When a politician drops a bombshell, it is natural that there be all sorts of puzzled queries as to the meaning of that surprise announcement. Sarah Palin, in her first gubernatorial term, announced her resignation as Alaska’s governor on Friday. Immediately the speculation started as to what could be behind such a sudden decision. All this is understandable and very much expected. What isn’t expected, what isn’t natural, what is downright despicable however, is how some liberals like The New Times’ Maureen Dowd reacted.

Maureen Dowd, Pulitzer Prize winner, elitist snob, graceless harpy

Understandably all sorts of ideas, however far fetched, were floated as to the possible motivation. I have no problem with such reactions even if some are prompted by sheer malice. But… when you take someone whom the liberal media attacked because she was a woman, because she courageously and lovingly chose not to abort a foetus that was known would be born with Down syndrome, one must wonder at Maureen Dowd’s op-ed this past Saturday, July 4th.

Sarah Palin showed on Friday that in one respect at least, she is qualified to be president.

Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy.

[...]

On the shore of Lake Lucille, with wild fowl honking and the First Dude smiling, with Piper in the foreground and their Piper Cub in the background, the woman who took the Republican Party by storm only 10 months ago gave an incoherent, breathless and prickly stream of consciousness to a small group in her Wasilla yard. Gobsmacked Alaska politicians, Republican big shots, the national press, her brother, the D.C. lawyer who helped create her political action committee and yes, even Fox News, played catch-up.

What looked like a secret wedding turned out to be a public unraveling as the G.O.P. implosion continued: Sarah wanted everyone to know that she’s not having fun and people are being mean to her and she doesn’t feel like finishing her first term as governor.

As Andrew Breitbart put it in The Washington Times:

New York Times Barbie strikes again

What a shock that Maureen Dowd devoted her New York Times column Sunday to attack Sarah Palin. It did not so much criticize Alaska’s governor for prematurely stepping down from her official duties as to finish off what sister snipers Katie Couric and Tina Fey began last fall.

The assassination of Sarah Palin – by media.

For those who didn’t pay attention, Mrs. Palin’s unexpected stratospheric rise as a national political figure threatened the media’s preordained presidency of Barack Obama.

In light of how the Obama machine took down Hillary Clinton, which unsettled many feminists who believed 2008 was their time, many who saw sexism at play – the destruction of an ascendant Republican female icon was an urgent imperative for the Democratic Party.

In conjunction with the laws of political correctness as perfected by the Democratic Media Complex, it would take prominent women to take down an unlikely and unexpected conservative feminist symbol that threatened to steal away Mrs. Clinton’s votes from the Chosen One.

While the vanquished then-senator from New York conspicuously removed herself from this task – going so far as praising Sen. John McCain’s running mate as “a very composed and effective debater” – a trio of media partisans, each with a unique skill set, rose to the task of tearing down Sarah Palin.

Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey – Obama’s Angels (featuring Joy Behar in the role of “Bosley”) – used a potent mix of mockery, snobbery and vitriol to undermine Mrs. Palin’s feminist bona fides.

They are what my wife calls “pad throwers,” an allusion to the shower room scene in the Stephen King film “Carrie,” in which the popular girls throw sanitary napkins and tampons at the film’s namesake.

Simply put, they are bullies. And female bullies – “Mean Girls” as Miss Fey’s film calls them – are the cruelest kind.

Primarily motivated by a desire to keep abortion “safe, legal and rare,” female liberals in the media have carte blanche to do and say anything.

But since Mrs. Palin, a mother of five including a boy who was known to have Down syndrome before he was born, is a potent symbol of the pro-life movement, she is considered an enemy of the sisterhood.

Miss Dowd’s attempted takedown of Mrs. Palin is less skillful surgery than it is name calling using fun noun and adjective pairings. Think “Mad Libs.” And, that’s exactly what Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey are. Once the ladies did their job, liberal men like Jon Stewart and David Letterman had the cover to join the hate campaign.

While Mrs. Palin is at ease with her gender, as well as her place in the workplace and at home, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey convey a base insecurity in their feminine skin. Their rage is fueled by liberalism’s false feminist dogma and they take it out on a woman who chose not to join their angry sorority.

The governor of Alaska’s compelling narrative – athlete, beauty queen, wife, mother, hunter, successful politician – shows adherents of narrow leftist dogma that, perhaps, women really can have it all. Most importantly: freedom of thought.

In calling Alaska’s governor “Caribou Barbie,” Miss Dowd used beauty as a weapon to diminish Mrs. Palin’s achievements. A man would be reprimanded for this, but Miss Dowd is a Pulitzer Prize-winning pad thrower and is licensed for such vindictive pettiness.

“Caribou,” of course, is a stab at Mrs. Palin’s backwater, Red State ways, attacks on which an Upper Westside liberal snob can never get enough. Miss Dowd goes on to ridicule “Sarah’s country-music melodramas.” This is her barely veiled attempt to call Mrs. Palin “white trash.” And this has been the loathsome subtext of all media criticism of the Palins. They even went after their children. Mercilessly.

And Mrs. Palin during the Letterman saga finally cried, “Enough!”

Exposed in the relentless Palin attacks is not just political bias, but unmitigated class bias. The American mainstream media in its current free-fall is begging for more comeuppance when it continues to berate the values and lifestyles of the folks in flyover country who in simpler times used to be considered valued customers.

While “empathy” and “tolerance” may be liberalism’s highest values, Miss Dowd offers her conservative victims none. They are caricatured, demeaned and dehumanized. They are to be mocked and ridiculed to the point where the other students point and laugh. The MoDo template is so simple and repetitive it could be written into a software program.

Perhaps resigning from her first term in office may hurt Mrs. Palin’s attempts to run for higher office. Even I, a Palin supporter, now have qualms about her seeking higher office. But politics is not the most important way to influence our country, and reinforce conservatism’s relevancy in the current global disorder. Media is.

Sarah Palin may best serve her country by entering the media fray. In the pursuit of taking her down, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey have created the person who burns the liberal media prom down.

Hopefully, when she leaves office Mrs. Palin starts to work on her telekinetic powers.

I fully share Mr. Breitbart’s every sentiment!

It takes no literary brilliance to turn acerbic in one’s criticism, it takes no talent to disparage without bothering to back up one’s words with facts. In spite of her 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary Ms. Dowd has long since become too lazy to offer us the benefit of her classical education and B.A. in English Literature from Washington DC’s prestigious Catholic University. All too often, as if to remind herself she once actually possessed a fine working brain, she does include ill fitting classical and literary allusions in her writing… forgive her, gentle reader, she truly knows not what she does!

Like The New York Times, Maureen’s days of glory are long past. Her disconnect with middle America becomes more obvious with every word she writes. One must wonder what deep attachment she must share with “Pinch” Sulzberger if he allowed this poisonous, unfunny drivel, to pass as witty commentary… I’ll leave all speculation of whatever sharing may exist to better informed minds than mine, meanwhile it pleases me that the traditional print media is loosing ground, loosing talent and are being left with the likes of… Maureen Dowd. A marriage made in heaven, no doubt!

Chaim

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Buzz up

Venezuela’s malodorous piece of Devil’s excreta, Hugo Chavez, and Cuba’s Castro felt this action was akin to a coup and immediately protested their ally’s removal from office. Such reaction from those two was expected, what is surprising is how fast Obama reacted and who he chose to align himself with…

The Honduran Congress, in accordance with its constitutionally given powers, chose Roberto Micheletti Bain (from Zelaya’s own Liberal Party!) as the country’s Acting President.

“The decision was adopted by unanimity in the Congress. That means all of the political parties. It has been endorsed by sectors that represent a wide array of Hondurans — the Episcopal Church, the Catholic Church. And well, of course, the armed forces,” he said.

The alacrity and the tone with which Obama reacted in this case contrast greatly with the lame tone and reluctant but mild pronouncements he’s made on Iran’s situation.

The horrible events in Iran, the bloody repression of peaceful protests will only strengthen the grip of the hardliners because of the absence of strong condemnation by the West and especially by our own Obama. It is not truly known who won the Iranian elections but the speed with which Ahmedinejad was declared the winner looks very suspicious, at best. Moussavi is not as acerbic as the putrid little maggot. At the same time he sounds more concerned with the plight of the average Iranian as opposed to Ahmadinejad’s foreign adventures in Lebanon, Iraq and Gaza.

As Iran’s last Prime Minister from October 31, 1981 until the post was abolished on August 3, 1989 he led a government that showed little tolerance for dissent. For 20 years he stayed out of politics, refusing to run for President in 1997. Although he was the leading reformist candidate he declined again to run for the presidency in 2005. In 2009, taking advantage of the huge discontent with Ahmadinejad’s foreign adventures, idiotic pronouncements and collapsing economy – in spite of Iran’s oil riches – Moussavi decided to run stating:

that his main goals were: to institutionalize social justice, equality and fairness, freedom of expression, to root out corruption and to speed up Iran’s stagnant process of privatization and thus move Iran away from what he calls “an alms-based economy”. Moussavi criticized the current conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his alleged economic mismanagement, asking, when Iran “was making profits from the high prices of oil, did he (Ahmadinejad) envisage a situation when the prices would fall?”

What was his electoral platform?

Goals for presidential term

Mousaavi has on numerous occasions indicated his wish to change the constitution in order to remove the existing ban on the private ownership of television stations (currently all Iranian television stations are state-owned), as well as transfer the control of the law-enforcement forces to the President (so that they represent the people, since the people directly elect the President through popular vote) from the Supreme Leader. He has said that “the issue of non-compliance with the Iranian rules and regulations is the biggest problem that the country is currently faced with” and that he wishes to put in place ways to enforce the laws further, and that it is also important to bring an end to keeping people in the dark about government matters.

Outcome of Election

“Previously, he was revolutionary, because everyone inside the system was a revolutionary. But now he’s a reformer. Now he knows Gandhi – before he knew only Che Guevara. If we gain power through aggression we would have to keep it through aggression. That is why we’re having a green revolution, defined by peace and democracy.”
— Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Mousavi’s spokesman, June 19 2009

The election was held on June 12, 2009. The official results show Ahmadinejad winning by a landslide, though Mousavi and many others refuse to believe it, suggesting that the Interior Minister, Sadegh Mahsouli, an ally of Ahmadinejad, interfered with the election and distorted the votes to keep Ahmadinejad in power.

In spite of all the video evidence of the Ayatollahs’ brutal crackdown on the protesters, in spite of mounting evidence that some of the forces engaged in the crackdown belonged to Lebanon’s Hizbullah and Gaza’s Hamas, not only did US President Obama take his time before protesting but his words against the Ayatollahs showed less concern for the Iranians than his defense of Zelaya. Yet, in spite, of the blood on the paws of Ahmedinejad and his attack dogs, in spite of the heartfelt pleas for a strong statement against the Iranian regime… Obama could not bring himself to utter words of strong warnings against the Ayatollahs… it just wasn’t important enough!

Of course, if we look at what the President is doing on the home front, there is a lot to be desired as well. As of Friday past, Nancy Pelosi’s website still declared that a minimum of 24 hours would must pass before any piece of legislation could be voted on by Congress so that Representatives would have time to read it. Yet the despicable piece of legislation that was approved on Friday evening by 219 to212 was not readied until after 3:00am, less than 24 hours prior to the vote! I seem to remember President Bush was fiercely attacked as deviating from the rules for much less, or… is my memory playing tricks on me?

When will the mainstream media face up to their obligations to report the news, to truly report all the news “that’s fit to print?!?!?!” Why does the popularly elected President feel compelled to ram through the American throats far reaching legislation which not only will impact us and future generations, without responsible debate? Is his standing up in defense of dictators around the world a portent of his own future plans?!?!? Is dictatorship his real priority? Is that why he finds it necessary to first irreparably ruin our country?!?!? “Tell me who friends are and I’ll tell who you are,” says an old dictum… I’m worried, gentle reader, I’m worried…

Chaim

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Buzz it up

Last week was very eventful. President Obama’s trip to various Arab nations and his speech at Cairo University were newsworthy, if only because they marked a drastic departure from previous policy. Many blogs, worthier than mine, devoted much cyber ink to the speech’s implications and dangers. Thus, I will not bore you with my personal take. Suffice it to say, that was I flabbergasted (though deep down I expected it!) that after 9/11 our President wants our attitude to Islam to change without having asked for a change in Islamic attitudes towards us… Should tell you tell something about our top politico’s character and (mis)understanding of political realities.

The American economy continues its descent and jobless numbers are getting worse, even if the official spin is that they are not as bad as could have been expected. But, our top politicos find the subjecty not worthy of their attention as, throughout the week, pressure was applied on Israel without any being applied on the Palestinian leaders. The message is very clear, terrorism pays, at least if its victims are Jews and Jewish interests. Hillary (now that she no longer represents New York in the Senate) has finally revealed her true colors and especially her feeble grasp of truth by saying  that there never was or at least it never was official that natural growth of “settlements” were allowed by previous administrations. She continues to advocate against the natural growth of these settlements and does not allow inconvenient but incontrovertible truths to get get in the way of her boss’ agenda or her threats. All the while there’s been nary a word on the Palis having to comply in any way with the obligations signed under previous agreements or even having to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist… Is Obama engaging in foreign adventures to distract us from the impending economic doom?

Meanwhile Tzippi Livni, that lame excuse for a politician with a spine or even a smidgeon of integrity, whose public record reeks of opportunism, lies and self importance has suddenly become an expert on democracy… at least in the pages of  The New York Slimes. All this was done in an effort to ingratiate herself and worm her way into Obama’s and Clinton’s hearts so that they may force Netanyahu’s fall and thrust Tzippi upon the Israelis. Such meddling into another country’s internal politics, the arrogance of our liberal elite knowing better than that country’s denizens what is best for it, is appalling to say the least. Tzippi’s bowing and kowtowing is not only self serving and detrimental to Israel, but is repulsive to watch, repulsive to read and only exposes Kadima’s leader’s fecklessness.

This past Sunday, the Lebanese stopped – at least temporarily – Hizbulla’s, Iran’s and Syria’s dreams of taking over Lebanon. Blacksmiths of Lebanon presents an exhaustive analysis of the election. Most political pundits expected Hizbullah and its political block to emerge victorious but Lebanese sanity prevailed. People have not yet forgotten the destruction wrought on Lebanon by Hizbullah’s recklessness and are therefore not ready to trust their future welfare to these thugs. I can only sit back and admire Lebanon and its democratic ways, so unlike the rest of the Arab world. Having said that, Saad Hariri (murdered Rafik Hariri’s son) will probably become the next Prime Minister… Rightfully, he insists on all militias disarming. Considering that Hizbullah is stronger than the Lebanese Armed Forces and that many of the LAF’s members are Hizbullah sympathizers this will not be easy to accomplish. Hariri’s choices then are either risking yet another bloody civil war or ignoring Hizbullah… Neither alternative is healthy, both are VERY dangerous!  What will his choice be and what price will the Lebanese people have to pay for any compromise?!?!?

Rafik and Saad Hariri

Also on Sunday, over in Europe, right wing parties are on the ascendancy as shown in the EU parliamentary elections far beyond their staunchest supporters expectations. This is already causing heavy trepidations in the hearts of the EU’s commissioners and the horse trading has already began. As Europe veers away from socialism and its failures, we on this side of the Atlantic are plunging headlong into that very same abyss of failed leftist policies. No wonder, the Europeans feel Americans are years behind them. Pity!

Chaim

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General David Howell Petraeus, USA (born November 7, 1952) is the 10th and current Commander, U.S. Central Command. Petraeus previously served as Commanding General, Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) from January 26, 2007 to September 16, 2008. As Commander of MNF-I, Petraeus oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq. Petraeus was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College—class of 1983. He subsequently earned a M.P.A. degree (1985) and a Ph.D. degree (1987) in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He later served as Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy and also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University. He has a BS from the U.S. Military Academy—class of 1974—from which he graduated as a distinguished cadet (top 5% of his class).

Petraeus has garnered numerous accolades in recent years. In 2009, he received the National Defense Industrial Association’s Eisenhower Award, the Office of Strategic Service’s William Donovan Award, the No Greater Sacrifice Freedom Award, the Atlantic Council of the United States’ Military Leadership Award, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s Distinguished Citizen Award. In 2008, a poll conducted by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines selected Petraeus as one of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals. Also, the Business Executives for National Security awarded Petraeus their 2008 Eisenhower Award. Also in 2008, the Static Line Association named Petraeus as its 2008 Man of the Year, and Der Spiegel named him “America’s most respected soldier.” As 2008 came to a close, GQ Magazine (December 2008) named Petraeus as the “Leader of the Year: Right Man, Right Time”, Newsweek named him the 16th most powerful person in the world in its December 20, 2008 edition, and Prospect magazine named him the “Public Intellectual of the Year”. In 2007, Time named Petraeus one of the 100 most influential leaders and revolutionaries of the year as well as one of its four runners up for Time Person of the Year. He was also named the second most influential American conservative by The Daily Telegraph[13] as well as The Daily Telegraph’s 2007 Man of the Year. In 2005, Petraeus was selected as one of America’s top leaders by US News and World Report.

General Petraeus, indeed, has a distinguished career filled with admirable accomplishements I have no doubt he will continue to serve this country with honor and class. Because of all the above I find it astonishing that the following naive words, if true, could have come out of the great General’s mouth as reported in Lebanon’s Daily Star:

Petraeus: Hizbullah will have no reason to exist

Daily Star staff
Tuesday, June 02, 2009

BEIRUT: US Central Command Chief General David Petraeus told Al-Hayat newspaper in comments published on Monday that the administration of US President Barack Obama considered Hizbullah a terrorist organization, adding that the party did not participate in fostering stability in Lebanon. “Hizbullah’s justifications for existence will become void if the Palestinian cause is resolved. Reaching an agreement over a peace process in the Middle East will eliminate several groups’ justifications for existence,” he explained. Petraeus added that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will pave the way for Arabs and Muslims to help the US in its war against terrorism. – The Daily Star

The fact remains that Hizbullah came into existence out of hatred for the US, as demonstrated by the 1983 bombing of the American barracks in Beirut. That attack killed 299 soldiers out of which 241 were US Marines. Palestine was a cause it pretended to embrace much later and only because it gave its Iranian puppet masters an excuse and a way of trying to legitimize its existence in the Arab world while contributing to the instability of the Middle East. The fact remains that Hassan Nasrallah’s Hizbullah, under the direction of that putrid little maggot Ahmedinajad, is poised to take over Lebanon in the upcoming elections on June 7th and that has NOTHING to do with the Israeli/Palestinian problem. The fact remains that Hizbullah is exporting terror to Egypt and other Sunni Arab nations and that has NOTHING to do with the Israeli/Palestinian problem.  Lebanon’s Naharnet reported:

Hizbullah’s Growing Regional Role Piques Arabs

Arab governments are starting to see the fingerprints of Hizbullah all over the Middle East, adding to their growing alarm over Iran’s power and a widening Sunni-Shiite rift.

The worry comes at a time when Hizbullah is expected to make strong political gains inside Lebanon in the June 7 parliamentary elections.

The double whammy by Hizbullah — of growing political influence at home, coupled with more outreach abroad — has put the squeeze on traditional but waning Arab powers like Egypt, already rattled by President Barack Obama’s outreach to their foe Iran.

“Hizbullah ….. (now) plays a role that is heavier, more important and influential than many Arab nations,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese expert on the group.

Nowhere has the feud been as overt as between Hizbullah and Egypt, which recently accused the Lebanese group of organizing a cell to carry out terror attacks inside Egypt.

Yemen’s president also has accused Hizbullah operatives of training Shiite rebels there, while Saudi Arabia has repeatedly warned of Iranian influence across the region. Morocco unexpectedly cut ties with Iran earlier this year, accusing it of spreading Shiite influence in that mainly Sunni nation.

Hizbullah insists it has no intention of interfering in any country’s internal politics. Leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has denied interference in Yemen and said the Hizbullah operative arrested in Egypt was organizing weapons smuggling to neighboring Gaza, not targeting Egypt.

Even that — the first time Hizbullah has admitted arming the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza — was a startling, direct revelation of Hizbullah’s reach.

“We are not shy about providing the Palestinian people with the support they need,” said the Hizbullah leader’s point man on Arab affairs, Hassan Izzedine, in a recent interview. “But we don’t intervene, even if we are asked, when it is a problem between a regime and its people, or a regime and the opposition.”

However, Izzedine also suggested that Hizbullah hopes its record at fighting Israel would be a role model for Arabs. He also suggested Hizbullah would be ready to intervene to end any serious Sunni-Shiite rifts outside Lebanon. Nasrallah on Wednesday accused the United States and Israel of trying to create strife between Sunni Arab countries and Shiite Iran.

Shiite Hizbullah might normally have little appeal among the Sunni-dominated nations of the Arab Mideast. But Nasrallah’s popularity skyrocketed because of his fighters’ tough stand against Israel in a summer 2006 war in Lebanon.

Hizbullah wants “to make inroads into the wider Sunni Arab world,” said Ibrahim Bayram, an expert on Shiite affairs who writes for An-Nahar daily.

In Iraq, Hizbullah is accused of training Shiite militiamen in conflict with Baghdad’s central government, and of helping to plan a brazen 2007 attack on U.S. troops.

But other than in Iraq, there had never been accusations of Hizbullah directly targeting an Arab country’s government, as Egypt has claimed. Generally, Arab governments have turned a blind eye to Hizbullah activities.

Hizbullah’s new prominence comes as the Sunni-Shiite rift has worsened considerably in the last few years. On one side are Sunni Arab allies of the United States like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. On the other are Shiite Iran and its allies Syria, and Hizbullah and Sunni Hamas.

The pro-U.S. camp’s fears have spiked recently, in part because of Obama’s efforts to open dialogue with Iran. U.S. Arab allies worry that outreach will leave them in the lurch.

At the same time, Hizbullah’s power only seems to grow. In Lebanon, a coalition that includes Hizbullah holds a strong chance of winning upcoming parliamentary elections. And Britain is considering starting a dialogue, which would give the group a measure of international legitimacy.

Regionally, Egypt’s arrest of the cell it claimed was organized by Hizbullah quickly turned into an ugly spat. Egypt’s state-run press blasted Nasrallah as a criminal and “fake sheik.” President Hosni Mubarak warned Iran and Hizbullah not to interfere in Egypt’s “security and stability.”

Nasrallah replied by mocking Egypt as a fading power. “Did (the arrest) restore to Egypt its regional and international prestige?” he asked in one recent address. “Certainly not.”

Beirut, 21 May 09, 10:04

Is organizing to carry out attacks inside Egypt, Yemen, Morocco in any way related to the Palestinians??!? Is conducting attacks in Iraq in any way related to the Palestinians?!?!? I have no doubt General Petraeus is fully aware that there is no connection whatsoever. What then could have prompted him to engage in such blatant revisionism? Obviously the Obama administration is using the illustrious general to sway public opinion… as they get ready to throw the Zionist Entity far under the bus. Pity!

Chaim

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Vandals desecrate Christian graves in West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 24 (Reuters) – Vandals desecrated some 70 graves in two Palestinian Christian cemeteries on Sunday in what a Palestinian Authority official said was a rare attack on the Christian minority in the occupied West Bank.

A church official in the village of Jiffna near Ramallah where the attack took place called in Palestinian security officials to investigate, but neither he nor the investigators said they had any initial clues who was responsible.

“This unfortunate incident has brought Muslims and Christians closer and many from the Muslim community have shown solidarity with us and have condemned this action,” said Greek Orthodox Church official George Abdo.

Considering what has been happening for quite a few decades now, I have to resort to the old dictum that words are cheap, only real action speaks! And the actions are unequivocal in their intent.

He added that grave stones had been smashed and metal and stone crosses knocked off graves in the attack, which was discovered on Sunday. The head and a hand of a statue of the Madonna adorning one of the graves were also broken off.

Abdo said it was the first time such an incident had occurred in the village.

Issa Kassissieh, a Palestinian Authority official and adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas on Christian affairs, said he believed it was “an isolated act against Christian symbols”.

It may very well have been the first time it happened in the particular village, but it is certainly not an isolated event, not in the west Bank not in Gaza. In 2002, 200 Palestinian terrorists sought refuge at the Church of the Nativity, where they stole many of the historic gold vessels, desecrated thed the church by urinating and defecating in it… Was that too an “isolated” event, Mr. Kassissieh?!?!? Was the trashing of several churches and Christian schools in the Holy Land (Gaza and the West Bank) after Pope Benedict’s famous speech three years ago, also an “isolated” event, Mr. Kassissieh?!?!? And there are so many more… were they too “isolated” events, Mr. Kassissieh?!?!?

“Palestinian Christians and Muslims have always lived in harmony in the Holy Land,” Kassissieh said.

True! As long as the Christians were good dhimmis and kept paying paid their protection money jyzhia tax they were usually safe until the local sheikh needed an higher amount.

Jiffna, northeast of Ramallah, is home to some 1,600 inhabitants, about two thirds of whom are Christians from the Greek Orthodox and Catholic communities.

The Palestinian Authority says 50,000 of the West Bank’s 2.5 million Palestinian population are Christian.

Many Christians have emigrated over the past 30 years. Pope Benedict called on Christians not to abandon the Holy Land during a visit to the region earlier this month.

From the average Christian’s point of view, who is going to guarantee his/her safety? Would it be the same Hamas’ that reinstituted crucifixion for anyone who converts to Christianity? Or would it be the same Fatah controlled government whose spokesman can remember any of the recent “isolated” anti-Christian events on its soil?!?!?!?

In spite of protestations to the contrary, recent history shows that all these “isolated” events merely follow a systematic pattern of driving out the Christians and claim that Jesus was merely a Muslim prophet.

(H/T: The Vicious Babushka)

Wooow, just think of it… You were wrong all along, gentle reader, Jesus was a Muslim!!!! Will you now leave your church and attend a Mosque or would you rather pay the jyzhia tax?

The same liberals that so eloquently speak out for human rights, the same liberals that condemn any perceived violation of Muslim rights (whether it happened or not) are strangely quiet on this one. Where is the MSM? Why are these acts not being reported? Could they represent an inconvenient truth and therefore not “fit to print”?!?!? The silence is deafening!!! Pity!

Chaim

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Gender issues worsen Iraq’s medical woes

SAQLAWIYAH, Iraq (AP) — This part of Iraq, says Dr. Ayad al-Hadithy, is so conservative that a man would rather have his pregnant wife die in labor than be touched by a male nurse or doctor.

It’s just one of the difficulties faced by U.S. and Iraqi officials as they struggle to nurse the war-ravaged province of Anbar back to health. One showcase of their efforts is the reopening last year, for women only, of the Nursing School in Anbar’s capital, Ramadi. Another is a field school in the town of Saqlawiyah that has just graduated its first batch of 10 female nurse’s aides.

Nowhere are nurses more badly needed than in Saqlawiyah and its surrounding villages, where 50,000 people have no women doctors and only one female nurse and one midwife, both old and overworked.

The area’s most recent records, from five years ago when the anti-U.S. insurgency was just beginning, show that one in five women dies in childbirth, and many women never even see a doctor.

The strictures on women as nurses stems from the province’s strong tribal society and its puritan reading of Islam. But al-Hadithy, a 49-year-old mother-and-child care specialist, doesn’t accept it.

‘This is ignorance, not Islam,’ he said. ‘Nowhere does Islam say: ‘Let your wife die.”

It is worse than ignorance, it unequivocally shows that women are regarded as being a few degrees less than human. You can be sure that no Iraqi man would have a problem being treated by a female doctor and/or nurse.

Another obstacle, he said, is the reluctance of husbands to let their wives travel 25 miles (40 kilometers) to Ramadi to train as nurses. So three months ago, the center in Saqlawiyah was opened.

But first al-Hadithy had to persuade the village imams to back the project — or at least not preach against it — and the husbands to let their wives train with him.

Yet another problem is that female nursing is a profession held in low regard by Iraqis, because it requires night work and contact with male patients. ‘But I knew if I could teach them some basic first aid — how to give a shot or take someone’s blood pressure — these women would be accepted,’ al-Hadithy said.

Muzdalifa Hamza, 33, was told about the program by her cousin, Saqlawiyah’s only ambulance driver. Her husband approved and the mother of four even persuaded her sister Khulud, 40, to come along.

‘When someone knocks on my door in the middle of the night, I now know enough to go out and help a sick person,’ Hamza said. ‘But someday I want to be a real nurse.’ In the fall, she plans to enroll in a three-year course at the Nursing School.

The Saqlawiyah project was spearheaded by Vernon Pressley, a senior public health adviser from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the head of the local U.S. reconstruction team attached to the Marines in Ramadi.

‘The sheiks would never have agreed to let women leave for training far away, so I thought of bringing it to them,’ Pressley said. The Saqlawiyah project has cost $12,000, and the 10 trainees share a monthly wage of $250.

The sum is small compared with the $847 million the U.S. says it has spent on Iraq’s health needs since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But in Anbar, the security issue was huge. The province was a stronghold of the insurgency and the Saqlawiyah center couldn’t open until after tribal sheiks switched sides two years ago and joined U.S. troops in the fight.

The nursing shortage is only part of Iraq’s hollowed-out health care system, plagued by corruption, mismanagement and a lack of equipment and medicines.

Iraqi medical professionals started leaving in the 1990s, during Saddam Hussein’s rule. Since the invasion, thousands have fled abroad, while of those who stayed, at least 620 have been killed, among them 134 doctors, some gunned down in their own clinics.

Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Salih, Ramadi’s city health director, has escaped three assassination attempts that killed his assistant, five of his co-workers and a bodyguard.

Iraq’s violence has ebbed and Anbar is quiet, but Salih still works from a heavily guarded office. Meanwhile, the strengthened tribal mores have brought their own restrictions on females, so much so that women interviewed at Ramadi’s Nursing School asked not to be fully identified. They attend classes wearing all-covering dark robes and head scarves.

F.R., one of 10 siblings, is a high school graduate who persuaded her family to let her study nursing, telling them that someday she would have a job and bring in money.

‘I believe women can work and still be respected,’ said the 20-year-old.

But their teacher, Suad Aziz, says old prejudices run deep, even in urban Ramadi.

‘It’s the attitude that nurses are loose women,’ said Aziz. She looks at her class with hope, saying: ‘Once we have them graduate and working, things will change.’

Salih, the Ramadi health chief, says that since the invasion, 30 percent of the province’s doctors, about 800 of them, have left and 80 percent of the medical infrastructure, from health centers to hospitals, are in ruins.

Salih pushed the government in Baghdad to open the three nursing schools in Anbar, starting with Ramadi, with Fallujah and Haditha to follow. He believes they could solve the province’s nursing shortage in five years.

That is providing they get jobs. A nurse earns about $300 a month, but barren Anbar depends for funding on the Baghdad government, which has budget problems and must approve any hiring.

‘If I could, I would hire all the Nursing School graduates, tomorrow,’ says Khamis Musharaf, a pediatrician at the province’s only maternity and children’s hospital. ‘But the government won’t let us. Our hands are tied.’

The 250-bed hospital has no nurses, and relies on mothers to tend their sick children.</blockquote>

It is one thing to have no healthcare resources. Many poor areas must do without such essential services, but to have cultural prejudices so deeply ingrained as to deny women the right to train, so deeply ingrained that they would rather let them die than allow a male healthcare professional to approach them speaks volumes of a culture where women are merely chattel of their husbands, brothers or fathers. Is it any wonder the same culture condones hundreds if not thousands of yearly “honor killings” throughout the world?

What will it take for these creatures to learn that by denying opportunities, by denying equality to women, their society as a whole suffers and not just the women? Numerous studies have shown that the treatment of women in Muslim society is responsible to a high extent for the poverty of the society as a whole. What will it take for them to join the ranks of the 21st century?

Chaim

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New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murder

By Erich Follath

The United Nations special tribunal investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has reached surprising new conclusions — and it is keeping them secret. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, investigators now believe Hezbollah was behind the Hariri murder.

On February 14, 2005, Valentine’s Day, at 12:56 p.m., a massive bomb exploded in front of the Hotel St. Georges in Beirut, just as the motorcade of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri passed by. The explosives ripped a crater two meters deep into the street, and the blast destroyed the local branch of Britain’s HSBC Bank. Body parts were hurled as far as the roofs of surrounding buildings. Twenty-three people died in the explosion and ensuing inferno, including Hariri, his bodyguards and passersby.

The shock waves quickly spread across the Middle East. Why did Hariri have to die? Who carried out the attack and who was behind it? What did they hope to achieve politically?

The Hariri assassination has been the source of wild speculation ever since. Was it the work of terrorist organization al-Qaida, angered by Hariri’s close ties to the Saudi royal family? Or of the Israelis, as part of their constant efforts to weaken neighboring Lebanon? Or the Iranians, who hated secularist Hariri?

At the time of the attack, it was known that Hariri, a billionaire construction magnate who was responsible for the reconstruction of the Lebanese capital after decades of civil war, wanted to reenter politics. It was also known that he had had a falling out with Syrian President Bashar Assad after demanding the withdrawal of Syrian occupation forces from his native Lebanon. As a result, the prime suspects in the murder were the powerful Syrian military and intelligence agency, as well as their Lebanese henchmen.

[...]In late 2005, an investigation team approved by the United Nations and headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis found, after seven months of research, that Syrian security forces and high-ranking Lebanese officials were in fact responsible for the Hariri murder. Four suspects were arrested. But the smoking gun, the final piece of evidence, was not found. The pace of the investigation stalled under Mehlis’s Belgian successor, Serge Brammertz.

The establishment of a UN special tribunal was intended to provide certainty. It began its work on March 1, 2009. The tribunal, headquartered in the town of Leidschendam in the Netherlands, has a budget of more than €40 million ($56 million) for the first year alone, with the UN paying 51 percent and Beirut 49 percent of the cost. It has an initial mandate for three years, and the most severe sentence it can impose is life in prison. Canadian Daniel Bellemare, 57, was appointed to head the tribunal. Four of the 11 judges are Lebanese, whose identities have been kept secret, for security reasons.

As its first official act, the tribunal ordered the release, in early April, of the four men Mehlis had had arrested. By then, they had already spent more than three years sitting in a Lebanese prison. Since then, it has been deathly quiet in Leidschendam, as if the investigation had just begun and there were nothing to say.

But now there are signs that the investigation has yielded new and explosive results. SPIEGEL has learned from sources close to the tribunal and verified by examining internal documents, that the Hariri case is about to take a sensational turn. Intensive investigations in Lebanon are all pointing to a new conclusion: that it was not the Syrians, but instead special forces of the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah (”Party of God”) that planned and executed the diabolical attack. Tribunal chief prosecutor Bellemare and his judges apparently want to hold back this information, of which they been aware for about a month. What are they afraid of?

According to the detailed information provided by the SPIEGEL source, the fact that the case may have been “cracked” is the result of a mixture of serendipity à la Sherlock Holmes and the state-of-the-art technology used by cyber detectives. In months of painstaking work, a secretly operating special unit of the Lebanese security forces, headed by intelligence expert Captain Wissam Eid, filtered out the numbers of mobile phones that could be pinpointed to the area surrounding Hariri on the days leading up to the attack and on the date of the murder itself. The investigators referred to these mobile phones as the “first circle of hell.”

Captain Eid’s team eventually identified eight mobile phones, all of which had been purchased on the same day in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. They were activated six weeks before the assassination, and they were used exclusively for communication among their users and — with the exception of one case — were no longer used after the attack. They were apparently tools of the hit team that carried out the terrorist attack.

But there was also a “second circle of hell,” a network of about 20 mobile phones that were identified as being in proximity to the first eight phones noticeably often. According to the Lebanese security forces, all of the numbers involved apparently belong to the “operational arm” of Hezbollah, which maintains a militia in Lebanon that is more powerful than the regular Lebanese army. While part of the Party of God acts like a normal political organization, participating in democratic elections and appointing cabinet ministers, the other part uses less savory tactics, such as abductions near the Israeli border and terrorist attacks, such those committed against Jewish facilities in South America in 2002 and 2004.

…the “operational arm” of Hezbollah, which maintains a militia in Lebanon that is more powerful than the regular Lebanese army. And yet, Saad Hariri  – the son of the murdered man that prompted this whole investigation – and the son of another murdered Lebanese politician, Wallid Jumbalatt still don’t get it:

“Hariri and Kamal Jumblatt both legitimized and struggled for the Resistance and for Palestine, in the face of the one and only enemy, which is Israel,”

SpiegelOnline continues:

The whereabouts of the two Beirut groups of mobile phone users coincided again and again, and they were sometimes located near the site of the attack. The romantic attachment of one of the terrorists led the cyber-detectives directly to one of the main suspects. He committed the unbelievable indiscretion of calling his girlfriend from one of the “hot” phones. It only happened once, but it was enough to identify the man. He is believed to be Abd al-Majid Ghamlush, from the town of Rumin, a Hezbollah member who had completed training course in Iran. Ghamlush was also identified as the buyer of the mobile phones. He has since disappeared, and perhaps is no longer alive.

Ghamlush’s recklessness led investigators to the man they now suspect was the mastermind of the terrorist attack: Hajj Salim, 45. A southern Lebanese from Nabatiyah, Salim is considered to be the commander of the “military” wing of Hezbollah and lives in South Beirut, a Shiite stronghold. Salim’s secret “Special Operational Unit” reports directly to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, 48.

Imad Mughniyah, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, ran the unit until Feb. 12, 2008, when he was killed in an attack in Damascus, presumably by Israeli intelligence. Since then, Salim has largely assumed the duties of his notorious predecessor, with Mughniyah’s brother-in-law, Mustafa Badr al-Din, serving as his deputy. The two men report only to their superior, and to General Kassim Sulaimani, their contact in Tehran. The Iranians, the principal financiers of the military Lebanese “Party of God,” have repressed the Syrians’ influence.

The deeper the investigators in Beirut penetrated into the case, the clearer the picture became, according to the SPIEGEL source. They have apparently discovered which Hezbollah member obtained the small Mitsubishi truck used in the attack. They have also been able to trace the origins of the explosives, more than 1,000 kilograms of TNT, C4 and hexogen.

The Lebanese chief investigator and true hero of the story didn’t live to witness many of the recent successes in the investigation. Captain Eid, 31, was killed in a terrorist attack in the Beirut suburb of Hasmiyah on Jan. 25, 2008. The attack, in which three other people were also killed, was apparently intended to slow down the investigation. And, once again, there was evidence of involvement by the Hezbollah commando unit, just as there has been in each of more than a dozen attacks against prominent Lebanese in the last four years.

This leaves the question of motive unanswered. Many had an interest in Hariri’s death. Why should Hezbollah — or its backers in Iran — be responsible?

Hariri’s growing popularity could have been a thorn in the side of Lebanese Shiite leader Nasrallah. In 2005, the billionaire began to outstrip the revolutionary leader in terms of popularity. Besides, he stood for everything the fanatical and spartan Hezbollah leader hated: close ties to the West and a prominent position among moderate Arab heads of state, an opulent lifestyle, and membership in the competing Sunni faith. Hariri was, in a sense, the alternative to Nasrallah.

Hezbollah currently holds 14 of 128 seats in parliament, a number that is expected to rise. Some even believe that dramatic gains are possible for Hezbollah, although landslide-like changes in the Lebanese parliamentary system are relatively unlikely. A system of religious proportionality ensures, with list alliances arranged in advance, that about two-thirds of the seats in parliament are assigned before an election. In the cedar state, a Sunni must always be prime minister, while the Shiites are entitled to the office of speaker of parliament and the Christians the relatively unimportant office of the president.

Hezbollah has not managed to upset this system, adopted decades ago, even though it objectively puts its clientele at a disadvantage. As a result of differences in birthrates, there are now far more Shiites than Sunnis or Christians in Lebanon. Some say that Nasrallah isn’t even interested in securing power through elections, and that the “Party of God” would be satisfied with a modest share of the government. By not taking on too much government responsibility, Hezbollah would not be forced to dissolve its militias and make significant changes to its ideology of resistance.

The revelations about the alleged orchestrators of the Hariri murder will likely harm Hezbollah. Large segments of the population are weary of internal conflicts and are anxious for reconciliation. The leader of the movement, which, despite its formal recognition of the democratic rules of the game, remains on the US’s list of terrorist organizations, probably anticipates forthcoming problems with the UN tribunal. In a speech in Beirut, Nasrallah spoke of the tribunal’s “conspiratorial intentions.”

The revelations are likely to be just as unwelcome in Tehran, which sees itself confronted, once again, with the charge of exporting terrorism. Damascus’s view of the situation could be more mixed. Although the Syrian government is not being declared free of the suspicion of involvement, at least President Assad is no longer in the line of fire. Hardly anything suggests anymore that he was personally aware of the murder plot or even ordered the killing.

One can only speculate over the reasons why the Hariri tribunal is holding back its new information about the assassination. Perhaps the investigators in the Netherlands fear that it could stir up the situation in Lebanon. On Friday evening, the press office in Leidschendam responded tersely to a written inquiry from SPIEGEL, noting that it could not comment on “operational details.”

Detlev Mehlis, 60, the German senior prosecutor and former UN chief investigator, has his own set of concerns. He performed his investigation to the best of his knowledge and belief, questioning more than 500 witnesses, and now he must put up with the accusation of having focused his attention too heavily on Syrian leads. The UN tribunal’s order to release the generals who were arrested at his specific request is, at any rate, a serious blow to the German prosecutor.

One of the four, Jamal al-Sayyid, the former Lebanese general security director, has even filed a suit against Mehlis in France for “manipulated investigations.” In media interviews, such as an interview with the Al-Jazeera Arab television network last week, Sayyid has even taken his allegations a step further, accusing German police commissioner Gerhard Lehmann, Mehlis’s assistant in the Beirut investigations, of blackmail.

Sayyid claims that Lehmann, a member of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) proposed a deal with the Syrian president to the Lebanese man. Under the alleged arrangement, Assad would identify the person responsible for the Hariri killing and convince him to commit suicide, and then the case would be closed. According to Sayyid, the authorities in Beirut made “unethical proposals, as well as threats,” and he claims that he has recordings of the incriminating conversations.

Mehlis denies all accusations. Lehmann, now working on a new assignment in Saudi Arabia, was unavailable for comment. But the spotlight-loving Jamil al-Sayyid could soon be embarking on a new career. He is under consideration for the post of Lebanon’s next justice minister.

As Michael J. Totten says:

Der Spiegel might be wrong, and, if not, UN investigators themselves might be wrong. I’m no fan of Hezbollah, but I need more evidence before I’m willing to say “Hezbollah did it.”

Even so, this could be an enormous bombshell in Lebanon where voters go to the polls in a few weeks.

Yes, the timing of the leak is a bit suspicious though it could be entirely coincidental. Vice President Joseph Biden said this past Friday in Beirut, about two weeks before Lebanon’s elections:

I hope that we are going to be able to see, and the world will see, a fair, free, and transparent election that will reflect the will of all the people of Lebanon. I do not come here to back any particular party or any particular person. I come to demonstrate a strong United States backing for certain fundamental principles: the principle that the Lebanese people alone, the Lebanese people alone should choose their leaders; a principle that Lebanese sovereignty cannot, will be — and will not be traded away; a principle that the Lebanese state, accountable to the Lebanese people, is the defender of Lebanese freedom.

To the extent that Lebanon adheres to these principles enshrined in the Security Council resolutions, the United States looks forward to being your strong and enduring partner. The shape and composition of Lebanon’s government is for the Lebanese people to decide, to state the obvious — for no one else to decide but the Lebanese people.

What I do know, as has happened throughout world history, the election of leaders committed to the rule of law and economic reform opens the door to lasting growth and prosperity, as it will here in Lebanon. I know, for the United States at least, we will evaluate the shape of our assistance programs based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates. You’ve made much progress, and I have every confidence, Mr. President, that you will keep moving in the right direction.

I know, for the United States at least, we will evaluate the shape of our assistance programs based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates. Was this a genuine American concern? Frankly, it is a very legitimate cause of concern for the US, for the West, for Israel, how much power Hizbullah might gain as a result of the upcoming elections. But, was it entirely coincidental that Biden’s warning was made at a time when the “leaks” were made public? Could it be an effort to whitewash any direct involvement by Baby Assad in the Hariri murder? Could it be an effort to distance Assad from the center of the investigation, to embrace him as a powerbroker on peace in the Middle East, while hoping to break him away from the putrid little maggot Ahmedinjad and his handlers, the Ayatollahs?

Assad has more to gain by staying close to Iran, at this stage. The West will have to come up with far more “gifts” before Junior severs his ties to Iran. This latest development is a nice welcome surprise, from his point of view, and certainly proof, that future “gifts” can only get better. Does that mean that the US is throwing Lebanon’s future under the bus? Does that mean that in the interest of “peace” it might give Syria a “supervisory” role in Lebanon’s future? Is this just one more piece of evidence in charting the immorality and unrealism of Realpolitik?

SpiegelOnline’s Erich Follath cites no source other an anonymous one. Though he has impressive credentials in Middle East reporting, as a reporter he can still be fooled and used. The Tribunal has not denied the allegations but neither did they comment on them. While Hizbullah is more than capable of murder, the timing of these leaks is just too convenient.

Chaim

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If I Forget Thee… A Very Personal Recollection

Today is Jerusalem Day – celebrating the day Jerusalem’s Old City (including the Western Wall) was liberated by Israel’s Defense Forces… I thought I would share some thoughts…

I arrived in Israel on Friday before the Six Day War, as a volunteer. For Shabbat (Parshat Bamidbar) we stayed in Savyon, a ritzy neighborhood close to the airport and not far from Tel Aviv. The view was absolutely breathtaking! On Sunday morning I was taken to Kibbutz Lavi, strategically perched atop a hill overlooking the Tiberias-Haifa road.

Within minutes of arriving, the secretary of the kibbutz assigned me a room overlooking the road and gave me a quick tour. The first thing we did was to climb to the highest point of the Kibbutz, the water tower. “We are one minute away from Syria by Mig’s flight,” he said… I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear that… not just yet… The rest of the tour did not seem as important, in fact… I barely remember it.

By the afternoon I was joined by 10 more volunteers from England, Ireland, France and the US. At dinner time, in the kibbutz’ dining room surrounded by people I’d never met before, somehow, it felt like a homecoming. For the first time in my life whether I lived in Montevideo (Uruguay – where I grew up), Buenos Aires, Richmond, VA, New York City or traveling through Europe, I felt that this land was mine. Every pebble, every grain of sand, everything was mine, MINE! It’s hard to describe the emotions running though me at the time, but believe me, I am reliving every single one of them as I write…

After a tasty meal in a darkened dining room (no electric lights were allowed anywhere, so as to make it harder for enemy planes to spot us, only candles and small flashlights could be used) when everyone except for the guards had gone to sleep, a horrible noise woke us. We looked out the window and realized it was coming from the road below. Some of us in the room wanted to go down to the road but the guards would not allow it. No one else in the kibbutz was outside… The road was swarming with tanks, on their way to Syria… We tried going back to sleep, but between the noise and the excitement, who could do that?

At early dawn they came for us and we were given suitable clothing (the famous Israeli kova tembel, a very distinctly shaped hat -to ward off the sun – turned out to be the most important item, a sand colored shirt and matching shorts (both ill fitting, of course!) and boots. Then we were issued pickaxes and hoes, and told that we would be digging trenches. Easier said than done, on very rocky ground! By the afternoon, when the heat made it very hard to work, we volunteers had realized very little progress against the rocks, but we all had blisters on our hands… By contrast, a group of teenage kibbutznik girls not far from us working on a similar type of ground astounded us by how much they had accomplished…

Most of us had transistor radios and we listened to the BBC (English was a lot easier to understand than Hebrew) at 7:00am that Monday morning they reported that Israeli war planes had attacked Egyptian military airfields and totally destroyed their Air Force before they could get airborne… Kol Israel – The Voice of Israel not only reported no news but kept playing an hours long repertoire of Hebrew songs. There was no way to corroborate the truth on this BBC story… At 8:00am one of the kibbutz wives reported with glee that she just received a call from her Air Force husband… Every single Israeli plane returned safely to base.

At 10:00am Kol Israel finally reported that we were amidst a war but gave no details and kept playing songs… Shortly thereafter there was a dog fight, directly above our heads, between an Israeli Mirage and a Syrian MIG, and the Israelis continued working seemingly without a care. We, the volunteers – mitnadvim, looked up fascinated… strangely without fear… The MIG was shot down after a few minutes, and an armed group from the kibbutz left in two Jeeps, they came back awhile later with a piece of the MIG’s tail and.. the Syrian pilot whom they held until members of the IDF came to pick him up.

At dinner time, we non-kibbutzniks could only talk about the news on the BBC while the kibbutznikim didn’t seem to show much concern… Then came Tuesday, June 7 – the 28th of Iyar… a day that would forever change history… By late afternoon the BBC reported that the Old City of Jerusalem was in Israeli hands, a few hours later Kol Israel played a sound bite by General Motta Gur, commanding officer of the crack paratroopers brigade that captured the Western Wall: “Har haBayit beyodenu… – The Temple Mount is in our hands…” Soon there was barely a dry eye… happiness knew no bounds…

The full import of those simple words did not totally hit me until Shavu’ot (the following week) when five of us mitnadvim – volunteers found ourselves in Yerushalayim – Jerusalem. On what in the diaspora would have been the second day of the holy day we walked to Har Tzyion – Mount Zion – so we could get to the Wailing Wall. As we found our way through through the narrow, winding road filled with history, soaked with Jewish blood, I felt as if my ancestors were there walking with me, gently guiding me… Finally we spied the Kotel in the distance… not the sweeping plaza we have today, but a very narrow area surrounded by Arab houses and public latrines… The five of us, as if we were part of a Greek chorus in some ancient play… started crying unabashedly as little children would… Father in Heaven, we are home, we are home…!!!

As we walked back through the Old City, as we saw the narrow streets filled with bazaars, with butcher shops hung with huge cuts of meat and myriad flies buzzing on and around them, with the stench of public latrines we, every single one of us, understood why of all the beautiful cities around the world Hakakosh Baruch Hu – The Holy One, Blessed He, chose Yerushalayim, Ir Hakododesh as His Holy City…

“Im eshkachech Yerushalayim, tishkach yemini! – If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, let my right arm loose its cunning!” Though we lived in exile for thousands of years, our prayers always spoke of Jerusalem. No Holy Day ever ended without the words: “Beshana haba beYerushalayim! – The next year in Jerusalem!” Jerusalem, Jerusalem, your Jews NEVER forgot you…

Chaim

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PLEASE READ AND ACT ASAP; DO NOT LET UTUBE CANCEL THIS VIDEO!
Subject: PLEASE READ AND ACT ASAP; DO NOT LET YOUTUBE CANCEL THIS VIDEO!
NE PAS LAISSER YOUTUBE ANNULER CETTE VIDEO!

The IDF broadcasting on You Tube, presented by Capt. Avichai Adraee, an Israel officer speaking Arabic, showing and explaining in full clarity what is really going on in Gaza and how Hamas terrorists operate from the midst of civilian neighborhood, schools and mosques and how they used a United Nations school as shelter while firing mortar bombs at Israeli soldiers, thus endangering Palestinian civilians…

However, You Tube wants to remove this video by using the excuse that not too many people are logging in. So please watch the video once, twice and three times and also forward this e-mail to as many people so they also log in and the IDF will be able to have its voice heard.

Just this one time, please send this mail to your entire list to your friend, foes, distant relatives and/or acquaintances. This rally is most important as the Arab propaganda machine has cranked up and stands to completely drown Israel ’s position.

Thank you.

Here is the video:

Since the video was uploaded it was was viewed over 308, 396 times, since it was uploaded on January 9th, this year. It has been viewed far more than other videos which were uploaded long before that. Please do not let Israel’s voice be drowned out, please watch this video and encourage all your friends to watch it as well. It is spoken in Arabic, but has English subtitles. Let’s not allow Israel’s voice to be silenced by false excuses, by those who hate the truth, by those who would rejoice at Israel’s destruction.

As for the sweet kids on digg.com and other such places, who will flock to claim this video is merely propaganda, why not disprove it with unassailable facts? Why not respond without Palliwood’s effects, without emotional outburst that  only show the paucity of argument of those who know only how to use prfanity and ad hoc personal attacks? Why is it necessary to get rid of a video that shows, that proves, an inconvenient truth? I guess it is precisely because the truth is so inconvenient, that the supporters of Hamas can’t take it. Pity!

Chaim

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Joe Biden said during the runup to the elections that he is the “best friend Israel has in Congress.” He also claimed that after his years at the Capitol, he had ‘already forgotten more about foreign policy than most of his colleagues ever knew. If his recent address to AIPAC is proof of how deep his knowledge and understanding of the realities of foreign affairs is, then he must indeed have forgotten everything he ever knew!

It used to be that vice-presidents were seen but not heard, that was an American tradition. This was the case. especially in sensitive foreign policy matters. Vice President Biden, just like his boss President Obama, is not following tradition. There suddenly seem to be no other issues that are worth talking about. The possible takeover of nuclear Pakistan by Islamic extremists extremists is merely a trifle when compared with the plight of Palestinians and their corrupt, murderous, terrorist leadership. Even the war in Afghanistan that is not quite going our way isn’t worth mentioning. North Korea is restarting its nuclear program yet it pales in importance before the issue of a Palestinian state. How can I say that? Joe Biden, the illustrious VP, never concerned himself with any of these other issues, never was heard to express an opinion on those matters.

Obviously, for Joe, the single most important issue on the face of this earth is that Israel must agree to a two state solution in the Middle East, come hell or high water. And all before the Palestinians give any indication that they are ready to live in peace with the State of Israel. The second most important issue on the face of the earth is, of course, the ceasing of any settlement activity. The fact that thousands are dying of cholera in Zimbabwe or the fact that hundreds of millions of people in Africa are ruled by dictators and have no clean water to drink, well… these are of far less importance than some mobile homes on a hilltop outside of Jerusalem. The Vice President only choose to speak about settlement activity and a Palestinian state. That is seemingly the most pressing problem in the world.

The displacement of over 2, 500,000 million people from their homes in Darfur by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias, the politically motivated raping of over 200,000 women and girls in Congo are of absolutely no concern to Joe Biden. Its good to know that the man who is a heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the world has his priorities right!

Admittedly he may have hesitated to make such a statement in front of the most powerful pro Israel lobby, AIPAC. He even sounded quasi apologetic when he said “the things I am about to say you will not like,” he thought the crowd might take offense to such a statement. They didn’t! They just applauded. That applause, my friends, astounded many and for good reason. AIPAC has always lobbied for Israel in the murky world of Washington politics. Even when very controversial policies were presented, AIPAC’s task was to gather support for Israel. That was the case when former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plan of dismantling Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria. Many in the Jewish Diaspora were against that move but AIPAC toed the official line and did not criticize official Israeli policy. Yet, everyone in that room where Vice-President Biden spoke knew exactly what the official stance of the Israeli government is (for the moment, at least ) with regard to a Palestinian state. As far as Israel’s current government is concerned, there can only be a Palestinian state when its leadership recognizes the Jewish character of Israel and reins in its terrorists. Are such conditions out of line? Or, are there merely the minimal conditions Israel needs in order to guarantee there will be no further threat to its existence?!? That most clearly puts the onus on the Palestinian leadership to prove they can live at peace with Israel, and only then can Israel become enthused about that Palestinian State. Why then would AIPAC’s attendees applaud the statements by Mr. Biden? The answer is not that difficult to ascertain.

They are scared of the dual loyalty accusations that will forever hound the American Jew. But are they merely court Jews, or will they lobby for Israel, for PM Netanyahu’s ideas? Meanwhile, it is truly interesting that the religious right in the United States backs Israel more than the most powerful and vocal pro Israel lobby, more powerfully than many a Jew in or out of Israel itself.

Some may see Vice President Biden’s performance at AIPAC as a good cop/bad cop game that Obama and Biden are playing. President Obama does not want to be confrontational, just yet. This confrontation seems unavoidable as the fast approaching meeting between Israeli PM Netanyahu and President Obama gets clooms ahead. It’s going to be interesting.

David Waldman