Mahdi) needs a war. He cannot come into this world without an Armageddon. He wants an Armageddon. The earlier we understand this the better. Ahmadinejad wants nuclear weapons for this!"

Sharon has in the past insisted that the Western world was engaging in great folly by differentiating between radical and peaceful Islam. “All of a sudden we see that the greatest interpreters of Islam are politicians in the Western world,” he wrote sarcastically. “They know better than all the speakers in the mosques, all those who deliver terrible sermons against anything that is either Christian or Jewish. These Western politicians know that there is good Islam and bad Islam. They know even how to differentiate between the two - except that none of them know how to read a word of Arabic.”

“The difference between Judaism, Christianity and Islam is as follows: Judaism speaks about national salvation - namely, that at the end of the story, when the world becomes a better place, Israel will be in its own land, ruled by its own king and serving G-d. Christianity speaks about the idea that every single person in the world can be saved from his sins, while Islam speaks about ruling the world. I can quote here in Arabic, but there is no point in quoting Arabic, so let me quote a verse in English: ‘Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all the religions.’

“The idea, then, is not that the whole world would necessarily become Moslem at this time, but that the whole world would be subdued under the rule of Islam.”

That, Sharon insists, is the plan, in black-and-white, of the Iranian regime.

“This is why [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad seeks nuclear weapons,” he emphasized. “The faster we realize this, the better.”

Life's Stranger than TV

2006-09-17T06:23:00.000+03:00

Body washes up near 'CSI' set

MIAMI - A man's body floated up near where a crew was filming a scene for the crime show "CSI: Miami," authorities said.

The body washed up early Friday in Biscayne Bay at Bicentennial Park, which film crews were using as a helicopter staging ground for aerial shots of a fictional offshore investigation for the CBS show, police said.

A homeless man spotted the body and alerted an off-duty police officer who was working security on the set, police said. The body had no signs of injury, and the death was not considered suspicious, according to authorities.

"Unfortunately, it's not unusual during certain times of the year that people who have fallen in the bay, either homeless or people who were asleep or in some cases boaters who had a mishap, fall into the bay and turn up days later," said Detective Delrish Moss, a Miami police spokesman.

It's not the first dead body to unexpectedly appear on a "CSI" set. One was found this week in a Los Angeles building where "CSI: New York" was filming. Police also didn't consider that death suspicious.

And There Was Light

2006-09-17T03:08:00.000+03:00

" … And There Was Light"

By Sara Layah Shomron
24 Elul 5766 (September 17, 2006)

A Bar Mitzvah is full of special meaning for the boy, his family, his friends, and his community. For the child reared in our beloved Gush Katif it takes on even more significance. He has lost his beautiful Gush Katif; his childhood home now razed and reduced to rubble, his schooling disrupted, his friends mercilessly scattered, his salvageable belongings stored away in boxes or shipping container or storage facility, and his parents most likely unemployed in direct consequence of the expulsion. Even though he and many many people within Israel and outside our Land passionately and fervently prayed and demonstrated against the evil destruction last summer, this child willingly and eagerly accepts upon himself all responsibilities and obligations incumbent upon him as he enters his 13th year.

My 5th child and youngest son Meir has just marked his Bar Mitzvah. It was a delicate and sensitive issue; he told me he wanted it to be like his older two brothers' Bar Mitzvahs. Thankfully he was able to receive Torah reading tutelage from the same instructor as his brothers. As for the rest, we neither have our lovely Neve Dekalim garden in which to invite and entertain friends as we did for my eldest son nor do we have access to a bomb shelter as used for my middle son on account of possible rain. (Contrary to the law that all new housing projects must have security rooms, the "caravilla" relocation sites lack security rooms and bomb shelters). I tried to comfort Meir by saying that his celebration would be uniquely his as were his brothers' celebrations theirs.

We decided on a Thursday Torah reading and class celebration at his re-established Naot Katif elementary school and a Sabbath reading at the Neve Dekalim-Nitzan Mercazi synagogue. His classmates joyously decorated the school synagogue with bright colored balloons the day before. Meir, donning his tallit for the first time, prayed with the school congregation and read from the Torah. My husband joined this all male youth congregation while I listened seated behind the doorway. Meir sang his heartfelt prayers so beautifully and clearly. The boys burst out into song and excitement; Meir's inclusion into the congregation complete now that he's Bar Mitzvah.

Afterwards we celebrated with his 15 classmates; a remnant from his Gush Katif elementary school. The new school principal, his teacher, and my husband all spoke briefly. Meir had prepared and read a speech about his Torah portion. The classmates then broke out in impromptu song as we ate the tasty food I had prepared. A sinfully delicious frosted chocolate cake with the message "Mazel Tov Meir! 13" made by my neighbor followed. And then Meir was lifted up on a chair as is the Israeli birthday custom. There was plenty of food left over so the boys set out to share it with the staff and other classes. It was special, intimate, and oh so very meaningful for all.

This past Sabbath morning Meir read his double Torah portion Nitzavim Vayelech and Haftorah. My son's heartfelt voice rang out marvelously and it is this melody and these words which have echoed down throughout the centuries. Rabbi Kaminetski presented the Bar Mitzvah boy with a set of Mishna Brurah just as he had done many many times in our beloved and now destroyed Neve Dekalim. But this set, he announced with care, was the last Gush Katif set.

Meir, your name means "enlightens." May you continue to go from strength to strength bringing light into our world!

Sara Layah Shomron is a Gush Katif expellee living at the Nitzan Caravilla site

By: Joseph Feldschuh

2006-09-15T07:54:00.000+03:00

1623 Third Avenue, Suite 205, New York, NY 10128
Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717;
E-mail http://us.f538.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=afsi@rcn.com Website; http://www.afsi.org/
Contact: Barry Freedman, Executive Director; September 14, 2006

New York Times Daily Review

By: Joseph Feldschuh

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The New York Times had a front page picture and an article about suffering in Gaza. The article focused on the deprivation within Gaza that has occurred since European countries stopped sending money over to the Palestinian authorities since Hamas, an organization designated as terrorists, took over. The article focused on lack of salaries, hinted that there might be some malnutrition, and mentioned the fact that there is a 50% unemployment rate. It also told the sad story of a 33 year old female married to a partially disabled worker who, however, has managed to have 11 children and is dependent on UN welfare. The husband is obviously not disabled enough to keep reproducing, and they might be good for 15 children.

The article does mention the ambush attack in which 2 soldiers were killed inside Israel and 1 soldier kidnapped is still being held. The article on the inside page was approximately a half page long and was informative because interviews with Palestinians who voted for Hamas indicated they just did not have enough time to accomplish their goals. The reporter obviously didn’t think to question them about their goal to destroy Israel.

Another article revealed that Amnesty International, which in the middle of August accused Israel of committing war crimes, has now announced that Hezbollah also committed war crimes when Hezbollah shot 4,000 rockets into Israel. They said the firing if rockets into civilian centers was an act of international crime. However, they refused to acknowledge Israel’s claim that Hezbollah deliberately placed rockets in civilian areas so as to draw fire.

Taken by themselves, these articles may appear reasonably neutral. Taken out of context, this is another set of pictures of suffering and deprivation among Arabs, this time Palestinian Arabs instead of Lebanese Arabs. This just continues the daily litany by the Times of the dissemination of anti-Israeli propaganda. Again repeated is the quote by the Hamas leader that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. According to Hamas, of course, all of Israel is Palestinian land. A reasonable article would have pointed this out.

We are still waiting to see if the times will interview the family of an Israeli who was killed or seriously wounded by the Hezbollah rocket attacks.

The New York Times made the news in another way today. Mr. Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, asked his board of directors to take a pay cut. The New York Times is vulnerable if its financial base can successfully be attacked. Americans deserve a paper of record where editorials are kept to the editorial page and where balanced reporting is part of the rest of the newspaper.

Does anyone know more about this?

2006-09-13T18:06:00.000+03:00

The ISM-Terror Connection

By Lee Kaplan and StoptheISM.com
As a front group for Palestinian terrorists, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) sends young people from all over the world to the training fields of the West Bank and Gaza to learn from terrorists and to aid them logistically. Stop the ISM has now obtained photographs of ISM leaders and organizers holding AK-47 assault rifles. The images show some of the ISM women disguised as Jews living in the West Bank and in the company of an Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade terrorist.

One of our volunteers in the United Kingdom for Stop the ISM managed to infiltrate the ISM late last June in the Holy Land where the ISM operates in direct support of terrorists. Our volunteer (who prefers to remain anonymous to avoid retaliatory attacks) has had prior experience going undercover for the police in the UK. The photos and intelligence he brought back are proving invaluable to intelligence agencies watching the ISM and have been in official hands for over a month prior to this publication.

Unfortunately, neither U.S. Homeland Security nor the Israeli security agencies have to date regarded the ISM as a serious threat. Some of these ISM people in these photos managed to escape; nevertheless, arrests have been made, and more are forthcoming.

In April 2003, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that "ISM members take an active part in illegal and violent actions against IDF soldiers. At times, their activity in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip is under the auspices of Palestinian terrorist organizations." The ISM always tries to maintain the veneer of a “peace group”; however, ISM founders Adam Shapiro and his wife, Huwaida Arraf, and Norcal ISM’s leader Paul LaRudee, a man who Stop the ISM recently succeeded in getting deported from Israel as a security threat, began revealing their true colors recently by going to Lebanon to act as “human shields” for the Hezbollah.

Up to now, the ISM has been permitted to use our colleges and universities to find recruits to send to the Middle East to interfere with Israeli soldiers and border police. For example, every Friday, the ISM organizes riots in the West Bank. ISM members openly boast about having been arrested for vandalizing and destroying Israeli security fences and equipment. In March 2003, fugitive Islamic Jihad terrorist Shadi Sukiya was arrested in a house the ISM rented in Jenin. Two suicide bombers from the UK met with the ISM in Gaza before blowing up Mike’s Place, a bar in Tel Aviv, killing three people and wounding more than fifty in the process.

Here at home, ISM appears to blatantly violate 18 USC Code 2339a, a statute banning going overseas to aid terrorist groups. The government has also failed to enforce felony passport laws that are continually being violated by ISM activists. This allows the ISM to function across international boundaries. Rico Statutes in the US are routinely violated too through a campus network. Emiliano, an American ISM activist in these photos, was sent to the West Bank with money given to him by New York ISM as a “grant.” That means a conspiratorial subversive group is paying to send subversives to riot in an allied country in this War on Terror. When I called the San Francisco office of the FBI three times to alert them about information in this article, I was disconnected twice and the third time given a voice recorder for the duty agent. Nobody called back.

Continue reading on the site, where there are also pictures
hat tip: ajg

Coffee Anan

2006-09-12T11:33:00.000+03:00

Shimshon Cytryn Update - Spetember 3

2006-09-03T07:21:00.000+03:00

Yes, he's a prisoner of Zion!

Shimshon's appeal to be placed under house arrest until his trial is scheduled to take place this morning (Sunday) at the Supreme Court at 9:00. He currently sites in the Deqel jail in Be'er Sheva. According to Shimshon's grandmother, he is kept in very bad conditions. He is both isolated and not allowed to contact his family.

Shimshon has apparently chosen not to attend the trial. His family does not have any idea as to why, and is very worried about his physical and mental well-being, due to the treatment he is receiving.

In his grandmother's words, " Shimshon is NOT a criminal. He was down in Gush Katif protecting his fellow Jews. We know that the same Muwassi that he was accused of harming are the same ones that were at war with our soldiers recently in Gaza who needed the air force to protect them. We know that this same Muwassi reported on [Israeli radio] Reshet Bet that he was not injured by a 'settler.' We have pictures to verify that the Arabs down in the Gush were the perpetrators of this rock throwing event. How long does this young man need to be tortured instead of being allowed to lead a productive life in Israel."

When information becomes available as to how you can help Shimshon with his legal fees and emotional support it will be published here.

Please help spread the word of Shimshon's plight.

Chomesh Re-visited Elul 5766 by Sarah Feld

2006-09-02T21:46:00.000+03:00

Shalom,
Just wanted to share this article with you all.
with prayers for geula shleima,
Sarah

Chomesh Re-visited Elul 5766

I was not quite sure why I agreed to visit Chomesh,
one of four settlements in the northern Shomron that
was decimated in last year’s purge of Jews from that
area. My daughter, Rivki was able to explain her need
to go. ‘It’s an attempt to perceive something that’s
impossible to grasp.’ My thoughts raced to those who
set out on pilgrimages to the disappearing vestiges of
European ghettos and camps. They would be
eye-witnesses to the historic crime.

Rivki and I were driving in the northern Shomron when
we came to the familiar turn off to Chomesh located
just outside of a neighboring community Shavei
Shomron. We had both repeatedly visited the area last
year, before its destruction. Some of my other kids
had lived here for months until the expulsion of Jews.
They had called or sent daily messages informing us of
their activities with the children, the wonderful
people and the beautiful homes. Then they and all who
were willing to offer passive resistance were brutally
removed by the Yasamnikim, black clad special police
force.

Chomesh, together with Gush Katif, has become a part
of our vocabulary and a part of our lives which we
refuse to ignore. Together with Amona, these modern
day sites of expulsions of Jews, cannot be allowed to
fade from memory.

I called my son to let him know our plans just as we
turned into a traffic jam of green licensed cars
(Palestinian Authority). They were being held up by a
single army jeep and several IDF soldiers inspecting
their documents. This might have appeared daunting had
we not lived in areas where army roadblocks are
regularly backed up with Arab taxis, cars and trucks
whose credentials must be checked to weed out
terrorists. Israelis traveling on these roads
generally bypass those cars and the soldiers slowly so
that the latter can see the car’s occupants. We sat a
few minutes, getting some odd looks from the locals,
before deciding to follow the usual routine. Passing
the jeep with no difficulty, we started up the long,
twisting road to Chomesh. In one area, it was
partially blocked by some spikes, but there was enough
room for the car to pass.

We were now outside the walls of Shavei Shomron on the
winding road which appeared not to have been damaged
as we had thought it might have been. Passing another
army jeep, a few Arab cars, tractors and donkey drawn
carts we gaped at the unobstructed, magnificent view
of the major cities at the center of Israel - Netanya,
Kfar Saba and others. We turned in where the
community’s gates had once stood. Passing a group of
Arab men picnicking, we continued driving with a
heightened sense of caution. As we stopped in an area
that had so recently been occupied with beautiful
homes and gardens, an aching sense of emptiness
emerged.

A once vibrant community was a ghost town. Remaining
stairs – led nowhere. Paths could be followed – to no
place. The beautiful homes and community center were
gone. It seemed, that other than some trees and
withering plants, life had evaporated. Even the ruins
of the buildings had vanished. If a place can be
alive, then this place had died. My daughter would
later compare it to a mass grave bespeaking
inconceivable horrors, with grass covering it, as if
to camouflage the disappearance of life.

There was nothing to replace what had existed here. An
army base had not occupied these strategic heights.
Arabs had not moved in. Nothing had been gained while
a beautiful community and its families had been
shattered. Was it then destroyed just to ensure yet
another area in the Jewish Homeland would be forbidden
to the Jews?

We took some pictures, but mostly needed to make some
sense of what we were witnessing. It was as though
time had slipped back 30 years, before all the
sacrifice, the building, the sights and sounds of a
vibrant community life.

After about 15 minutes, an army jeep raced over to us.
The commander jumped out yelling, ‘What are you doing
here? This is a closed military zone. You don’t want
me to touch you, so just get in your car’. Without
hesitating to catch his breath, or allow us to catch
ours, he threatened ‘if you don’t want to get hit, get
into the car.’ We started moving to the car with the
uneasy sense that threatening empty handed, passive
Jewish women rolled off his lips too easily. Having
been present in Gush Katif’s expulsion and having
participated in the passive resistance that resulted
in the pogrom in Amona I knew that his intimidation
might be real.

Later, my daughter and I shared that as the scenario
was playing itself out, we weren’t afraid of the
soldiers - or the Arabs. We were angry that Israel’s
Jewish Defense Forces could condone raising a finger
against its citizens. And the reason that Chomesh had
been destroyed, that the community was dispersed, that
it was considered perilous for us to be there today
was precisely because the IDF, following political
policy, had lifted it’s hands against the nation
instead of combating the people’s enemies.

As we drove down the twisting road, we called the
Chonenu Civil Rights organization to learn what might
happen next. The administrative director Ariel Gruner
had not yet been freed from administrative detention
(he was being held without charges for three months).
Someone else described briefly that if arrested, we
should call them for a representative.

The police repeated what the soldiers had told us.
This was an Area A zone and Jews were forbidden to
enter. ‘Then why’, we asked, ‘had the army jeeps had
not stopped us and why was no sign to that affect? Why
was the roadway so passable and why were we able to
get to the top with the army arriving only 15 minutes
later? How were we supposed to know that the law
regarded this unmarked road a prohibited area?’ In the
Shomron, we often drive past or through unfriendly
Arab villages. Some roads are marked with signs
reading that Israelis (Jews) are prohibited from
traveling there. There was no regulation posted here
at all. The Arab Israeli police officer suggested we
fill out the deposition on the spot rather that at the
local police station, where it would take hours. Eager
to return to our homes, we each signed a statement
that if we return to this restricted area, we risk a
1000 shekel fine.

My thoughts kept returning to the political elite that
ordered the Israeli Defense Force to destroy Jewish
homes, creating a refugee population of 10,000 Jews.
The government policy allowed our southern border,
until Ashkelon to be attacked daily with no serious
military responses. These signal of weakness and
vulnerability emboldened our enemies to launch a war
which damaged Jewish communities in the north,
creating a staggering 1,000,000 refugees.

It also distorted military values. The adversary
became whoever the left wing political camp labeled
the ‘enemy’. These include the heroically patriotic
‘salt of the earth’ citizens of Gush Katif, religious
idealistic youth, settlers and all those whose love of
Zion remains strong.

Perhaps you’re thinking it was foolish of us to go to
Chomesh.

I’m thinking that if the Jewish People - and our loyal
supporters - doesn’t awaken to fight the enemy, first
within and then without, by every means possible -
repentance, prayer, acts of lovingkindness, education
and all manner of heroic acts – we will all be feeling
worse than idiotic.

Perhaps we didn’t expect that the government of Israel
would evolve into the vilest anti-Semites. Perhaps we
just didn’t believe that they would open the gates to
our worst enemies. But it has come to pass.

Will Jews again stand silent and afraid as this time
around it is Israel’s leadership enabling Muslim
terrorism to continue Hitler’s objective?

Some of us would rather look foolish.

commentary from IMRA

2006-09-01T12:23:00.000+03:00

Thursday, August 31, 2006
Weekly Commentary: Facing up to challenge of reality in Gaza

Dr. Aaron Lerner

The Qassam rockets that slammed into Sderot today along with the huge tunnel
discovered near the Karni crossing served as bleak reminders that the Gaza
challenge cannot be ignored.

A challenge that is growing by leaps and bounds as weapons and military
know-how pour in from Egypt while the various militias compete to build an
extensive network of tunnels and other facilities for the war against
Israel.

The Gaza threat is hardly a "local" nuisance. The capabilities being
developed will put a considerable part of Israel within striking distance -
this when major strategic facilities are already within range of weapons
systems that have already be operated from Gaza. And while a painfully
escalating ongoing war of attrition, in-and-of-itself, would be detrimental
to the Jewish State, this pales in comparison to the danger the Gaza threat
poses should Palestinian attacks take place within the framework of a
regional clash.

What, then, is the solution?

Give Egypt a more active role? They haven't taken seriously their
obligation to control the flood of weapons from Egypt into Gaza and their
chief interest so far has appeared to be preserving the strength of the
various illegal militias.

International inspectors? They've been a farce at the Rafah Crossing.

How about negotiating a "hudna"? But all "hudna" means is that the
Palestinians can focus their resources on preparing for battle as they don't
have to fear Israeli strikes on their facilities.

How about going to final status talks? In the best of realistic scenarios
it means ultimately facing the very same threat but with the added
complication that Gaza is an internationally recognized sovereign entity.

So what's left?

Retaking overall control of Gaza would hardly be a picnic. But it is still
very doable. And at a cost that's a bargain as compared to the cost of
postponing the inevitable.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il

By Chava Willig Levy

2006-09-01T12:16:00.000+03:00

Chavi's a very special person. I love her and her stories. This one was published on the OU site.

I’m All Ears

Ever since I was a little girl, oh, six or seven years old, I knew immediately if people were talking about me behind my back. Back then, only recently released from various polio-related hospitalizations, I prided myself on my ability to detect the slightest hint of a whisper within an 80-foot radius of my immobile position.
Unquestionably, honing my hearing acuity to razor-sharp proportions began when doctors would gather to discuss my case, sotto voce, in the hospital corridor. It reached new heights when aunts and uncles gathered to discuss my case, sotto voce, around my parents’ kitchen table, the occasional “Oy!” tipping me off that I was the subject of conversation.

It was then that my battle cry (some may have called it a whine) became embedded in our family lore: “I have very good ears!”

Nearly half a century later, my sensory hearing may have lost some of its prowess but, I am grateful to report, my spiritual hearing is getting sharper every day. Not that I’m trying to boast; the credit for this talent rests squarely with the Master of the Universe.

The events of this summer offer many a case in point.

On Saturday night, June 24 (as we ushered in the 29th of Sivan), my siblings gathered in my home to commemorate the second anniversary of my father’s passing. When we mentioned that Tisha b’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, was rapidly approaching, my brother referred to a well-known Talmudic teaching (Taanis 29a): God chose the ninth day of the month of Av as the date on which so much sorrow would befall the Jewish people because on that day the twelve spies appointed by Moses returned from Canaan and reported that the Promised Land was unconquerable. Relinquishing their faith in God, the Jews accepted the spies’ report and wept bitterly. God told them, “You cried now for naught. I will make this date one of crying for all generations.”

My brother then added that the chain of events leading to this disaster in the desert actually commenced on the day the spies’ journey to Canaan began. Our Sages comment that the spies already intended to deliver a negative report on the day of their departure. That day was the 29th of Sivan (Sotah 35a).

As we heard this, we nodded somberly because it all made perfect sense. We didn’t have to be rocket scientists to realize that just as the ninth of Av portended sorrow for many generations, the 29th of Sivan – the day we lost my saintly father – had been destined for a similar fate.

The next morning, Sunday, June 25 (still the 29th of Sivan), we learned that eight Palestinian terrorists in Gaza emerged from a secret tunnel dug 300 yards into Israel, killed two soldiers, wounded three and kidnapped another: 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit. Hours later (still the 29th of Sivan) came the ominous report that an Israeli yeshiva student, 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri, was missing and possibly had been kidnapped. We later learned that Eliyahu had in fact been executed by Palestinian terrorists on Sunday, the 29th of Sivan, immediately after his abduction.

This cascade of calamities got my attention. God was talking not only to my immediate family; He was talking to my extended family. No hearing aid was required.

I need not tell you that this was just the beginning. On Wednesday, July 12, Hezbollah terrorists crossed the border separating Lebanon and Israel, murdered eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others: 31-year-old Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and 26-year-old Sergeant Eldad Regev. A mere eight hours later, with the arrival of the 17th of Tammuz, Jews throughout Israel ushered in the three weeks of mourning that culminate with Tisha b’Av.

It will come as no surprise that August 3rd handed Israel its worst day of casualties since the start of its unexpected war against Hezbollah. August 3rd coincided this year with Tisha b’Av.

Not that the New York Times reported – or ever will report – this “coincidence.” But who needs the New York Times when the Master of the Universe is reporting directly to us? The only question is: Do we or do we not have very good ears?

And, it seems to me, this summer’s messages from on high were not exclusively of the sobering variety. Consider, for example, that:

Time and again, Israeli towns were hit with barrages of up to 250 Katyusha rockets a day, yet the Jerusalem Post’s headlines almost always ended with two miraculous words: “No Casualties.”
In total, Hezbollah fired over 4,000 deadly rockets into Israel, each one capable of murdering scores of innocent people, yet only 41 civilians lost their lives.
Of those 41 innocent civilians, 18 (44%) were Israeli Arabs. Their murder is an obscenity. The loss of those 18 innocent men, women and children fills my heart with anguish. Yet I wonder if God wants us to take note of, to listen to, that extraordinary statistic. Surely, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s diabolical leader, never intended to murder his fellow Muslims; he even implored them to get out of harm’s way. Nevertheless, nearly half of the civilians whose lives were tragically snuffed out by Nasrallah’s missiles were his own brothers and sisters.
Now, in the midst of an uneasy quiet, we have said goodbye to Av and have ushered in Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the month in which we prepare to converse more intimately than ever before with our Creator. Our Sages tell us that in the month of Elul, God leaves what for us seems like His distant abode and walks among His creatures, like a king strolling in the field. He is not talking about us behind our backs; He is talking to us, standing by our side.

I pray that, just as so many of us could detect God’s fearsome presence during Tammuz and Av, we will be able to detect His loving presence in Elul as we beseech Him for very good ears – and a new year of joy, health and peace.

Chava Willig Levy is a New York-based writer, editor and lecturer. Her web site http://www.chavawilliglevy.com showcases her lectures, articles and editorial services; her blog, accessed via her web site’s “Talking to Myself” link, chronicles her latest adventures. Chava can be reached at chava@chavawilliglevy.com

© 2006 Chava Willig Levy. All rights reserved.

Jewish Chaplain

2006-08-31T20:39:00.000+03:00

World War II Jewish chaplain
fought hard for his religion, soldiers

By Michael Feldberg

NEW YORK, Aug. 28 (JTA) — After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Herbert Eskin of Detroit wanted nothing more than to serve his nation as a Jewish military chaplain. However, the Committee for Army and Navy Religious Affairs of the Jewish Welfare Board, the body that endorsed Jewish clergy for the military, thought Eskin lacked the right stuff.
He was a Russian immigrant, spoke with a bit of an accent, lacked a college degree, had no permanent congregation and, above all, was Orthodox. Military chaplaincy requires rabbis to conduct services for Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews alike; in some circumstances, they must minister to all personnel regardless of their religion.

In the committee’s view, rabbis in uniform had to make a good impression on non-Jews, and Orthodox immigrants like Eskin made committee leaders apprehensive.

But Eskin would prove them wrong.

For two years, the committee rejected Eskin’s appeals for endorsement. Finally he wore them down with a heartfelt appeal.

“When human blood runs in streams, when our form of government is endangered, and when tens of million Jews are fighting for their very existence, I as a Jewish spiritual leader with competent ability, single, young, and physically fit, must take the initiative” in “maintaining the high morale of the men who are fighting barbarism and paganism,” he wrote.

His eloquence apparently worked. A few months later, the committee endorsed Eskin’s application. The army trained him and, in late August 1944, Eskin joined the 100th Infantry Division in the battle for France.

In January 1945, in an unspecified French village, Eskin discovered a synagogue that the Germans had used as a prison. He found the sacrilege unbearable.

“I requested the Burgomeister, in no uncertain terms,” Eskin reported, “that the synagogue be thoroughly cleaned, washed and locked in order to safeguard it from any further demolition and desecration.”

By spring, Eskin’s rage at German treatment of Jewish sacred spaces boiled over.

“At Fenetrage, France, the local Nazis used Jewish tombstones for a sidewalk in front of the Catholic church,” he wrote. “I drove all the way from Heilbron, Germany to Fenetrage.

“When I asked the priest why he permitted such an atrocity to exist in front of his church eight months after the town was liberated, he could not give me a reasonable answer. I took him to the mayor and ordered both of them to have the tombstones removed to the Jewish cemetery within 24 hours,” Eskin wrote, or he would come back with “a truckload of soldiers” and “blast the town with hand grenades.”

According to Eskin, “the tombstones, including the fragments, were placed in the Jewish cemetery by the specified time.”

Eskin’s report for May 1945 recognizes that his chaplaincy extended well beyond the division’s Jewish spiritual needs.

“I visited the field hospitals daily, and it was in one of those hospitals where a Protestant lad from Iowa by the name of Carl C. Denhartog was confined with a very serious chest wound,” he wrote. “As I approached him, he recognized me and smiled. I took hold of his hand.

“Carl kept on holding my hand, and although his forehead was wet with perspiration, he asked me to cover him up and say a prayer with him.

“I knelt down on my knee and whispered in his ear the 23rd Psalm. He repeated it after me word for word, and I concluded the psalm with, ‘Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.’ ”

Eskin concluded, “Carl could not recover from his injuries, they were too severe. He fought for his life to the very end. He died, still holding on to my hand.”

Eskin describes himself as deeply moved by his experience.

“Here was a devout Christian who knew me as the Jewish chaplain in the division and asked me to say his last prayer with him, and by the same token I, a Jewish rabbi, said the last rites with a Christian, in accordance with his faith. At that moment neither of us felt of having differences nor barriers. In action and in spirit, I sensed our comradeship and demonstrated it in my capacity of an army chaplain.”

Eskin received his discharge from active duty in August 1945. He returned to Port Huron, Mich., where he was hired permanently by a Conservative congregation.

The military asked him to stay on as a stateside chaplain working with wounded GI’s at three hospitals in the Detroit area. Eskin later served at the Dearborn Veterans’ Hospital and Selfridge Air Force Base until he reached mandatory retirement age.

The Jewish community center in Stuttgart, Germany is named in his memory.

hat tip ajg

Gelatin Scandal

2006-08-31T10:49:00.000+03:00

There are products with the problematic gelatin which are labeled to warn customers. This should have had been done by the Elite-Strauss company.

Class-action called for in alleged Elite-Strauss kashrut violation

By Anat Roeh

A woman and her daughter petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court Monday to recognize a suit they were filing against Elite-Strauss and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate as a class action. The two, residents of Givat Shmuel, keep kosher.

The grounds for the suit are a claim that some of the company's products - including Milki and Daniella dairy desserts and Ski whipped cream cheese - contain imported gelatin produced from beef bones. According to this claim, the animals from which the gelatin was produced were not certified as kosher.

However, the Chief Rabbinate had marked the products in question as kosher.

The plaintiffs, Tova Nagler and her daughter Revital Nagler Mann, who are from Givat Shmuel, keep kosher. They have asked that their suit represent anyone in Israel who keeps kosher and purchased or consumed these products between 1999 and 2004.

According to the suit, prepared by attorneys Keren Tagar and Chaim Stanger, the plaintiffs are religious women whose beliefs forbid them from eating products that are not kosher under Jewish law or that are not approved as kosher by the Israeli rabbinate. The two women claim that during the years in question they purchased and consumed products that were marked as kosher under the supervision of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.

The suit alleges that during the period in question, however, the aforementioned products contained gelatin produced from beef bones from animals that had not been certified as kosher, such that, Elite-Strauss and the Chief Rabbinate misled the public.

A Strauss Dairies spokesman told TheMarker that the company had not yet received the court papers, but would respond accordingly when their contents had been studied.

More on Olmert's Connections

2006-08-31T10:31:00.000+03:00

Friends in high places

By Gidi Weitz and Uri Blau

"Uri Messer?" exults the businessman Gabriel Sebbag. "He's a brand name. He's the real thing. Pure gold. Takes no money until he issues a receipt, implementation in practice. It's good that we have machers like that." In the same conversation, he explained, "Civil servants, you go to them, it takes you a year. With him, it takes you a month."

Attorney Uri Messer would certainly be happy to forgo the compliments that Sebbag is heaping on him. Messer, who has been close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert since they established a law firm as young attorneys, is used to working in the shadows, quietly, away from the spotlight. Part of his livelihood, the "macher" part, as Sebbag puts it, depends on the goodwill of his good friend, Olmert.

Sebbag, who owns the manpower company ORS and is a former mayor of Dimona, decided, with other investors, to establish an aircraft maintenance plant, in cooperation with Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), close to the airfield at Nevatim. "My son [Doron Sebbag], who worked with Messer, told me, 'Come on, there's an expert here through whom you can speed up the whole subject of IAI.' Because IAI made me run around to all the different government ministries."

Messer was, in fact, hired to promote the interests of the Sebbag group. At the time, Olmert was minister of industry and trade and deputy prime minister. Sebbag has only praise for the two former partners, Olmert and Messer, for the quick handling of his requests.

Olmert promoted your project?

Sebbag: "Very much so. Supported it and looked after it. He set up an interministerial committee."

Did the committee do anything?

"Sure. It met and approved the project."

The grateful Sebbag also remembers how Olmert invited him to a Friday meeting in his bureau. "I went to the meeting in Jerusalem alone. I remember that I wore a suit and tie, and Olmert told me, take off the jacket and tie, the office is closed, I wanted to meet with you because I have very high regard for your subject." Messer was also at the meeting. A communique issued 10 days later by the ministry stated that Olmert "directed the experts in the ministry and in the Israel Lands Administration to expedite the preparation of the tender to allocate land for the project."

From the outset Sebbag thought that approaching Messer would help him. "Messer is a contractor," he explains. "You want [to get to] the Investment Center - you go to him, he helps you. That's his job. A civil servant, you go to him, he gives you an answer in another two months. What's their hurry?"

People say he can get things done with Olmert.

"Okay, he worked with him in his firm. They were partners in a law firm. He also has access to the Investment Center. He's an expert. Everyone has his own expertise."

Did you feel that it was easy to get to the Industry and Trade Ministry through him?

"Yes. If there was a positive response from IAI, he would move everything ahead: obtaining land, rezoning agricultural land into industrial land."

That's because of the connections? "Skills. Why do you say connections? Skills. He doesn't get more than the law states, but he speeds it up. That's natural. You're a journalist with Haaretz, and through you I can arrange quickly to write an article in Haaretz. And I deal in manpower - through me you can get work for your girlfriend tomorrow."

Sebbag was not the only entrepreneur who benefited from the friendship of Messer and Olmert. An investigative report by Haaretz Magazine found that during Olmert's tenure as industry and trade minister and as board chairman of Israel Lands Administration (ILA), he worked to advance Messer's interests after the latter provided him with various services for years. Olmert, as the article shows, pushed the ministry's Investment Center and other bodies under his authority to invest millions of shekels in state funds in Messer's clients, even when the ministry's experts objected.

Since the trial of Shimon Sheves, things have been clear. (Sheves, who was director general of the Prime Minister's Office during Yitzhak Rabin's second term as prime minister, was accused of having taken steps to expedite and advance a tender dealing with construction. He was acquitted by reason of doubt by the Supreme Court in January 2003. The state attorney at the time, Edna Arbel, now a Supreme Court justice, appealed and in January 2004 the Supreme Court overturned its previous decision and convicted Sheves.)

According to the court and to the rules of the Asher Commission to prevent conflicts of interest, Olmert was barred from dealing with his friend's business matters. He should have reported to the state comptroller before starting to handle requests that Messer sought to move ahead through him (see box). Even if there was the slightest doubt, he should have gone to the attorney general and asked for guidelines as to whether to transfer the matter to a different minister or at least to make a decision together with another minister. Olmert did not do that.

Messer-Olmert-Zaken & Partners
Messer and Olmert met in the mid-1970s in the law firm of Uzi Atzmon. In 1977 they left Atzmon's firm together with attorney Baruch Adler and also took the secretary, Shula Zaken. The law firm of Ehud Olmert & Partners came into being. Olmert left the firm in 1988, but to this day Messer and Zaken are the two central figures in his political life. The three are heart-and-soul friends.

Messer, 55, was born in Haifa but over the years became an integral part of the Jerusalem judicial elite. His wife, Davida Lachman-Messer, is a deputy attorney general. Messer's office is far more modest than the ornate places of some of his Tel Aviv colleagues. He will not be caught smoking a Cuban cigar or wearing a suit that cost thousands of dollars.

Messer takes part in the prime minister's intimate forums, which correspond to Ariel Sharon's "ranch forum." Last week Olmert invited him to a discussion in his home with his closest advisers about creating a commission to examine the second Lebanon war.

At the same time, Messer is also Olmert's lawyer in private real estate deals. A few months ago, he testified before the state comptroller in the affair of Olmert's purchase of a home on Cremieux Street in Jerusalem's trendy German Colony neighborhood. According to the investigative journalist Yoav Yitzhak, Olmert allegedly was given a large discount on the price from the entrepreneurs in return for advancing a stalled project through his connections in the Jerusalem Municipality. The matter is still under investigation.

The services that Messer has provided to Olmert are not confined to buying or selling homes. Since 1998 Messer has headed an association called United Jerusalem, which ran Olmert's campaign for mayor, and dealt, on a volunteer basis, with the association's affairs, donations and financial deficits. Given the fees that a lawyer like Messer charges his clients, the services he provided to Olmert within the association framework are worth a great deal. Messer continued to operate in the name of this association even after Olmert became industry and trade minister, in 2003. He sent letters and economic reports on its behalf to the registrar of associations.

"Uri and Ehud are really close," says a person who knows them both. "Uri dealt with Ehud's most sensitive political affairs: the association for his election, the donations. They are intimate partners to secrets."

The Haaretz investigation found that before Olmert became industry and trade minister, Messer had nothing to do with previous ministers there. After Olmert became minister, Messer began to visit the ministry as a lobbyist for businessmen and industrialists. "Three years ago we hardly knew who he was," a senior ministry official says. "But look what happened in the period when Olmert was industry and trade minister."

In some cases the two, Olmert and his loyalist Messer, took part in the same meetings, without any of those present being bothered by the possible conflict of interests. "Messer wandered around the ministry plenty of times," says a senior official there. "The officials always had an uneasy feeling about dealing with his affairs."

How did it work in practice?

"The method is simple," another official says. "As soon as a difficulty arises having to so with the ministry's bureaucracy, one turns to Mr. Messer, tell him that so-and-so is the problem, get on the case. Apart from him no one gets treatment like that, certainly not ... When a company has a problem in connection with the ministry, Messer sits with them and says, 'Don't worry, I'll take care of it for you.'"

What sort of 'taking care'?

"Everything, everything. Problems with the directors, with the units, in the bureau of the minister or the director general, with the Investment Center. If the state comptroller investigates it, he'll find much that is interesting here."

A $25 million decision

Just a few kilometers from Dimona, in the heart of the desert, the dream of the Be'er Sheva entrepreneur Ephraim (Pima) Feinblum is being realized. Feinblum dreamed about building a factory to produce silica, a material used mainly to manufacture "green" tires for vehicles. The experts in the industry and trade ministry were not persuaded of the economic feasibility of that dream, but it is going to cost the state $15 million.

For a decade, Feinblum, formerly chairman of Mekorot, the national water company, fought a legal battle against Israel Chemicals Ltd. over the production of silica. In 2001 arbitration between the sides concluded with Israel Chemicals agreeing to pay Feinblum millions of dollars (a loan with no returns, Feinblum says) if he were to receive from the Industry and Trade Ministry an "approved plant" citation within three years. The deadline was set for February 2004.

At the beginning of 2003, Feinblum submitted a request to the Investment Center for financial grants for a factory to be built in Dimona. One of the strongest government bodies in the economic sphere, the Investment Center deals with the intention of entrepreneurs to establish or expand industries in development areas. The status of an approved plant gives the entrepreneur tax benefits and grants of millions of shekels from the state.

One of the key criteria examined by the Investment Center is the economic feasibility of a project. The Investment Center is supposed to ensure that the state's funds will not be put at risk in wild-eyed adventures of failed businessmen or be turned over to crooks in sting operations. In the past the state invested huge sums in plants that the entrepreneurs never intended to build in the first place.

According to Feinblum, his plan encountered opposition from the expert level in the Industry and Trade Ministry. The director of the ministry's unit for chemicals and the environment, Ohad Ornstein, a leading professional authority in the field, raised many objections to providing the grants for the silica plant, and to this day he remains completely unconvinced of its economic viability.

Ornstein, who is considered a professional civil servant and served under other ministers as well, argued, in part, that there is no proved market for the plant's product. "In one of the meetings I got upset with him, because he doesn't understand anything about chemistry," Feinblum recalls. "He repeated that the material doesn't work and that it can't be sold and so on ... It's the first time I had difficulties like this in establishing a plant."

Ornstein declined to be interviewed for this article, but Haaretz Magazine has learned that he was backed by the Investment Center director at the time, Shmuel Mordechai. According to Feinblum, if it had been up to Ornstein and Mordechai, the plant would not have been authorized. When Feinblum realized that his life's project (and the millions from Israel Chemicals) were both liable to go down the tubes, he made no secret of his anger.

On one occasion, he also told Ornstein that he should be fired. Feinblum: "He told me, 'Run to the ministers, try to do something.' I told him that if I had to go to the ministers, I would have no need of his approval. I would get it anyway." In a visit we paid to Dimona, Feinblum told us that on another occasion he told Shmuel Mordechai, "You just think I can't open doors to get to the minister."

Feinblum found the key to the minister's door in the person of Uri Messer. Feinblum: "I have known Messer for a long time ... He helped me explain the importance of the project, that's all." Afterward he added, "He does work for me - speeding up a meeting, coming with me to a meeting."

He could arrange meetings with Olmert faster than other people could?

Feinblum: "Yes, but is there anything wrong with that?"

After hiring Messer, Feinblum was treated with the kind of respect that many businessmen can only dream of: personal and close treatment by the minister and his aides in the procedures involved in building the plant. Some of the meetings in Olmert's bureau were conducted with the participation of Olmert himself, Messer, entrepreneurs and officials from the ministry and from the Investment Center. In a meeting held in Olmert's office in July 2003, Messer explained to those present that what was at stake was not only the grant from the Investment Center but also the millions from Israel Chemicals.

Ornstein detailed his reservations and explained that 90 percent of this world market is controlled by five bodies, which operate as a sort of cartel, and therefore "we demand proof of the product's marketability." Messer said that it would be difficult to show proven marketability as long as there was no approval in principle for the project.

Olmert summed up the meeting. He said that, taking into consideration the tight schedule for starting to build the plant - by February 2004 - he was instructing the Investment Center to conclude within six weeks the examination relating to the request to approve the project. He also explained that attorney Messer and Doron Levy, one of Feinblum's staff, would provide the Investment Center with all the material required to conclude the examination and would present to him the track chosen by Feinblum to receive grants.

This meeting was followed by others at the ministry about the project. Says Ronen Peled, deputy CEO of Dimona Silica Industries, "Olmert said he believes in the plant and that in his understanding it has economic ability and that there was no reason to say an unequivocal no here ... He said he wanted this plant to be built."

A month later, in December 2003, the Ministry of Industry and Trade informed Feinblum in writing that his silica plant had been approved. Investment Center director Shmuel Mordechai eventually authorized the project in the center's directorate. The decision translated into a $15 million grant from the state, plus another $10 million from Israel Chemicals - a total of $25 million for a project about which senior officials in the Industry and Trade Ministry have reservations or object to altogether, but one which the minister's friend and private lawyer was hired to promote.

Olmert's baby

After the minister gave the push, Mordechai authorized the generous grant for the silica plant in the Investment Center directorate, but appended to the authorization a restrictive document containing many obligatory conditions. One of the conditions was a marketing plan to include contracts with future customers for 75 percent of the production. Mordechai also insisted that the new company conduct an industrial pilot on a significant scale (effectively amounting to the construction of a small plant) to prove that the material would work.

Those were only part of the restrictions. "We didn't object to the reservations, because we didn't have time," Peled relates. "The rope was around our neck."

"His conditions were absurd," Feinblum complains. "It's impossible to conclude marketing contracts without knowing when I will complete the plant."

Olmert removed Shmuel Mordechai as head of the Investment Center in the middle of 2004. Press reports said that the two were in disagreement over the Capital Investments Encouragement Law. Mordechai told confidants that he had been subjected to political pressure to assist projects that were close to the minister and to the officials in his bureau. After a period of a few months during which Industry and Trade Ministry director general Raanan Dinur - who is now director general of the Prime Minister's Office - took over as head of the Investment Center, a new permanent director, Hezi Zeig, was appointed. Under his tenure, all the restrictions that Mordechai had imposed on the plant were gradually lifted. Some were replaced by easier conditions. "They removed nearly all the nonsense," Feinblum himself sums up.

"This plant is Olmert's baby," Peled says as we drive south to see the project. "We voted for Kadima in part to express thanks for the help he gave us. He promised that he will come to cut the ribbon when the plant opens."

In January 2004, Olmert took time off from the burning issues on his agenda to be driven to the dunes of Dimona and lay the plant's cornerstone. He came to Dimona with his friend and lawyer, Uri Messer. Olmert said at the ceremony that he considered it very important to create new jobs in Dimona and that the plant's establishment would help the Negev develop. He added that he hoped the plant would be the harbinger of momentum in the south. The media quoted the executives' declarations that the plant will employ 300 people and that its development cost would be $80 million. Olmert had his photograph taken with Feinblum and returned to Jerusalem.

Four days later, Olmert appeared before the Knesset Economic Committee at a meeting dealing with the activity of the Investment Center. He told the committee, "Just four days ago I laid the cornerstone for a plant in Dimona. I'm fighting to establish a plant there - the silica plant of Pima Feinblum - which was authorized by the Investment Center."

At the ceremony, the Industry and Trade Ministry announced that the plant would open in two years. It has yet to open. Feinblum maintains that the delay is due to foot-dragging in the Investment Center and in the ministry.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Trade said in response: "In essence the Investment Center is a body which at the end of the day is meant to take risks, like any body that chooses to invest in a company, such as banks, private investors, venture capital funds and so forth ... It is possible that the great caution taken by the center led to delays, in part, as it carried out checks concerning the identity of the investors and their financial capability, and reviewed the production process."

The ministry added that in 2005 the restrictions imposed on the company were reexamined, and after satisfactory replies were received from the entrepreneurs they were lifted in a decision by the directorate which "was approved unanimously, including by the representative of the treasury budget division."

The help provided by Olmert and his officials did not stop with laying the cornerstone. Olmert instructed the ministry to fund 75 percent of the land development costs. The ministry also helped pay for building the access road to the site. Uri Messer was also present at the meeting in Olmert's bureau that dealt with the access road. Olmert's advisers pressed officials in the Investment Center to promote the project and assist Feinblum as much as possible. A spokesperson for the Industry and Trade Ministry: "The entrepreneur received the land and construction of the plant has now begun. The ministry took part in funding the access roads to the plant. A western access road has been completed and an eastern access road is being built."

Feinblum is convinced that the bureaucrats will eat their hats and that the plant will be a spectacular economic success. He has recruited three foreign investors - Russian businessmen. The most prominent of them is Dimitri Bossov, formerly on the staff of the oligarch Lev Chernoy, the brother of Mikhail Chernoy, and today the right-hand man of the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky. "These are not guys who just throw money away," Feinblum asserts.

Pouring oil on troubled levies

Another intervention in decisions of the Industry and Trade Ministry in which Ehud Olmert and Uri Messer were involved concerns the import levies placed on cooking oil. This issue has been the subject of wrangling between Israeli industrialists and major importers for years. At the end of the 1990s the Industry and Trade Ministry decided, after requesting expert opinions, to gradually lower the levies on oils and unprocessed soybeans, from which oil is extracted (with the byproducts used as animal fodder) until their total abolition.

On July 7, 2003, the newly installed minister of industry and trade, Ehud Olmert, decided to adopt the recommendation of his director general, Raanan Dinur, to reduce the levy to just three percent. This would result in a reduction of the price of imported oils - good news for consumers and perhaps especially for food companies such as Osem, which use oil to manufacture a large part of their products.

The main objectors to this move are the Israeli oil companies and especially the largest of them, Shemen Industries. Shemen is owned by businessman Haim Fink. In July 2003, the company decided to appeal against the ministry's decision. Even before this, the company organized 13 MKs to pass a private bill to raise the levy.

The oil importers and the chambers of commerce wanted the levy canceled altogether. The latter stated at the time that nothing had been done, owing to "pressures exerted by those with vested interests, headed by Shemen." The high price of the oils, they explained, was seriously hurting consumers, especially the disadvantaged groups, because they were used as raw materials in the manufacture of many foods.

Shemen now brought in reinforcements in the person of attorney Messer. At the end of July, a meeting was held in the office of Industry and Trade minister Olmert with the participation of Fink, Shemen managing director Boaz Zafrir, ministry experts, a Shemen lobbyist and Messer. Zafrir stated that the oil industry merited government protection. However, Zvia Dori, responsible for domestic commerce in the ministry, recalled the promise that Shemen had given the antitrust commissioner that it would not oppose the lowering of the levy.

In 2001, when Shemen wanted to buy another company, the transaction was approved on condition that in the two years following the merger Shemen would not object to the reduction of the levy on oil and unprocessed soybeans by 1 percent. Accordingly, the levy on oil should have gone down from 4 percent to 3, and the levy on soybeans from 4.5 to 3.5 percent. At the end of the meeting, Zafrir asked for a quick decision, as the levy was about to expire.

Olmert promised to consult with the officials and update the participants about his decision. The result was not long in coming. After the meeting, the ministry issued an amended press release stating that "deputy prime minister and minister of Industry and Trade Ehud Olmert this week signed an order imposing a levy on the import of oils, which will stand at 4 percent." One meeting in Messer's presence was enough to persuade the minister.

Zafrir: "Olmert took matters into his hands and said that industry is more important to him than commerce, or no less. We tried to prevent the reduction of the levies and we succeeded in leaving the existing situation, more or less." Zafrir believes that from Shemen's point of view it was especially significant that the levy on soybeans from South America remained high, at 7.5 percent.

According to Zafrir, Messer represented Shemen not only in this matter but also in "real estate affairs." The high levies on oils are still intact. Says Haim Oz, deputy director general of the organization of chambers of commerce: "The levy was supposed to be canceled in 2000. The Shemen company exerted very strong pressure on Olmert regarding the levy, which is harmful to consumers, who pay a very steep price for imported oil."

Staff members of Olmert's bureau handled personally additional matters having to do with the ministry and the Investment Center in which attorney Messer was involved. In 2001, a high-tech company called Asicom received authorization from the Investment Center for assistance to a company plant in the south of the country. The company did not make use of the funding for about two years. It then asked the Investment Center to amend the agreement to make it apply to a different plant. Here, too, Messer was hired to help.

A senior official of Asicom explains that because of the bureaucracy in the Investment Center, "you have to keep operating through machers, people who re experts in every iota of the law, who know how to get your paper from the bottom of the pile to the top ... The fees the machers ask for are based on the amounts they say they will save you ..."

This time, at the advice of the company's accountant, the CEO went to Messer to get the request dealt with, and paid him an advance of about NIS 80,000. "At the meeting he gave the impression that he has connections of one kind or another that we don't have, and thanks to that, he will advance our cause," the senior official said. "There is no trace of this in writing, but as I recall he described himself as someone who can get things done in the Investment Center, and that's why he received the advance."

What did he tell you about his connections?

"In the meeting it was noted that Shmuel Mordechai didn't like the authorization we received in 2001 and did all he could to void it of content. What Messer said is that 'it will come to him from above.' How many people are there above the director of the Investment Center?"

The upshot was that Asicom got the benefit it requested, but the senior company official maintains that it was not Messer who helped and therefore he did not get anything more than the advance. "It turned out to be just talk, and in the end I did the whole process with the Investment Center by myself. The center's authorization came through only in 2005. It was very naive to think that one person with a few connections would succeed in this task."

Response by attorney Uri Messner

Kahan Commission criticized Admoni, but

2006-08-31T10:17:00.000+03:00

Olmert made him head of panel

By Amir Oren

Nahum Admoni, who was chosen by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to head an inquiry into the government's conduct of the second Lebanon War, was himself criticized by a state commission of inquiry for his own conduct during the first Lebanon war.

The Kahan Commission did not demand that Admoni resign his position as head of the Mossad, due mainly to fact that he had assumed this position not long before the Sabra and Chatila massacres - the events that the commission investigated - took place. But a senior jurist who has studied inquiry commissions since the 1970s noted yesterday that this might make it difficult for Admoni to be sharply critical of Olmert, who also took office not long before the war broke out.

The jurist added that Admoni's agreement to head the panel was surprising, since he resigned after only a few meetings from another governmental committee that was set up to investigate the Mossad's botched assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in 1997. His explanation for quitting that panel was that a former member of the governmental establishment could not properly investigate the government.

The Kahan Commission investigated a massacre of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Chatila refugee camps by the Phalangists, a Lebanese Christian militia allied with Israel. The massacre took place during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Admoni was criticized in the commission's report for failing to give Menachem Begin's government "an unequivocal warning about the danger entailed in the Phalangists' entry into the camps - an entry about which the head of the Mossad said nothing in the situation assessment that he gave the cabinet meeting."

Admoni "expressed no reservations about the Phalangists' entry into the camps," the report continued. "Precisely because of the Mossad's connection with the Phalangists, the head of the Mossad was obligated to address the possibility of an act of revenge" for the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, Lebanon's president-elect and head of the Phalangist Party.

Moreover, the report said, some of Admoni's explanations for this failure were unsatisfactory. For instance, it said, his claim that no revenge attack was feared because the Mossad believed that Gemayel was killed not by Palestinians but by a Lebanese group, the Murabitoun, was "far from convincing" - both because it was not clear that the Phalangists shared this assessment, and because in any case, the Palestinians and the Murabitoun had joined forces in fighting the Phalangists.

The commission also criticized contradictions in Admoni's testimony. For instance, he initially said that had he been asked by the cabinet, he would have supported allowing the Phalangists to enter the camps, but would have insisted on "warning them not to commit a massacre." Later, however, he told the commission that the Mossad had no information indicating that Phalangist atrocities were even a possibility.

Nevertheless, while the commission ultimately demanded the resignations of then defense minister Ariel Sharon, then Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Rafael Eitan and then head of Military Intelligence Yehoshua Saguy, it decided not to recommend Admoni's dismissal, since he had risen to the job of Mossad chief (from his previous position as deputy chief) only two days before Gemayel was killed and four days before attending his first cabinet meeting on the issue. After such a short time in office, it said, Admoni could not reasonably have been expected to diverge from the Mossad's prevailing view of the Phalangists as completely reliable.

From People Who Know!

2006-08-29T19:41:00.000+03:00

Hostage Crisis
What is Kofi Annan doing for the kidnapped Israeli soldiers?

BY JUDEA PEARL AND RUTH PEARL

Monday, August 28, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

As the parents of Daniel Pearl, The Wall Street Journal's reporter who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Pakistan in 2002, we share the anguish of the families of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers, and their frustration with the international community for failing to secure the release of their loved ones. For more than six weeks now, these soldiers and their families live each day tortured by unimaginable fears and shattered hopes, praying desperately for the nightmare to end; we relive this nightmare each time an innocent person falls victim to the inhumanity of terrorist abduction.

Whatever success the U.N. Security Council would presume to claim, it cannot be said that Resolution 1701 has effectively addressed the direct cause of the fighting--the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26, by Hezbollah, and the earlier abduction of Gilad Shalit, 19, by Hamas. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for the unconditional release of these soldiers has been ignored. Moreover, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, the terrorists have not only seized the soldiers as hostages for political blackmail, they have not allowed the Red Cross to visit them. Their families do not know their physical condition; they have no proof they are even alive.

And so now these families of Ehud, Eldad and Gilad are asking to meet with Kofi Annan. They wish to plead with the secretary-general to use the full weight of his moral authority to mobilize and intensify the efforts of the international community he leads--an influential body that has managed to compel two fierce armies to cease hostilities--to address this flagrant violation of humanitarian law.
On that score, these families are correct: The time has come for Mr. Annan to personally and aggressively intervene, and to insist publicly that, at the minimum, the Red Cross, or his personal humanitarian representatives, be given immediate access to these soldiers.

Will he? It seems unlikely. Sadly, this is not the first time that concerned parents have turned to Mr. Annan in much the same circumstances. Six years ago, another delegation of distressed families came to the U.N. with a similar tragedy, following the abduction of three Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah from under the noses of Unifil and, by some accounts, with their help. The investigation that was subsequently conducted found that the U.N. had made "serious errors in judgment" by hiding information that "would have been helpful in an assessment of the condition of the three abducted soldiers." At that time, the U.N.'s interest in appearing "neutral" overshadowed its commitment to the preservation of human lives. The world cannot afford a repeat of such inaction and poor judgment.

Undoubtedly, the secretary-general will tell the families of Ehud, Eldad and Gilad that he has dispatched a high-level team to Beirut that will urge the release of their loved ones. But that team negotiates behind closed doors. And by not publicly demanding the unfettered access of humanitarian representatives to the kidnapped soldiers, Mr. Annan has deprived his team of the force of credibility and seriousness they need in those negotiations.

When our son Daniel was in captivity, millions of people around the world prayed for his safe return. In that prayer, they made a solemn pledge never to allow abductions of innocent people to become the norm of civilized society, no matter the political purpose, regardless of grievance or goal.
Kofi Annan's resolve against these acts of terrorism will determine to a great extent what norms will govern our society in generations to come, and whether organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas will gloat in unruly appetite or be reined in by moral principles. We urge Mr. Annan to make bold and brave efforts to ensure--as a legacy and gift--that we will not allow our children and our world be taken captive by terror. Mr. Secretary-General, this time, help bring the boys back home.

Mr. and Mrs. Pearl are co-founders of the Daniel Pearl Foundation www.danielpearl.org, a U.N.-affiliated NGO.

hat tip to ajg

Meet the New Messiah by Shmuel Sackett

2006-08-29T06:58:00.000+03:00

I couldn't agree more! I've been writing against Ya'alon on Shiloh Musings, so it's nice to have company.

A new Messiah has arrived for the right wing and every body is jumping for joy. "We are saved!" says one. "This guy will destroy Hamas and Hezzbollah!" says another. "No more land deals, no more Gush Katif betrayals!" says a third.

Who is this new savior? Who is this great man riding into Jerusalem to save the day, end the peace process, build more settlements, rid the country of terror and make us all live happily-ever-after? Haven't you heard? It's General Moshe "Boogey" Ya'alon... so stand up and shout "HOORAY!!!"

I can see it now. The YESHA council will quickly endorse him, assuring every one that this is the man we must elect to end all of our problems. Bibi Netanyahu will rush to embrace him and will promise to appoint him as his Defense Minister in a Bibi-led coalition and finally, Jewish American right-wing groups will have him as their guest speaker in their Manhattan fundraising dinners.

Sounds good? Want to start partying? If so, please do it without me. I have been down that road before, or as they say; "Been there, done that!"

Boogey Ya'alon is a very nice guy and does indeed talk tough. He has been on the American talk-show circuit these past few months and has said all of the right things. There's only one problem... and it's a big one. Boogey Ya'alon is not connected to G-d and will therefore fail miserably as his predecessors did before him.

If you think Ya'alon will be any different consider the following; Is he as tough as Ariel Sharon? Did he build as many settlements as Sharon? Does the left-wing in Israel hate him as much as they did Sharon? Let me say it as clearly as I can: If Ariel Sharon failed, Boogey Ya'alon will fail ten times more... and shame on you if you haven't figured that out by now!

When Rabin and Peres were running the show, nobody spoke tougher than Bibi... and what happened?

When terror was raining down on Israel, General Shaul Mofaz assured every one that he would enter politics and stop the terrorists, yet terrorism is growing and Mofaz is fading.

When the Gaza Disengagement Plan was being debated, nobody fought against it harder than Uzi Landau yet he still spoke about -- and advocated -- "painful concessions" (just for a higher "price")

When Oslo was signed, nobody screamed louder than Limor Livnat and Silvan Shalom, yet BOTH today SUPPORT the creation of a Palestinian State!

Even Natan Sharansky, another fan favorite, loudly criticized the Peace Process yet as minister in the government he SUPPORTED the plan to give away 90% of Hebron!

All of these people listed above -- as well as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- were once the "darlings" of the right wing. Every single one of them, including Olmert, spoke at right wing dinners in New York and received thunderous applause from the crowd. Yet, where are they today? Bibi hugged Arafat and gave him 30,000 more guns than Peres. Limor Livnat and Silvan Shalom are advocating a terror state in the heart of Israel. Mofaz left Likud for the Kadima party and is desperately trying to give away as much of YESHA as possible. And Olmert? Well, you know all about him...

Don't fool yourself. I BEG YOU not to fool yourself! General Ya'alon will be no different! His tough speeches will quickly be forgotten and we will be back at "square one". His lack of devotion to G-d will cause him to fail and buckle under the pressure. This has been shown and proven time and time again. Ya'alon will be no different.

Israel needs a real Jewish leader, even if he doesn't have high IDF credentials, a degree from MIT or eloquent speaking skills. That leader needs to be connected to G-d with all his heart and soul. He needs to understand the unique role the Jewish people play in the world and accept the obligations and responsibilities of being part of G-d's Chosen People. He needs to meticulously follow the Torah, especially those parts that pertain to a Jewish leader; "(The Torah) shall be with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life, so that he will learn to fear G-d, his G-d, to observe all the words of the Torah... to perform them, so that his heart does not become haughty over his brethren..." (Devarim 17:19-20) He needs to fight the Jewish enemy with no mercy, reserving his compassion for his own people. He needs to lead with faith and trust in the G-d of his forefathers. He needs to educate his people in the values and concepts of Judaism and connect them to their Father in Heaven with love and happiness.

THIS is what the Jewish People need... and this is why Moshe "Boogey" Ya'alon is not the man. Don't be fooled by his IDF credentials or strong statements. Following and trusting in him is like running after -- yet another -- false Messiah. Don't make that mistake again.

A Report from an E-Pal Up North

2006-08-28T13:37:00.000+03:00

freify at netvision dot net dot il wrote:

This is the one we experienced first hand.
We were on our way to a shopping mall in Haifa, when the sirens went off, traffic stopped,
and all left their vehicles. Two loud explosions were heard, and suddenly smoke billowed
about 300 meters away. When we contiued driving we could see the fire.
Lucky only glass was blown from windows during this one, and from what we learned
later, noone was injured.

I've had a strange, exciting life, always finding myself close to where the action was.
Starting with the Nazi period, Korea, 3 mile island nuclear scare, Mt. Helena's
eruption, the largest recorded earthquake in California, which shook us up, the
wars in Israel, beginning with the Yom Kippur war....etc.

Not wishing to push my luck....enough is genug.

Elul

2006-08-28T09:01:00.000+03:00

Elul

The year has passed, what can one do
When leaves fall from the tree.
I close my book, take one last look
But summer turns to flee.
And so once more, I shut the door
And take a stroll with you.

The ram's horn blows, the men pray
And children return to school.
And quick and fast, I see at last
Elul partings are so cruel.
The year is done, yet everyone
Would have it wait a day.

I gaze back with some regret
There's much I could have done.
White empty pages, missed wages
Sword not yet drawn from stone.
Must brush the dog, clear the bog
Be cheerful and cease to fret.

G-d seals our fate up in heaven
Autumn politely leaves her card.
We fall and slip, skid and trip
Yet advance though it is hard.
We needn't cry at the year's passing by
Because here comes 5767!

By Shifra Shomron
3 Elul 5766/ 28.8.06
Nitzan Caravilla site

Meet My Neighbor

2006-08-27T23:14:00.000+03:00

This article includes an interview with a neighbor. He's relatively new to Shiloh. The funny thing is that he's also from Great Neck. I remember his father from the Great Neck Synagogue and our parents were friends.

but I only met him in Shiloh. It's strange how these sorts of things happen....

Save 2 Jews

2006-08-25T13:52:00.000+03:00

HELP DANNY AND ITZIK HALAMISH

Dear Friends,

Many things have changed since the war in Lebanon. But one thing has not yet changed in our country: the legal persecution of loyal Jews whose only crime is wanting to live in the Land of Israel and trying to defend themselves when attacked by Arabs.

We call upon all of you to read the kakfaesque story of Danny and Itzik Halamish, two brothers who live in Maaleh Rehavam (a small community of 30 residents, in the Judean desert not far from Tekoa) . Danny and Itzik are dear personal friends of ours and we will do all we can to prevent them from going to jail. Itzik and Danny are two out of 5 sons of the Halamish family. The Halamish parents were among the founders of the community of Ofra. They have raised 5 wonderful sons , all proud and loyal Jews. Four of them decided to follow in the footsteps of their parents and be the second generation of Halamishes that would found a new community in the land of Israel. Together with friends, the Halamish boys founded Maaleh Rehavam 4 years ago.

Itzik is 27 years old and works as a builder of homes and as a carpenter. Women in Green leaders and members met Itzik in Kfar Yam,Gush Katif, where he spent the last few months helping to build tent cities for those outsiders who came to support GK. They have stayed in close contact since then. Danny is 36 years old, married to Limor and they have a one year old baby girl, Naama.

If we do not intervene, those 2 wonderful Jews might end up in jail for months- accused and found guilty of things they never did. We must help them gather the funds to cover the expenses for an appeal. Please help them by:

1) taking the few minutes necessary to read the story

2) forward the story to all of your different lists-

3) if you can, help them financially. For details as to how to send tax

deductible donations, see at the end of the story.

With love from Israel, Ruth and Nadia Matar, Women in Green

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Danny and Itzik Halamish trial summary
(Please Disseminate)

Background: A number of incidents have occurred in Gush Etzion in which Jews have been attacked by, or with the aid of, Arab shepherds: Dov Driben was murdered by Arab shepherds; two children, Kobi Mandel and Yossi Ashram, were murdered in the Haritun Cave by Arab shepherds; prior to the murderous attack on the settlement of Carmei Zur, Arab shepherds observed the settlement for 30 days and constructed a model of it on a sand table in an orchard near the settlement; About two months ago, Arab shepherds stabbed a Jewish couple near a spring close to the settlement of Bat Ayin. The IDF regards the shepherds as a threat, and consequently refers to them as such in briefings given to guards, and also drives them away from the proximity of Jewish settlements. At the beginning of 2004 Arab shepherds began approaching the region of Ma'aleh Rehavam and Sdeh Bar. The IDF, in cooperation with the security officer of Sdeh Bar, drove them off on several occasions.

The Incident: On February 21, 2004, Arab shepherds again approached the settlement of Ma'aleh Rehavam, in a place that was not the usual one for grazing. The Sdeh Bar Security Officer, Baruch Feldbaum, attempted unsuccessfully to drive them away. Feldbaum requested help from Ma'aleh Rehavam. Two members of the Ma'aleh Rehavam Fast Response Team, Danny and Itzik Halamish, joined him and drove with him to the place, to which in the meantime additional Arab shepherds had arrived. The Arabs refused to leave the place. More and more Arabs arrived, and their level of hostility increased as their numbers grew. When there were about 20 Arabs near the Jews, with even more Arabs approaching, the Arabs close to the Jews threatened them with stones and sticks, and began surrounding Danny and Itzik. Baruch was standing a few dozen yards further back. At this stage Itzik fired a single warning shot in the air from his pistol, but this had no effect. Baruch Feldbaum fired a few shots aimed at the ground, and thus enabled Danny and Itzik to withdraw. The Jews retreated and drove away from the place. One Arab received a superficial wound from ricochets of stones. The Arabs contacted the police and filed a complaint about being attacked.

The Treatment of the Complaint: The police arrested Baruch, Danny and Itzik. They were interrogated for three days using a variety of methods, that included lies, threats, and false accusations. (The police attempted to accuse them of the murder of an Arab who had been in the region of the Arab village of Tekoa.) The Jews maintained that the Arabs had in fact attacked them, but the police ignored this claim and refused to check it out. The police have impounded the Jews’ weapons in order to examine them. The weapons were taken from them and were not returned, but neither were they examined. Near the duty officer's desk in the Etzion police station, there was attached to the wall a notice issued by the police general staff stating that the residents of the Jewish hill settlements are problematic and that one of the aims of the police in 2004 was to submit 20 charges against them. During the interrogation the chief interrogator told Baruch that the police intended to submit a charge sheet against the Jews regardless of the results of the interrogation. The Jews were charged with assault and injury under aggravating circumstances, as well as acts of recklessness and negligence. The Arabs were not summonsed for an interrogation or even a clarification, and the police admitted in court that they did not intend to interrogate the Arabs at all.

The Judicial Process: According to the Hebrew judicial process as laid down in the Bible, the function of the judge is to investigate and question and thus arrive at the truth. The State of Israel does not use the Hebrew judicial process but employs instead the adversary legal system, which is based on the method of rivalry. In this method the prosecution attacks and the accused defends himself. The judge does not interfere in the discussion but gives a ruling based only on the material presented to him. This method originated in Europe and is based on the principle of a duel between knights. (Each party hires a knight to fight on his behalf and the judge decides the winner.) In this method the personal opinion of the judge can be decisive regarding the result of the trial. In Britain and the US this method is balanced by means of a jury a group of ordinary people (not lawyers) whose function is to determine if the accused is guilty or not. This method prevents a person being found guilty or innocent, as the case may be, in circumstances that an ordinary person would consider unreasonable. In Israel there is no jury and the judge gives a ruling as he sees fit. In Israel the judges are appointed by other judges, and cannot be dismissed. A judge approaching retirement or who otherwise does not expect a promotion is not under any form of supervision or criticism.

The Trial: The prosecution claimed that the Jews came to the place with the intention of harming the Arabs, and that the Arabs were grazing their flocks innocently. The prosecution claimed that the IDF does not regards the shepherds as a threat, even though the prosecution witness from the regional brigade HQ gave evidence to the contrary. Four Arab prosecution witnesses gave contradictory evidence: their evidence conflicted with their statements in the police station on the day of the incident; and their evidence contradicted that of each other, regarding important details, such as who fired, and whether the shots were fired before or after the arguments between the Jews and the Arabs. The Arabs gave evidence, and the prosecution claimed, that an Arab child aged 4 was injured in his head from the shots fired. The army paramedic who accompanied the soldiers who met the Arabs making the complaint, gave evidence that he was shown an Arab child aged 8 with no injuries. The defense argued that it was the Security Officer's function to look after the security of the settlers and to drive off the Arabs from places near the residential areas, and that Danny and Itzik acted under the orders of the Security Officer. Even if Baruch acted in excess of his authority, they were still supposed to conform with his instructions. The defense claimed that the Arabs were the attackers, and that the Jews acted in self defense.

The Court Ruling: The accused were found guilty of all the charges. All their arguments were rejected. The conviction was based on two principles: Firstly, the judge ruled that the evidence of the Arabs was reliable, in contrast to the evidence of the Jews that was not, because the Arabs gave evidence without contradictions while the Jews contradicted themselves. The judge did not indicate what were the contradictions in the evidence of the Jews, and ignored the obvious contradictions in the evidence of the Arabs, including those indicated specifically by the defense. Secondly, the judge ruled that the situation in which the Jews were surrounded by dozens of Arabs armed with stones and sticks, with additional Arabs approaching, was not dangerous, nor was there any reason to think that it was dangerous. The judge ignored the arguments of the defense mentioned here, as well as additional arguments. It should also be mentioned that during the hearings regarding extension of the period of detention, even before the Jews had made any statement, the evidence was examined by Justice of the Peace Shimoni and District Judge Ravid. Both judges wrote that the evidence indicated that the claim of self defense put forward by the defense could not be rejected out of hand. The Security Officer, Baruch, was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, that was later reduced to six months after two appeals. Danny and Itzik are likely to receive a similar sentence. This is not an exceptional case. Settlers are being brought to trial in a systematic way. For example, ten years ago an Arab terrorist ran down Jewish hitch-hikers at the Giva Tzarfatit junction in Jerusalem. The terrorist was shot and killed by several people who were present at the time. The police arrested one of the Jews who had shot the terrorist and confiscated his pistol. The police issued a press statement saying that the investigation had indicated that this was a road accident and not a terrorist attack. On the very same day an Arab terrorist organization announced that they were responsible for the attack, and the police were forced to rescind their statement. The person who shot the Arab terrorist received a commendation from the IDF, but the police refused to return his gun to him. Danny and Itzik were part of the Rapid Response Team of Ma'aleh Rehavam, but they are now not permitted to possess a gun. The defense of their settlement has been gravely harmed as a result of this incident. This is not the only case in which the police have damaged the security of the settlers.

Danny and Itzik Halamish intend to appeal against their conviction. The appeal will cost a lot of money (tens of thousands of dollars). If you wish to help, you can send a contribution to HONENU.

The HONENU Non Profit organization provides legal aid to hundreds of Jews who are participating in the struggle for Eretz Israel. Contributions to Honenu are recognized for tax purposes in Israel (Regd. non profit organization No. 580386571, according to section 46B of the income tax law); and in the USA (Tax ID: 30-0198003). Honenu will transfer the money to Danny and Itzik without deducting a fee. Should any money remain after the appeal, it will be given to Honenu. www.honenu.org.il

Please mail Shekel checks to Halamish, Ofra 90627, Israel.

For Tax-deductible dollar checks please write check to "HONENU".

Do not forget to earmark it: "for Danny and Itzik Halamish" and send it to: HONENU, 8204 Lefferts Blvd, Suite 381 Kew Gardens, New York 11415, USA.

=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

UN = M-UN-ich

2006-08-25T06:45:00.000+03:00

Did you ever notice that before? The United Nations never learned from the notorious Munich Agreement:

Read this:
thanks ck

THE MIDEAST'S MUNICH

WAR WITH MULLAHS IS COMING

By ARTHUR HERMAN

August 16, 2006 -- HISTORIANS will look back at this weekend's cease-fire agreement in Lebanon as a pivotal moment in the war on terror. It is pivotal in the same sense that the Munich agreement between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain was pivotal in an earlier battle against the enemies of freedom. The accord in October 1938 revealed to the world that the solidarity of the Western allies was a sham, and that the balance of power had shifted to the fascist dictators.
Resolution 1701 shows that, for the time being at least, the balance has likewise shifted to the terrorists and their state sponsors. Like Munich, it marks the triumph of the principle of putting off until tomorrow what needs to be done today. Like Munich, it will mean not peace in our time, but a bigger war in our future.

In that sense, the cease-fire may be even more momentous than Munich, and a greater blunder. In 1938 Chamberlain and other appeasers had the excuse that they were trying to prevent an armed conflict no one wanted. Today, of course, that conflict is already here. Historians will conclude that by supporting U.N. Resolution 1701 and getting Israel to agree, the Bush administration has in effect declared that its global war on terror is over. We have reverted to the pre-9/11 box of tools, if not necessarily the pre-9/11 mindset. From now on, the worst Iran, Syria, and North Korea will have to worry about are serial resolutions in the United Nations. Terrorists will be busy dodging Justice Department subpoenas, not Tomahawk missiles.

Our enemies know better. They know the war is only entering a new stage, and they know who the winners and losers were last weekend.

The clear losers were the United States and Israel. Israel has sacrificed lives and treasure, and had its honor dragged through the mud of international opinion, for no purpose. America squandered its political capital at the start of the crisis by getting moderate Arab regimes to condemn Hezbollah instead of Israel. They did so because they thought Hezbollah was about to be annihilated. However, they soon realized their mistake. They now know Tehran and Damascus will set the agenda in the Middle East, not Washington. The Arab League's support for this U.N.-brokered deal is just one more measure of our strategic failure.

The other loser is Lebanon. The price of peace in 1938 was de jure dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, as Germany annexed the Sudetenland. The price of Resolution 1701 is de facto dismemberment of Lebanon. A large, well-armed terrorist army acting at the behest of a foreign power now controls the southern half of Lebanon, and pulls the strings in the other half. The facade of Lebanese self-government has been preserved. As a territorial state, it may even last longer than Czechoslovakia did (Hitler gave the Czechs five months before he annexed the rest of their country).

But other states in the region will have learned their lesson. Faced by an internal terrorist organization, especially one with links with Tehran, they will have to make accommodations. No white knight in the guise of U.S. Marines will ride to their rescue; no Israeli tanks and F-16s will do their dirty work for them. Appeasement will be the order of the day.

That includes Iraq. The disarming of Sunni and Shia militias, the necessary first step to ending sectarian violence there, will be postponed - perhaps for good. On the contrary, this crisis has taught Iraq's Shia minority that extremism pays, particularly the Iranian kind.

For everyone in the Middle East knows Iran is the clear winner. Only the diplomats and politicians, including the Bush administration, will pretend otherwise. Iran has emerged as the clear champion of anti-Israeli feeling and radical Islam. The Iranians have their useful puppet in Syria; they have their proxy armies in place with Hezbollah and Hamas. They have been able to install missiles, even Revolutionary Guards, in Lebanon with impunity. Sunni regimes in the region will move to strike their own deals with Iran, just as Eastern European states did with Germany after Czechoslovakia. That includes Iraq; the lesson will not be lost on Russia and China, either. And all the while, the Iranians proceed with their nuclear plans - with the same impunity.

Finally, the other winners are the conventional diplomats at the State Department, especially Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns. In a narrow professional sense, appeasement is their business. They never saw the point to a "war on terror they are delighted to take back the initiative from the hawks at the Pentagon and the White House.

The war in Iraq has clearly sapped the moral strength of the Bush administration. The men of Munich acquiesced to Hitler because another world war like the first seemed unthinkable. The Bush administration clearly feels it cannot face another major confrontation even with a second-rate power like Iran. Yet by calling off the war on terror, it has only postponed that conflict.

"We have passed an awful milestone in our history," Winston Churchill said after the Munich agreement was signed. "Do not suppose this is the end . . . This is only the first sip, the first foretaste, of a bitter cup that will be proffered to us year by year." Despite the failure of appeasement, Churchill still believed the Western democracies would make the "supreme recovery" and take up the banner for freedom again. The United States and the forces of democracy will recover from this debacle - even with a Democratic Congress in 2006 and a Democratic president in 2008. The reason will not be because Bush's opponents have a better strategy, or a clearer vision, or even a Winston Churchill waiting in the wings. It will be because our enemies will give us no choice.

Less than a year after Munich, Nazi panzers rolled into Poland. Instead of fighting a short, limited war over Czechoslovakia, the Western democracies ended up fighting a world war, the most destructive in history. The war with the mullahs of Iran is coming. It is only a question of whether it will be at a time or on a ground of our choosing, or theirs - and whether it is fought within the shadow of a mushroom cloud.

Arthur Herman is the author most recently of "To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World." He is completing a book on Churchill and Gandhi.

Fraud!!!

2006-08-24T19:05:00.000+03:00

Here's the site with all the details about the fraud in the media by the Arabs. The international mainstream media participated in it, as the reporters staged scenes to make it look like Israel killed and damaged more Arabs.

They show the stories and methods behind the headlines and pictures.

For example:
The Red Cross Ambulance Incident

How the Media Legitimized an Anti-Israel Hoax and Changed the Course of a War

It's a must-see!

thanks Boris

Excellent article from ynet

2006-08-22T11:37:00.000+03:00

Ronny Sofer / The upper echelon:Who'll investigate the secret seven?

There's a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, and Amir Peretz is rushing to investigate the security establishment's functioning during the war. But who's going to check out answers provided by the decision makers?

Published: 08.20.06, 23:07

"Commissions of inquiry are great for politicians. They are a great place to bury burning issues," said one worried government minister this week. "Look at the Or Commission that investigated attacks on Arab Israelis at the beginning of the intifada. The political echelon is cleansed, the lower levels pay the price, but much less than would have been expected."

The mood in the halls of the Knesset and government ministers' offices was focused on the coming investigation of the war's failures. But everyone we spoke to was prepared to wait until the last soldiers are out of Lebanon, to see if the war is realy over, to wait and see if this fragile ceasefire, based on the prowess of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL, really holds.

But Defense Minister Amir Peretz isn't waiting. He's appointed the Lipkin-Shahak commission to investigate the defense establishment. Perhaps Peretz would have preferred a commission to investigate the army's performance, rather than the sub-peformance of the policy makers.

Asking questions
The big question from this war is who will investigate Amir Peretz, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni? Who will investigate the secret seven, the cabinet, the government? Who will look into the way in which the decision to go to war was made in a few hours, without considering the depth of the army's ability to fight Hizbullah? Who will investigate the zig-zagging orders?

Who will examine Olmert's Fire Zone of the first kilometer in Lebanon and Peretz's six-to-seven kilometer security zone? Who will look into the orders to throw so many soldiers (and resultant injuries) towards the Litani the last Friday of the war, orders signed jointly by Olmert and Peretz, a moment before the Security Council passed its resolution, with the agreement of Olmert and Peretz?

Who will ask if we should have sacrificed 158 soldiers for diplomatic goals that were not realized? For the release of kidnapped soldiers who remain in captivity? Who will ask if we should have invested more than NIS 20 billion in the war, only to have Hizbullah remain on the border?

Who will ask if it was correct to send a million-plus Israelis to bomb shelters, only to bring them out again with life-long trauma, when Iran and Syria are doing all they can to avoid the UN embargo to re-arm the still-living Nasrallah with new anti-tank weapons that will be coming our way during the next round?

"If there were elections in another month, maybe it would be correct not to establish a commission of inquiry," said one Labor Party government minister. "But there are no elections on the horizon, and the public has no democratic tool to judge those who initiated and administered the war.

"So all that is left is to establish a commission, to demand answers from those who made these decisions. Even if it takes time, until all the soldiers are out of Lebanon and there is a chance to see if the ceasefire is worth more than the paper it's printed on, such a move is necessary to conduct a fundamental investigation at home."

Livni meets the north
Last Tuesday, a few hours before flying to meet Kofi Annan in New York, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni came to give support to mayors of towns in the north. In the beautiful city hall in Carmiel, Adi Eldar told her he headed the strongest town in the north, but in light of the situation he couldn't guarantee municipal salaries would be paid this month.

Livni's got no checks to hand out, so all she could offer was a bit of sympathy and a vague promise that the national government would not abandon the Galilee.

It was so hot in Tiberias one could see the steam coming off the Sea of Galilee. Mayor Zohar Oved promises Tiberias can withstand another round of fighting. Outside his air conditioned office, security guard Farouk Eliyahu says:

"Tiberias was a ghost town. We've never had anything like it here. Everything was closed: Restaurants, hotels, stores. I say it's too bad Livni, Peretz and Olmert tied our generals' hands. If we were going to pay such a heavy price anyway, we should have finished Hizbullah."

45 minutes to the north, in a room that was once a concert hall, Kiryat Shmonah city counselors are listening to Livni talk about the diplomatic gains of the war. Not everyone agrees, to say the least. Reporters ask the same questions, Livni gives the same answers.

More criticism

Outside, 48-year-old mother of four Nava Danino sits on a bench. She would have been happy to host Livni at home, to show her the shards of glass caused by the katyusha. She would have asked Livni to help bring insurance adjustors around, so she could clean up already and bring her children home.

The price she paid doesn't appear to her: "Tzipi Livni screwed up, big-time," she said painfully. "I've been wandering around the country with my family for a month, and at the end of the day, they ended it all without even bringing home the soldiers Hizbullah kidnapped." She sat just meters from Livni, but didn't get to speak to the foreign minister.

Wherever Livni, went, similar stories were told and accusations made, about government ministers paying perfunctory visits to discharge their obligations.

"Not one government minister saw fit to spend a night in a bomb shelter. Neither did any Knesset members," said Eli Levi, of Kiryat Motzkin, bitterly.

"Let them come to city hall to see what all the ruckus is all about. They fought this war on our backs, without bothering to find out what it's like to spend a night in a shelter," he said, trying to peep through the sealed windows of the white Volvo parked in the driveway.

"They never breathed the dampness, sat in 35 degree (95 F) heat in a shelter with no air conditioning, or had to deal with frightened infants for five weeks of katyusha attacks."

From the foreign minister's point of view to the embittered north was meant to disrupt the overall picture that sees a link between Jerusalem, Beirut, paris and Washington. With no cynicism at all, she had a lot of sympathy for Levy from Kiryat Motzkin, for Danino from Kiryat Shmonah, and for Farouk from Tiberias. But she had a plan to catch, to go and meet Kofi Annan in New York.

The lessons of Lebanon - II by LENNY BEN-DAVID

2006-08-20T10:41:00.000+03:00

The lessons of Lebanon - II
by LENNY BEN-DAVID

The war did not go well. It's easy to point to Hizbullah's six years of preparations, its fanatic devotion to death, and an endless supply of technologically advanced Iranian and Syrian weapons. But the analysis of what went wrong must first be focused on ourselves.

Five of my sons and sons-in-law fought in this war. Now coming out of Lebanon and surviving some of the bloodiest fighting, they are filled with anger. Their short-term and long-term orders were confused and ever-changing. The emergency stocks for their reserve units were in horrible condition. One reservist special forces unit lacked basic communications equipment, they were provided guns that they had never trained on, and their rushed training was done in conditions unlike anything they would see in Lebanon.

Truly by the grace of God, one son missed his death by a few seconds and yards. Instead he had to evacuate dozens of dead and wounded under fire. The evacuation force never came, and the survivors had to carry the dead, wounded and themselves miles back to the Israeli lines.

Over the course of the war soldiers were held back for weeks when they were ready to charge. When they were finally dispatched, they were given unachievable missions in impossible time constraints. Soldiers were sent on daytime missions that should have been carried out only under the cover of darkness. Some died as a result.

My generation has failed our sons. Not because we failed to give them the proper equipment. We failed to provide them and ourselves with proper leadership. At the start of this war I never felt such a lack of confidence in our national and political leadership. At this point in the war - and I suspect it is only half-time - I feel despair.

Last week, the commander-in-chief of the IDF admitted that at the moment Israeli soldiers were chasing after their abducted comrades and engaged in fighting Hizbullah on July 12 - on the eve of the war - he was busy selling his stock portfolio. The police meanwhile charged a senior Kadima Member of Knesset, Tzahi Hanegbi, with bribery and a handful of other crimes. And today, the police announced that they would charge Minister Haim Ramon with sexual abuse.

What shame! Did we receive the leaders we deserve?

ALL OF this has been a long time coming. There was no public outcry when aides to Israeli prime ministers made fortunes in under-the-table kickback deals with Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian cronies. Why, for instance, were the Palestinians paying high prices for cement and gasoline from Israeli companies when they could have gotten the products at a fraction from Arab companies? Why were Israeli officials and their relatives involved in the Palestinian casino?

What Israeli officials profited from the disengagement from Gaza? Is there any truth to the claim by the eccentric Israeli-French billionaire, Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, that the northern Gaza Jewish settlements were demolished to make way for a Palestinian casino with a silent Israeli partner? We dismissed it then as a crank claim, but today, who knows? Palestinian rockets are now fired from those sites.

We were silent when senior IDF officials were allegedly fired and replaced by army friends of Ariel Sharon's sons and cronies. Are we paying the price today in the army's malfeasance, nonfeasance and misfeasance?

Columnists in the Hebrew press are questioning where in the war are the sons of the `branja, Israel's political, media and financial elite. Their sons don't seem to show up in the casualty lists, because, as one columnist charged, their children are overseas, do not serve, or sit at cushy office jobs in the army.

We stood quiet while the civil rights of thousands of Jews from Gaza were trampled by the police. We didn't realize that the government's abandonment of these citizens in 2005 would be a precursor to the neglect of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens in the bomb shelters of the north in 2006.

How much IDF and government planning, manpower and resources went into the disengagement last year that could have been expended on preparing for the Hizbullah war this summer?

I have always opposed airing Israel's dirty laundry in public, but perhaps it is time to do it. Israel's supporters are pouring out their sympathy and dollars to help rebuild Israel's north. They must make sure the millions of dollars are not going to be funneled through the companies of political cronies and party hacks.

I know of what I speak. After the December 2004 Tsunami, I was approached by American sources looking for immediate supplies of water for Asia. Water from Israel could expedite delivery considerably. I approached an Israeli minister for assistance. The call back came from a political party hack who had already figured out the percentage that would go to political purposes.

The great political sage from Okefenokee Swamp, Pogo, expressed Israel's predicament best some 30 years ago when he proclaimed, "We has met the enemy, and he is us!"

Israel has another war on its hands. In the Hizbullah war, our citizens performed unselfishly with extraordinary valor, patriotism and volunteer spirit. They reacted in ways their leaders did not deserve.

Now Israel's citizens must battle again, this time in Israel's own political arena.

The writer served as Israel's deputy chief of mission in the Washington Embassy. Today he is an international consultant to corporations and foreign governments.

Jewish Refugees in Cyprus

2006-08-08T13:17:00.000+03:00

Jewish Refugees in Cyprus
Zionism in Regression

By Shifra Shomron
14th of Av 5766/ 8 August 2006
Nitzan Caravilla site

We've all seen the movie Exodus. In one of the first thrilling scenes, a young man jumps off the truck convoy of 'illegal immigrants' taking them back to the ship to be interned on the island of Cyprus. Our young man punches a British soldier, leaves his bag on the truck and frantically dashes away. He is risking his life for freedom and for his land. He swiftly clambers up a stone fortress – two Brits are hot on his tail – reaches the top and…no escape! The Brits reach him; he punches one, picks up a large stone to throw at the other. He's grasped, a wrestle ensues; he's flung off the stone wall and lands with his clothes torn, bloody and unconscious. The Brits pick him up and carry him away.

Yes, once – a mere matter of fifty odd years ago – we were prepared to fight so as to stay in Israel and not be dragged off to Cyprus.

How things have changed: now Haifa and Krayot residents are buying 'refuge apartments' in Cyprus according to Ynet news (7 August 2006). Four families have already purchased furnished apartments in Limassul and other towns. If more rockets fall in Haifa, these families are packed and ready to move.

So, the secular Zionist dream has failed: Israel is not a refuge for Jews. Israel is not – but Cyprus is. The lovely island of Cyprus to which Holocaust survivors were dragged kicking and screaming. They reached there and were placed in encampments surrounded by barbed wire, British soldiers at the entrance, and wooden bunks in the rooms.

But after all, now Cyprus is modern and developed: high rise apartments, English fluency, inducted to the European Union… Forward! To Cyprus!

And what about Israel? What about our torn and bloodied country?

Our country is torn, because we have been tearing pieces off to fling to the jackals surrounding us.

Our country is bloodied, because the jackals keep lunging, snapping and biting… and we restrain.

Since Israel is restraining itself from properly defending the residents of Haifa, Krayot, Tsfat, S'derot etc… perhaps the Israeli government should reach an agreement with Cyprus permitting building large encampments.

We'll provide the barbed wire.

To Revive the Memories

2006-08-01T22:32:00.001+03:00

To Revive the Memories

By Amichai Gross, Nitzan Caravilla Site.
Translated by Shifra Shomron, Nitzan Caravilla Site.
5 Av 5766/ 30 July 2006

Many memories are placed in a special department in my heart, categorized according to subject and date, arranged neatly on shelves, refusing to be covered with dust – as if they are yelling: use us!

And I walk among the shelves, browsing, contemplating, and remembering.

There's the grass outside my house, the grass that was bordered with a pomegranate tree and a fig tree, an etrog, a lemon and a tangerine, a pecan and a mango, and of course the olive tree – the one that got hit by a mortar. And between the grass and the house is the court – a small tiled area and a hoop stuck in the wall. That's where I played basketball with Ariel and Yishai and Ofer and Itamar and Guy and Aaron.

And I continue, I move to another shelf and find myself riding a bike on the hill up to Gadid, and when I reach the summit I stop and look to the right. All of Neve Dekalim is spread out before me, from the industrial area until the Ulpana. In the middle I recognize the "Beit HaLachmi" intersection and the antenna on the regional council building. In the distance I see the Moasii Bedouin tribe and not far from there – the sea.

And on the next shelf I see the fort we had in a tree in the dunes between the synagogue and the 'sand neighborhood', from which we would go to the big dune in order to slide down it with an old shutter.
And thus I continue and pass much archive material that was gathered during eighteen and a half years. I pass between the shelves, peek to the right and peek to the left; I want to see it all. To remember.

And here is the community's Kiddush in the hall under the synagogue, and the basketball tournament in the summer (Neve Dekalim is the champion!), and the Shabbat prayers at Bnei Akiva (youth group/synagogue), and walking to the sea – the prettiest sea in the country, and I feel exactly as if right now I am at sea, in a sea of memories.

And there is no end to these memories. Every small detail is included in them. Every event, every experience, every emotion.

And suddenly I stop. "Summer 5765" (2005) is written on the shelf next to me. And I remember prayers, demonstrations, road-blocks, police, soldiers, more prayers, and (soldiers) knocking at the door, crying, bus, and hotel. Houses destroyed, lives destroyed. And then emerges the memory of the sign at the traffic circle between Netzer Hazani and Katif, the same sign that once read "Atnachta – a warm corner for soldiers", the same sign that later read, "We will yet return".

Someone once asked me, "Why do you save all these memories?" And at first it seemed that there was something in his words. It's all gone, it's all destroyed, and how will memories help?

However remembering is not just gazing into the past; rather studying it, taking the good from it and applying it to the present. Likewise also to remember a person who died G-d forbid is not just to look at his pictures and tell stories about him; but to take his good qualities and embrace them, and thus 'revive' him.

We can learn many things from the Gush Katif residents: simplicity – their manual labor and connection to our Land, the immense amount of charity they did in the entire southern region, the inner strength that kept them continuously facing all the trials, the brotherhood and unity – accepting everyone as he is, and above all: the firm faith – faith in G-d, faith in the Jewish nation, faith that all G-d does is for the best.

And in our case it's even more than that. In this case we must not only 'revive' the strong forces that existed in the Gush, but also reach political conclusions. There is no doubt that we have proven that just as our warnings before the Oslo Accords were correct, so were our warnings before the expulsion correct. The terror in Gaza has grown stronger and has reached dimensions that have forced the government to return the army to the area. There were weary souls who said, "War is despicable" calling us "Doomsayers" preferring to trust our enemies, since only thus will the peace come. And we were the ones who accurately read the enemy and know what their real driving force is, we who were considered extremists-delusional-strange-paranoid – we were correct. And likewise we are correct regarding the "Convergence Plan".

A very hard year has passed, very hard. A year in which we were tried by complicated trials. We dealt with situations that were not simple. We rose, we overcame the obstacles, and we continue forwards with strength and with faith. We mustn't despair. We all see the recent national awakening; the sobering up and the new understanding that the Jewish nation must be determined and must fight for its land in a way that will determine the outcome of this war, in a firm and unequivocal way. There is still much to improve but the goal is clear.

We must strengthen and improve the national awareness, continue and cling onto the hope – and remember.
We'll remember and won't forget, we'll remember and return!

guest bloggers

2006-08-01T19:39:00.000+03:00

As you may have noticed, I've invited the Shomron Family, expellees from Neve Dekalim to post while I'm away, since I've been posting their articles for quite a while.

Enjoy, they have plenty to say, a very talented family.

The Latest Israeli Growth Industry

2006-07-28T11:52:00.000+03:00

The Latest Israeli Growth Industry

Yossi Shomron
3 Av 5766 (July 28, 2006)

Today I visited a refugee camp in the modern state of Israel. Actually, I live in the "internal refugee" camp of Nitzan; 480 prefab, upgraded caravans built for the expellees of Gush Katif. Four kilometers to the west, along the beach of Nitzan, is a new refugee "town", a tent city divided into two clearly designated areas: "Welcome from the northern areas" and "Welcome from the southern areas". Each area contains some 20 to 30 huge tents (approximately 25 by 40 meters each), with guards, fencing, bathroom facilities, and shuttle buses transporting people back and forth from highway 4. The new beach "town" contains thousands of Jews - refugees from missile attacks launched from Lebanon and the Gaza strip into Israeli towns and cities.

The government of Israel seems to be in the business of creating Jewish refugees. Either the government expels thousands of Jews from their homes in towns considered to be a liability to the state or the government allows its citizens to be bombed for more than 5 years (southern area refugees), or 2 weeks (northern area refugees). Okay, to be fair, the Arabs are the perpetrators of the missile attacks causing tens of thousands of Jews to flee their homes. But for 5 years S'derot, Gush Katif, and surrounding moshavim and kibbutzim have been bombed from distances of 1 to 8 kilometers and the IDF has been restrained by the government from responding effectively. Of course the IDF bombed the "usual suspects": empty fields, roads, bridges, bomb factories, terror headquarters, empty PA buildings and even live terrorists when caught in the act. By and large, the Gaza "civilian" population of Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, Islamic Jihad supporters as well as thousands of terrorist fighters (who don't wear a uniform or carry a weapon) remain off limits to the IDF.

And in the North? Again the usual list of targets has been bombed: bridges, roads, broadcast stations, Hezbalah bunkers and camps, and missile launchers and rockets when seen. The government of Lebanon, with a strong Hezbalah component, as well as Shiite southern Lebanon remain off limits to the IDF. To ensure that terror supporters in Lebanon don't pay a price, the inner cabinet of the Israeli govt. review all major IDF targets before bombing. Expect that as long as the Lebanese "civilians" and the thousands of Hezbalah supporters, terror operatives among them, remain untouched, the North of Israel will suffer the years of bombing that the South of Israel continues to endure. And the latest Israeli growth industry, internal Jewish refugees, will continue to grow.

from a former resident of Neve Dekalim

2006-07-19T19:46:00.000+03:00

This was a comment to http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2006/07/cannon-fodder.html

Like the early immigrants from North Africa, there wasn't any permanent housing for the Gush Katif expellees and a very inadequate number of temporary "caravillas". Hence the hotel solution. Certainly the conditions of the caravillas are far superior to the maabarot camps of the 50's reflecting the relatively small number of expellees to house and the economic advancement of the country. Regarding location, Gush Katif expellees don't particularly live in dangerous areas: Nitzan, Ashkelon, Yad Benyamin, Eshchol region, Bustan Hagalil, Eastern Lachish. For the most part, the expellees chose these central locations. That they have become dangerous areas is a result of arab missile development and an impotent Israeli government response to arab attacks from both Gaza and Lebanon. In fact, nearly a third of Israeli Jews are under missile attack, matching the proportion of Gush Katif expellees under the same threat.

Regarding the expellees, the government should be blamed for lack of permanent housing, lack of community solutions, and lack of employment. Regarding the third of Israeli Jews under missile attack the government should be blamed for valuing arab "non combatants" over our own soldiers and civilians.

--Yossi Shomron

EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE Commentary by Mathias Dapfner CEO,

2006-07-19T12:06:00.000+03:00

Axel Springer, AG

A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your
family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your
head because it's so terribly true.

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England
and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long
before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to
toothless agreements.

Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union,
then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe where for
decades, inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as
the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.

Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and
even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans
debated and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally
the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe
yet again, and do our work for us.

Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European
appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance" now
countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist
Palestinians.

Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly
3,000,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and,
motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, has the
gall to issue bad grades to George Bush... Even as it is uncovered
that the loudest critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit
billions, no, TENS of billions, in the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food
program.

And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of
appeasement. How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by
Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that
we really should have a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany?

I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our
(German) Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German
people, actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim
Holiday" will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical
Islamists.

One cannot help but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the
laughable treaty signed by Adolph Hitler, and declaring European
"Peace in our time".

What else has to happen before the European public and its political
leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially
perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic
Muslims, focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western
societies, and intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction.

It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the
great military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by
an enemy that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but
is actually spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and
will always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness.

Only two recent American Presidents had the courage needed for
anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush.

His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans
know the truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold
War, freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror
and virtual slavery. And Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat
Blair, acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the
Islamic War against democracy. His place in history will have to be
evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in
the multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's
values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing
field as the true great powers, America and China.

On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to
those arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance",
which even (Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably
criticizes.

Why? Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so
materialistic so devoid of a moral compass.

For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of
additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the
American economy - because unlike almost all of Europe, Bush realizes
what is at stake - literally everything

While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America
because they seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our
Social Welfare systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd
rather discuss reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage,
or our 4 weeks of paid vacation... Or listen to TV pastors preach
about the need to "reach out to terrorists. To understand and
forgive".

These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking
hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a
robber breaking into a neighbor's house.

Appeasement? Europe, thy name is Cowardice. God Bless America

thanks RG

TAKE ACTION - Show Your Support for Israel

2006-07-19T12:01:00.000+03:00

CAMERA

Unity Coalition for Israel - July 18, 2006

We encourage everyone to organize and/or participate in Solidarity With Israel Rallies. Rallies are an important tool to help educate both the media and the public.

How to Organize or Maximize the Effect of a Rally

Call the media to cover the rally, in an effort to bring awareness to the key issues involved. Work to get pro-Israel government reps and community leaders to speak. If that's not doable, it's also okay to just do a simple street corner demo, with no speakers, just placards, but do try to have at least 10 participants.

Prepare at least 3 people to speak to the media, each with a different soundbyte (see talking points below). These people should not wait to be approached by the reporter, but should approach the reporters on their own, as soon as they see them.

Particularly if the media do not show up for your rally, arrange for someone going to the rally to bring a digital camera . Take photos of people holding pro-Israel signs. Tell them you want to send the photo to their local paper. Ask for their name, town, phone number (so newspaper can verify the photo caption) and the local newspaper's name. That same day, put a caption on the photo, send it to the person's local newspaper and urge that the photo be published.

PLACARD MESSAGES

Placard messages of all sizes are available to download at www.standwithus.com (click on Signs )

You can also display these signs in the windows of your home and car or tape them onto your T-shirt or backpack to wear.

Examples include:

Lebanon, Disarm Your Terrorists Or Israel Will
Lebanon, Stop Hezbollah Rockets
Israel Left Gaza for Peace, Not 800 Rocket Attacks
Hamas is Destroying the Palestinian Future
Hamas, Stop Racist Terrorism, Start Peace
Israel Wants Peace, Hamas Wants War
Israel Offered Peace, Arabs Gave Them War
Stop the Rockets
Stop the Terror
Iran Won't Take Peace for an Answer
Israel is on the Map to Stay
Iran Funds Hamas
Iran Funds Islamic Jihad
Free Gilad, Eldad, and Ehud
We Support Israel
Free Lebanon From Hezbollah Terrorists

With thanks,

Lee Green
Director, National Letter-Writing Group
http://www.camera.org/

MEDIA CONTACT INFO

Reliable@cnn.com, viewer@c-span.org, booktv@c-span.org, comments@foxnews.com, oreilly@foxnews.com, hannity@foxnews.com, foxreport@foxnews.com, special@foxnews.com, beltway@foxnews.com, hemmer@foxnews.com, mailto:feedback@foxnews.com, generalcomments@feedback.msnbc.com, letters@msnbc.com, hardball@msnbc.com, countdown@msnbc.com, joe@msnbc.com,
abramsreport@msnbc.com, newshour@pbs.org, jdvorkin@npr.org, onthemedia@wnyc.org, Monica@wabcradio.com, suggestions@lauraingraham.com, rush@eibnet.com,
janet@jpamerica.com, dennisprager@dennisprager.com, letter@globe.com, ombud@globe.com, jsmith@globe.com, letters@suntimes.com, ctc-tribletter@tribune.com, publiceditor@tribune.com, alipinski@tribune.com, cmcmahon@tribune.com, letters@plaind.com, dclifton@plaind.com, letters@star-telegram.com, letters@latimes.com, readers.rep@latimes.com, marjorie.miller@latimes.com, heralded@herald.com, editor@nysun.com, newsdesk@nysun.com, letters@nytimes.com, public@nytimes.com, foreign@nytimes.com, executive-editor@nytimes.com, insight@orlandosentinel.com, mpynn@orlandosentinel.com, editor@orlandosentinel.com, inquirer.letters@phillynews.com,
editor@phillynews.com, foreign@phillynews.com, forum@newsobserver.com, msill@newsobserver.com,
oquarles@newsoberver.com, letters@uniontrib.com,
david.smith@uniontrib.com,letters@sfchronicle.com,
readerrep@sfchronicle.com,letters@sun-sentinel.com,
letters@post-dispatch.com,eletters@starledger.com,
readerrep@starledger.com,charrison@starledger.com, editor@usatoday.com, etinsley@usatoday.com,
wsj.ltrs@wsj.com, letters@washpost.com,
ombudsman@washpost.com,foreign@washpost.com, letters@newsweek.com, Editors@newsweek.com, letters@time.com, letters@usnews.com, info@ap.org, editor.reuters@reuters.com,levine.joanne@gmail.com

CHRISTIAN LEADERS AND PUBLICATIONS
(We welcome suggestions for this section.)

Anglican Communion News: clare.amos@anglicancommunion.org
Clare Amos in charge of Anglican Holy Land website

Catholic World News URL: http://www.cwnews.com/about/contactus.cfm

Christian Broadcasting Network's Newswatch URL: http://tinyurl.com/84crl(click on "suggested topic for a feature story")

Christian Century magazine email: main@christiancentury.org

Christian Science Monitor URL: http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/contactus.pl

Christianity Today email: letters@ChristianityToday.com

Episcopal Life editor: jhames@episcopalchurch.org letters@episcopal-life.org

Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Frank G. Griswald
pboffice@episcopalchurch.org Fax #:(212)490-3298

God's Learning Channel: info@ptcbglc.com

Leadership Journal (of Christianity Today magazine): ljeditor@leadershipjournal.net

Janet Parshall radioshow: janet@jpamerica.com 1-800-343-9282

Presbyterians Today URL: http://tinyurl.com/e2lnc

To find your local Presbyterian USA church: http://pcusa.org/search/churches/default.jsp

Presbyterian News Service Director: Rev. Jerry Van Marter
fax: 502-569-8073
email: jvanmart@ctr.pcusa.org

Alexa Smith, International News: AaSmith@ctr.pcusa.org

Today's Christian: tceditor@Todays-Christian.com

United Church of Christ leaders: thomasj@ucc.org, guffeye@ucc.org, jacksonb@ucc.org, malayanj@ucc.org, copel@ucc.org

UCC Ecumenical Officer Lydia Veliko: velikol@ucc.org

United Methodist News Service email: newsdesk@umcom.org

Worthy Ministries Newstip URL: http://contactus.worthyministries.com/
Zola Levitt Ministries' "Levitt Letter" email: staff@levitt.com

Government Contact Info:

president@whitehouse.gov

Find your congressional rep at: http://www.house.gov/

Find your senators at: http://www.senators.gov/ Click on "Find your Senator" at top right.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who We Are: Unity Coalition for Israel
Founded in 1991, we are the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel.

Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!

English Orange Bulletin, July 19, 2006

2006-07-19T11:58:00.000+03:00

1) Women's Mass Prayer Rally TODAY

2) Erev Rosh Chodesh Av, Prayer at Kotel

3) Donations for Northern Citizens

4) Psalms/ Tehillim Rav Elyashiv

5) Kidnapped soldiers - Petition

6) Names of children on critical list

7) Blood banks need filling!!

8) Prayers in the U.S. and around the world

**************************************************

1) Emunah ( www.emunah.org.il ) and the Council
for the Advancement of Women in Jerusalem are organizing a mass rally of
prayer by women from all over the country. Students from midrashot, Sherut
Leumi girls, and Emunah members will join with women from the north and
south in saying Tehilim/ Psalms for the safe return of the kidnapped soldiers, for
the speedy recovery of the wounded, to strengthen the soldiers on all fronts
and the residents living in the present danger zones.

Date: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 (23 Tamuz )

Time: 5 p.m.- 7 p.m.

Place: Yeshurun Synagogue

King George Street

Jerusalem

Program: Songs of Prayer by Adi Arad

Reading of chapters from Tehilim

The Force of Women's Prayers- Malka Pitrakovski

Women's prayers have always been a source for inspiration, strength and
hope.

This event is for women only. Please join us.
**********************************************************

2) Mass Prayer Rally at the Kotel

Next Tuesday, Erev Rosh Chodesh Av, at 18:00 PM, (6 in the evening), by declaration of the Great Rabbi's.

********************************************************

3) Dear Friends,

I have something urgent and needs your attention !!

The Golan youth, is visiting the people in their bombshelters in the Upper Galilee , mainly Kiryat Shemonah.
What they discovered there is almost unbelievable. The ones still in the shelters, the ones who have nowhere to go, often new olim, elderly or incapacitated people, they are simply hungry. Their money run out, they cannot help themselves, they are in urgent need for food.
The Golanners spent their pocketmoney, the youth-budget of their yishuv (for holiday activity which is not taking place in any case right now) and they are asking for contributions so they can go on buying and distributing food.
They gave me the following bank account:

Bank Mizrachi (swift: MIZBILIT), Bank nr 20, snif -Department - 462, account nr 166 492 , name of the account holder: Moshav Aloneh Habashan. Please mention: "Food/Bombshelters".

Friends, as the youngsters said, "this is a situation where also 25 cents is money".

I am very proud of our youth, and call to the Guardian Angels to please, please, guard them everywhere.

With Prayers and Love.

Lea.
0523 802 533 (if you need more info).

************************************************

4) Rav Elyashiv asked if we could say these 4 short tehilim, Psalms, for Am Yisrael: 13, 70, 125, 128

thank you for your time may we all see the Redemption soon!!!

***************************************************

5) Please take one minute to fill in the petition for our kidnapped Israeli soldiers.

http://www.kidnappedsoldiers.com

The names of the soldiers missing in Lebanon are:

GILAD ben AVIVA
EHUD ben MALKA
ELDAD ben TOVA
Please send this out to your e-mail list.

***************************************************
6) The public is asked to pray for 4 children, some
unconscious, critically injured in Tsfat:

Michal bat Revital
Bat-tzion bat Revital
Avraham Natan bat Revital
Odel Hannah bat Revital

****************************************************

7) The Israeli blood banks are running low on blood supplies, and have asked that a blood drive be organized to meet the country's needs

***********************************************************

8) Organize prayer groups in your own communities wherever you are, around the world.

Christian / Jewish Rallies for Israel Producing “Standing Room Only” Audiences

2006-07-18T20:45:00.000+03:00

PRESS RELEASE
Christian / Jewish Rallies for Israel Producing “Standing Room Only” Audiences
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Arlene Bridges Samuels Media Liaison 843-452-3356 www.IsraelAlways.org
ISRAEL ALWAYS Charleston, South Carolina Jerusalem, Israel
AUGUSTA, GA – Unprecedented attendance at “An Evening for Israel” rally in Augusta, Georgia Monday evening had organizers scrambling for seating to accommodate Christians and Jews who turned out to express support for the nation of Israel. The “Evening for Israel” rally, the fifth in a series being held across the Southeastern United States by international Christian broadcasters Earl Cox and Ben Kinchlow, brought together the Jewish and Christian communities to hear the latest news from the Holy Land. The event attracted a long list of dignitaries to include representation from the Consul General of Israel for the Southeast, local area pastors and rabbis and numerous local civic and business leaders. A proclamation from the Governor of Georgia was read which declared Georgia’s support for Israel. A highlight of the event was a live telephone hook-up with Spokesperson for the nation of Israel, Daniel Seaman. The Augusta event was co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation and Whole Life Ministries. The next rally is scheduled for Thursday evening, July 20th in Atlanta, Georgia where reports indicate another sold out crowd is expected. Joining Cox and Kinchlow will be Dr. Yossi Olmert, brother of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. To review an expanded news release and to view pictures of last evening’s event in Augusta, log on later today to www.IsraelAlways.org.

Night to Honor Israel

2006-07-18T19:48:00.000+03:00

Over 3,400 delegates from all fifty states and Puerto Rico will begin to gather today in Washington DC for the Night to Honor Israel banquet on Tuesday evening, for the Press Conference on Capitol Hill the following morning and finally for the Congressional meetings through the day on Wednesday.

If you wish to watch the banquet on Tuesday night, you may do so on Daystar at 7:30 PM EST or on the internet by logging on to www.cufi.org.

Rally for Israel

2006-07-18T06:58:00.000+03:00

SUBURBAN ORTHODOX CONGREGATION TORAS CHAIM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rally for Israel: A solidarity rally with Israel (sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and the Jewish Community Relations Council) will be held this Wednesday, July 19, at 12 Noon, at the Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC (Pennsylvania Avenue NW between 13th & 14th Street). For more information about the rally, contact jweingrad@jcouncil.org or see the attached flyer.

If you plan to attend, please contact Howard Friedman at 443-850-4975 or ahfried@verizon.net to coordinate travel arrangements.

Thank you.

Eileen B. Creeger
Executive Director
Suburban Orthodox Congregation Toras Chaim
7504 Seven Mile Lane
Baltimore, MD 21208
410-484-6114
410-484-0018 (fax)
execdirector@suburbanorthodox.org

Pro-Israel Rally in Australia

2006-07-18T06:34:00.000+03:00

Here's a wonderful and beautifully illustrated report about a Pro-Israel Rally in Australia in Australia!

Thanks to Ralph Zwier and Ronit Fraid

ORTHODOX SYNAGOGUES CALL FOR NIGHT OF PRAYER AND TORAH STUDY IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL THIS WEDNESDAY EVENING

2006-07-18T05:35:00.000+03:00

ORTHODOX SYNAGOGUES CALL FOR NIGHT OF PRAYER AND TORAH STUDY IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL THIS WEDNESDAY EVENING

Responding to the urgent need of American Jews to do whatever they can in support of Israel and her people at this time, the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America, together with the National Council of Young Israel and the Young Israel Council of Rabbis, have announced the convening of a nationwide Night of Prayer and Torah Study this Wednesday, July 19.

The organizations are asking Jews to gather in their synagogues throughout North America beginning at 9:00 pm E.D.T. (6:00 pm Pacific) for the simultaneous recitation of tehillim (Psalms) and other designated prayers. While many congregations are already adding extra tehillim to their regular services, Jewish tradition places great value in having an entire community raising their voices in unison. With the expectation that several hundred synagogues will participate, many, many thousands of Jews will be united in their prayers at this time. The program’s second segment will be Torah study, also a key means of spiritual support, for which study materials on relevant topics such as the Jewish response to terror, Tehillim, and the mitzvah of pidyon shevuyim, rescuing captives, will be provided on the OU website www.ou.org.

A central service and study session, to be led by OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb at OU headquarters in downtown Manhattan, will be webcast and may be viewed by any synagogue, family or individual who wants to participate in this way at www.ou.org.

The OU has also produced a Seven Point Action Plan, entitled “Israel Under Siege—What You Can Do,” which may be read here .

Further plans for special round-the-clock Torah learning programs with the involvement of OU member synagogues, Young Israel synagogues, the batei midrash and learning programs of Yeshiva University, and the rabbis of the RCA and of YI, will be announced shortly.

To participate or request more information, please email MBleicher@ou.org

Some very good questions by David Frankfurter

2006-07-16T19:16:00.000+03:00

Read them here.

From Gruner to Gruner By Shifra Shomron

2006-07-16T19:10:00.000+03:00

From Gruner to Gruner

By Shifra Shomron

20 Tamuz 5765 /16.July.06

Nitzan Caravilla site

Dov Gruner. Ariel Gruner.
Past and present merge in a surname, in an imprisonment, in a stance.

Dov Gruner – he gazes shyly at me and smiles gently. Is his smile a bit crooked? Perhaps. After all, his jaw was busted by a bullet during the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L.) 1946 attack on the Ramat Gan police station. Dov was wounded severely during this, his second and last attack. And the British captured him. After seven months of imprisonment he was finally brought before a military court. Did it matter that Dov had served five years in the British army, that he had served bravely and been wounded in combat? Did it matter that he'd fought with them on the dangerous Italian front? Of course not. And after the judge pronounced that Dov was to be hung until dead, the court was silent. Dov rose and proudly declared: "In blood and fire Judea fell, in blood and fire Judea will rise again." [A quote from a poem by Ya'acov Cohen, 1903, after the Kishinev pogrom]. He then spent the next 103 days in a small cell waiting to be hung. He refused to beg for clemency, and wrote to I.Z.L. leader Menachem Begin – thanking him and saying that if he could choose again he would do the same thing. Such was Dov Gruner. Today he is a national hero.

And now let's take a look at another Gruner – Ariel Gruner. He hails from the Shomron, wears a large kippa and a beaming smile. Has been arrested and placed with hardened criminals in Shikma prison – yet he hasn't been tried and hasn't committed any crime! That is, if you don't think that being a religious and nationalist Jew is a crime.

Today he is being taken to the Be'er Sheva court in order to increase his administrative detention term. The government can imprison his body, but his spirit is free. The same spirit that brought Gush Katif evacuees last night to sing and dance in front of the Shikma prison in order to uplift him and show our solidarity.

The spirit that can topple governments.

The spirit that can save our land.

The merging of a busted jaw and a big kippa.

MEMORIAL PROTEST FOR ISRAELI VICTIMS OF DAMASCUS-DIRECTED HEZBOLLAH TERROR

2006-07-15T21:21:00.000+03:00

MEMORIAL PROTEST FOR ISRAELI VICTIMS OF DAMASCUS-DIRECTED HEZBOLLAH TERROR

This Sunday, July 16th 11 am

Syrian UN Mission
43rd Street & 2nd Avenue

Then walk with us across the street to the Israeli Consulate as we offer prayers for the safety of Israeli soldiers in captivity and combat.

Coordinated by AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns, 3700 Henry Hudson Parkway, Riverdale, NY 10463, (718) 796-4730; Rabbi Avi Weiss, national chairman.

2006-07-15T20:57:00.000+03:00

RALLY FOR ISRAEL
1st Ave at 42nd St, across from the UN, in NY

Monday, July 17, at 12:00 noon
Support Israel!

Take a stand for Israel's right to protect its citizens!

Rally against terror and in solidarity with Israel.
Demand the immediate and unconditional release of kidnapped IDF soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev!

This event is sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in cooperation with The United Jewish Communities UJA-Federation of New York.

Campus Activism Network
Zionist Organization of America

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

email: campus@zoa.org
phone: 212-481-1500
web: http://www.thecollegezionist.org

WORLD-WIDE COMMEMORATION OF EXPULSION FROM GUSH KATIF

2006-07-14T06:43:00.000+03:00

AMERICANS FOR A SAFE ISRAEL/AFSI;
1623 Third Avenue, Suite 205, New York, NY ;
Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-82;
E-mail afsi@rcn.com
Website; http://www.afsi.org;
Contact: Barry Freedman, Executive Director

WORLD-WIDE COMMEMORATION OF EXPULSION FROM GUSH KATIF

TUESDAY, AUG. 1 -- 8 P.M.

NYC- FIFTH AVE. SYNAGOGUE

5 E. 62nd Street, east of Fifth Ave.

Be there for an evening of remembering the past, examining the present, and planning for the future.

Speakers include:

AFSI's Chairman Herbert Zweibon, former AFSI Director HelenFreedman

ZOA President Morton Klein

Batya Medad, resident of Shilo

Song and film will be featured.

Humanitarian Concerns highlighted:

Report submitted to Knesset committee reveals severe problems of Gush Katif and northern Shomron expellees.

Questions? Comments? Contact :

AFSI: 212-828-2424; afsi@rcn.com

Dror Vanunu - gkatif@netvision.net.il

Laurence Beziz - help4@katifund.org

gifts to soldiers ,Tehillim/ psalms and Friday Tsahal Support

2006-07-14T05:57:00.000+03:00

בעקבות ההסלמה בגבולות הארץ-
ארגון משולחן לשולחן יצא במבצע איסוף חבילות שי למען החיילים בגזרת הצפון והדרום.

ארגון משולחן לשולחן,ארגון ארצי להצלת מזון שעוסק באיסוף אוכל לא מנוצל מחברות הסעדה,אולמי שמחות וחברות מסחריות ומחלק לאוכלוסיה נזקקת ,יצא החל ממחר ועד ליום חמישי -20.7מבצע איסוף ממתקים וכלי רחצה לעידוד מורל החיילים השוהים בגזרות גבול הצפון והדרום. הציבור הרחב מוזמן להביא מוצרי היגיינה וממתקים למשרדי ארגון משולחן לשולחן ברחוב הסדנה 11 ברעננה בשעות 8:00-17:00 או למחסני הארגון אשר ברחוב קצין ברעננה (סוף הרחוב,לא מצויין במספר) בימי חמישי ה- 13/7 או ביום א' ה-16/7 בין השעות 9:00-12:00

ארגון משולחן לשולחן עובד על פתיחת מוקדי איסוף חבילות שי נוספים גם באזור ירושליים והדרום בימים הקרובים.משאיות הארגון יובילו את החיבלות והמוצרים שיאספו לבסיסי צה"ל בגזרות הרלוונטיות.

ג'וזף גיטלר, מנכ"ל ארגון משולחן לשולחן: " כארגון שמתעסק בהצלת ואיסוף מזון ביום יום לאוכלוסיה נזקקת,חשוב לנו בנוסף,בימים קשים אלה, להביע תמיכה באותם חיילים שנאלצים לעמוד בחזית למען שלום כולנו.אני קורא לכל אזרחי ישראל להראות את התמיכה והאמפתייה הגדולה פיזית.החיילים הללו זקוקים ללא מעט חום ותמיכה בהתחשב במצב".

טלפון לפרסום ולבירורים לציבור המעוניין לתרום במשרדי משולחן לשולחן: 09-7441757

אודה לך לפרסום האינפורמציה הזאת. לפרטים (לעיתונאים בלבד): אלמוג גולד-054-8158858

Following the escalation of tensions on Israel’s borders, Table to Table will be distributing gift packages to soldiers defending our northern and southern borders.

Table to Table, a national food rescue organization, will distribute gift packages to soldiers stationed on Israel’s northern and southern borders to help bolster their morale.

From today (13/7) until Tuesday, Table to Table is inviting the public to bring donations of candy or personal hygiene products to any of the following sites:

1. Raanana: Table to Table’s office – Rehov HaSadna 11, 2nd Floor (8:00 – 17:00).
2. Raanana: Table to Table’s warehouse – Rehov Katzin, Thursday, 13/7 or Sunday, 16/7, 9:00 – 12:00.
3. Jerusalem: Israel Center, Rehov Keren Hayesod 22; 13/7, Thursday, 8:30 – 22:00; 14/7, Friday, 8:30 – 12:30; 16/7, Sunday, 8:30 – 22:00; or 17/7, Monday, 8:30 – 22:00.

Table to Table will collect all the donated candies and distribute it to soldiers.

Joseph Gitler, the executive director of Table to Table: “As an organization that focuses on rescuing food and distributing to amutot that serve individuals in need, it is important to Table to Table, during these difficult days, to express support for our soldiers, who are forced to protect us. I call upon all the citizens of Israel to show their support for soldiers in a tangible way, as they defend our nation during this very difficult time.”

For more information, please contact call Table to Table at 09-744-1757. Table to Table would greatly appreciate if you would publicize this program.

For media inquiries only: please call Almog Gold – 054-815-8858.

***************************************************
TEHILLIM/PSALMS

In light of the grave situation in Israel, I would like to
suggest to each of you to take the initiative and/or turn to
your local Rabbi or community and set up local Tehillim
(Psalms) sessions. It takes almost no effort and the
cumulative effect of our Tefillot (prayers) can only do good!

Please pass this forward.

With love from the Holy Land!
Chaviva

התבקשתי לפרסם איזה פרקי תהילים לומר היום לאור המצב:

כ', ו', ט', י"ג, ט"ז, כ"ב, כ"ג, כ"ה, ל',ל"ג, מ"א, נ"ה,ס"ב (לפי הודעה ברדיו), ס"ט, צ"א, ק"ב, ק"כ, קכ"א, קמ"ב, ק"ל

+ אבינו מלכנו כולל לתענית ציבור היום, י"ז בתמוז

יהי רצון שיתקבלו תפילותנו!
* לרפואת הפצועים
* להחזרתם הביתה בריאים ושלמים של חיילנו החטופים
* לשמירת ולהצלחת שליחי הקב"ה בפעולתם להגן על העם והארץ
*** לגאולה שלמה במהרה בימנו!

אמן. כן יהי רצון!
Please say the following Psalms for the speedy recovery of the injured, the safe return of the hostages, the safety of our soldiers doing God's bidding by protecting the nation, for the safety of our citizens and for Peace in Israel.

It is best to say it in groups, but saying them on your own is fine too

According to announcements over the radio, please say chapters: 20, 6, 9, 13, 16, 22, 23, 25, 30, 33, 41, 55, 62, 69,91, 102, 120, 121, 142, 130

May we be worthy to experience the Redemption very soon. Amen!
************************************************************

WOMEN CALLED TO UPSTAGE THE WOMEN IN BLACK'S MEDIA EVENT

Women in Black", have invited the int'l media to cover a special vigil against the Israeli Army that will take place tomorrow Friday, 14 July, at
1:00 pm at
Hagar (Paris) Square, Jerusalem - in front of the Kings Hotel
________________
Women from around Jerusalem are therefore asked to come at 12:30 PM with hidden signs and, at precisely 1:00 PM, to wave Israeli flags and signs and to chant:
*We support the IDF
*Jail Dana OImert
*Win the War in Gaza and Lebanon!

"Women in Black", funded through contributions to "Bat Shalom" through "The New Israel Fund", should be thanked for working so hard to bring the international media to meet concerned women in Jerusalem

More about the Gush Katif Summer Basketball Movie

2006-07-09T10:52:00.000+03:00

New News:

Screenings currently being arranged abroad in Australia, England, and the United States.

This whole initiative is supported by local people around the world who care to have this movie screened in their communities as well.

If anyone is interested in arranging a showing in their community (Israel or abroad) they can contact info@homegamethemovie.com

WORLD-WIDE COMMEMORATION FOR GUSH KATIF, AUGUST 1, 2006

2006-07-09T09:55:00.000+03:00

Remembering the Past, Building the Future

Tuesday, August 1, 2006, will mark the first annual world-wide Commemoration for the 21 destroyed communities of Gush Katif, and its 10,000 Jewish inhabitants, now refugees seeking relief from their staggering losses. The focus will be on remembering the past, educating people as to the painful conditions still prevalent in regard to the refugees, preventing the repetition of such events, and raising funds to help rebuild the communities.

10,000 displaced Jews are still in temporary homes, tent cities and kibbutz rooms, without jobs, without farms, without local schools, and without facilities for young people. These people want to rebuild their broken lives. The world-wide community is asked to remember the Biblical connection and the legacy of the unforgettable thriving communities of Gush Katif and respond with emotional and financial support
We are calling upon congregations ,communities and to all of our supporters throughout the USA and world wide to mark this event either in parallel to the event which will take place in Israel or on Shabbat "Chazon" or on Shabbat "Nachamo" or at any time during this month.

The Gush Katif Committee is planning to send in the next days thousands of Kits to heads of communities. They will contain the necessary information about Gush Katif such as films, personal testimonies of the evacuees, photographs from Gush Katif, flyers and special Divrei Torah.

In Manhattan, the Commemoration will take place at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, 5 E. 62nd Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, on Tuesday, August 1, from 8-10 PM. A film, along with educational material prepared by the Gush Katif Committee, will be on the program, along with a roster of distinguished guest speakers from Israel and from the New York community.

This event is taking place in parallel to the major event that will be held in Jerusalem on August 1. On this day the Gush Katif Committee is organizing a series of events for the expellees and the public and expecting hundreds of thousands to participate. During the first part of the day we will be able to attend lectures, debates, to view movies and artistic photograph exhibit at the Binyanei Ahuma Convention Center. Following will be a gathering at the Atsmaut Park, where each one of the communities will be represented in a pictorial exhibition. At the park we will finish the writing of the Gush Katif Sefer Torah that will be brought in a procession to the Kotel Ama'aravi where it will be kept until B'H Am Israel returns to Gush Katif. For contributions to the Sefer Torah click here or send checks directly to Friends of Gush Katif, P.O Box 1184, Teaneck, NJ 07666.

As plans begin to unfold, we hear of daytime “street theater” events, an extensive email fund-raising campaign that has already been launched, and newspaper ads being prepared for release on August 1. Schools and summer camps are being enlisted, and synagogue events are being scheduled throughout the country. Details will be released in a few weeks, so that plans still in the works can be formalized. In the following days we will inform you about additional events

There is still time for communities everywhere to plan events, both big and small. The activities can take many forms. Use your imagination. Get involved. To give or get information, contact the following:
Barry Freedman, Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI – 212-828-2424; afsi@rcn.com
Helen Freedman, AFSI 917-886-0729; ghfree@aol.com
Dror Vanunu, Friends of Gush Katif – gkatif@netvision.net.il
Laurence Beziz, Friends of GK – help4@katifund.org

Rally to Save Gilad Shalit

2006-07-06T05:34:00.000+03:00

Rally to Save Gilad Shalit

Monday, July 10, 2006
In front of theSyrian Mission to the U.N.
820 Second Avenuebetween 43rd & 44th Streets12:00 noon /
Rain or Shine
Subways: 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central Station

Join the Ad Hoc Coalition for Justice in front of the Syrian Mission to the United Nations to send a message to Bashar al-Assad and Palestinian leaders.
Demand the immediate and unconditional release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, and an end to Syrian support for the terrorists of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah.

We encourage everyone to participate in this important event.
For more information contact the RJC at (212) 922 -0839 / newyork@rjchq.org or
The Conference of Presidents at (212) 318-6111 / info@conferenceofpresidents.org.
http://us.f538.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=newyork@rjchq.org
http://us.f538.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=newyork@rjchq.org
www.rjchq.org

Look who lives in chelm!

2006-07-05T21:09:00.000+03:00

thanks Risa

wouldn't that be something...

2006-07-05T20:38:00.000+03:00

thanks Boris

from Eye on the Post

2006-07-03T07:35:00.000+03:00

Eye on the Post

Sunday, July 2, 2006
Why Hasn't The Washington Post Reported The Announcement By Fatah's Terrorist Branch That It Has Developed Chemical And Biological Weapons and Will Use Them Against Israel?(click here to read our alert online)
******************
Saturday, July 1, 2006
Post Correspondent Falsely Reports That Israel Used Kidnapped Israeli Soldier As Pretext To Invade Gaza And Remove Hamas Government - Post's Own Editorial Contradicts Him, Saying It Was The Hamas Leader Who Made Such A Claim And That The Claim Appears To Be False(click here to read our alert online)
*******************
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Post Reporter Fancifully Elevates Fatah-Hamas Agreement Into Major Policy Shift - Claims Hamas Now Recognizes Israel - Virtually Ignores Hamas's Denials of Recognition of Israel and Affirmation of Its Goal to Eliminate Israel(click here to read our alert online)
*******************
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Post Minimizes Impact Of Daily Kassam Attacks On Sderot - Says "Real Problems" In Sderot Are Economic, Social And Israel's Fault(click here to read our alert online)
************************************
These alerts are distributed to many thousands of people both within and outside of the Washington Post's immediate print distribution area. Those of you who live outside the Washington DC area are just as important to us as those within this area. The Post is proud of its reputation worldwide as a leading news source and will not make an effort to improve its reporting about Israel unless it knows that its reputation is in danger. You can help us by spreading the word of the Post's effort to slant the news about events in Israel and the disputed territories and by continuing to forward our Alerts to as many people as you know who are interested in seeing that Israel is treated fairly by the press.

You are welcome to provide the Post with your opinion of the quality of its reporting about Israel. In doing so, please do not copy our "Alerts" or even portions of our "Alerts," because we often share our analyses with the Post, and the language will be recognized. Even if you send only a two or three sentence original _expression of your opinion to the Post, it will count. Be polite and be temperate in your letters so that you will not give The Post an easy excuse to ignore you.
Letters can be sent to: Bo Jones, Publisher & Chief Executive Officer, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC, 20071 (email: JonesB@washpost.com).
Donald Graham, Chairman, same street address (email: GrahamD@washpost.com).
Leonard Downie, Executive Editor, same street address (email address: DownieL@washpost.com)
Philip Bennett, Managing Editor, same street address (email address BennettP@washpost.com)
David Hoffman, Assistant Managing Editor for Foreign News , same street address (email address HoffmanD@washpost.com)
Keith Richburg, Foreign Editor, same street address (email address: RichburgK@washpost.com)
Deborah Howell, ombudsman, same street address (email address: ombudsman@washpost.com)
Please BCC feedback@eyeonthepost.org with your letters and email.

Summer was basketball in Nezer Hazani...

2006-07-03T07:24:00.000+03:00

From Anita Tucker.
Movies about the summer and basketball in Nezer Hazani.

Dear friends, we are getting close to the year memorial of the cruel destruction of my home of 29 years, Netzer Hazani, Gush Katif . As that date gets closer and closer it becomes more and more difficult for me to absorb and to understand what happened in Gush Katif and how it happened .Time has not been a healing factor.

I was so pleased to receive this link from Avi Abelow who camped out in Netzer Hazani the weeks before the expulsion and helped me cope and coordinate all the media that came to cover this "horror"story.
It was really refreshing for me to open this four minute preview to the upcoming movie that Avi Abelow and his friend Yaron Shane have prepared for us all, for you and for me . You too will feel their refreshing new angle of seeing and understanding what happened that summer in Gush Katif when you open this site and see the sneak preview.

http://www.homegamethemovie.com/trailer_eng.htm
I know that all of you who care will help Avi bring his special movie to our public by ordering tickets and telling your friends to do the same. http://www.homegamethemovie.com/trailer_eng.htm
Eretz Yisrael's pain is still so real ,Am Yisrael's pain is still so real --but the most agonizing pain of all is that of our youth who loved their home so much and gave all they had to try and save it--for them it is a wound that is still very open.

Please open preview and also forward to all your acquaintances who care.
anita
http://www.homegamethemovie.com/trailer_eng.htm