Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Malaysia cancels concert because of singer's Allah tattoos
Muslim-majority Malaysia on Tuesday banned a planned concert by Erykah Badu after a photograph appeared showing the Grammy-winning singer with the Arabic word for Allah written on her body.Here is the offending photo. The two "Allahs" are on her shoulders.
The American R&B singer was scheduled to perform Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur, but some Muslim groups said Badu was an unsuitable role model for young Malaysians after seeing a publicity photo of her with what appeared to be temporary tattoos of the word Allah on her bare shoulders.
A government committee that includes police and Islamic policy officials decided to forbid Badu's show because the body art was "an insult to Islam and a very serious offense," Information Minister Rais Yatim said in a statement.
The photo of Badu had "triggered public criticism that could jeopardize national security and cause a negative impact to the government's image," the statement added.
The 41-year-old, Dallas-born singer had already arrived in Malaysia. She can stay as a tourist but will not be allowed to perform, an Information Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements.
It was the first concert by a Western performer to be banned in Malaysia in recent years. Several other stars, including Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne, were told to dress modestly while performing.
The photograph of Badu, which also appears on her official fan website, attracted attention after Malaysia's most widely read English-language daily, The Star, published it Monday.
On Tuesday, the newspaper apologized to Muslims for what it called an "oversight," saying it deeply regretted any offense sparked by the photo, which was "inadvertently published." The Home Ministry summoned The Star's editors to explain the photograph, which caused some Muslim activists to demand the newspaper's suspension.
Good thing the newspaper didn't mention the Hebrew letters (apparently meant to spell "Badu.") She'd get lynched.
West warns of 'Second Holocaust'
Representative Allen West (R-Fl) warned at a townhall meeting on Monday that Israel could (God forbid) face a 'second Holocaust' if the United States does not protect it from Iran and other enemies.Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) warned that Israel could become the site of a "second Holocaust" if the United States does not provide military cover against Iran, a local Jacksonville, Fla., radio station, WOKV-AM/FM, reported on Monday.I love Allen West, and I think that the US ought to be striking Iran - for its own sake and also for Israel's sake. But whether or not the US strikes Iran isn't going to protect us from a 'second Holocaust.' If God wants there to be a 'second Holocaust' - God forbid - there is nothing that the United States can do about it, and if God doesn't want there to be a 'second Holocaust' then there is nothing Iran can do to perpetrate one. We have to do what we are supposed to do, and make our best efforts to protect ourselves (including trying to get the US to do something) and God will take care of the rest.
“You’re looking at a second Holocaust … [if Israel doesn't] know they can trust and depend upon the stars and stripes … to provide them support,” said West, who was speaking at the First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach.
“There will be no spiritual homeland for Christians to return back to" if that Holocaust does occur, said West in the same speech, as reported by the Palm Beach Post."There will be no homeland for the Jewish people in the United States of America for their birthright. This is a dangerous situation and we have to take the Iranians for their word.”
In the same speech, West also warned that Israel's other hostile neighbor, Syria, could quickly turn from its current political turmoil to war against Israel.
“What happens if all of a sudden Syria doesn’t focus on fighting each other, but focus on fighting Israel?” West asked.
KAHANE WAS RIGHT: Knesset Law Committee Chairman calls for removal of 'Israeli Arab' judge who would not sing national anthem
Knesset Law Committee Chairman David Rotem has called for the removal of 'Israeli Arab' Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran after Joubran refused to participate in singing Israel's National Anthem at the conclusion of the installation ceremony for new Supreme Court Chief Justice Asher Grunis. Joubran's silence was shown on live television by Israel's Channel 2 (I have not found the video yet) according to Israel Radio.A number of MKs from the right wing spoke out against Joubran’s silence during the swearing in of new Supreme Court President Asher Grunis, with Likud’s Tzipi Hotovely saying that such actions are what cause the Supreme Court to lose its status in the eyes of the public.Rabbi Meir Kahane warned that this would happen. But no one wanted to listen. Instead, Kahane was branded a racist and a terrorist. And Joubran is not a racist?
Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem, who heads the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, said he would turn to Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman and act to remove Joubran from his chair.
Earlier in the year, MK Michael Ben-Ari pushed to legislate a law which would make army or national service a mandatory criteria for being appointed as a judge in the Supreme Court.
The law was nicknamed the “Joubran law,” and Ben-Ari said on Tuesday evening that Joubran’s silence during the anthem was proof of its necessity. “Who ever doesn’t like the anthem can leave,” he said. “I promise I won’t beg him to stay.”
First Yahrtzeit of Fogel Family Hy”d Today
Today, on the one-year anniversary of the murder of the Fogel family in the Samarian community of Itamar, a a new beis medrash will be inaugurated in their memories.
Builders are putting the final touches on the building, to be called Mishkan Ehud, or Ehud Hall, in memory of the late Rabbi Ehud (Udi) Fogel, who was murdered in his home along with his wife Ruth and three of their children, Yoav, Elad and baby Hadas. The new building will become the permanent residence of the Itamar Yeshiva.
The decision to construct the complex was made during the shiva, or seven-day mourning period, for the family. Its purpose is to commemorate the family as well as strengthen the settlement enterprise.
Stonemason and artist Assaf Kidron is building an ark in the building’s main hall, using local stones and mortar made from earth from the Fogels’ garden. Kidron, a resident of Itamar, was the last person to see Ehud Fogel alive. Kidron initiated and led the project of constructing the holy ark from local stones. The ark will rise to a height of five meters, and is designed to be the most prominent feature of the beit midrash. During the inauguration event, a Torah scroll will be introduced to the ark. The scroll, contributed by a Brazilian businessman, will have its final letters ceremoniously inscribed on the one-year anniversary of the murder.
“I’ve had a strong a sense of mission planning and building this holy ark, because the entire world, which was shocked by the murder, will turn their eyes to Itamar on the anniversary of the murder to observe how the community is recovering,” said Kidron. “I feel we will emerge stronger.”
“The holy ark is built from local stones, which absorbed our Jewish history in the land of Israel,” he said. “The stones speak for themselves and convey a connection to the land, to deep-rootedness, to the Bible and to continuity.”
Residents of Itamar said on Sunday that NIS 2 million ($530 million) would be required to complete the building, and they were appealing to the wider public to contribute. Itamar Yeshiva director Aryeh Goldberger said, “It was very important for us to show that we continue to live and build here, despite all those who plot to destroy us.”
The women’s prayer section of the new structure will be called Ruth Hall after Ruth Fogel, and the smaller lecture halls will be named after each of the murdered children. “Residents of Itamar experienced a very traumatic event,” said Goldberger, “but it has spawned a large and impressive permanent structure, which gives all of us the strength to continue and hold on to this place. This is the appropriate Zionist response.”
Two Palestinians have been convicted of the Fogel family’s murders and have each been sentenced to five terms of life imprisonment.
ADL: Farrakhan's Hate Speech 'Textbook Example' of Anti-Semitism Addressing the Nation of Islam's annual convention, Minister Louis Farrakhan accused the Jews of trying to push America into war with Iran.
Minister Louis Farrakhan, the racist leader of the Nation of Islam, once again echoed the anti-Semitic propaganda of which he has been widely accused.
Speaking to the Nation of Islam’s 82nd annual Savior’s Day celebration in Chicago on Tuesday, he accused Jews of controlling the media and “Zionists” of trying to push American into war with Iran.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) characterized his speech as “a textbook example” of the continuing potency of anti-Semitism and hatred that continues to exist in some segments of society to this day.
He echoed the typical anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories, accusing the Jews of controlling the government, media, finance and entertainment but professed that he is “not anti-Semitic,” but rather “just telling the truth.
Addressing the crowd he announced, "I advise white and black America, Hispanic and Asian America, why would you send your children to die in a war engineered by Zionists who love Israel more than they love the United States of America?
"Don't send these children to war for the sake of Israel," he pleaded.
“In 100 years, they control movies, television, recording, publishing, commerce, radio, they own it all. Jewish people were not the origin of Hollywood, but they took it over," Farrakhan claimed.
"Farrakhan's annual address to the Nation of Islam was dripping with anti-Semitism and hatred and should stand as a textbook example of the continuing potency in some circles of anti-Semitism in America," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
"Rather than laugh him off the stage, tens of thousands of supporters cheered him on and encouraged his anti-Semitism and bigotry. Not since Father Coughlin have we seen a religious figure so obsessed with anti-Semitism. In the past few years Farrakhan has turned his message and the mission of the Nation of Islam into a wide-ranging campaign to demonize and scapegoat Jews," according to Foxman.
“In addition to Farrakhan’s speech, the convention included a plenary session that sought to demonstrate disproportionate Jewish involvement in the slave trade. The session, titled ‘Business is Warfare: The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,’ borrowed its name from a set of Nation of Islam books alleging that Jewish exploitation of blacks during the slave trade has caused deep and prolonged repercussions for African Americans,” the ADL reported.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
NYT: In Texas, the Sabbath Trumps the Semifinals
The Robert M. Beren Academy, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Houston, won its regional championship to advance to the boys basketball state semifinals this weekend in Dallas. But the team will not make the trip.
The Beren Academy players observe the Sabbath and do not play from sundown on Fridays to sundown on Saturdays. Their semifinal game is scheduled for 9 p.m. Friday.
“The sacred mission will trump excellence in the secular world,” Rabbi Harry Sinoff, Beren’s head of school, said Monday in a telephone interview.
The school filed an appeal to change the time of the game with the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or Tapps, the group that organizes the tournament. On Monday morning, representatives of the school were notified that the association’s nine-member executive board had rejected the appeal.
“When Beren’s joined years ago, we advised them that the Sabbath would present them with a problem with the finals,” Edd Burleson, the director of the association, said. “In the past, Tapps has held firmly to their rules because if schedules are changed for these schools, it’s hard for other schools.
“If we solve one problem, we create another problem.”
Membership in the association is voluntary, Burleson said.
“If the schools are just going to arrange their own schedule, why do we even set a tournament?” Burleson said. “Over a period of time, our state tournament, which is a highlight of our association, deteriorates to nothing. That’s the whole point of having an organization.”
Conflicts between religious beliefs and scheduling are becoming more commonplace because of the nation’s changing demographics, said Sarah Barringer Gordon, a professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Some associations are rethinking who their constituencies are,” Gordon said. “As pluralism works its way through American sports, we’re going to see more and more situations like this one.”
Several of Beren Academy’s opponents this season agreed to change the time of their games to avoid conflicts with the Sabbath, the school’s boys basketball coach, Chris Cole, said.
Cole, the team’s coach for 10 years, said many of the players on this season’s team, which is 23-5, had been playing together since grade school.
“We have a pretty mature group of guys,” Cole said. “They knew this could happen down the road.”
Beren Academy has an enrollment of 274, with students from 18 months to 18 years old. The upper-level school has 71 students.
This would have been Beren Academy’s first trip to the state semifinals. (The tournament is separate from the larger one run by the University Interscholastic League for the state’s public schools.) Zachary Yoshor, a 16-year-old junior on the basketball team, said this season’s success was a result of the players’ working together for so long.
“Our record has never been this good,” Yoshor said. “We’ve been able to win against teams that we’ve never beaten before. I’m appreciative that we’ve been able to play this far.”
The appeal request proposed that the team drive from Houston to Dallas on Thursday night, spend the night and play the semifinal game earlier on Friday, school officials said. Beren Academy’s opponent would have been Covenant School, from Dallas. Our Lady of the Hills, the team from Kerrville that Beren Academy defeated in the regional final, will replace Beren Academy in the state semifinal game.
“There isn’t any more for us to do,” Sinoff said. “We want to be in this year, but if not this year, next year.”
Mark Buchine, whose 17-year-old son, Isaac, plays for Beren Academy, said he still planned to head to Dallas with hopes of a resolution that would allow him to see his son play this weekend.
“It’s disappointing,” Buchine said. “I think the kids will be disappointed, too, but the team has this attitude of when there are bad calls, you just move on.”
When you Believe - Shimon Craimer
Many nights we pray
With no proof anyone could hear
And our hearts a hopeful song
We barely understand
Now we are not afraid
Although we know there?s much to fear
We were moving mountains long
Before we know we could
Oh yes, there can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It?s hard to kill
Who knows what miracle
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will
You will when you believe
In this time of fear
When prayer so often proves in vain
Hope seems like the summer birds
Too swiftly flown away
And now I am standing here
My heart?s so full, I can?t explain
Seeking faith and speaking words
I never thought I?d say
There can be miracles
[From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/m/mariah-carey-lyrics/when-you-believe-lyrics.html]
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It?s hard to kill
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will
You will when you believe
They don?t always happen when you ask
And it?s easy to give in to your fear, ohh
But when you?re blinded by your pain
Can?t see your way safe through the rain
Thought of a still resilient voice
Says love is very near
There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It?s hard to kill
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will, how you will
You will when you believe
You will when you believe
Just believe
You will when you believe
Just believe
You will when you believe
Monday, February 27, 2012
"Stoning" Attack on Israeli Car
Zehava Weiss - "Stoning"
February 21, 2012
MY THEORY - I was trying to figure out why the Palestinians would invite videographers and photographers to witness their criminal/terrorist actions. Their high level of perverse hatred/evil plus their low level of intelligence might be one plausible answer. However, I have come up with something else. I suspect that the Arabs were trying to instigate a response from the Jewish drivers (i.e. a driver pulling a weapon or one who elected to barrel through the mob). IMHO these responses would have been warranted, however, if the Arabs were able to catch such a response on video, they would be able to use it to vilify the people and the State of Israel. Naturally, regardless of how ridiculous the accusations may have been, Israel would nonetheless capitulate and offer some sort of concession to the Palestinians as an appeasement. This is sort of the way things go here. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt and the "Peace-Loving" Palestinians continue to show their true colors to the world.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘dictator’ exiled from Oscars
Security guards remove Sacha Baron Cohen from Oscar ceremony after he spills “ashes” on television host • Cohen initially blames “Zionists” for banning him from the ceremony • Academy says Cohen is welcome, just not in character.
News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Sacha Baron Cohen, dressed as Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen, on the Oscar red carpet. [Archive] | Photo credit: AP |
British Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was forcibly removed from the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday after spilling a powdery substance all over E! host Ryan Seacrest’s tuxedo.
Despite being expressly forbidden to do so, Cohen arrived at the ceremony dressed as Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen, the lead character in his latest film, “The Dictator,” flanked by two "amazonian guards" and carrying an urn he jokingly claimed contained the ashes of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
Cohen, who routinely dresses in character and takes promotional stunts to new, and often grotesque, levels, had been told by the academy that the Aladeen character was banned from the red carpet. The academy did make it clear, however, that Cohen himself was welcome.
Aladeen is a flamboyant dictator whose dress, manner and spirit are a twisted homage to the late Libyan tyrant Moammar Gadhafi. In a statement on the website of the Republic of Wadiya, the fictional kingdom ruled by the dictator, Aladeen blamed the “Zionists” for the ban. “Admiral General Aladeen will deliver a formal response tomorrow morning to being banned from the Oscars by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Zionists,” he wrote on Thursday.
In typical tyrant fashion, Cohen defied the ban and appeared on the Kodak Theater’s red carpet Sunday night in full regalia as Aladeen. Seacrest grabbed the comedian for an interview, during which he explained that he was carrying the urn because it was Kim's dream “to be sprinkled over the red carpet and over Halle Berry’s chest.” Then, as Seacrest was bending down, Cohen dumped the ashes all over his designer tux.
He was then escorted off of the red carpet while a shaken Seacrest attempted to dust himself off.
As security muscled Cohen away, Seacrest tried to cut to commercial, but his E! colleagues instead jumped in to milk the made-for-live-television moment. It quickly became the most-chatted about topic on Twitter, where commentators eagerly lapped up the rare breach in decorum at the Academy Awards.
Seacrest said, “Anything can happen and it most certainly did, all over my lapel.”
This is not the first time Cohen has found himself at loggerheads with the academy. Five years ago, when he was dressing as his former alter ego Borat, he refused to present an award at the Oscars when he was banned from doing so in character.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Court throws out Holocaust-denial case
"The prosecutor now has the possibility of pressing charges on the basis of the same facts of the case," the court said in a statement.
A spokesman for prosecutors told news agency AFP that they indeed intended to file new charges "as quickly as possible," adding this could happen in around five weeks.
The renegade bishop, 71, told Swedish television in 2008 that "200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps" and disputed the existence of the gas chambers.
The interview was given in a city in Germany, where it is illegal to deny that the Nazis murdered six million Jews during World War II.
The court on Wednesday emphasized that its decision did not mean Williamson's actions were not illegal, but that procedural flaws had compelled it to annul the case.
Williamson, a member of the breakaway ultra-conservative Catholic fraternity, the Saint Pius X Society, also hit the headlines in 2009 when Pope Benedict XVI reversed his excommunication in a bid to bridge a rift with the organization.
Benedict later said he would not have made such a move if he had known about Williamson's views on the Holocaust.
Poland, US Museum Tussle Over Auschwitz Barracks
Warsaw, Poland - Polish and U.S. officials are engaged in intense talks to determine the fate of a sensitive object: a barrack that once housed doomed prisoners at the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp and is now on display at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Poland is demanding the return of the artifact, which has been on loan to the Washington museum for more than 20 years and is an important object in its permanent exhibition. But the U.S. museum is resisting the demand, saying the valuable object shouldn't be moved partly because it is too fragile.
"Due to the barrack's size and the complexity of its installation, removing and transporting it to Poland presents special difficulties, including potentially damaging the artifact," the U.S. Holocaust museum said in a statement to The Associated Press. "Both the Museum and our Polish partners have been actively discussing various proposals, and we remain committed to continue working with them to resolve this matter."
The issue has arisen because of a Polish law aimed at safeguarding a cultural heritage ravaged by past wars, particularly World War II. Under the law, passed in 2003, any historic object on loan abroad must return to Poland every five years for inspection. While Poland appears open to renewing the loan, it says the barracks must return — at least temporarily.
Because of the rule, the U.S. museum in recent years has already returned thousands of objects dating to the Holocaust, including suitcases, shoes and prosthetic limbs, often in exchange for new, temporary loans of similar or identical items.
The barracks on view in Washington are, in fact, just half of a wooden building where prisoners slept in cramped, filthy and often freezing conditions as they awaited extermination, often in gas chambers. The remaining half still stands at Birkenau, a part of the vast Auschwitz-Birkenau complex.
The two camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau, are about two miles (three kilometers) apart but were part of the same machinery of death during the war and the complex is typically referred to simply as "Auschwitz."
The director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, Piotr Cywinski, accuses the U.S. institution of violating the terms of a 20-year loan on the barracks, saying the loan expired in 2009.
"We have indicated many times that this half of the barracks must return, that there is no other solution in accordance with the law," Cywinski said. "It's a very important object, not just for Washington but for the integrity of Birkenau, the last authentic site of Holocaust remembrance among all the major death camps."
Many of Poland's paintings, churches and other cultural gems were stolen, burned or otherwise destroyed during World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied the country, killed 6 million Polish citizens and built death camps across the country where they brought Jews and others from across Europe for extermination.
The legacy today is that the country possesses few old Polish treasures but has many Holocaust relics — including the sprawling site of Auschwitz-Birkenau in the south of the country that is one of the most visited Holocaust remembrance sites in Europe.
The memorial site, in fact, has many personal items that belonged to victims and frequently loans them out to institutions across the world, including Yad Vashem in Israel.
The matter between the Polish and U.S. institutions is extremely delicate and officials on both sides have resisted giving many details, or saying how the matter might be resolved. Poland's ministries of foreign affairs and culture are also involved in the matter but did not respond to AP requests for comment.
Although the problem might appear intractable, the U.S. Holocaust museum and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum have cooperated well in the past and share similar missions of Holocaust remembrance — leading to expectations they will reach an eventual compromise.
The U.S. Holocaust museum confirms that the 20-year loan on the barracks began in 1989, but says that it was a renewable loan — and notes that Polish law was changed since then.
The fate of Cywinski, the Auschwitz museum director, is at stake in the matter. Under the law on protecting historic artifacts, he could be jailed for up to two years if he fails to obtain the return of any object on loan.
Roman Rewald, a Warsaw-based lawyer who has represented the U.S. Holocaust museum in the past on a pro-bono basis and has knowledge of the current discussions, says the matter comes down to Polish law, which is rigid and hard to work around.
The law would do a good job, for instance, of stopping an official from giving away a precious 16th century painting, but isn't as well-suited to regulating Holocaust artifacts, which probably shouldn't be moved so often.
"The Polish law is designed to make sure that nobody has any leeway in allowing Polish artifacts to leave the country permanently," Rewald said. "Poland is trying to protect its artifacts, all of them. Unfortunately Holocaust artifacts, which Poland has an abundance of, fall into the same category as all the other artifacts which Poland has been robbed of during wars, especially World War II."
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Containing Israel on Iran General Dempsey sends a message of U.S. weakness to Tehran.
Is the Obama Administration more concerned that Iran may get a nuclear weapon, or that Israel may use military force to prevent Iran from doing so? The answer is the latter, judging from comments on Sunday by Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey.
Appearing on CNN, General Dempsey sent precisely the wrong message if the main U.S. strategic goal is convincing Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. He said the U.S. is urging Israel not to attack Iran—because Iran hasn't decided to build a bomb, because an Israeli attack probably wouldn't set back Iran by more than a couple of years, and because it would invite retaliation and be "destabilizing" throughout the Middle East.
"That's the question with which we all wrestle. And the reason we think that it's not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran," the General said, referring to a possible Iranian response to an attack. "That's been our counsel to our allies, the Israelis. And we also know or believe we know that the Iranian regime has not decided that they will embark on the capability—or the effort to weaponize their nuclear capability."
In a single sound bite, General Dempsey managed to tell the Iranians they can breathe easier because Israel's main ally is opposed to an attack on Iran, such attack isn't likely to work in any case, and the U.S. fears Iran's retaliation. It's as if General Dempsey wanted to ratify Iran's rhetoric that the regime is a fearsome global military threat.
If the U.S. really wanted its diplomacy to work in lieu of force, it would say and do whatever it can to increase Iran's fear of an attack. It would say publicly that Israel must be able to protect itself and that it has the means to do so. America's top military officer in particular should say that if Iran escalates in response to an Israeli attack, the U.S. would have no choice but to intervene on behalf of its ally. The point of coercive diplomacy is to make an adversary understand that the costs of its bad behavior will be very, very high.
The general is not a free-lancer, so his message was almost certainly guided by the White House. His remarks only make strategic sense if President Obama's real priority is to contain Israel first—especially before the November election.
This might also explain General Dempsey's comments that the U.S. doesn't believe Iran's regime has decided to build an atomic bomb and that it is a "rational" actor, like, say, the Dutch. This would be the same rational Iran that refuses to compromise on its nuclear plans despite increasingly damaging global sanctions, and the same prudent actor that has sent agents around the world to bomb Israeli and Saudi targets, allegedly including in a Washington, D.C. restaurant.
Iran doesn't need to explode a bomb, or even declare that it has one, to win its nuclear standoff. All it needs to do is get to the brink and make everyone believe it can build a bomb when it wants to. Then the costs of deterring Iran go up exponentially, and the regime's leverage multiplies in the Middle East and against American interests. General Dempsey's assurances obscure that military and political reality.
Like most of Mr. Obama's Iran policy, General Dempsey's comments will have the effect of making war more likely, not less. They will increase Israel's anxiety about U.S. support, especially if Mr. Obama is re-elected and he has a freer political hand. This may drive Israel's leadership to strike sooner. Weakness invites war, and General Dempsey has helped the Administration send a message of weakness to Israel and Iran.
Please forward this email to everyone you can. It's important for people to know that President Obama is planning to cut vital defense aid to Israel, specifically for joint missile defense programs.
Pres. Obama's 2013 budget request includes a sharp cut in defense aid to Israel, specifically cuts to joint missile defense programs. These cuts would leave Israel vulnerable at a very dangerous time, when Israel faces serious rocket threats from Hamas in Gaza and from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a growing nuclear threat from Iran. Call the White House and tell Pres. Obama not to cut missile defense aid to Israel - 202-456-1111.
Put Palestinian Tactics, Not Israeli Military Justice, On Trial
Yesterday, the New York Times devoted considerable space to the story of one Islam Dar Ayyoub, a 15-year-old Palestinian from a village near Ramallah. According to the story, Ayyoub’s childhood was stolen from him when he was thrust into Israel’s military court system a year ago. Ayyoub is the Times’ candidate for the position of poster child for what it calls Israel’s “harsh, unforgiving methods” in dealing with Palestinian violence. But though the purpose of the story was to indict Israel, anyone reading between the lines of Ayyoub’s sob story could see the real villain of this tale is not Israel’s military but the Palestinian “activists” who have exploited their children. They are recruited into gangs explicitly tasked with starting violent confrontations with Israelis by the throwing of stones and other lethal weapons, hoping the soldiers will defend themselves and kill one of the kids.
Ayyoub is depicted as a victim because he gave up his confederates to the Israelis and in particular a local Palestinian adult named Bassem Tamim, who was the overseer of what in any other context would be called a violent youth gang. “Human rights” activists think the prosecution of this person should be scrapped because the kid who dropped the dime on him didn’t have a lawyer or his parents present when he talked. That might be what would happen on an episode of “Law and Order,” but the realities of the Middle East conflict are such that Israel’s tactics are justified.
Getting arrested and questioned by the Israeli military was probably no picnic for Ayyoub. Yet, as the Times reported, he was not tortured. His interrogation was videotaped and reveals nothing the Palestinians could claim was an atrocity. Like many another culprit, he got scared and talked. The result was not an injustice but the arrest of an adult Palestinian who exploited Ayyoub and other village kids in an effort to keep the war against Israel alive. Tamim and other Palestinian terror facilitators train kids to attack soldiers and hope some will be hurt. They are not promoting non-violence but instead are deliberately placing teenagers into harm’s way so as to provide more martyrs for their cause.
As France’s World War One leader, Georges Clemenceau, said, “military justice is to justice as military music is to music.” But the situation on the West Bank is complicated because Israel is still forced to have a security presence in the region in order to prevent attacks on its forces and civilians. Because it is impossible to apply Israel’s own civilian laws in the area, the military uses the laws that existed there before Israeli rule from the British and Jordanian eras. But unlike the courts run by the Palestinian Authority, all terror and violence suspects are given trials and have the chance to defend themselves. The system is, like all justice systems, imperfect, but despite the assumption that Israel’s actions are unfair, there was nothing in the story that doesn’t pass the smell test.
We are told in the conclusion to the piece that Ayyoub, who has been released unharmed and is free to go to school, is afraid of the soldiers. More likely, he is afraid of revenge from other Palestinians who treat people who inform on those involved in violence as “traitors.”
Until the Palestinian leadership is prepared to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state and make peace, Israel will be forced to keep order in the region and to do its best to fend off terrorism and the orchestrated riots that were at the core of the Ayyoub case. The real scandal is the willingness of Palestinians to sacrifice children like Islam Ayyoub on the altar of hate for Israel.
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