Thursday, April 30, 2015
Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Young Arabs worldwide say they love Israel and the IDF
Al-Monitor reports:
It all began as a personal project by a young Israeli Arab who lives in northern Israel. He wanted to use social networking to convince other Israeli Arabs that the Israel Defense Forces are not some “army of evil” and that its soldiers are not as bloodthirsty as they tend to be portrayed in Arab propaganda films. He soon learned, however, that in the digital age, there is no end to surprises. Instead of messages and responses from the Israeli Arab audience he was targeting, he began receiving messages of peace and love from young Arab men and women from across the Arab world.
M. is an Israeli Arab Muslim who served in the IDF. He spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. Last year, he came across a series of billboards sponsored by the Balad Party as part of its campaign against the recruitment of Israeli Arabs into the IDF. He decided to fight back. “I saw the signs that were hung in Arab villages, and I kept track of the Facebook campaign being run by activists of Balad and the other Arab parties under the name ‘TZaHaL ma bistahal’ ['The IDF isn’t worth it']. It infuriated me,” he said.
“Activists would show up in the main square of Shfaram with bits of rubble, as if the rubble were from Gaza. They carried big signs too, as if they were trying to say, ‘Look what the army that is calling on you to enlist is actually doing in the Gaza Strip.’ Some of the activists would even paint their faces red, as if they were injured, while they tried to relay their message of ‘Don’t enlist!’ to young Bedouin, Druze, Christians and Muslims. I decided to respond to them on Facebook, so I made a page called ‘TZaHaL bistahal’ ['The IDF is worth it'], but instead of getting responses from the young Arabs to whom I was directing my personal campaign, I started to get photos and texts from young people around the Arab world. My jaw dropped.”
The photos and video clips sent from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and other countries can be found on the Facebook page "BeTzaHaL" ("In the IDF"), and there are lots of them. One young woman from Saudi Arabia filmed a green Saudi passport. Her voice plays in the background, against a street scene in Jeddah, with a message for the people of Israel: “Good evening. I am a young woman from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. I am a member of one of the better-known tribes of the Hijaz, and I am showing you Darajeh Square, a famous landmark in Jeddah. I’d like to send a message of peace and love to Israel and its dear citizens. I know it is surprising that a Saudi Arabian citizen sends a message to the people of Israel, but it is a basic principle of democracy that everyone is free to voice an opinion. I hope the Arabs will be sensible like me and recognize the fact that Israel also has rights to the lands of Palestine.”
A young man from Iraq shot a picture of his passport along the Tigris River. “I want to send a message of peace and love to the dear Israeli people,” he says. “I decided to shoot this video and tell you, ‘True, we are two countries that do not have friendly relations, but that doesn’t matter. I believe that the number of people who support Israel here will grow consistently.’”
Other young people send M. photos of their passports with handwritten messages in Hebrew, Arabic and English. It is always the same: “We love Israel.” One Egyptian police officer took it a step further by including his police cap along with his passport in the shot and wrote in Arabic, “We love, love, love Israel and its army.” He even added a picture of a heart with a Star of David in the middle of it.
M. said that the whole thing began with a young Coptic woman from Egypt who emigrated to the United States, where she experienced racism and manifestations of hatred toward Copts. “I quickly learned that she also speaks Hebrew, like many young people who studied Hebrew at Cairo University,” he said. “So I said to her, ‘Why don’t you do a little something to spread the message, so that people in other countries will see and hear that there are other voices in the Middle East?’ She sent a photo of her passport, and pretty soon I started getting pictures of passports from all across the Arab world. The very next photo came from Iraq.”
M. also engages the senders in private conversations, which are not posted publicly. “After I got the video from Baghdad, I asked the person who sent me the clip what it was that caused him to express support for Israel. He responded, ‘You’d be surprised. I’m not the only one. There are a lot of young people here who think like me. Everything that is happening to us here in Iraq — the killings, the terrorism, the veritable bloodbath — showed us that Israel has nothing to do with it. There are many young people living in Iraq today who have no religion. They are fed up with the religious wars between Sunnis and Shiites and want to live their lives without religion.”
M. says that he has also been receiving messages from a young student in Jordan. A member of a prominent clan, she claims to have many senior army officers in her family. What impresses her most about Israel is its liberalism. “I was amazed to learn that they have gay pride parades and that single-sex marriages [performed abroad] are accepted there,” she confided to M. “She told me that although she realized that her sexual orientation is different, in a traditional society she cannot come out as a lesbian, especially since she is a member of a prestigious clan. All she can do is be envious of the fact that in Israel, just a few dozen miles from the Jordanian border, a whole different life is possible.”
Over the past year, M. continued to receive a daily stream of messages from young Arabs, shedding light on yet another aspect of the dramatic changes underway in the Arab world. Yes, there are wars, revolutions and a return to traditional religions. There are bloody struggles between Shiites and Sunnis and the Islamic State has risen. At the same time, however, many young people long for another reality, even if perhaps it cannot be implemented in their own countries. Syria and Iraq have been torn apart, Yemen is fighting the rise of the Houthis and in Egypt, young people continue to dream of how liberalism and democracy might one day beat back religious zealotry.
It is certainly possible that the phenomenon encountered by M. during his private protest is a fringe one, but in an era of open skies and open Internet, no leader, not even a dictator, can block borders once they have been breached.
The Facebook page has some great videos.
It all began as a personal project by a young Israeli Arab who lives in northern Israel. He wanted to use social networking to convince other Israeli Arabs that the Israel Defense Forces are not some “army of evil” and that its soldiers are not as bloodthirsty as they tend to be portrayed in Arab propaganda films. He soon learned, however, that in the digital age, there is no end to surprises. Instead of messages and responses from the Israeli Arab audience he was targeting, he began receiving messages of peace and love from young Arab men and women from across the Arab world.
M. is an Israeli Arab Muslim who served in the IDF. He spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. Last year, he came across a series of billboards sponsored by the Balad Party as part of its campaign against the recruitment of Israeli Arabs into the IDF. He decided to fight back. “I saw the signs that were hung in Arab villages, and I kept track of the Facebook campaign being run by activists of Balad and the other Arab parties under the name ‘TZaHaL ma bistahal’ ['The IDF isn’t worth it']. It infuriated me,” he said.
“Activists would show up in the main square of Shfaram with bits of rubble, as if the rubble were from Gaza. They carried big signs too, as if they were trying to say, ‘Look what the army that is calling on you to enlist is actually doing in the Gaza Strip.’ Some of the activists would even paint their faces red, as if they were injured, while they tried to relay their message of ‘Don’t enlist!’ to young Bedouin, Druze, Christians and Muslims. I decided to respond to them on Facebook, so I made a page called ‘TZaHaL bistahal’ ['The IDF is worth it'], but instead of getting responses from the young Arabs to whom I was directing my personal campaign, I started to get photos and texts from young people around the Arab world. My jaw dropped.”
The photos and video clips sent from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and other countries can be found on the Facebook page "BeTzaHaL" ("In the IDF"), and there are lots of them. One young woman from Saudi Arabia filmed a green Saudi passport. Her voice plays in the background, against a street scene in Jeddah, with a message for the people of Israel: “Good evening. I am a young woman from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. I am a member of one of the better-known tribes of the Hijaz, and I am showing you Darajeh Square, a famous landmark in Jeddah. I’d like to send a message of peace and love to Israel and its dear citizens. I know it is surprising that a Saudi Arabian citizen sends a message to the people of Israel, but it is a basic principle of democracy that everyone is free to voice an opinion. I hope the Arabs will be sensible like me and recognize the fact that Israel also has rights to the lands of Palestine.”
A young man from Iraq shot a picture of his passport along the Tigris River. “I want to send a message of peace and love to the dear Israeli people,” he says. “I decided to shoot this video and tell you, ‘True, we are two countries that do not have friendly relations, but that doesn’t matter. I believe that the number of people who support Israel here will grow consistently.’”
Other young people send M. photos of their passports with handwritten messages in Hebrew, Arabic and English. It is always the same: “We love Israel.” One Egyptian police officer took it a step further by including his police cap along with his passport in the shot and wrote in Arabic, “We love, love, love Israel and its army.” He even added a picture of a heart with a Star of David in the middle of it.
M. said that the whole thing began with a young Coptic woman from Egypt who emigrated to the United States, where she experienced racism and manifestations of hatred toward Copts. “I quickly learned that she also speaks Hebrew, like many young people who studied Hebrew at Cairo University,” he said. “So I said to her, ‘Why don’t you do a little something to spread the message, so that people in other countries will see and hear that there are other voices in the Middle East?’ She sent a photo of her passport, and pretty soon I started getting pictures of passports from all across the Arab world. The very next photo came from Iraq.”
M. also engages the senders in private conversations, which are not posted publicly. “After I got the video from Baghdad, I asked the person who sent me the clip what it was that caused him to express support for Israel. He responded, ‘You’d be surprised. I’m not the only one. There are a lot of young people here who think like me. Everything that is happening to us here in Iraq — the killings, the terrorism, the veritable bloodbath — showed us that Israel has nothing to do with it. There are many young people living in Iraq today who have no religion. They are fed up with the religious wars between Sunnis and Shiites and want to live their lives without religion.”
M. says that he has also been receiving messages from a young student in Jordan. A member of a prominent clan, she claims to have many senior army officers in her family. What impresses her most about Israel is its liberalism. “I was amazed to learn that they have gay pride parades and that single-sex marriages [performed abroad] are accepted there,” she confided to M. “She told me that although she realized that her sexual orientation is different, in a traditional society she cannot come out as a lesbian, especially since she is a member of a prestigious clan. All she can do is be envious of the fact that in Israel, just a few dozen miles from the Jordanian border, a whole different life is possible.”
Over the past year, M. continued to receive a daily stream of messages from young Arabs, shedding light on yet another aspect of the dramatic changes underway in the Arab world. Yes, there are wars, revolutions and a return to traditional religions. There are bloody struggles between Shiites and Sunnis and the Islamic State has risen. At the same time, however, many young people long for another reality, even if perhaps it cannot be implemented in their own countries. Syria and Iraq have been torn apart, Yemen is fighting the rise of the Houthis and in Egypt, young people continue to dream of how liberalism and democracy might one day beat back religious zealotry.
It is certainly possible that the phenomenon encountered by M. during his private protest is a fringe one, but in an era of open skies and open Internet, no leader, not even a dictator, can block borders once they have been breached.
The Facebook page has some great videos.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
A JOURNEY INTO THE PAST By Mira Cohen
It all began with an excited late-night phone call from my nephew, Aryeh Hager in Bnai Brak.
"Dodah Mira," they found the gravesites of your father and grandfather, he shouted. Speaking in Yiddish, he told me that a Rabbi Aaron Rotter, also of Bnai Brak, had been in the Ukraine searching for the gravesite of his parents and, coincidentally, had found the location of the graves of my father, Rabbi Baruch Hager (Z.TZL.) and my grandfather, the Horodenker Rebbe, Rabbi Yechiel Michel Hager (Z.TZL.) .
Actually, the story began more than half a century ago. I was born in Tchernowitz, at that time part of Romania. As a youngster, I was taken, together with my family, to the Transnista Concentration Camp in the Ukraine. Forty-five members of my family were taken to the camp and five of us survived, my mother, my aunt and uncle, my brother and myself. My father and grandfather had perished in the camp, both on the same day.
At the conclusion of the war, when we were freed from the camp, we were taken to Israel. And I never knew where my father and grandfather had been buried. I knew that it was somewhere in the location of the Transnista Concentration Camp, but I never knew the precise location. Naturally, we were never able to put up a matzevah . (monument) at these graves.
My nephew very excitedly told me that his late father (my brother), Rabbi Moshe Hager, the Antineer Rebbe, had throughout his life always spoken about the fact that he wished he would one day be able to visit the graves of his father and grandfather.
Unfortunately, he passed away just a few years ago without ever realizing this dream. His son, Aryeh, however, was determined to visit the graves.
As soon as we heard this, my husband, Shmuel (Dr. Samuel I. Cohen, Executive Vice President of the Jewish National Fund) and I decided that we were going to join Aryeh in the Ukraine and, together with him, arrange for a Hakomas Matzevah (unveiling). We made all of our travel arrangements but, at. the last minute, my husband was unable to make the trip. My newly-married son, Michael, however did make the trip in his place.
We flew to Vienna and then to Kiev, and at the Kiev airport, we were met by my nephew, Aryeh, and a driver from the yeshiva in Vinnitsa, where Aryeh and Rabbi Rotter were staying. We drove for
4 1/2 hours from the airport, stopping at Babi Yar on the way, and saw the park-like areas that had once been soaked with blood in massive graves. During the drive, we passed through dozens of small villages and hamlets and realized that we were in another world; a primitive, impoverished countryside, totally unrelated to a metropolitan city like New York. In many of the areas there was no electricity, no lights, broken dirt roads, no automobiles, no public transportation, etc. As we drove to Vinnitsa, my nephew told us that he had brought with him a gravesite marker with the names of my father and grandfather that would be affixed to a cement block tombstone which would be put up sometime before Thursday. This meant that we would have to remain on until after Shabbos.
Late that night, after our arrival in Vinnitsa, we decided to do everything possible to try to have the Hakamos Matzevah on Wednesday. In th middle of the night Rabbi Rotter, Aryeh and I met with one of the drivers from the Yeshiva and offered to pay him a substantial amount if he would drive us early Wednesday morning to see if it would be possible to have the matzevah put up earlier than planned.
We left Vinnitsa at about 3 A.M. and drove for about 4 hours to the site of what had been the Transnista Concentration Camp; drove, for the most part, on the unsafe roads, without any lights, and certainly without any direction signs. When we arrived at the Camp early in the morning, we were surprised to see that the workmen had already completed the matzevah for my father and grandfather and had already affixed the granite marker with their names.
I cannot begin to describe the emotions of the moment. After more than half a century, I was face to face with the graves of my father and grandfather.
Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I found myself talking to my father. With tears that never stopped flowing, I told him about my husband, my children, my grandchildren, my life and my prayers. For the first time in my life I found that I was able to speak to him directly and say, "Tatteh." My son, who is
a Kohen, stood from afar and recorded the experience with his camera. Rabbi Rotter chanted the El Ma-leh Rachamim. We said Tehillim. You can 't imagine the prayers that came through our lips and from our hearts.
When we finally decided to leave, broken-hearted at the thought that I was leaving my father and grandfather alone in this G-dforsaken area, I told my son, "we'll be back," thinking to myself that sometime in the future we would make another visit.
To our utter amazement, in the midst of a very quiet and peaceful farm area, the original cemetery of the Transnista Camp still exists and many, if not most, of the matzevahs are still intact. Rabbi Rotter was able to locate the exact sites of the graves of my father and grandfather. Of course, having been in the Camp, together with us, he remembered that their graves were immediately adjacent to a person for whom there was a matzevah, and he remembered the exact location..
As we drove back to Vinnitsa, another 4-hour trip, my thoughts covered the span of more than five decades since my father had died in the Camp; all that I had been through; all my experiences as a youngster growing up in Israel, all my lifelong secret hopes that one day I would find the gravesite of my father.
Although broken-hearted at having to leave the cemetery, I had a sense of fulfillment that this dream of mine had finally come true.
When we came back to Vinnitsa, a young lady, one of the wives of the American rabbis stationed there to do Kirev work among Russian youngsters, asked me if I would do her a great favor and accompany her to the Mikvah that evening. Tired and exhausted as I was, how could I resist this mitzvah. To my great surprise, there, in the midst of nowheres, was a perfectly Kosher Mikvah used, when necessary, by the young women who were prepared to live in the Ukraine for 2-3 years for the sake of bringing young Russian children to Yiddishkeit.
When we arrived at the Yeshiva where we were staying we spent the next few hours reviewing all of the nisim in connection with the visit, the fact that my son was able to get a ticket and accompany me at the very last minute, the fact that the Ukrainian drivers were able to find the Transnista Camp, the fact that the workers had put the matzevah up earlier than expected, and that finally, finally, I had been able to pour my heart out to my father after all these years.
I was concerned that my son, Michael, was exhausted and didn't dare suggest to him that we go back to the cemetery. However, as we talked, Michael turned to me and said, "Mommy, if we jump in the car now and drive to Transnista, we can still make it back to Kiev in time to get the plane to the U.S. and make it home for Shabbos, and we did.
Once again, we recruited one of the Ukranian drivers for a midnight ride through the countryside. We arrived at the Transnista area at the break of dawn. I ran to the gravesites. Once again, my heart poured out with prayer and, this time, I knew for sure that I would be back. I knew where my father was buried and I knew that he would want me to visit him again.
During our brief visit in Vinnitsa I also had an opportunity to have a very brief visit with my husband 's first cousin, Esther Burstein, the granddaughter of Rabbi Shmuel Burstein-Hacohen, the sister of the Ma-danei Shmuel, the Minchas Shabbos, etc. She's a spritely woman of 76, a former economist, who will be going on aliyah to Israel later this summer .
Totally exhausted, but totally fulfilled, we made the trip to the airport on time and were back in our homes Thursday evening. The trip began on Monday evening and ended on Thursday evening, 4 days in total, but it was an odyssey of a lifetime. We encompassed more than 5 centuries in these 4 days.
Almost as if we traversed form one world to another and back. We sped into the Ukraine and shtetl of yesteryear to visit with not only my father and grandfather, but our zaydehs and bubbas of yesteryear.
How many people have an opportunity to turn back the clock and visit Ukranian shtetl life of 200 years ago? How many people have the opportunity to find the gravesites of their parents after more than half a century? I did, together with my son, Michael, and the colossal emotional impact of this trip and visit will be with us for the rest of our lives.
Palestinian Antisemitism: Jews plan to conquer world; Judaism permits killing Gentiles
Jewish plan to conquer the world is true
Judaism is extreme, permits killing Gentiles
Fatah spokesperson quotes
the Russian forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- the fictitious Jewish plan to subjugate the world -
as if it were a true document
Gaza university professor:
The Jewish religion is based on extremism.
It permits stealing from and killing Gentiles
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
In a recent interview on Palestinian Authority TV about Israel's policies regarding the Gaza Strip, a Fatah spokesperson, Osama Al-Qawasmi, quoted the Russian forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if it were a true document:
 |
Fatah spokesperson Osama Al-Qawasmi: "According to Israel's ideology, strategy and policy from 1956 until now, Gaza is outside the Israeli ideological thinking. Even in theirProtocols [of the Elders of Zion] and even in their Bible [it says]: "Don't live in Gaza."
[Official PA TV, April 5, 2015]
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an Antisemitic forgery describing how Jews allegedly plan to subjugate the world under Jewish rule. It was published in Russia in 1903 and translated into multiple languages. In 1921, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was exposed as a false document.Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Palestinians present The Protocols as a true manifestation of Jews' and Israelis' aspirations for the future.
PA TV also recently served as a platform for demonizing statements by a Gazan university professor. In an interview, Dr. Ibrahim Abrash, political science professor at the Al-Azhar University, explained that Judaism is based on extremism and that it permits stealing from and killing Gentiles:
Dr. Ibrahim Abrash, political science professor, Al-Azhar University in Gaza: "The structure of the Zionist ideology, and even the structure of the Jewish religion, are based on extremism. The term 'Gentiles' exists in the Jewish religion, 'us vs. the Gentiles,' and it is permitted to steal from and kill Gentiles. The Zionist ideology came into being, based on denial the existence of the other, the denial and lack of recognition of us, the Palestinians."
[Official PA TV, March 29, 2015]
Click to see more examples of Palestinian demonization of Jews and Israelis.
The Ghosts That Haunt an Iran Accord
The Iran deal is probably going to happen — and this is a good thing. The Islamic Republic ostensibly gives up its surreptitious race for the bomb in exchange for an end to economic sanctions. Absolutely, there are grave uncertainties, but the alternative may well be a military conflagration that is in no one’s interest. For the first time in 36 years, the deal also opens the door just a crack to the possibility of a major strategic rapprochement between America and the Shiite Islamic community, including not only Iran but also Lebanon’s Hezbollah. After all, we now share a common enemy: the so-called Islamic State.
And, though no one mentions it, Iran needs at least a hundred billion dollars of foreign investment to modernize its oil fields, and American oil companies are eager to bid for these contracts once sanctions are lifted.
But here’s the rub: Largely forgotten are two judgments handed down in U.S. Federal District Courts. Dammarell vs. the Islamic Republic of Iran (2003) and Peterson vs. the Islamic Republic of Iran (2007) held Iran responsible for truck bomb attacks on the United States Embassy in Beirut in April 1983 and a similar attack on the U.S. Marines barracks in October of that year. Seventeen Americans were killed in the embassy attack — including eight C.I.A. officers — and 32 Lebanese employees died. Two hundred and forty-one U.S. servicemen were killed in the Marine barracks bombing. Both civil suits, and one later filed by the Lebanese employees resulted in multibillion dollar judgments against Iran. The Iranian government, which did not respond to the lawsuit or defend itself at trial, has yet to pay a penny to any of the families of the victims or the survivors.
These outstanding judgments represent a major stumbling block to any diplomatic resolution of Washington’s troubled relations with Tehran. It is hard to imagine any scenario in which the Iranians agree to accept responsibility for truck bomb attacks that occurred more than three decades ago. And yet it is equally unimaginable that the Obama administration could ignore the Federal District Court judgments entered on behalf of so many American civilians, servicemen and intelligence officers. When the economic embargo against Iran is lifted, the lawyers representing these claimants will demand that these judgments be paid — and they are sure to go after any American corporations doing business with Iran. (Congress made this possible in January 2008 with a law that permits federal courts to seize commercial funds flowing between American companies and Iranian entities, such as the Iranian National Oil Company, and direct these monies to the victims of the Iranian attacks.)
No doubts exist about Iran’s responsibility. One of those who died in the Beirut Embassy bombing was Robert Ames, the C.I.A.’s top expert on the Middle East. Ames was legendary inside C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., for having penetrated Yasir Arafat’s P.L.O., forming a deep friendship with Arafat’s intelligence chief, Ali Hassan Salameh. A seasoned clandestine officer, Ames regularly briefed President Ronald Reagan in the White House. After the embassy bombing, President Reagan noted in his diary, “We lost [name deleted] our top research man on the Middle East.” Six months later, after a second truck bomb hit the Marine barracks, Reagan wrote, “We all believe Iranians did this bombing, just as they did with our embassy last April.”
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
Washington had its suspicions but no hard evidence that Iran had launched the attacks. But now we have the names of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers responsible for these deaths. One of them is Ali Reza Asgari, a Guard intelligence officer stationed in Baalbek, Lebanon, throughout the 1980s. Asgari later served as Iran’s deputy defense minister. But according to numerous Western news reports, in 2007 Asgari defected, apparently to the United States, bringing with him a laptop filled with information about Iran’s nuclear weapons program and much information about his training of Hezbollah’s intelligence apparatus in the 1980s and ’90s.
Some of President George W. Bush’s National Security Council advisers evidently believed that the intelligence Asgari brought to the table on the Iranian nuclear program was invaluable. In effect, national security trumped whatever justice the United States government owed to the memory of Robert Ames and all of Asgari’s other victims. It was a cold calculation. When one high-level intelligence official in the Bush White House was asked about Asgari’s asylum, he responded, “At the unclassified level, I cannot elaborate on the issue.”
No one in official Washington can talk about Asgari. It’s an official secret. The C.I.A. “categorically” denies that they had anything to do with “arranging” his defection. Yes, Asgari “arranged” his own defection. But quite unbelievably, the C.I.A. claims not to know where he resides today. We now know that Asgari visited Leidschendam, in the Netherlands, in the spring of 2013. He gave testimony to the United Nations Special Tribune for Lebanon investigating the assassination in 2005 of the country’s prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Obviously, if Asgari was in the Netherlands he traveled under the protection of some Western intelligence organization.
Why Is Pakistan More Legitimate than Israel? Dennis Prager
Whenever I have received a call from a listener to my radio show challenging Israel's legitimacy, I have asked these people if they ever called a radio show to challenge any other country's legitimacy. In particular, I ask, have they ever questioned the legitimacy of Pakistan?
The answer, of course, is always "no." In fact, no caller ever understood why I even mentioned Pakistan.
There are two reasons for this.
First, of all the 200-plus countries in the world, only Israel's legitimacy is challenged. So mentioning any other country seems strange to a caller. Second, almost no one outside of India and Pakistan knows anything about the founding of Pakistan.
Only months before the U.N. adopted a proposal to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state in 1947, India was partitioned into a Muslim and a Hindu state. The Hindu state was, of course, India. And the Muslim state became known as Pakistan. It comprises 310,000 square miles, about 40,000 square miles larger than Texas.
In both cases, the declaration of an independent state resulted in violence. As soon as the newly established state of Israel was declared in May 1948, it was invaded by six Arab armies. And the partition of India led to a terrible violence between Muslims and Hindus.
According to the final report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission from Dec. 28, 1949, the 1948 war of Israel's independence created 726,000 Arabs refugees. Many sources put the figure at about 200,000 less. A roughly equal number of Jewish refugees -- approximately 700,000 -- were created when they were forcibly expelled from the Arab countries where they had lived for countless generations. In addition, approximately 10,000 Arabs were killed in the fighting that ensued after the Arab invasion of Israel.
Now let's turn to the creation of Pakistan. According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, the creation of Pakistan resulted in 14 million refugees -- Hindus fleeing Pakistan and Muslims fleeing India. Assuming a 50-50 split, the creation of Pakistan produced about seven million Hindu refugees -- at least 10 times the number of Arab refugees that resulted from the war surrounding Israel's creation. And the Mideast war, it should be recalled, was started by the Arab nations surrounding Israel. Were it not for the Arab rejection of Israel's creation (and existence within any borders) and the subsequent Arab invasion, there would have been no Arab refugees.
And regarding deaths, the highest estimate of Arab deaths during the 1948 war following the partition of Palestine is 10,000. The number of deaths that resulted from the creation of Pakistan is around one million.
In addition, according to the Indian government, at least 86,000 women were raped. Most historians believe the number to be far higher. The number of women raped when Israel was established is close to zero. From all evidence I could find, the highest estimate was 12.
Given the spectacularly larger number of refugees and deaths caused by the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, why does no one ever question the legitimacy of Pakistan's existence?
This question is particularly valid given another fact: Never before in history was there a Pakistan. It was a completely new nation. Moreover, its creation was made possible solely because of Muslim invasion. It was Muslims who invaded India, and killed about 60 million Hindus during the thousand-year Muslim rule of India. The area now known as Pakistan was Hindu until the Muslims invaded it in A.D. 711.
On the other and, modern Israel is the third Jewish state in the geographic area known as Palestine. The first was destroyed in 586 B.C., the second in A.D. 70. And there was never a non-Jewish sovereign state in Palestine.
So, given all these facts, why is Israel's legitimacy challenged, while the legitimacy of Pakistan, a state that had never before existed and whose creation resulted in the largest mass migration in recorded history, is never challenged?
The answer is so obvious that only those who graduated from college, and especially from graduate school, need to be told: Israel is the one Jewish state in the world. So, while there are 49 Muslim-majority countries and 22 Arab states, much of the world questions or outright only rejects the right of the one Jewish state, the size of New Jersey, to exist.
If you are a member of the Presbyterian Church, send these facts to the leaders of the Presbyterian Church USA who voted to boycott Israel. If you are a student in Middle Eastern Studies -- or for that matter, almost any other humanities department -- and your professor is anti-Israel, ask your professor why Pakistan is legitimate and Israel isn't.
They won't have a good answer. Their opposition to Israel isn't based on moral considerations.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Nazi Surrender Telegram to Go Up for Auction
Karl Donitz
US government
Seventy years after V-E Day, the Nazis' surrender order has resurfaced - and will be auctioned off in New York.
Nazi Navy chief Karl Dönitz wrote the order as he hid on a naval base in Northwest Germany on May 9, 1945.
The surviving piece of telegram paper is expected to garner between $20,000-$30,000 in an auction Wednesday at Bonhams, according to the Guardian.
In it, Dönitz orders an unconditional surrender and notes that all hostilities will cease at 1:00 am.
“This was unavoidable in order to prevent the complete destruction of certain parts of the front, which was expected to occur in a short time, and, in so doing, to save as many people as possible for Germany,” Dönitz stated.
Bonhams curator Tom Lamb noted that the telegraph's survival is rare; the Nazis had a "scorched-earth" policy that destroyed most of their records as the war ended.
The slip of paper survived after it was found in the attache case of Luftwaffe Field Marshal Robert von Greim, to whom the notice is addressed, after he was arrested by US forces outside of Prague.
Nazi memorabilia has become a popular - and controversial - auctionhouse sale.
Earlier this month, a British auction house auctioned off the suit of Gestapo leader Hermann Goering, after the curator noticed that the suit had sweat stains - distinguishing an original from a replica.
Nazi Navy chief Karl Dönitz wrote the order as he hid on a naval base in Northwest Germany on May 9, 1945.
The surviving piece of telegram paper is expected to garner between $20,000-$30,000 in an auction Wednesday at Bonhams, according to the Guardian.
In it, Dönitz orders an unconditional surrender and notes that all hostilities will cease at 1:00 am.
“This was unavoidable in order to prevent the complete destruction of certain parts of the front, which was expected to occur in a short time, and, in so doing, to save as many people as possible for Germany,” Dönitz stated.
Bonhams curator Tom Lamb noted that the telegraph's survival is rare; the Nazis had a "scorched-earth" policy that destroyed most of their records as the war ended.
The slip of paper survived after it was found in the attache case of Luftwaffe Field Marshal Robert von Greim, to whom the notice is addressed, after he was arrested by US forces outside of Prague.
Nazi memorabilia has become a popular - and controversial - auctionhouse sale.
Earlier this month, a British auction house auctioned off the suit of Gestapo leader Hermann Goering, after the curator noticed that the suit had sweat stains - distinguishing an original from a replica.
Monday, April 27, 2015
How Israeli Desalination Technology Is Helping Solve California’s Devastating Drought
Four years of devastating droughts in California have pushed cities and counties in the Golden State to seriously consider turning to the one drinking source that is not depleting anytime soon – seawater. With the Pacific Ocean abutting their shores, water desalination may be the much-needed solution for Californians. But desalination has its disadvantages, the chief ones being the high costs and the potential environmental damage.
To address these challenges, California is turning to the world leader in cutting edge desalination technology – Israel. A $1 billion desalination project is already underway in San Diego County – which will be the largest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere – and Israeli engineers have been called in for their expertise.
Currently under construction in Carlsbad, 35 miles north of San Diego, the plant could potentially provide Californians with 54 million gallons of water a day. The plant is using technology Israelis have been using for years, reverse-osmosis, which involves forcing seawater through a film with tiny holes that allow only water molecules to pass through, while the larger salt molecules cannot.
“A complete game changer for desalination in the US”
2014 was California’s third driest year in 119 years and according to the US Geological Survey; it was also the warmest year in recorded history, leading California to declare a drought state of emergency last year. Earlier this month, another frightening figure was published: The California Department of Water Resources measured the statewide water content of Sierra snowpack (which provides about one-third of the water used by California’s cities and farms) at 5 percent, the lowest level since 1950. In response, the governor recently announced mandatory State-wide water cutbacks.
Despite this, the Golden State has only a handful of small desalination plants. But with the help of Israel Desalination Enterprises (IDE Technologies), the $1 billion desalination plant San Diego is due to become reality next year. According to IDE – which is also working on desalination projects in China, India and Australia – the Carlsbad project is a “complete game changer for desalination in the US.” This project is expected to provide clean water to 300,000 people and generate roughly $50 million annually for the regional economy. “The plant overcame significant practical, regulatory and economic hurdles to deliver a cost-effective and environmentally friendly water supply,” IDE said.
Critics of the reverse-osmosis technology have claimed that it is too costly and requires too much energy, making it environmentally damaging. But IDE Technologies says its production costs are among the world’s lowest and that it can provide an average family’s water needs for roughly $300-$500 a year. Israel’s largest desalination plant, for example, sells desalinated water to the Israeli government for about 60 cents per cubic meter, which is lower than traditional water purification methods. Using highly efficient pumps, the plant also consumes less energy than similar desalination stations around the globe.
Necessity is the mother of invention
Israel, a land that is two-thirds arid, has long been forced to come up with creative ways to conserve, recycle and desalinate water. The country has become a leader in the field of water preservation, coming up with industry-changing technologies such as drip irrigation in 1964. In fact, the serious attention Israel has paid to its water supplied means that the country now has a water surplus – a first in its history. About 40 percent of Israel’s tap water is desalinated sea water – a figure expected to reach 50 percent by 2016 – and so is a large part of the water for agriculture.
And with an estimated 1.8 billion people around the globe who don’t have adequate access to clean water, desalination technologies developed in Israel are in high demand.
Israelis quench the thirst of Marshall Islands residents
In the Marshall Islands, for example, an island country located near the equator in the Pacific Ocean with a serious shortage in drinking water, Israeli company GAL Water Technologies has introduced a one-of-its-kind emergency water purification vehicle, called the GalMobile. According to the company, the main challenge when large scale natural disasters or terrorist attack strike, is lack of fresh clean water in the first 72 hours. The GalMobile is then highly efficient as a self-contained automatic vehicle that can connect to any possible water source – like rivers, lakes, oceans, brackish water and wells – and produce drinking water at WHO water standards.
For the past two decades, GAL has also provided water treatment technologies on a humanitarian basis to African nations.
But despite its past achievements, Israeli desalination technology will largely be measured on the success in San Diego. If that reverse osmosis plant achieves its goals, we can expect to see many more Israeli engineers teaching the world about the benefits of desalination.
The Unobserving Observing the Observant
Tour guides Jacob Gluck and Israel Kogan co-conduct the walking tour in Williamsburg.
‘Shame on You’: Hannity Cuts Off Muslim Guest After Testy Exchange over Terrorism
On his show last night, Sean Hannity abruptly ended an interview with a Muslim guest who didn’t like the fact that he was asked if Hamas was a terrorist organization.
Hassan Shibly is the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Florida. He appeared on Hannity to discuss the plight of Hoda Muthana, a college student who left the United States to join the Islamic State.
At the beginning of the interview, Shibly started off well by saying that Muthana is now affiliated with an “extremist violent gang of monsters.”
Hannity questioned Shibly about his group’s link to some shady characters. Shibly advised Hannity to stop changing the subject.
“I’ll ask any question I want, this is my show,” Hannity replied.
Eventually, it got to the point where Hannity asked, repeatedly, if Shibly believed that Hamas was a terrorist organization. After several dodges at the question, Shibly finally came around and eventually admitted that Hamas was correctly labeled as a group of terrorists.
However, he added this: “Shame on you for just asking every Muslim what he thinks of terrorist organizations.”
But Hannity didn’t ask every Muslim that question. He asked Shibly.
Then, the interview ended.
Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: International law experts praise Israeli actions in Gaza war
From Just Security:
The two larger papers are interesting in themselves. For example:
Finally,
A Legal and Operational Assessment of Israel’s Targeting Practices
By Michael Schmitt and John MerriamIsrael has long resisted publicly revealing its targeting methods and even some of its specific positions on the law of armed conflict (LOAC), fearing that doing so would provide an operational advantage to its adversaries and be exploited by often-critical interlocutors among states and in the international human rights community. This may be changing. Shortly after the conclusion of open hostilities, the IDF invited us to Israel to examine its targeting practices and application of the LOAC. We visited an operational IDF headquarters (the Gaza Division) and observed its targeting cells; reviewed the targeting procedures of both ground and air forces; studied the organization, training, and methodology of the Military Advocate General’s Corps; visited a Hamas attack tunnel; examined combat footage, including the publicly released footage here; and interviewed IDF officers — both legal advisers and operators — at various levels of command.Our goal was not to assess the just-concluded campaign (Operation Protective Edge), but rather to delve into how the IDF conducts targeting in general from the perspective of individuals who have real-world targeting experience and LOAC expertise. The results of the research will be published in two related pieces, one for a military-policy audience, the other in an academic law journal.Broadly speaking, we concluded that IDF positions on targeting law largely track those of the United States military. Moreover, even when they differ, the Israeli approach remains within the ambit of generally acceptable State practice. The IDF is served by a corps of highly competent and well-trained legal advisors who operate with a remarkable degree of autonomy, and its operations are subject to extensive judicial monitoring. While there are certainly Israeli legal positions that may be contentious, we found that their approach to targeting is consistent with the law and, in many cases, worthy of emulation.
Michael Schmitt is the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law and Director of the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College.
John Merriam is a US Army Judge Advocate currently serving as the Associate Director of the Stockton Center at the US Naval War College.
The two larger papers are interesting in themselves. For example:
When civilians may be affected by an attack and it is militarily feasible to do so, the IDF undertakes extensive measures to warn them.69 Some, such as leaflet drops and general announcements to the civilian population, are common in conflicts. They typically announce that a particular area will be subject to attack and instruct the population where to go to avoid its effects. In many cases, the IDF contacts neighborhood leaders and asks them to encourage civilians to leave the area. The IDF also delivers very precise warnings of particular strikes. As described below, these include direct phone communications with civilians in the target area and so-called “knocks on the roof.” Human rights organizations criticized both of the latter techniques during the recent Israeli operation in Gaza, although the authors did not find the criticism well-grounded.70Footnote 70 refers to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, effectively saying that their grasp of international law is flawed..
Finally,
Although the Israeli positions on the LOAC principles and rules governing targeting are rather orthodox, the unique operational environment in which it finds itself clearly affects interpretation and application. As an example, given the propensity of Israel’s enemies to use human shields, it is unsurprising that Israel has taken the position that individuals voluntarily acting this manner are to be treated as direct participants in hostilities. In light of its enemies’ frequent failure to distinguish itself from the civilian population, it is equally unsurprising that Israel has embraced the principle of reasonableness with respect to target identification. Perhaps most noteworthy is the high value Israel places on the safety of its soldiers and its civilian population. Although impossible to quantify, these concerns undoubtedly influenced the perspective of Israeli commanders as they plan and execute military operations, perspectives that often come into play in the application of such LOAC concepts as proportionality.Israel's actions were quite lawful under any sane interpretation of the Laws of Armed Conflict. Amnesty and HRW twist international law in ways that make it impossible for any modern army to fight.
In the authors’ opinion, use of lawfare by Israel’s enemies likewise shapes, whether consciously or not, Israel’s interpretation and application of the LOAC. In particular, Israel has adopted an inclusive approach to the entitlement to protected status, particularly civilian status. Examples include Israel’s positions on doubt, its treatment of involuntary shields as civilians who are not directly participating and its view that individuals who ignore warnings retain their civilian status. Although these positions might seem counterintuitive for a State that faces foes who exploit protected status for military and other gain, such positions are well suited to counter the enemy’s reliance on lawfare. In this regard, Israel’s LOAC interpretations actually enhance its operational and strategic level position despite any tactical loss. Along the same lines, in many cases, the IDF imposes policy restrictions which go above and beyond the requirements of LOAC.
ISIS Selfie with Woman's Severed Head: TAKE IT VIRAL
ISIS may be dangerous like a rabid animal, but it has proven itself incredibly stupid by posting a selfie of one ot its "fighters" with a woman's severed head. I say "stupid" because atrocities against women are the most effective propaganda with which to incite murderous hatred in Euro-American countries. The actual image is highly graphic, and I won't post it here, but it is available here.
It is vital to copy and circulate it as widely as possible because, as stated by Colonel Paul Linebarger's Psychological Warfare, bundles of leaflets that fall intact make little impression on the target audience unless they land on somebody's head, which is not the impression one wants to make. Propaganda of this nature needs to go viral and spread as widely as possible to achieve the desired effect of inciting widespread revulsion against militant "Islam." If circulated in Europe, it will help promote the rising backlash against Islamist immigrants who are trying to carve out Sharia compliant zones while they claim their religion gives them the right to rob, rape, kill, and/or enslave infidels, who include the wrong kinds of Muslims. These Islamists are also, of course, the source of most of Europe's anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment.
The background of this story is ISIS's claim to have captured and executed a brave Kurdish fighter named Rehana, who has purportedly sent more than a hundred ISIS terrorists to their one-on-one meetings with Allah and their 72 virgins. There are three possible sources for this image:
(1) ISIS did capture and behead this brave woman
(2) ISIS terrorists, who are generally too cowardly to fight anybody who might harm them, especially a woman whose kill record shows she has the potential to be another Lyudmila Pavlichenko, slaughtered a helpless woman and presented her head as Rehana's. This will do them little good when Rehana gets the heads of said ISIS "fighters" into her sights in a process well depicted by the rock group Sabaton.
Hundreds of kills. a man and his rifle embody the sisu of Finns
Stay out of sight and cover your head, when he pulls the trigger you’re dead
(3) ISIS photomanipulated Rehana's head into the hand of the terroristwho is posing for the selfie, which has the same long-run implications as #2.
However, it doesn't matter which story is true because ISIS says the head is Rehana's. When we circulate this image to evoke widespread revulsion and hatred of every single person in Europe and North America who so much as seems to share ISIS's ideology (including Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaida, and so on along with the Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine, and so on), ISIS cannot backtrack and say, "It's really a fake." They claimed "credit" for this woman's execution and, as they say, when you make your bed, you must lie in it. In this case, it's more like, when you dig your grave, you must lie in it.
To put this image in perspective, consider the kind of hate propaganda that was issued primarily by the Triple Entente during the First World War, and by the U.S. War Department in the Second. Entente cartoonists were fond of drawing "Huns" with babies on their bayonets, and even an ape in a spiked helmet with a half-naked woman over his shoulder. Second World War cartoons showed "Japs" with exaggerated Asian features menacing (but rarely actually harming) American women, and another showed an Imperial Japanese hitting a prisoner of war with his rifle butt. The caption under that one said, "Stay on the job until every murdering Jap is wiped out."
What is telling is the fact that ALL these propaganda posters relied on hand-drawn pictures because the Nazis and Imperial Japanese were not STUPID enough to send us selfies of them gassing concentration camp inmates or using Chinese prisoners for bayonet practice. ISIS, on the other hand, has just provided us with a picture of one of its members holding a woman's severed head. This picture alone is probably more effective at whipping up hatred of the enemy (Islamists in this case) than ALL the hate propaganda that was deployed by both sides during both World Wars. This is why we need to take it viral.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
