Danni Avidany & Dedy Graucher

The Magic of Jerusalem

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, displays in a new video the magic of Jerusalem as a city that combines diversity with harmony, modernity with history, and as a sacred city that for the first time in history, under Israeli sovereignty, Jews, Christians, Muslims, secular, religious, young and old are living side by side. In addition, the video shows the unbreakable bond between the Jewish people and Jerusalem.

סגן שר החוץ, דני אילון, מציג בסרטון חדש את הקסם של ירושלים כעיר המשלבת בין שונות להרמוניה, מודרניות והיסטוריה, וכעיר הקדושה, בה לראשונה בהיסטוריה, תחת הריבונות הישראלית חיים זה לצד זה יהודים, נוצרים, מוסלמים, חילונים, דתיים, מבוגרים וצעירים. כמו כן, הסרטון מציג את הקשר הבל ינותק בין העם היהודי לירושלים.

YNET: US bar mitzvah boy aids Ashkelon After watching news reports of Operation Pillar of Defense, Robert Leeds of Sacramento decides to use his 13th birthday gifts to buy ambulance for southern Israeli city hit by Gaza rockets

Robert Leeds, 13, who has lived in the Californian city of Sacramento all his life, recently made his first decision as an adult – to donate the money he received for his bar mitzvah toIsrael.

Leeds, who watched the news reports on Operation Pillar of Defense on television, decided to help an Israeli city which was hit by rockets from Gaza just a few months ago.

He collected the money he received during his coming of age ceremony and purchased an ambulance for the city of Ashkelon, which has a sister-city agreement with his hometown.

"I asked the guests for money in bar mitzvah gifts in order to pay for the purchase," said Leeds. "I understand that I have been blessed in life, so I have taken it upon myself to stand by the city of Ashkelon and Israel through this donation."

Robert Leeds (second from the right) near ambulance

Leeds was thanked for his donation in a ceremony held in Sacramento, which was attended by City Council dignitaries and leaders of the local Jewish and Christian communities. The city of Ashkelon was represented by Gideon Lustig, Israel's deputy consul general.

Lustig awarded Leeds and the Magen David Adom Friendsorganization with a merit certificate on behalf of the city of Ashkelon. The ambulance, worth hundreds of thousands of shekels, has been transported to the MDA station in the southern city.

Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaknin thanked Leeds for his donation, saying: "On behalf of the city of Ashkelon, I would like to thank this boy for a move which should not be taken for granted. His donation for the purchase of an ambulance for the residents of Ashkelon is an act which points to a kind heart.

"On behalf of the city's residents I conveyed my great appreciation for him. There is no doubt that his donation will serve its purpose well, and I have sent him a large thank you card with an invitation to visit Ashkelon."

The Humiliation of Palestinian Refugees -- by arabs

A Tree for Every Rocket: Soldiers Plant 1,532 Trees The trees will provide some shelter from gun fire for Israeli hikers and motorists on the roads outside Nachal Oz.

In honor of Tu B’shvat, IDF soldiers planted 1,532 trees in the vicinity of Nachal Oz, on the Gazan border in southern Israel. The 1,532 trees signify the 1,532 rockets fired by Hamas terrorists at Israel from Gaza during Operation “Pillar of Defense.”

The event, titled “A Plant for Each Rocket,” was held in conjunction with the Jewish National Fund (JNF). Some 800 soldiers participated. Commander of the Education Corps Brigadier General Eli Shermeister emceed, hosting Southern Command CO Major-General Tal Ruso and JNF World Chairman Effi Stezler.

The trees will provide some shelter from gun fire for Israeli hikers and motorists on the roads outside Nachal Oz. The settlement has been the target of several shooting incidents over the years, with some starting fires in the area.

Another eleven communities will receive similar protection in the near future, with the trees expected to shade about 7.5 miles of vulnerable roads, mostly near the security fence.

The species of tree selected for this task is the eucalyptus, which, according to experts, will provide the necessary cover: it’s a quick grower and gets to be very tall, supplying the needed protection in a short period of time.

These fragrant trees will also aid the beehive industry in the region.

Effi Stezler stated during the event: “We are planting these trees to provide protection for the civilian passengers on the roads, and to offer defense for the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, these trees will provide oxygen and honey. We believe that these trees, which have previously provided shelter from the Syrians on the Golan Heights years ago, will now protect the residents of southern Israel.”

Mother of IDF Soldier – Words of Strength about Israel

Israel IDF power part 2: The "Iron Dome" - missile defense system

The "Iron Dome" (Hebrew: כיפת ברזל‎) is a mobile air defense system in development by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems designed to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells. The system was created as a defensive countermeasure to the rocket threat against Israel's civilian population on its northern and southern borders. It is designed to intercept very short-range threats up to 70 kilometers in all-weather situations. It was declared operational and initially deployed on March 27, 2011 near Beersheba. On April 7, 2011, the system successfully intercepted a Grad rocket launched from Gaza for the first time.
Now, there are four Iron Dome batteries in Operation. For the effective protection of the entire Israeli territory, about 10 more will be needed. They are currently being produced and deployed.....Game over, terrorist coward scum from Gaza ;)) hehehehe 

Ziontastic Superheroes Save the Day!

The Creative Zionist Coalition and the World Zionist Organization called all superheroes to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2013. In Hollywood, these Zinomite and Ziontastic men and women were kryptonite to hate and spread sweet Israel truth and love!

Bennett in Post-Election Speech: Jewish Home is for Everyone “Today we set up a new home that knows how to protect its residents with martial prowess and power," says Jewish Home chairman.

Naftali Bennett, head of the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party which made an historic achievement in Tuesday’s election, gave a post-election speech at party headquarters on Tuesday night.

Exit polls have predicted that the party will win 12 seats, making it the fourth or fifth largest party in the Knesset.

“My brothers and sisters, today we have established a new home in Israel,” Bennett declared. “Israel is coming back to itself. The Jewish Home is the new home for everyone, of all the people of Israel, of Israel who believes in its strength.”

He added, “Today we set up a new home that knows how to protect its residents not only with concrete, but with martial prowess and power. Our enemies will know that you do not mess with Israel.”

Bennett declared that, "There is one truth - the land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel." He noted that his party is “a home for proud Zionists. A new home that will not be held captive by interest groups, but will fight for lowering the cost of living for the people of Israel. In this home we will act for equal opportunities for all the people of Israel.”

Earlier on Tuesday evening, as he left his home towards his party’s headquarters,Bennett said, “Something new is beginning. Religious Zionism is back on center stage.”

MK Uri Ariel exulted over the results. “There hasn’t been an achievement like this before” for religious Zionism, he declared.

“We hope to continue from here and to help the nation of Israel and the state of Israel,” he said.

The National Religious Party had 10-12 Knesset seats until the the 10th Knesset in 1981, when many of its Sephardic voters moved to the new and short-lived Tami party and in later elections to the newly-formed Shas. The 11-12 seat result in the 2013 elections is thus evidence of significant growth, since Shas and Likud attract religious Zionist voters.

London - Muslim ‘Modesty Patrol’ Stalking Streets Of London

London - Borough officials, community leaders and police condemned a group of self-proclaimed vigilantes who took it upon themselves to patrol the streets of London confronting people they deemed as indulging in “non-Muslim” behavior.

Earlier this month, a group who had claimed an area in East London was a “Muslim area” had told people that alcohol was banned, or that they were dressed inappropriately.

The group, who dubbed itself a “Muslim patrol,” filmed the incidents and posted the footage on YouTube.

In one video, which was first published last week by the UK news portal The Commentator, the group could be seen destroying advertisements for H&M lingerie on bus shelters in the Whitechapel area of London.

“The Muslims have taken it upon themselves to command the good and forbid the evil and cover up these naked women,” one of the vigilantes says in the video.

Another video shows the group harassing members of the public for consuming alcohol. In one incident, a member of the public is told to dispose of a can of beer he is drinking.

The individual shown in the video is clearly shocked when he is told it is a Muslim area and that alcohol is “evil and banned” as they take his beverage away from him.

In yet another video, which begins with a logo stating that “Islam will dominate the world,” followed by a homophobic graphic, the group can be seen shouting at a man.

One member of the “patrol” shouts: “Hello mate, don’t you know this is a Muslim area?” He asks the man why he is dressed “like that” while another shouts “Homosexual! Homosexual.”

When the man, who appears clearly distressed in the video, asks why they are bothering him, the group hurls abuse at him.

“Because you’re walking through a Muslim area dressed like a fag. You need to get out of here.”

“You’re gay mate, get out of here you bloody fag. Don’t stay around here anymore.”

The self-styled group also stops people for dressing “inappropriately,” or for possessing alcohol near a mosque.

One young woman confronted by the group said she was appalled by their actions.

“This is Great Britain,” she said, to which the patrol can be heard saying, “We don’t care. It’s not so Great Britain, you understand? Vigilantes are implementing Islam.”

The London Metropolitan Police said that they are treating the incidents with “appropriate gravity,” adding that they are aware of the incidents and are increasing police patrols in the area.

“We are aware of incidents over the weekend of January 12-13, where members of the community had suffered harassment by as yet unidentified individuals stating the area was a ‘Muslim area’ and claiming to be a ‘Muslim patrol,’ a police spokesman said.

The police said it was engaging with a range of people in order to address the issue and find those responsible for the incidents.

“Patrols in the areas affected have also been increased in an effort to catch those carrying this out and to reassure the local community.

Officers have already been engaging with the communities of Tower Hamlets [Borough] including the businesses and mosques, and are working with local community leaders, influential people, local businesses and the local authority about what is being done, and can be done, to address concerns and identify those responsible,” the police said.

The police are urging anyone who has been a victim of the vigilantes, or anyone who knows the perpetrators, to come forward.

The Tower Hamlets Council told The Jerusalem Post they are “proactively working with partners in the community and police” to monitor for further incidents and take appropriate action.

“This is an isolated incident by a few individuals whose actions go entirely against the council’s and community’s ethos of One Tower Hamlets. We are proud of the community cohesion in our borough and know that the vast majority of residents believe that people from all backgrounds should be treated with dignity and respect,” a Tower Hamlets spokesman said on Monday.

Alan Green, chair of the Tower Hamlets Interfaith Forum said, “The behavior of the very few people who call themselves the ‘Muslim patrol’ does not represent the vast majority of Muslims living in Tower Hamlets.

These are troublemakers seeking to undermine the mutual respect which is at the heart of our diverse and vibrant borough and ensures that people of different faiths and view-points can live harmoniously together.”

A London Muslim Center spokesman said, “We wholly condemn their behavior.

They are not welcome in our community. We deplore the actions of a small minority who sow discord within our communities. It has no place in our faith, neither in its teachings nor practices.”

The Muslim Council of Britain, a Muslim community representative organization, told the Post that the group was an unrepresentative minority.

“We cannot comment on the veracity of this video, particularly as the website [The Commentator] you refer to revels in trading anti-Muslim stories. Nevertheless, if the contents of this is true, then we would urge the police to intervene; we do not condone such vigilantism.”

Surprise: Study finds NY Times is anti-Israel

A study by CAMERA has found that -surprise - the New York Times' coverage of our area is biased against Israel.

The study, “Indicting Israel: New York Times Coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict,” empirically examines coverage over an extended period of time, July 1-Dec. 31, 2011, and finds a “larger thematic narrative” of continued, embedded indictment of Israel that pervades both the news and commentary sections of the newspaper.

On the news pages, where readers expect objective and balanced reporting, criticism of Israel was cited more than twice as often as criticism of the Palestinians. The Palestinian perspective on the peace process was laid out nearly twice as often as the Israeli perspective.  Vandalism by a fringe Israeli group and IDF military defensive strikes were emphasized in numerous articles, often with headlines highlighting Israeli actions, while Palestinian aggression and incitement was downplayed or ignored.  Israel’s blockade of Gaza was usually mentioned without context. And Israel’s resort to force aboard a Turkish ship attempting to break the blockade was frequently discussed and faulted without referencing the precipitating attacks on Israeli soldiers by pro- Palestinian activists.

The theme of faulting Israel was amplified on the editorial and op-ed pages to one of Israel as a malignant force in the region. Despite the newspaper’s purported commitment to expose a diversity of opinions, three quarters of all opinion pieces on the conflict were devoted to denouncing Israel’s leaders or policies, while none were devoted  to condemning Palestinians. Even Israel’s tolerance toward gays was condemned as a ploy to support human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Consider the following: When a group of Israeli teenagers were arrested in August 2012 for beating an Arab youth unconscious, The New York Times ran two separate front-page, above-fold articles about it. Both articles focused on the negative features of Israeli society that the incident was said to reveal.

Contrast that with the Times’ coverage, 17 months earlier, of an assault by Palestinian teenagers on an Israeli family.  The victims, including three young children, were brutally slaughtered in a bloody attack that included slitting the throat of a 3-month old as she lay asleep in her crib. The New York Times chose not to cover that gruesome event on the front page, nor to comment on what the incident reveals about Palestinian society and the pernicious effects of incitement to kill Israelis by the Palestinian leadership.

The above incidents occurred outside CAMERA’s study period but provide a cogent example of how the Timesadjusts its focus to reflect a concept of newsworthiness that is shaped by its institutionalized worldview.

Read the whole thing. 

And for those of you who get your news from the Times, please consider getting elsewhere, especially when it comes to Israel.

Vicious Anti-Zionist Children’s Book Distributed By Satmar

Laughing Zionists: “Only through blood will we get the Land [of Israel].”

Tens of thousands of copies of a children’s book depicting Zionists as Nazi collaborators have been published and distributed in haredi areas of Israel by Satmar hasidim in the hope that this propaganda will influence the parents of those children and cause them not to vote in today’s national elections, Behadrei Haredim reports.

The illustrated book purports to tell the story of the State of Israel’s founding, but it does so ahistorically, painting Zionists as Nazi collaborators and destroyers of the ‘true’ Jewish religion.

One picture in the book shows a small haredi boy resisting while Zionists forcibly cut his peyos, forelocks. The boy cries out,"Father and Mother in the World of Truth [Heaven]! See what evil they do to me, make a great tumult for me before the Heavenly Throne [God].”

Another picture shows a ship full of haredi refugees trying to immigrate to Israel. But Zionists have convinced the British Army to attack the ship and sink it. Haredim on the ship cry out, “Help us!” as other haredim try to swim to shore. Zionists stand off to the side and with a sense of satisfaction say, "Wow! That turned out better than we expected.”

Yet another picture depicts a haredi Yemenite man who goes to a Zionist doctor with his baby. The doctor sells the baby to a secular Jew. "Doctor! My son has a fever," the haredi father says. The doctor answers, "If so, we need to immediately hospitalize him.”

In a different picture on the same page another secular man comes to the clinic and gives the doctor $20,000. After the doctor takes the money, he tells the Yemenite father in the third panel, "Your son died."

In what is perhaps the worst slur in the book, in another picture a group of haredim with children are boarding a cattle car to a death camp as Nazi soldiers urge them on. Standing off to the side are three laughing secular Zionists who exclaim, “Only through blood will we get the Land [of Israel].”

The distribution of the book coincides with today’s national elections and with the visit to Israel of the Williamsburg Satmar Rebbe Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, perhaps the most anti-Zionist haredi rabbi alive.

Teitelbaum’s great-uncle, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, was the first Satmar Rebbe.

He was saved from the Holocaust by a Zionist, Rudolph Kasztner, who Oskar Schindler of Schindler’s List fame called the bravest man he ever knew. Kasztner saved more Jews from the Holocaust than any other Jew was able to do.

Satmar has spent the past 68 years smearing Kasztner.

Yoel Teitelbaum – whose anti-Zionist theology and behind-the-scenes attempts to scuttle Zionist outreach in Satmar and surrounding areas eventually cost hundreds of Jews their lives – refused to thank Kasztner for rescuing him or even acknowledge that he had been rescued by Kasztner.

Teitelbaum went to his grave 35 years after being rescued without ever saying anything positive about Kasztner, Zionists or the State of Israel.

Jerusalem's Eastern Wall

Naftali Bennett: Stop US Aid, Slash Israel’s Military Budget "I think it's none of our business in Israel to intervene in American domestic decisions." By: Yori Yanover

Naftali Bennett’s parents, Jim and Myrna, made Aliyah from America in 1967, and settled in the port city of Haifa. Naftali, one of three brothers, was born on March 25, 1972. He served in the elite IDF units of Sayeret Matkal and Maglan as a company commander and still serves in the reserves, at the rank of Major.

I asked Bennett if he would have to give up his American citizenship, should he become Israel’s prime minister.

“I’m not becoming prime minister quite yet,” Bennett said, laughing out loud, “but, obviously, I’ll follow the law, if I’ll need to forfeit it, like Netanyahu has done. I’m not even sure who needs to do it – a minister, a prime minister – I’ll do whatever is needed.”

(For the record, current US policy requires that a dual citizen renounce their American citizenship if they are serving in a “policy level position” in a foreign government. The same holds true on the Israeli side. Law professor Daphne Barak Erez, born to Israeli parents in the U.S., was named Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel in 2012, which required that she give up her foreign citizenship.)

In 1999, Bennett co-founded and was the CEO of “Cyota,” a hi-tech company making anti-fraud software which he sold in 2005 to RSA Security for $145 million. He is likely the richest politician in Israel – well ahead of Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom, who is worth about $40 million.

Perhaps because of his own experience with vigorous American Capitalism, Naftali Benett is in favor of cutting the 40-year-old umbilical cord that still connects Israel to the American Treasury.

“Today, U.S. military aid is roughly 1 percent of Israel’s economy,” Bennett says. “I think, generally, we need to free ourselves from it. We have to do it responsibly, since I’m not aware of all the aspects of the budget, I don’t want to say ‘let’s just give it up,’ but our situation today is very different from what it was 20 and 30 years ago. Israel is much stronger, much wealthier, and we need to be independent.”

When I asked him for his opinion about the nominations of Senator John Kerry for Secretary of State and former Senator Chuck Hagel for Defense, his response was consistent with the former statement:

“I think it’s none of our business in Israel to intervene in American domestic decisions. President Obama gave us his word most vehemently that he would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon – he said it several times over the past year. He said he has Israel’s back. So I hope and trust that President Obama will follow through on these very powerful commitments.”

In 2006, a wealthy man, Naftali Bennett decided to start giving back. He began serving as Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, when the Likud was still in the opposition. He ran Netanyahu’s primary campaign in 2007 and continued to serve him through 2008.

Rumor has it that Bennett and Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, are not on good terms, to the point where Mrs. Netanyahu—who is as influential in her husband’s decision making as a political wife can be—will put her foot down when it comes to taking the former chief of staff on as coalition partner.

Gilat Bennett, Naftali’s wife, told Channel 2 News earlier this year that she could understand Sara Netanyahu, and empathized with her need to have a voice in the prime minister’s career, and with her desire to show that he “belonged to [her], too.”

In 2010, Bennett, in his role as Director General of the Yesha Council (the coalition of all the Jewish settlements east of the “green line”), was in an all out war against Netanyahu over the government imposed settlement construction freeze. The two are not on friendly terms, although Bennett insists on being cordial and even compliments his old boss now and then. Bibi’s comments about Bennett are outright icy.

I cited TV host Nissim Mishal, on whose show Bennett was ambushed quite crudely into stating that he would refuse an order to evict a Jew from his home—which turned into the media brouhaha of the week, earning Bennett ample condemnations from his enemies, and a 2-3 seat bump in the polls. On the same show, Mishal also suggested (“barked” would better describe his tone of questioning) that Netanyahu hated Bennett so much, there was no chance he would include him in is government.

“We’re going to get along quite well,” Bennett told me. “I worked with Prime Minister Netanyahu for a couple of years, I like the guy. Yes, there are tensions, because we disagree on some stuff, but it’s nothing that 12, 14, or 15 Knesset mandates won’t solve. He’ll get over it…”

I asked Bennett why, in his opinion, the Jewish Home appeals to so many secular Israelis (in recent polls, between 40 and 45 percent of Bennett’s supporters have identified themselves as non-religious).

“People are fed up with the various camps, they want to unite,” the candidate answered in a sharp tone. “They’re fed up with the discourse of hate. They don’t want to hate Haredim, they don’t want to hate the religious, they don’t want to hate the secular, they want to get together and solve problems.”

He added: “That’s what I think is so attractive about us. We’re primarily focused on the younger generation, and I’m very happy that the younger generation is less susceptible to hate rhetoric.”

Bennett’s youth revolution at the Jewish Home party was stunning. In a period of just about three months, Bennett managed to infuse a spirit of youth that resurrected what had been the tiny dual remnants of the religious right – Jewish home and its twin, National Union.

The process wasn’t problem-free by any stretch. National Union ousted through dubious maneuvering two of its major vote getters, MKs Michael Ben Ari and Aryeh Eldad, who are running on an independent list dubbed Power for Israel.

Inside Jewish Home, heir of the ancient NRP (created in 1956 through the merger of Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi), the party’s traditional apparatus was overwhelmed by the onslaught of Bennett’s new, imaginative and dazzlingly ambitious drive to capture the leadership. It is certainly also a measure of just how frail and decrepit the old party had been, that this outsider, in just three months, defeated the old guard’s candidate Zevulun Orlev by a 67 to 32 margin.

I asked Bennett if he thought there was a chance of brining Eldad and Ben Ari back into the fold.

“Right now, we’re two different parties, and from a legal standpoint we’re running separately. So for now it is what it is,” he quipped.

The Jewish Home platform economic section talks about a “free economy with compassion.” In practice, this means not raising taxes on the middle class, but at the same time they want the safety net for the poor to remain intact, improve education, and maintain military readiness. With a deficit of several billion dollars, how is he planning to do all that?

“The reality is that we have a big deficit. We’re going to have to cut the defense budget, which has doubled over the past decade from $8 billion to $16.4 billion a year,” Bennett recites, then delivers the punchline: “Contrary to what many think, some military threats have actually been reduced. Today’s Egyptian army has no offensive capability—it’s in dire straits. Syria is in no position to send forces into Israel. We can cut there.”

He continues: “We need to free up the economy from the monopolies that are choking it. That will grow the revenue. And we need to free the economy from the strong unions that defend only the richest workers. All these actions will allow Israel’s economy to boom.”

Last month, while Israel’s nurses were on strike, protesting their miserable wages (an RN with decades of seniority earns less than $35 thousand a year), the media revealed that the longshoremen’s union members were averaging $76 thousand, an astonishing salary for manual laborers.

The longshoremen in Israel have the same feisty reputation as, say, the Teamsters in America. I asked Bennett what he would do to break their monopoly.

“What you have to do is create competition,” Bennett said. “And then they’ll be much more efficient and that will reduce the cost of all our products. Because everything is way too expensive in Israel.”

“Now, if you do that – they’ll fight you,” he continues. “So we need to communicate with the Israeli people, explain the problem. Unfortunately, Netanyahu did not follow through on that, nor will Shelly Yachimovich ever do it, because they elected her. The Jewish Home will strive to be a major influence in freeing up the economy.”

Naftali Bennett has been a zealous defender of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, a position that, as I mentioned earlier, has made him many enemies, including his old boss, Netanyahu. I posed to him the idea that the reason the prime minister has been talking about the two-state solution has nothing to do with his commitment to Jewish settlements and everything to do with his acute concern with Iran’s nuclear program.

Simply put, Netanyahu is not going to allow a few thousand settlers to cause Israel to lose favor with the current White House, so that when the time comes to attack the Iranian nuclear plants, Israel would not be standing alone.

“If the time comes to choose between American support and some acquiescence in the area of removing some settlements – what would be your choice?”

“I don’t buy this question,” Bennett responds quickly. “I reject the equation that we have to give up parts of Israel in order to buy quiet. If we follow that path, in twenty years we’ll have nothing left in Israel. It’s not a logical course of action.”

“We need to do what’s necessary for a strong Israel,” he urges. “I assert that handing over more land to our enemies would make Israel a feeble and miserable place. It would bring home the bloodshed and strife between us and the Arabs, just like what’s going on in Gaza—a never ending war—while we have peace and quiet today in Judea and Samaria.”

He promises: “I’ll do everything in my power to reverse the mistaken policies of establishing a Palestinian state within the Land of Israel.”

Finally, is he a career politician, or is he just planning to do this for a few years and do other things in the future?

“As long as I can serve my country, I’ll continue doing it,” he says. “As long as I feel that I’m making a positive impact on the Jewish nation, I’ll do everything in my ability to contribute.”

What’s his vision for the Jewish Home party?

“In the upcoming elections, we want to be the biggest partner for Netanyahu in his next government. It’s a very interesting election, because the next prime minister has already been determined, it’s going to be Netanyahu. The question remains, is it going to be a left-wing coalition of Tzipi Livni, Amir Peretz and Amram Mitzna and Netanyahu – or Jewish Home and Netanyahu. That’s the biggest question in this election, and I’m determined to become the biggest and most influential coalition partner.”

Modzhitz Rebbe voting in the Israeli Elections

Shloime Daskal & Shira Choir Singing "Yesh Tikvah"

NYT: Raised on Hatred By AYAAN HIRSI ALI

EGYPT’S newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was caught on tape about three years ago urging his followers to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists. Not long after, the then-leader of the Muslim Brotherhood described Zionists as “bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians,” “warmongers” and “descendants of apes and pigs.”

These remarks are disgusting, but they are neither shocking nor new. As a child growing up in a Muslim family, I constantly heard my mother, other relatives and neighbors wish for the death of Jews, who were considered our darkest enemy. Our religious tutors and the preachers in our mosques set aside extra time to pray for the destruction of Jews.

For far too long the pervasive Middle Eastern qualification of Jews as murderers and bloodsuckers was dismissed in the West as extreme views expressed by radical fringe groups. But they are not. In truth, those Muslims who think of Jews as friends and fellow human beings with a right to their own state are a minority, and are under intense pressure to change their minds.

All over the Middle East, hatred for Jews and Zionists can be found in textbooks for children as young as three, complete with illustrations of Jews with monster-like qualities. Mainstream educational television programs are consistently anti-Semitic. In songs, books, newspaper articles and blogs, Jews are variously compared to pigs, donkeys, rats and cockroaches, and also to vampires and a host of other imaginary creatures.

Consider this infamous dialogue between a three-year-old and a television presenter, eight years before Morsi’s remarks.

Presenter: “Do you like Jews?”

Three-year-old: “No.”

“Why don’t you like them?”

“Jews are apes and pigs.”

“Who said this?”

“Our God.”

“Where did he say this?”

“In the Koran.”

The presenter responds approvingly: “No [parents] could wish for Allah to give them a more believing girl than she ... May Allah bless her, her father and mother.”

This conversation was not caught on hidden camera or taped by propagandists. It was featured on a prominent program called “Muslim Woman Magazine” and broadcast byIqraa, the popular Saudi-owned satellite channel.

It is a major step forward for a sitting U.S. administration and leading American newspapers to unequivocally condemn Morsi’s words. But condemnation is just the first move.

Here is an opportunity to acknowledge the breadth and depth of the attitude toward Jews in the Middle East, and how that affects the much desired but elusive peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

So many explanations have been offered for the failure of successive U.S. administrations to achieve that peace, but the answer is in Morsi’s words. Why would one make peace with bloodsuckers and descendants of apes and monkeys?

Millions of Muslims have been conditioned to regard Jews not only as the enemies of Palestine but as the enemies of all Muslims, of God and of all humanity. Arab leaders far more prominent and influential than Morsi have been tireless in “educating” or “nursing” generations to believe that Jews are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs.” (These are the words of the Saudi sheik Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, imam at the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca.)

In 2011, a Pew survey found that in Turkey, just 4 percent of those surveyed held a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of Jews; in Indonesia, 10 percent; in Pakistan 2 percent. In addition, 95 percent of Jordanians, 94 percent of Egyptians and 95 percent of Lebanese hold a “very unfavorable” view of Jews [pdf].

In recent decades Israeli and American administrations negotiated with unelected Arab despots, who played a double game. They honored the formal peace treaties by not conducting military attacks against Israel. But they condoned the Islamists’ dissemination of hatred against Israel, Zionism and Jews.

As the Islamists spread their influence through civil institutions, young people were nursed on hatred.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, as the people take a chance on democracy, they and their new leadership want to see their ideals turned into policy.

For too many of those who fought for their own liberation, one of those ideals is the end of peace with Israel. The United States must make clear to Morsi that this is not an option.

This is also a crucial opportunity for the region’s secular movements, which must speak out against the clergy’s incitement of young minds to hatred. It is time for these secular movements to start a countereducation in tolerance.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a fellow at the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, and author of the books “Infidel” and “Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations.”

Civil trial attorney Baruch C. Cohen, meets Yoeli Leibovitz (aka the "Pester Rebbe") at LA Cheder Trustee's Banquet

Abu Bluff turns down $1 billion because it means not suing Israel in the ICC

'Palestinian' media is reporting that 'moderate' 'Palestinian' PresidentMahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen has turned down an offer of $1 billion for his 'cash-strapped' 'Palestinian Authority' because it would require him to agree not to sue Israel in the International Criminal Court. 

AL MAYADEEN CHANNEL: ABBAS REFUSED A $1 BILLION DEAL TO SOLVE THE PA’S FINANCIAL CRISIS IN EXCHANGE FOR NOT GOING TO THE ICC

A senior Palestinian leader in Fatah said international parties offered President Abbas a deal that would solve the PA’s financial crisis by transferring $1 billion to the presidential treasury in exchange for a promise from Abbas not to go to the International Criminal court to try Israel’s leaders for war crimes.

The leader, who made his statements to the Mayadeen Satellite Channel said the same pressures that were applied to late President Yasser Arafat were being applied to Abu Mazen, both of whom did not break them or the people.

At present, the PA is suffering a deficit that exceeds $1 billion in its general budget. The government has said it does not know when December’s half salary will be paid either, adding that it needs $150 million each month to pay its employee salaries. (Al Quds)

In an earlier post, I reported that journalist Khaled Abu Toameh's Facebook account had been blocked (it was reinstated late Tuesday night). Here's the reason why the account was blocked (from the same link as the paragraph above).

Arab Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh revealed last week that the PA cancelled outstanding electricity debts for Palestinians in the West Bank. He also wrote that despite the ongoing financial crisis in the PA, Fatah and PA officials received unprecedented privileges like dental treatment in Tel Aviv and shopping sprees in Israeli owned businesses.

Shortly afterwards Toameh’s Facebook account wastemporally shutdown and whitewashed by Facebook.

But don't worry: The European Union decided on Tuesday to give the 'Palestinians' another 100 million Euros. What could go wrong?

Terrorists hold a party in oppressive Israeli prison

From Times of Israel:

A video clip showing convicted Palestinian terrorists celebrating the engagement of one of their own in an Israel prison was posted to the Internet and has been raising ire over the conditions granted the convicts by the Israeli authorities.

The story was broken by the Hakol Hayehudi website on Tuesday before it was reported on by the mainstream Hebrew media. The video was apparently filmed with a cellphone smuggled into the prison against regulations.

The focus of the video is Samar Abu Kwick, who is serving three life sentences in Eshel Prison for terror attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada.

In the undated clip, several inmates are seen gathered in a cell around tables laid out with drinks and snacks, reportedly to celebrate Kwick’s engagement. As music blares in the background, the inmates greet Kwick with hugs and kisses before settling down to enjoy the feast.

Kwick was convicted of murdering Sarah Lisha and the two IDF soldiers Elad Valenstein and Amit Zana in a 2000 terror attack at the Halamish junction in the West Bank.

Maariv cited Palestinian Authority sources who expressed disapproval of the video, saying it depicted life on the inside as being pleasant and could result in a tightening of conditions.

“People who watch the video can fall under the impression that life in Israeli prisons is easy and all they do all the time is have parties and feasts,” the Palestinian sources were quoted as saying.

By the way, that last statement is yet more proof of the honor/shame culture that Arabs live in. The PA is not denying that Palestinian Arab terrorists in prison have an easy life - they are just upset that people can now watch a video of it. That is how honor/shame works; appearances are more important than reality.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach ztz''l - Kiddush Levana

Who killed Arafat? Possibly his closest colleagues‘The Murder of Yasser Arafat’ offers a new perspective on the last days of a ruthless leader and his broken society

Yasser Arafat waved goodbye to his supporters on a cold October morning in 2004. Clad in a thick overcoat and an old-fashioned fur hat, the Palestinian leader looked awful. Thin, feeble and pallid, Arafat released a quivering smile before entering the French jet that carried him to the Percy military hospital near Paris, where he would expire 12 days later.

Abu-Ammar’s body was barely cold when theories about the mysterious cause of his death began to proliferate. Many Israelis preferred the AIDS hypothesis, citing his reputed sexual habits. But on the Palestinian street, conventional wisdom rarely veered from the accusation that Israel had poisoned him.

A 2012 Al-Jazeera documentary seemed to add credence to the Palestinian theory. The Qatari news channel sent Arafat’s hospital clothes and personal belongings to a sophisticated laboratory in Switzerland, which found high levels of polonium, a toxic radioactive element, in his bodily fluids. The dramatic findings led the Palestinian Authority to exhume Arafat’s body in November 2012 and take biopsies for further examination, all the while blaming Israel for political murder.

The investigations continue as these lines are being written.

Much ink has been spilled on the Palestinian leader and the circumstances of his demise. But few accounts are more racy and provocative than “The Murder of Yasser Arafat,” a short new e-book by veteran journalist duo Matthew Kalman and Matt Rees.

“The Murder of Yasser Arafat” is quite the page-turner, or rather page-scroller, since it only exists digitally. In their collaboration, Kalman (who also blogs at the Times of Israel)and Rees call themselves DeltaFourth, a portmanteau reference to the American special forces unit and the profession of journalism — the fourth estate.

The Murder of Yasser Arafat by Kalman and Rees (photo credit: courtesy)

Despite its super-realistic theme, the book reads like a crime novel (unsurprising, since award-winning Rees authored six of those). It depicts life in Arafat’s Palestinian Authority as rather similar to Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

To understand the death of Arafat, argue Kalman and Reese, one must first understand the machinations of the Palestinian Authority, which he created and dominated for 10 years. And those machinations were ruthless.

Take the story of Adnan Shahine, for example. Summarily executed on a Bethlehem street by Arafat’s men in December 2000 — in order to intimidate potential collaborators with Israel, though he himself was innocent — Shahine’s untimely death epitomizes the zeitgeist of the Arafat years.

Infighting, conspiracies and the habit of pitting friends and colleagues against one another were Arafat’s game, and he was quite good at it. The two “operatives” of DeltaFourth (as they perhaps slightly exaggeratedly call themselves) were eyewitnesses to many of these incredible and chilling tales, and they rarely spare us the details.

Matthew Kalman (photo credit: Courtesy)

Arafat was indeed assassinated, likely by polonium, they assert. But it was Arafat’s close circle of companions who are the prime suspects in his death and its cover-up, not Israel.

“The Israelis said ‘That’s our enemy,’ but Palestinians had a greater imperative to remove him,” Rees told The Times of Israel.

Kalman and Rees fall short of naming the ultimate culprit — for legal reasons and because they cannot entirely prove it, Rees said — but they do name a few PA bigwigs as having a vested interest in his death.

The men closest to Arafat, such as his loyal bodyguard and his personal physician, were suspiciously removed from his side in the years and months leading to his death, they write.

And Fathi Shabaneh, chief of internal security in the PA and head of the first investigation into Arafat’s death, told DeltaFourth that he would love to speak to three current PA officials and ask them “tough questions.”

Mohammad Dahlan (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

High on any such list is Mohammed Dahlan, the former rising star of Arafat’s Preventive Security Force in Gaza. Dahlan, once an Arafat confidante, was seen clearing out Arafat’s medicine cabinet upon his death, they report.

Seven months earlier, Dahlan had told the authors that “the Palestinian people are looking for a way out… a Palestinian leadership to take them to the exit.” DeltaFourth see Dahlan’s wish for “a basic change in the Authority and Fatah” as a clear indication that the Gaza pretty-boy wanted Arafat removed.

Dahlan felt that Arafat had brought about Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield at the height of the Second Intifada in 2002, wreaking havoc on Palestinian society. The devastation was preventable if Arafat had only heeded his advice, Dahlan told the writers.

The authors also reference current PA President Mahmoud Abbas, appointed as Arafat’s prime minister under US pressure in 2003 to curb the leader’s unmitigated power, only to resign 100 days later claiming that Arafat sabotaged his every move.

The book emerges in an intellectual environment accustomed to painstakingly tedious accounts of the Oslo years, focusing primarily on the Israeli-Palestinian trajectory. But Rees and Kalman say that the internal dynamics of both societies provide a much better explanation for the failure of peace.

Despite its diminutive size, the “Murder of Yasser Arafat” is an important book because — rather than focusing solely on the Palestinian leader — it provides a new perspective for evaluating the Second Intifada.

Matt Rees, in crime writer pose (photo credit: Courtesy)

“The Intifada, at its heart, was a way of waging politics among Palestinian leaders. It wasn’t really about killing Israelis,” the writers go so far as to assert. “Certain Palestinian chiefs wanted to shake up the power balance, to grab more of the clout and cash for themselves. The ones that lacked power destroyed the peace process –– which had delivered jobs and aid money to their rivals –– so that Arafat would need them instead.”

Reading “The Murder of Yasser Arafat” means being left with more questions than answers, but these are questions certainly worth asking.

“In Palestine, a group of powerful men, assisted by trusted confidants with access to Arafat’s private chambers, perfected the art of polonium politics,” the book concludes. If so, one wonders whether the current investigations into Arafat’s alleged poisoning will bring us any close to his killers.